The series is set in 2517 AD. It follows the adventures of the crew of "Serenity", a "Firefly"-class spaceship. The cast play the nine characters who live on "Serenity". Whedon described the show as "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things". The show looks at the changing lives of people who fought on the losing side of a civil war. It also shows the pioneer culture that is on the edges of their star system. It is a future where the only two superpowers, the United States and China, joined to create a single government. This government was called the "Alliance". This also caused the two cultures to blend into each other. Whedon said that nothing has changed in the future. There are more people with better technology, but they still have the same problems politically, morally and ethically.