Reavers

POSTED BY: RochesterBrowncaot
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 3, 2007 19:55
VIEWED: 12889
PAGE 1 of 4

1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE

ROCHESTERBROWNCAOT

Sunday, October 23, 2005 2:04 AM

there has been a question floating among me and my friends about the Reavers. How do they reproduce? Is it like in "Bushwacked" where they make people watch and therefore they become one, or are there little Reaver children?
Any other ideas?

PURPLEYIN

Sunday, October 23, 2005 2:19 AM

just a few days ago there was talk of...(spoiler for film)

Select to view spoiler:

pax p-26 hydro-chlorate being a prion passed on through bodily fluids. River being immune because a) the alliance knew exactly what caused the condition, so could figure out how to immunise someone against it, and b) wanted River to be an assassin/warrior who would probably have to eventually fight reavers at some point, so they probably thought they may as well immunise her.

CHARLIETHEBLOODY

Sunday, October 23, 2005 2:25 AM

*edit, please note, left it too long whilst writing this so didn't know about what purpleyin posted, that would explain it, is it speculation?*

hmm, thats interesting, I never thought of that.

but in the film they don't seem to have been around for that long, which then makes it odd how people would say they were campfire stories.

can't remember the details so maybe someone who's seen it enough times or got the script in the VC can clarify.

I kinda got the impression that there had been stories before and that the reavers had been fitted into them but they themselves had only been there for about one generation. can't see them managing to keep a child alive to reach adulthood. unless we're just sposed to take it from bushwhacked that they occasionally leave survivors to become like them, though that implys a little too much forethought and purpose han they should have...

BJAY

Sunday, October 23, 2005 3:58 AM

Ok heres how it goes. Reavers attack some poor settlement. They Rape Eat and sew everyone exept the biggest and the strongest. They make all of them watch it and then they become reavers. They mess up a ship, throw some dead bodies on it and fly off to attack some other settlement. Repeat process. The reavers would turn all the strong men and kill everyone else. So in as settelment of of say a hundred people, there are at least 40 men who are going to get turned into reavers. Then theyll take whatever ship is around and take off.

ERENETH

Sunday, October 23, 2005 4:13 AM

There could be children, a reaver, afterall, is just a human pushed over the edge...

PYROFALKON

Sunday, October 23, 2005 4:33 AM

I though that there was just a psychological breaking point, embedded over the last five hundred years. Watching a "reavering" might or might not for lack of a term i like , reaverize a person. You must snap, go beyond the point of no return. Reavers are essentially the psychical embodiemnt of Thanatos, of the id, and you must give into the primal fercoity of such to become a reaver.

JACQUI

Sunday, October 23, 2005 4:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by PurpleYin:
just a few days ago there was talk of...(spoiler for film)

Select to view spoiler:
pax p-26 hydro-chlorate being a prion passed on through bodily fluids.

I really don't think that's the case, because...

Select to view spoiler:

In the big fight scene, we see a reaver jump onto Inara and force her to the ground, biting her on the face before Simon pulls it off her. Later, when Mal rejoins the group, Inara has a big bloody patch on her face where the bite was.

She is perfectly fine after that, at the funeral, at the rebuilding of Serenity and when Mal asks her is she wants to stay on the ship... she's fine and certainly no reaver.

The pax p-26 hydro-chlorate was added to the air systems of Miranda, so we know it is airborne. We also know that it has since been cleared from the atmosphere (because it didn't affect any of our BDHs, nor did it affect Dr. Moran on the capture that she made, and she would have been on the planet a lot sooner than the BDHs. I figure it has a fairly short life span while airborne.

However, once it is ingested it will either sedate your aggression responses to the point where you are inable to function (90% of cases), or overstimulate them to the point where you lose all control (10% of cases). These changes to the aggression responses would remain the same once the poison is still in your system or not.

That was my understanding of it, anyway.

*~*~*
"Your toes are in the sand."
"And your head's up your..."
"Hey!"

MAJOST

Sunday, October 23, 2005 7:07 AM

It's 1/10th of a percent. :)

PURPLEYIN

Sunday, October 23, 2005 4:29 PM

good point jacqui.
i still cant see it passed on through the traumatic experiance though.. maybe it gets passed on as an STD. we know the reavers are big into rape...

DREAMTROVE

Sunday, October 23, 2005 9:33 PM

The best that was posted before I think Doncoat said it.

Reaver is a prion, but you have to eat reaver flesh in order to get it. Ergo, no one gets it on Serenity.

No one before except one person I think, thought that River was built to fight Reavers. I and a couple others posted River is a Reaver, or Reaver-like. River might carry the Prion. But you don't get it unless you eat River. That didn't come out right. Eat River's flesh. No I better give up on this one. Anyway, no one makes a meal out of River, so they don't get it, Inara doesn't eat Reaver. Reavers make their initiates eat Reaver. Yuck. This is the idea anyway.

The PAX is an airborn chemical. It's probably not the prion, if our prion theory holds. But the prion might have been present.

So consider this new synthesis. Reaver Prion is native to Miranda. Anyone eating the food on Miranda, might be eating Reaver Prion. Maybe it's very rare. But the Reaver Prion in the food is at too low a level to infect you because your immune system kills it.

Then enter the PAX. It makes you lose all your will to fight to live. Maybe that includes your immune system. Those who happened to eat Reaver Prion in the early stages of the PAX became Reavers.

Now Reaver flesh is more heavily infected, or Reaver initiation also requires injection with some immune suppressant.

Here's one final idea. Maybe Reaver is a retrovirus. That way it can rewrite the DNA of the infected person, leaving a permanent change even if the virus is discovered.

Either way, surely there's an evolutionary advantage to inciting cannibalism as a side effect for something which can only survive by having animals eat infected flesh.

1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE