"Whedon got the idea for 'Serenity/Firefly' after reading 'The Killer Angels,' a fictionalized account of Gettysburg. The Civil War inspiration explains why in the TV show representatives of the Alliance, the intergalactic governing body of the future, look like Union Troops, while Capt. Mal looks like a Noble Soldier of the Lost Cause -- without that whole pesky slavery thing, of course.
The 'Serenity' spaceship looks just like the old 'Firefly' one, far from the sleek, impeccably clean spaceships of 'Star Trek' and similar shows. I got to tour the set in its 'Firefly' days, and noticed that funky '70s kitsch combined with mid-century (mid-20th-century, that is) moderne. The books piled in the spaceship lounge included old Judith Krantz novels. Maybe the idea was that even 500 years in the future, garage sale flotsam hasn't changed that much. "
