I couldn’t be more thrilled to (finally) announce (and reveal the big secret I’ve been hinting at for over a week) QMx’s most ambitious project to date: The Complete and Official Map of the Verse.

Over two years in the making, the Map of the Verse measures 25 inches by 38 inches and is printed on both sides of a sheet of 65 lbs cover stock (believe me, we needed the space). It documents the names, positions, sizes, populations and other never-before-published details of the 215 terraformed planets and moons orbiting the five star systems that comprise The Verse of Joss Whedon’s Firefly and Serenity.

The Map of the Verse encompasses every bit of information about the Verse we could lay our hands on. It not only includes all the worlds from the show and movie, but also extended canon from licensed products and even a few from popular fan fiction. A team of researchers including folks from The Signal Podcast and other luminaries of the Browncoat community worked diligently on the science of The Verse, factoring in distances, orbits, masses, stellar classes and a lot of other astrophysical stuff that frankly made my head hurt. It was our goal that The Map of the Verse makes sense – scientifically and in terms of story continuity – and thanks to the help of many, many dedicated people, I think we were able to come pretty close to achieving that goal.

We also considered the politics of The Verse in constructing the map. We tried to answer questions like why Hera was so important that the loss of a single battle there could end the war decisively: Turns out Hera orbits a protostar (along with Shadow and Sturges) that rides the inner edge of The Border and is an ideal jumping-off point for travelers going to The Core or out to The Rim. In combination with Persephone – which orbits a stellated gas giant on the outer edge of The Core – Hera/Persephone form a kind of “airlock” between The Core and the rest of the Verse, making it a target of great strategic importance.

And that’s just one detail the team – including map designer Geoffrey Mandel who created the maps you see in the movie – considered as they constructed this model of the Verse.

The Map will be available for the first time next weekend at the Creation Serenity Convention in Burbank, CA and then shortly thereafter on the QMx website. We’ll be offering the map in two forms – Z-folded roadmap style for $26.95 and hand-rolled and inserted into an archival tube for shipping and storage for $34.95. It’s also worth noting that Margaret Weiss Productions has endorsed the Map and we expect they’ll be using this Verse model in future Serenity Role-Playing Game supplements. (By the way, if you haven’t gotten a copy of the Serenity RPG, you should. It’s a fantastic read, even if you don’t roleplay!)

With literally thousands of details I could ramble on all day about the map and all it encompasses. But, rather than do that, I’ve prepared a little gallery of images for you to ponder:

So, what do you think? Big enough for ya?