It wasn't Houston, Dallas, Austin, or any of those large cities; the desolate and tranquil atmosphere of the southwestern part of Texas was worlds apart from bustling Los Angeles. If it weren't for the "Firefly" crew choosing to film there, you could hardly find a paparazzo in the city on the US-Mexico border, El Paso.
The perfect fusion of mountains and plains, along with the crisscrossing basins of the Chihuahuan Desert; plus the sparse vegetation and the swift currents of the North Rio Bravo—these stunning beauties all became part of the planet "New Shanxi." The New Shanxi planet housed a massive Star Alliance base on the edge of the galaxy, equipped with signal transmission devices capable of sending out signals to the entire connected planetary cluster in the star system and even reaching the bustling central star systems.
