Rever Theories

POSTED BY: Kaythryn
UPDATED: Monday, May 5, 2003 18:53
VIEWED: 7801
PAGE 1 of 4

1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE

KAYTHRYN

Thursday, March 20, 2003 3:09 AM

I’ve been kind of having a Firefly marathon today and its brought up some thoughts. This bit is from Bushwhacked.

MAL
So we attacked that ship, then brought
the only living survivor to our
infirmary. That's what we did?
HARKEN
I'd ask him. Only I'm not sure he'll be
able to speak with his tongue split down
the middle.
MAL
Wuh de tyen, ah
HARKEN
I haven't seen that kind of torture
since... well, since the war.

Maybe a small group of Revers were created secretly by the Alliance. They might of been human soldiers who were subjected to steroid treatments, hormone therapy, and the like. Altered soldiers who were better able to survive the battles. Maybe they were created in a way that they could have more stamina and less caring and nurturing characteristics. Who knows what they can do 500 years in the future. Maybe they were changed so they could survive by eating only human flesh. Here it is mentioned in the second part of the pilot-

ZOE
If they take the ship they’ll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skin to their clothing. And if we’re very, very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.

In the battle field Revers would be able to find plenty of that, and survive while other soldiers starved to death. The blue handed men may be their creators, and the only people in the government who know the truth about them. Their telepathic capacities, or any other special talents their branch of the government might possess may be what they use to create, or control the Revers.
Only a few people who ever saw the Revers survived- Alliance boys, or browncoats alike- and those that did were raving mad and their bodies were all cut up. The medics and friends who took care of those victims chalked up their condition as torture that was administered from the other side. I’m betting that the blue handed men either lost control of these soldiers- Revers- or they let them roam freely. Any damage the Revers did, the Alliance blamed on rouge, vengeful browncoats. The “browncoat” threat might of also pushed the need for Alliance protection in citizens.

Pilot part two
WASH
I guess they weren’t hungry. I didn’t expect to see them here.
ZOE
There pushing out further every year too
MAL
Getting awful crowed in my sky.

This makes me think that the Revers probably had mostly terrorized people just outside of the core planets, but not as far out as the rim. That also would account for why people far out on the rim have little need for the Alliance, and accept, or at least tolerate browncoats. They don’t fear the browncoats because the Revers are not much of a problem far out on the rim. Am I making any sense? That last bit I noticed that makes me believe that the Revers started out during the war is the fact that Zoë and Mal are the people who know the most about them. Even the Alliance brass didn’t know about Revers, and I suspect that it’s partially due to the fact that they didn’t have any real field experience.
**Deep breath**
Okay, that's all I had to say, and thoughts?

-------------------------------------
Jayne: Hey, I didn't fight in no war. Best of luck, though.

LIVINGIMPAIRED

Thursday, March 20, 2003 5:26 AM

It's an interesting theory, but I think it conflicts with the underlying defination of what a Reaver is, as defined by JW. Namely, that Reavers are people that when out into the black, and the black drove them insane. It's a frightening idea that people can go that wrong. That void can suck out our humanity to that extreme. The idea that Reavers are created, artificial, somehow makes them more.... tangible, and less frightening. I think that Whedon would leave the Reaver's exact origins a mystery, if only to add to their mythic atmosphere, and therefore to their scariness.

________________

BOOK: So he'll live then.
MAL: Which to my mind is unfortunate.

JONSP

Thursday, March 20, 2003 6:45 AM

Quote:
It's a frightening idea that people can go that wrong. That void can suck out our humanity to that extreme. The idea that Reavers are created, artificial, somehow makes them more.... tangible, and less frightening.

Yeah. What you said.

I prefer the idea that the Revers are just people. No conspiracies, no tidy explanations. Just people who moved far out beyond the Rim, lost contact with the rest of humanity, then ... well, lost contact with their own humanity. I don't know if I'd call it a frightening idea though. More ... telling.

I mean, that's one of Firefly's most interesting elements: exploring what happens to people who are cast out into the black, where ... well, humanity itself becomes a choice, and a very difficult one at times. One group of people -- the Revers, a whole f'ing society -- goes savage. Another -- the crew of Serenity and the other few good folk on the Rim -- hold onto their nobility, morality, honor, loyalty, love, faith, and all those other good humnany things. Well, mostly.

Plus, I think the exchange between Simon and Zoe in the pilot kind of pokes a hole in the Revers-as-experimental-soldiers theory.

Simon: I don't understand.

Zoe: You never heard of Revers?

Simon: Campfire stories. Men gone savage on the edge of space, killing ...

Zoe: They're not stories.

KAYTHRYN

Thursday, March 20, 2003 1:36 PM

Thanks guys, that’s clears up a lot. I forgot about all of the "men gone savage on the edge of space" references. I kind of got one idea in my head and ran with it.

-------------------------------------
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
Albert Einstein

SARAHETC

Thursday, March 20, 2003 5:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JonSP:

I prefer the idea that the Revers are just people. No conspiracies, no tidy explanations. Just people who moved far out beyond the Rim, lost contact with the rest of humanity, then ... well, lost contact with their own humanity. I don't know if I'd call it a frightening idea though. More ... telling.

Yes! And scarier too, because that means that anybody spending any amount of time in the black on or past the rim could possibly become a Reaver.

I wonder to what extent fear of Reavers is fear of being killed and eaten--which is all kinds of horrifying and I'm all aware of that-- and to what extent the fear is the fear of knowing that the Reaver potential is in everyone who is in the black on the rim?

Sarah

I'm a dying breed who still believes, haunted by American dreams. ---Neko Case

HJERMSTED

Thursday, March 20, 2003 6:00 PM

The Reaver layers I am most curious to learn more about are the possibilities of them having some kind of hierarchy, perhaps even a social order.

After all, they are able to maintain and fly spacehips in and out of planetary atmospheres... they must have a rudimentary understanding of insterstellar navigation, mechanics, etc.

I imagine there is an Apocalypse Now Brando-type character sitting on a throne of bones somehow barely keeping the Reavers organized enough to sustain themselves. Otherwise the Reavers would be loonies adrift in space (like our friend Jubal Early) and odds are against huge numbers of them surviving spacedrift long enough to be "rescued".

mattro

MANIACNUMBERONE

Thursday, March 20, 2003 9:12 PM

I like the thought of a throne of bones. and I agree that they have some sort of order, but very much less than what you may think. Probably, the biggest, baddest reaver is in charge. As to there being that throne of bones. I doubt it. Unless there are many thrones of bones. You know, each individual reaver bigdog has his own throne, on his own ship. ( or here's a thought... HER ship...maybe the reaver bigdog is a female?!?!)
I assume they get their knowledge of spaceships from the fact that they were once just ordinary folks that went bad, real bad, and ordinary folks have knowledge of spaceships.

----------------------------------
Who's winning?
I don't know, they don't seem to be playing by any civilized rules that I know.
----------------------------------

WULFHAWK

Friday, March 21, 2003 1:08 AM

Well, I've had some thoughts on the matter. The terrible stories of cannabilism, mutilation, etc, reminded me of the tales that were told about Dark Age vikings, and pre-colonial pirates. They also remind me of similar tales told about frontier 'injuns'.

Is JW tapping into those potent myths, hiding a frontier culture of feral humans? Or are they simply outlaws so extreme they regard the rest of civilization as prey? We've seen the kidnappers in the hills, driven to steal people to keep their community from dying. We've seen men commit murder and piracy.

Tell ya what, I'd buy a 'world' synopsis from JW if he'd put it out.

No conclusion...wish Josh would come show us some more...

tanstaafl

TRAGICSTORY

Wednesday, April 2, 2003 3:55 PM

Personally, I like the thought of reavers being men who just lost it, because it would mean the first reavers would have been the best and the brightest of the "Future NASA" who went out to find us a new galaxy. Losing your humanity in the course of saving humanity is wonderfully ironic. For all we know they could be at the edges of humanity terraforming new planets which allows humans to expand and thrive until they meet the reavers. (This would be like Well's Time Machine and if what I say is true, it is pure genius on JW's end)

Or I could be reading too much into it.

"Societies are supported by human activity, therefore they are constantly threatened by the human facts of self-intrest and stupidity." --Peter Berger

RADEGUND

Wednesday, April 2, 2003 4:14 PM

The aspect of the Reaver story that interests me is the question of how anybody really knows what they are. If you're lucky, they pass you by. If you're unlucky, they probably kill you. So people are basing their ideas on interpretations of the scant evidence left behind -- wrecked ships, skinned bodies, etc. (I can imagine some sort of "CSI: Alliance" team going through the ship, measuring blood spatter, etc. )

The rare survivor, like the guy in "Bushwhacked," is usually too traumatized to be helpful. Furthermore, keep in mind that he is someone the Reavers neither killed nor took with them to be another Reaver. Why leave him? Maybe he's another booby trap? Perhaps they're actually highly organized and intelligent and using the survivors to spread disinformation?

Which leads to the question of how Mal knows so much about Reavers, and what his source of information is. Stories he's heard or actual experience?

I'm willing to consider that what the characters "know" is not the truth. Gorram Fox, cancelling our show before Joss could tease us with more of this story!

Radegund

1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE