 Whedon developed the concept for the show after reading The Killer Angels , the Pulitzer Prize @-@ winning novel by Michael Shaara chronicling the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War . He wanted to follow people who had fought on the losing side of a war and their experiences afterwards as pioneers and immigrants on the outskirts of civilization , much like the post @-@ American Civil War era of Reconstruction and the American Old West culture . He intended the show to be " a Stagecoach kind of drama with a lot of people trying to figure out their lives in a bleak pioneer environment " . Whedon wanted to develop a show about the tactile nature of life , a show where existence was more physical and more difficult . After reading The Killer Angels , Whedon read a book about Jewish partisan fighters in World War II that also influenced him . Whedon wanted to create something for television that was more character @-@ driven and gritty than most modern science fiction . Television science fiction , he felt , had become too pristine and rarefied . 
