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"Incipit Vita Nova"
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Persephone, 2517, the year Dr. Simon Tam first sets foot aboard Serenity. A pivotal moment that marks the beginning of a new life for River and her brother. This piece shows Simon, on the ramp of Serenity, where he meets Kaylee, who introduces him to Mal (O.S.). That pose of Simon alone, briefcase in hand, is enough to make me want to cry. He looks so out of place! And he is. All because of River, for whom he sacrificed everything, just so she could be safe. This is a man who, were it not for his great love for River, would never be here! The Title is taken from Dante's "La Vita Nuova" (= The New Life). And we see a page, supposedly from Simon's diary, which reads, paraphrased after Dante, "In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first entered Serenity, appear the words: Here begins a new life (= Incipit Vita Nova)."
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Dante's original text is as follows: "In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be read, there is a heading, which says: Incipit Vita Nova: Here begins a new life." The team of Star Trek Voyager used this text once too, but reworded it a bit: "In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words, Here begins a new life." And I, in turn, paraphrased the Voyager text. :)
Then there's River, coming out of the box... except, it's not a box, but an egg. :) What better way to symbolize a new life? Also, the box itself is not inside the egg, of course. But I positioned things in such a way, that part of the original purple box rim is now the egg's inner lining (near River's shoulder), which now seems to be lit by a lightsource from within. It gives the egg's interior, so to speak, a very cosy feel.
Perspective-wise, the image is actually rather complex. The egg is placed inside what seems a stony, "port-hole" shaped basin. But if you follow the curvature of that basin, to the left, behind Kaylee and upward, suddenly the hollow inside of the basin becomes the parabolic surface of a planet! This effect is solely created playing with light and shadow. And if you go further up, still on the left, and to the right, then the space behind the planet gradually becomes the sky over Persephone.
The egg is placed in such a way, that it appears to be lying on the cargo-bay floor. And the curved stony basin, in-between Kaylee and Simon, is also like a flat, concrete floor. Apparently the eye can flip-flop between what it wants to see at the moment (I trick the eye into thinking "flat surface", because the shadow in front of the egg is projected onto a flat surface. But the curved line, more to the front, makes you see that stony, port-hole shaped basin again).
This picture differs from the one I originally posted at FFF.net, in that it was edited for small pixel errors and such. And I redid the shadow behind Kaylee's head, so the 'distance' between the wall and her head is now more perspectively correct.
I recently re-edited, and restored several low-res images with their high-grade Blu-Ray equivalents.