A theory on River and more (*Minor Spoilers*)
POSTED BY: Amiton
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 20:27
VIEWED: 2884
PAGE 2 of 2
Christhecynic,
Those are all perfectly valid points. I'll respond to the best of my ability from my little universe over here =p
It's absolutely true that an operative's strength and real value comes from their belief in what they're doing. Especially one such as the operative from the BDM. Like I said earlier, I don't believe all of the operatives are the same, nor do I think that they all have to have the level of fanaticism exhibited by our nameless friend =) Just the same, River's lack of..erm...devotion?, would surface as a problem. There *has* to be a training pool to select from, and from what I assume has to be done, the education must be thorough, biased, and controlled (just like the classroom scenes from the BDM) and would have to start early. Starting early also means taking chances with recruiting, and as such, there are going to be bad apples. That means that there has to be an alternative program in my take on things, which is how River ended up where she was. In my view, she was in operative training (designed exclusively for highly gifted candidates with a desire to be challenged). She got in trouble quickly (reference the letters home to Simon), and they put her in the alternative, mind-control and behavior modification program. At *that* point, she was no longer on the path to be an operative like the one in the movie, but her service was going to be *just* as absolute and controlled. Intelligence agencies drool over this kind of stuff. And with her exceptional physical skills combined with her newly discovered psychic abilites she becomes exactly what you said - perfect (minus the brain-scrambling problem).
In response to the line from the movie, a think that was strictly from a mind-control perspective. River is still deep in her training at that point. They can teach and talk and train during consciousness all that they want, but the *real* effective work for moving her fellow subjects along comes while they are sleeping. Subliminal messaging, memory modification via force of suggestion, Pavlovian conditioning *directly* in the brain (scaring the bejeepers out of someone in deep dreams whenever they activate certain parts of the brain). From a PsyOps perspective, that progress would be *HUGE*, and of major importance to preparing their subjects for deployment into mission capable status...
Amiton.
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