How do Reavers pilot ships, them being insane cannibals and such?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Thursday, December 2, 2021 20:06
VIEWED: 48258
PAGE 6 of 19
Hmm...
Some very interesting theries!!! 
I am not going to hide this as spoilers.. becuase if you haven't seen the movie yet you shouldn't be reading threads that by now obviously talk about the movie!!! So GO SEE THE MOVIE and then come back!!!
Ok.. let's look at what we know. And I have not seen every episode of the series as of yet.. so there is still more I don't know. But we know that the reaver population is at least being maintained at some level.. weither it is growing.. we can only speculate that it might be because we know the reavers are expanding their territory. But that could be attributed to that they need to spread out to find more "food", and that their population is only being maintained. We don't know. But in "bushwacked".. yes.. we see there is a way for someone to still become a reaver. Mal's speculation is that seeing such a horror drives a person mad. I believe it takes something MORE than just that. But I think Mal's speculation at the time was two fold. One.. to describe to us how horrific the reavers are. That even the thought of seeing what they do and what they are is enough to drive a man inanse, but two it makes sence that Mal was wrong because at this point they (anyone but the key memebers of parliment) don't really know exactly what a reaver is.. the characters in the show are all just speculating just as we the viewers were.
And I think there have been some very good ideas in this thread. I think many of them could fit well into the story (wither they are technically possible or not) I believe it does have to be more than "just seeing what the reavers do" because the reavers where not created just by being at the edge of space too long like Mal orginally believed.
Now as far as River is concerened.. there have been a lot of good theries about her. So far I subcribe to the one that the alliance is trying to create a rather small "special force" that they can effectivily "turn on and off" thus are able to control. And use this special force to go in and take care of the reaver problem. Does the alliance have any other use at this point for such a dangerous weapon as River? Other than the possible threat of another war against the idendants.. is there any other threat to the alliance? I don't think the alliance is to frieghtened of the independants to need anything more than the army they already have. I think River was create for a specific peurpose... the reavers.
I think it makes sence that they want to do it small and under the radar. I don't know if we are aware of how big the alliance army is. But if they went head to head war agaisnt the reavers I think they may see that as a losing battle. Assuming it may take 10 men and 3 or so ships to each reaver and each reaver ship to even have a chance to defeat them. That's one hell of an army (what some 300,000 men and maybe 3000 or more ships?) they would have to send in. Not to mention that starting an all out war would draw a lot of attention to a "problem" that the alliance doesn't even what to admit is there. Thus that is why most people on the core planets think that reavers are just "ghost stories" and don't even know they are real. But the fact that the reavers are pushing into new territory.. they are not containing themselves, probably like the alliance had hoped they would and then just die off. Not to mention an all out war, if the alliance lost, THEN what would happen?? But if they had a special force of a couple dozen "rivers".. they could send them into reaver space and activate them and more or less let them spread from ship to ship taking out the reavers like a virus. Then when the reavers are gone, or at least heavily thined out, they send in a small army to go in and just clean up. At which point if any "rivers" are dead.. so be it.. and any that remain they deactivate and kill.. problem solved.
I think that makes pretty good sence And I think that with River.. the alliance was trying to create more of a controllable "super ope
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
For the record, dreamtrove, I didn't see any other mention of Pax as a prion until after I made my post.
Case of GMTA, it would appear...
Now, as to River...
We know about Pax. We know the Alliance knows about Pax -- all it effects (that's how River found out). It's reasonable to assume that the Alliance researchers continued working on Pax, and that they may have discovered how to control it better.
So yes, River could have been treated with a form of Pax that triggers an ultra-aggressive mode of behavior -- but it's clearly much better controlled than the Reaver version. Maybe that's due strictly to River's high intelligence, neural conditioning, and all-around good-galism, which would mean the Pax itself is the same and River can't be re-Reaverized.
Or, more succinctly -- you may be right!
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
It's reasonable to assume that the Alliance researchers continued working on Pax, and that they may have discovered how to control it better.
Yes I believe this is a reasonable assumption.. there very well may be some crossover from what the alliance inadvertainly created with Pax. But Pax may have just been a starting point with the reasearce they were doing with River. Weither it did or didn't doesn't seem to have any bearing.. it's just interesting to speculate.
But what may have bearing is why they created River in the first place? It makes since that River (and possibly others) were created solely for Reaver extermination under the radar like I explained in my earlier posts. What other threat to the alliance is there that would require such a dangerous and powerful weapon as River? Could there be something as of yet we don't know about besides the reavers? I suppose there could be.. but a little off topic.. but I think that might start get into the terriiotry of making the story "too big". Firefly although having a very deep and layerd 'verse in with to explore.. has always been more about the little things.. where everytime they take a giant leap forward and reveal a major plot point or secret or hint to a secret.. they take 5 steps backwards and focus just on the day to day drugerey of these characters daily grind of trying to survive... and there relationships between them. And throwing in a heavy dose of humor and warmth that fits so nicely..
That's why there are so many people who would wish to see the series returned. I loved both the movie and the series.. rightfully so the movie had to pull the plot forward and thus push the characters back a little in order to show the "big picture".. but I also love seeing and exploring the individual strokes that make up the picture. I want to see more of the rust between the cogs of the machine.. not just the gears.Smaug..
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Doncoat, wasn't implying you copied the idea, I assumed that would be troll behavior. I was serious when I said it was a coincedental discovery, which increases the chances that it is actually right.
I think also, I agree with you, and hence with me, that River is a Reaver is essential, not because she is in many ways reaver-like, but because it makes her immune. She's already a reaver and can't be reavered again.
Smaug, I think the alliance could take the reavers out, but not without tremendous cost. In the time since I posted this last I thought of a better example than the HIV one I got slammed for. Consider the gangs, and pre-emptively, no this is not a racist comment. Consider the gangs, crips, bloods, etc., as a sociological phenomenon, and a group of people that cause a problem for the US.
In LA a few years back there was a story of a gang called the assassins. A middle class family took a wrong turn and got trapped in a dead end, and the assassins raped them and then cut them up into tiny bits. Very reaver-like activity. I don't know whether or not they ate them. Anyway, the point is, on a grand scale, the gangs, though numbers are way down now since the 90s, correct me if I'm wrong, but collectively kill more people each year than al qaeda ever has.
But gangs do not represent a threat to the govt. of the united states. So the US govt. never bothered. You can go further with this and say maybe the US govt. is racist, and perhaps the gangs survival in some way serves a govt. purpose. But both of these would also support the "let the reavers live" theory. The reavers after all protected the miranda secret very well by being in the way. They prey on outer colonies where rebels live, so it's not any foe of the alliance.
On river, she's a sleeper agent. It's clear that their other master agents suck. I don't know if there's a particular purpose, but sure they would need one. She's kind of a much more boinkable kai, last of the brunyn G. The way that Lexx finally dealt with Kai as a plot problem was introducing others. River is not the only reaver sleeper agent, and others will be a threat to her. River is probably as good as it gets in speed and skill, but what if the alliance created an agent that was just like river, only someone who was always in the kill zone, and had been modified to the maximum of human strength, or beyond, who had implanted cyberware armor making them virtually impossible to destory. You can see where this goes. River is unstoppable until she meets Firefly's Glory or Caleb.
Sorry just wanted to make sure everyone did. For those who didn't click the link and still don't know about prions, they're like the "green slime" in D&D. Only they're real. Fun huh? BSE is one that eats your brain.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Okay, I'm tempted to agree that this thread is getting kind of long. Doesn't bother me I have a fast connection, but the thought that maybe the convo could move to a new thread.
Not to throw the whole thing out of whack, but here's another theory. Maybe Reaver prion was the pax, but maybe it was already extant on the planet before terraforming. We see the terraforming process and there's nothing there which would destroy a prion. So it's perfectly feasible. It could be a combination with that and the pax, or an infection some people got on the planet and the pax.
I don't this trumps the "pax is prion" theory by any means, but it's also possible.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Smaug, I think the alliance could take the reavers out, but not without tremendous cost.
Which is exactly what I said. The alliance could take the reavers out.. but at what cost? We don't know exactly how big their army is. Would it take half their fleet to tdo ti? More? That's why I like the idea that River (and maybe others) where being created to take care of the problem.. under the radar.. of course until Simon rescued River..
So I agree with you.. my statements must not have been as clear as I thought.. But during my lunch I thought of another analagy for the Reavers. In another thread I remember someone saying that in the Pilot episode that the reaver ship was "shark" like. Which I think may be a very good analagy for the reavers. They are like great white sharks. They are perfectly capable of passivily wondering around space.. ignoring a potential "kill" if they are not "hungry". They can surely communicate amongst each other.. enought to create/fix/man a ship. Not that they are sitting around having tea or anything..
There may be "alpha" reavers to keep groups of them in line to keep them from killing each other.. but most of the time they are proably just passivily meandering about.The fleet of ships we see in the movie sort of show this. They weren't really doing much but just lazily swimming around like a bunch of passive sharks... Which is what you have to assume they are doing most of the time. That is until something triggers their bloodlust... it could be hunger.. or sexual.. or both.. but when that is triggered.. they go into a berzerker freenzy.. like a shark feeding frenzy..
How does that fit??
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by khimbar:
At the Con my gf asked Chris if he knew if Joss had been inspired by or heard of the Border Reivers. He didn't know, but I figure he had.
Someone actually did ask Joss this at some con (WonderCon?) and he sarcastically said, "uh...yeah, of course I knew all about the history of the scottish Reivers" all mock-knowledgeable.
---
Serenity is coming. 9/30/05.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
My two cents.
Reavers are able to sustain periods of lucidity through radiation. That's why they run their ships with poor containment. The gamma and beta radiation alleviates some of the symptoms of the Pax - at least for a while. As treatments go it's appalling of course. Even if there are female reavers, the entire community (tribes?) would probably be sterile or suffer from birth defects. Not that we're talking model parents here.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Shiny:Quote:
Originally posted by khimbar:
At the Con my gf asked Chris if he knew if Joss had been inspired by or heard of the Border Reivers. He didn't know, but I figure he had.
Someone actually did ask Joss this at some con (WonderCon?) and he sarcastically said, "uh...yeah, of course I knew all about the history of the scottish Reivers" all mock-knowledgeable.
---
Serenity is coming. 9/30/05.
Well the man's a God, he knows everything.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Wow. I like the idea about the radiation increasing their functionality. Maybe they weren't a random aberration among the Pax victims, but they were Pax victims who were transformed by some localised disaster that bumped up the radiation in their area. Government researchers perhaps; intelligent enough for some to figure out how to live after the change, but not high ranking enough to be exempt from the brainwashing gas. In fact, I'll one up that idea. Radiation + Pax not only created the Reavers, but is required by their new physiology. So their ships continue to keep Pax in the atmosphere, their engines continue to leak radiation, and anyone who's onboard with them for a few hours becomes one. If they need 50 more people on the ship, they'll just make them, probably out of people who already know how to serve on ships. Which brings us to the question of communication. I'm guessing that they continue to speak the same English/ Chinese fusion they did before, but butchered so much that it is not decipherable to the unpracticed ear. The same linguistic rules probably apply, excpt for whatever Reaver-specific slang has evolved over the course of the decade, but the way each individual word sounds has to be learned from scratch. Of course, if the person learning also has a tongue cut the same way as those who he is trying to learn to communicate with, that helps.
I'll be in my bunk.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME