How do Reavers pilot ships, them being insane cannibals and such?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Thursday, December 2, 2021 20:06
VIEWED: 48258
PAGE 11 of 19
Okay, there is nothing to science fiction if there is no science. There is a subgenre called Science Fantasy, in which the underlying science is assumed to be so complex we do not understand it, ergo, it is de facto magic.
Firefly is not science fantasy. Star Trek is science fantasy, as is Star Wars. If you take them and translate them into fantasy, it all works fine.
But because Joss attempts to explain the science in 21st century terms, he is clearly trying to make pure Sci-fi, as in from the days of old, Jules Verne et al.
Since this is clearly the case, and we are given plane old biochemistry for reavers, plain old neurology for River, and plane old physics for the ships, we must take into account science.
So far, as someone who knows a heck of a lot about the subject, I find Joss' neuro-science to be pretty much impeccable. I might nitpick a few points, but they are none of these points. I don't assume that Joss knows this much neuroscience, though it's possible he does, but he doesn't need to, he has a staff of 1000.
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Ok, I’m not going to respond to most of what you said, if you want me to just say what you would like a response to and I will give it, but I want to focus the issue here. Our primary disagreement seems to be over anger and aggression as they relate to each other.
Lets cut everything else out, there is no need to talk about Reavers, rape, cannibalism, murder or any of that because if we differ on basic premises any argument, no matter how well constructed, will not be able to carry over to the other side.
On the other hand, you said:
Aggression (of the type we're talking about) is the outward manifestation of Anger.
If you can explain why the type were are talking about must be a manifestation of anger, and not any of the other possible sources (always seemed like desire to me, though I have heard strong arguments for greed) then we can skip the entire issue.
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One important thing is the different definitions of aggression, an example at the end, but I think we’re on the same page for the most part.
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On the psychological page you linked to the first thing I noticed was that it said, “Anger and Aggression,” in large red letters. The second thing I noticed was that directly below that it said that there would be three things addressed, the first and last were about anger, the second about aggression.
Maybe I’ve been taking language and literature too long, but that seems to be a pretty clear distinction. At the very least it is clear from that point that they are not being used interchangeably. Actually it makes a very clear distinction:
“Anger is feeling mad in response to frustration or injury.”
“Aggression is action, i.e. attacking someone or a group.”
And what does it have to say about the relationship between the two?
Aggression is usually a result of anger, but it goes on to say that it isn’t always and gives such diverse examples as “the bomber pilot, the judge who sentences a criminal, the unfaithful spouse, the merchant who overprices a product, [and] the unemotional gang attack” of aggression that is not related to anger. The example of the gang attack interests me but I think that I should move on.
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The partial quote that you gave from the next site:
“Anger, aggression and addiction are intertwined in many ways.”
is certainly true. As it says anger has been indicated in relapse by Alcoholics anonymous. Addictive drugs have often times been linked to elevation in both aggression and anger, and many times the reasons behind the addiction are related to acts of aggression.
I fail to see the relevance though, obviously the three are related, in many ways even, but far from in all ways and it seems a mistake, to me, to immediately assume that just because there is aggression there is anger.
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The partial quote from your next source:
“Anger can be expressed in the form of crying, teasing, yelling, sarcasm, attack, depression, violence, suicide, pouting, silence, aggression, and violence.”
is again true, but I again fail to see how it is related. Anger can be expressed though aggression just as a resident of Washington can be an American, but aggression need not be an expression of anger just as an American need not be a resident of Washington.
Using that quote to support your claim that a specific case of aggression is necessarily a result of anger is equal to using it to say that any arbitrary instance of silence is also a result of anger.
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Your next site again points out that aggression can be the result of anger, but once again this doesn’t touch on the place where I see us disagreeing: you say that aggression implies anger, I say that aggression implies only aggression.
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The last site you have does not even contain the terms aggression or aggressive so it’s not part of the narrower topic I want to address.
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Before the example I’d like to address something that is, unfortunately, outside of the scope I’d like to cover. It seems important enough to include anyway.
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Firstly you require proof of me that it does, but do noNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Citizen,
You made some extremely long posts. Let me try to respond.
1. I wasn't offended. I thought maybe you were. I'm pretty difficult to offend. Offline, I'm a lot like Jayne, so you'd have to be pretty insulting to offend, but also by the same logic, I'm generally insensitive.
2. My fan theories were fan theories. I never stated they were correct, only that they were fan theories. Any fan theory I would take as valid until proven false.
3. For example, "Reaver's are telepathic" meaing mildly, or empathic, not River-like, was a suggested possibility. I don't know if even I support that position, but I hold that's it's a valid possibility until nixed by Joss. I was by no means saying this had to be so.
4. Parapsychology and psi are flakey myths. Regular Psychology is very close to being a flakey myth by itself. I think the underlying science is chemisty, neurology and information theory. Outside of this I'm not sure if I believe in anything else. Re: the mind that is. Psychiatry is also a flakey myth, close to religion. Religion is a very flakey myth.
5. I am not setting out to convince anyone else of anything. I understand things well and seek to understand them better, and then apply that understanding. If someone comes to me and say "People act X way because it's the will of God," I will simply ignore them. It's certainly not worth my time to try to change someone's mind that is not ready to be changed, and it's possible it's a waste of time in any event.
6. River is in many ways like a Reaver. I think I was the third person to say so on this thread. Since it's all on your screen right now you could check that. It's no longer on mine as I'm replying. But I recall this to be the case. I'm not tempted to argue the point. River is insane and violent, and a highly effective combat unit. In all three ways she is more like a Reaver than she is like anything on Earth.
7. Allow me to interject this: this is a facet of old school sci-fi which I believe Firefly is. Anything not introduced with potential pending explanation, which may not yet be revealed, can be assumed to be the science you are already familiar with. Therefore, the fact that River is more Reaver-like than any Earth-human is significant to some of us. It's also an intersting possibility upon which to speculate.
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It would also prevent the emergence of 'Reaver society' or any level of teamwork what so ever (including pack hunting).
8. I believe this to be pattently false. Where did it even come from? I think this statement requires a lot of backing up. I'm seriously familiar with human behavior, lunatic behavior and animal behavior, and nothing would lead me to this conclusion. Nothing would lead me anywhere near it.
(I have to skip over the writing point at the moment because I don't have the context I said that in in front of me. There are many things which work in theory and don't work in stories for various reasons, I promise to come back to this when I reread the thread.)
9. I've seen Joss make errors. There are a fair number in buffy. This doesn't strike me as one. I think Joss is pretty clean usually, and Firefly especially. I said there are nitpicky problems, but nothing major that would make it unworkable.
10. Beyond insane is probably mroe animal than alien. Anger is a more complex state than other emotions. You can't really extend anger to that level, because anger is an absence of focus and perspective. An absence cannot really be less than zero. It's simply not possible to take a beings anger and crank it up infinitely, since what you are really doing is cranking down it's perspective and focus. I suspect Reavers of being very focused, lacking much perspective, but very nervous so as not to become depressed, which would be the state that they would end up in otherwise. Basically I think that they arent "more angry" they are "manic-psychotic-angry" but not it a human way, in a shark/wolf way. Shark is very heavily instinctive, as might happen to a human if you pump their brain full of norepine
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Originally posted by XeroGravity:
Aren't they simple mindless zombies like in all the "hollywood" movies?
No evidence to suggest that anywhere. I think, though am not sure, even Citizen would agree with me on that.
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I mean, c'mon already. Nobody rapes, murders, and then devours their victims unless they are zombies.
Well that's gratuitously untrue. Real life refutes that quite nicely.
People kill people, people eat people, and people rape people. Some people even do all three in various orders. This is in real life, past and present. You want to call the modern ones psychotic and I’m right there with you, you want to call the historical ones savages and I’ll go along with that too, but if you claim that they are zombies I have to break with you.
You tell us to ignore history books but I really don’t think you can reasonably do that.
People rape and eat victims often enough for us to at least admit that they exist in non-zombie form. As for eating people alive Citizen does have a good point, there are not all that many examples of that. It happens, but not so much. On the other hand if you combine the fact that some people like to eat food alive* and that Reavers view humans as food it really doesn’t seem all that odd.
*The primary example I know of this is specific to bats, for some reason people in some places like to eat live bats. I don’t get it; I think if you’re going to eat a bat you should just have bat soup with a nice dead and boiled bat in it. Then again I don’t really get the idea of eating bats at all, for one thing people tend to eat the smaller ones that can’t have much meat in them. For another bats are incredibly useful and as such I think they should be used for purposes other than food (pest control for example.)
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Okay, now I've read more posts and it's time for my blatantly insensitive troll posting.
Apologies in advance.
I don't want to attack any other users, it's not what I set out to do, but I notice a pattern here. I'm not the moderator by any means, and many thanks to the moderators for doing a splendid job. This is really one of the least hostile forum environments I've seen.
1. Citizen, Re: my "writing" comment was related to omniscient psionics. It's just not an interesting development from the point of view of a writer who wants to develop plot and intrigue. Don't take my word for it, ask any published author. Just about anyone out there will take the same point of view. This is about what works in a story, not real life.
2. I agree with the vast majority of posts on this thread, and it started out to be fascinating. I think there were some fascinating posts, like doncoat prion one, and some things about wolves and sharks, and a lot of other neat stuff.
3. Citizen I really don't mean this as a personal attack. I don't think you have the underlying scientific understanding to keep consistantly attacking everyone's theories. If you want to post some of your own, feel free. But you seem to be assaulting everything that everyone else says as if you were coming from a position of superior understanding of the subject. I just don't think you are. There's nothing in sci-fi fandom that would make this a prerequisite for speculating. Anyone can post theories without having advanced degrees in the physical sciences, by all means. But I would try to only gainsay someone if you have absolute proof that they are off on the wrong track, but one having done so, don't belabor the point. I find that I agree with them more than I do with you from a completely objective position. I try to be completely objective, and I'm sure I will always continue to look at each new post without prior bias to what that person might have posted before, I would hope that others would do the same. In an inquisitive discussion, speculation and counterspeculation, there's a thin line between counterpoint arguments and trolling. This argument is presently getting in the way of the debate, and kind of souring the mood.
Also, I need to learn to make shorter posts, and so do you.
Okay, I'm done being trollish. Before we get into fisticuffs can we return to random rampant speculation and let everyone say whatever their threories are without hounding the point on our disagreements?
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There certainly is a distinction between aggression and anger, but in the case of Reavers there's no way their behaviour is not dictated by hypertrophied libidos/anger.
Aggression, in its primal state, can only be conceivable as tied up with anger/lust/hunger/other libidinous forces. However with humans there is the capacity for intellectualised aggression, of which there is any number of examples in modern life. Conversely we have the capacity to sublimate and even completely internalise anger. By this logic the Reavers, assuming they're not divested of higher functions, might through force of will stay their aggression until an appropriate target passes by, in the meantime fixing the engine and gnawing on bones. If this seems too tall an order for people constantly dealing with psychotic rage, consider that there could have been a eugenic vetting process on Miranda: the Reavers too affected by the Pax/unable to control their urges when needed would be isolated and killed, just as the ones who didn't have the wherewithall to operate a ship would have stayed planetbound. Fairly sloppy, but internally coherent.
Someone said above that the Pax effect didn't necessarially lead to "absolute" apathy or libidinousness. As dramatically powerful as those absolutes of Platonic ideal are, they have to be watered down for things to work.
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Citizen said they're too messed up to efficiently run a spacecraft or work together coherently; I maintain that they have selective psychosis, and are able to do what needs to be done in service to their insane bloodlust.
What are the theories regarding this, anyone care to set us straight?
Chrisisall creepafied
Being crazy doesnt make them stupid.
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I retract my earlier statements about this being absurd. It's alot to read and chew on, but it's becoming more and more interesting.
Gonna sit on the sidelines and continue to read on with absolute fascination. That's the thing I love most about this site... very engaging minds post here.
Cheers.
XG
No such thing as gravity. The "Earth-that-was" just sucks.
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Firstly I was going to reply to the threads above by dreamtrove and christhecynic, then suggest we agree to disagree.
I happen to agree dreamtrove, the anger/aggression argument was getting tiresome, so I'll drop it. Needless to say my interpretation of the PAX is different (but entirely based on what we see in the movie) than yours (again entirely based on what we see in the movie).
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Originally posted by dreamtrove
1. Citizen, Re: my "writing" comment was related to omniscient psionics. It's just not an interesting development from the point of view of a writer who wants to develop plot and intrigue. Don't take my word for it, ask any published author. Just about anyone out there will take the same point of view. This is about what works in a story, not real life.
I understood where you were coming from. I was attempting to put your mind at rest by saying that I doubt it's an issue as far as River is concerned.
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3. Citizen I really don't mean this as a personal attack. I don't think you have the underlying scientific understanding to keep consistantly attacking everyone's theories. If you want to post some of your own, feel free. But you seem to be assaulting everything that everyone else says as if you were coming from a position of superior understanding of the subject. I just don't think you are.
I understand you didn't mean that as an attack, so I won't take offence. However I will say that I think that's a little unfair to me. I don't think I was being particularly superior in anyway. I have had my understanding of various subjects questioned repeatedly, and to a lesser extent my ability to form an argument and my intelligence. That statement should not be solely turned on me.
I don't think I've been 'constantly' attacking others theories, either. I have done on occasion, but if I may clarify, it was in self defence. It was in response to my opinion being described as baseless and wrong (which I obviously don't agree with).
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In an inquisitive discussion, speculation and counterspeculation, there's a thin line between counterpoint arguments and trolling. This argument is presently getting in the way of the debate, and kind of souring the mood.
True, and I agree, which is why I had decided to say lets agree to disagree.
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Also, I need to learn to make shorter posts, and so do you.
You may be right. The odd long post is fine, but every single one
?So, as you alluded to, and as I said, let’s agree to disagree and all go back to being friends, yeah?
EDIT:
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Originally posted by christhecynic:
No evidence to suggest that anywhere. I think, though am not sure, even Citizen would agree with me on that.
Not sure I like the 'even Citizen' part
, but I entirely agree.More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't
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They just need a hug. Won't someone love the reavers?
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