Where are the chicks? Ahem... I mean Reaverettes?

POSTED BY: IsaacShepherd
UPDATED: Saturday, February 18, 2006 18:57
VIEWED: 9454
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THENCDUCK

Friday, February 17, 2006 5:32 AM

I think reavers are only men, but wouldn't there have been like 3 million reavers to begin with. In the BDM didn't the lady say that 30 mil people died, so there had to be at least a couple million Reavers. That population will last for awhile just a thought.

THEPISTONENGINE

Friday, February 17, 2006 11:49 AM

"A tenth of a percent"

0.001 * 30,000,000 = 30,000 Reavers

And I'd so totally do a Reaver chick

Quote:
Originally posted by THENCDUCK:
I think reavers are only men, but wouldn't there have been like 3 million reavers to begin with. In the BDM didn't the lady say that 30 mil people died, so there had to be at least a couple million Reavers. That population will last for awhile just a thought.

KAELE

Friday, February 17, 2006 3:41 PM

Just got the novelization and am reading through it as slowly as possible... Picked up Batman Begins after seeing the movie and it was a straight-shot, easy-read, carbon copy of the movie. Serenity is not, THANK BOOK!!!

While watching the River Tam sessions and seeing a little pic online that could have been the notebook of the doctor (played by some weird guy named Josh I think), there was an up-close shot of the writing on the notepad. On it, there was mention of Pax being administered to River.

Now, in the novelization, it says River can't sense the Reavers until they kill. They just aren't there, like dead people. Perhaps the Pax is tied into the ESP aspect of the experiments and that the Reavers can't sense each other and so ignore each other. River got a controlled dose, but the Reavers got a full-on, drawn-out, genocide-inducing dose dumped into the terraforming equipment.

Just some of my thoughts on it.

Kaele
AIM - Dewlanna
YID - jedi_kaele

VTBROWNCOAT

Friday, February 17, 2006 4:22 PM

I suspect that either there's some inconsistency in the official "reaver census" or there's more unknown or undocumented reavers apart from the ones from Miranda.

We believe that Miranda had a worldwide population of 30 million, most of whom just curled up and died after being administered Pax. And 1 tenth of 1 percent of that population turned into Reavers, or about 30 thousand. And that happened 10 or 12 years before the events of BDM take place.

It seemed to me the Reavers had quite a large number of ships out there in Reaver territory, some of them quite large and at least some of them packed to the rafters with Reavers. The ship that EMP'd Serenity in BDM and then landed seemed to have quite a large crew, yet wasn't all that much bigger then little ol' Serenity.

Now it's probably save to assume that the average life expectancy of a Reaver isn't all that terrific. And being a Reaver recruiter can't be the most full-filling job in the 'verse either.

A decade or more of floating out there, doing Reaver stuff should diminish the ranks considerably and if they started with 30 thousand and never added any I don't see how they could crew and maintain all those ships. Crewing and maintaining being rather relative terms, considering.

I don't even want to think about Reaver procreation. It doesn't seem like an environment that would easily lend itself to raising and nurturing munchkin Reavers.

Though Reavers, despite their considerable rage are apparently capable of organization and delegation of duties.

"We always hoped you two kids would
get together....... who is she?" Wash in Our Mrs. Reynolds.

THENCDUCK

Friday, February 17, 2006 4:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ThePistonEngine:
"A tenth of a percent"

0.001 * 30,000,000 = 30,000 Reavers

And I'd so totally do a Reaver chick

Quote:
Originally posted by THENCDUCK:
I think reavers are only men, but wouldn't there have been like 3 million reavers to begin with. In the BDM didn't the lady say that 30 mil people died, so there had to be at least a couple million Reavers. That population will last for awhile just a thought.

Whoops brain fart for some reason I thought she said 10 percent my fault. I need to watch the movie more so don't make mistakes like that again.

ISAACSHEPHERD

Friday, February 17, 2006 5:25 PM

Here is another thought I just came up with. Whenever anyone says "That ship is operating without containment", you can conclude Reavers are on the ship. I also believe that Wash was the one to say it was suicide to do so. I wonder if operating without containment somehow keeps them alive, or perhaps is related with the air from Miranda or the Pax.
IS

SADLITTLEKING

Friday, February 17, 2006 6:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by VTbrowncoat:
I suspect that either there's some inconsistency in the official "reaver census" or there's more unknown or undocumented reavers apart from the ones from Miranda.

We believe that Miranda had a worldwide population of 30 million, most of whom just curled up and died after being administered Pax. And 1 tenth of 1 percent of that population turned into Reavers, or about 30 thousand. And that happened 10 or 12 years before the events of BDM take place.

It seemed to me the Reavers had quite a large number of ships out there in Reaver territory, some of them quite large and at least some of them packed to the rafters with Reavers. The ship that EMP'd Serenity in BDM and then landed seemed to have quite a large crew, yet wasn't all that much bigger then little ol' Serenity.

Now it's probably save to assume that the average life expectancy of a Reaver isn't all that terrific. And being a Reaver recruiter can't be the most full-filling job in the 'verse either.

A decade or more of floating out there, doing Reaver stuff should diminish the ranks considerably and if they started with 30 thousand and never added any I don't see how they could crew and maintain all those ships. Crewing and maintaining being rather relative terms, considering.

I don't even want to think about Reaver procreation. It doesn't seem like an environment that would easily lend itself to raising and nurturing munchkin Reavers.

Though Reavers, despite their considerable rage are apparently capable of organization and delegation of duties.

I don't think Reaver procreation would ever happen. When they get started, they just don't stop, hence the whole "rape to death" thing.

I believe that Reavers can pass on the Pax somehow. Perhaps through biting. Imagine (or don't) a Reaver attacking someone, biting them and passing on their "virus". If Reavers can sense their own kind (which would explain why they won't attack each other), then it's possible that they can sense when a victim has been afflicted and will stop attacking that person. The guy in Bushwhacked might've been one of the first people attacked, maybe someone helped him to get away from his attacker, and then he ran and hid where he slowly was overcome by the virus, culminating at the point in time when Serenity's crew found him.

So if River was given a dose of Pax, why would the Reavers attack her? Perhaps when the Pax was given to Miranda's population, it was somehow mutated and became what it is to the Reavers, a slightly different strain than what River has. Or maybe the Pax given to River is a more perfected version of it. Something different enough to where Reavers don't recognize it.

But back to the subject of how the Reaver population grew. Well, they've been out there for 10 years. And stories of Reavers have spread throughout the 'verse. So I think we could assume that Reavers have attacked many ships in those 10 years. How many people have they actually turned in that time? Could be a pretty big number. Also, we should consider the possibility that the Alliance has continuously tried to exterminate the Reavers. Perhaps when the outbreak happened, they sent troops in to contain the problem. When that failed, they sent more people in and so on and so forth. But they keep fighting the Reavers because the Reavers are a real threat and not just because they're Reavers, but also because public knowledge of the Reavers is something they want to avoid. So how many Alliance soldiers have been turned?

And maybe that's what the experiments on River were about. They're trying to create a more powerful soldier. Soldiers with an extra sensory perception in combat (think "The Force", a Jedi can feel an attack coming) who could effectively fight the Reavers. Seeing River take on those Reavers in the BDM, I think it worked pretty well.

KAELE

Saturday, February 18, 2006 4:27 AM

Quote:
If Reavers can sense their own kind (which would explain why they won't attack each other), then it's possible that they can sense when a victim has been afflicted and will stop attacking that person.

But this is exactly the opposite of my point. The Pax drug made River hyper-sensitive, and I'm assuming did the same to the Reavers. But they can't sense each other, hence not attacking one another.

Granted, it's based on just a few lines mentioned in the novelization, but it's the train my brain's following.

Kaele
AIM - Dewlanna
YID - jedi_kaele

ASARIAN

Saturday, February 18, 2006 9:33 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ShadowChild:

Funny, I usually notice things like that. Some of the Reavers do have longish hair, not that that necessisarily means anything but perhaps why I didnt notice before. I wonder if they reproduce. It would seem theyd need to, the fleet between Haven and Miranda is WAY too big in my opinion to be only 10% of Miranda's pop. Either that or theres not many Reavers per ship...but that wouldnt fit the masses seen in the raiding parties...

Your mind holds interesting thoughts. :)

I dunno, with 1/10th of 1% of 30,000,000 being 30,000 Reavers, that's still a lot of bad critters!

How many Reavers does it take to run a ship? Hmm, probably as many as it takes to screw in a light bulb. :) No, seriously, lets say a fully packed Reaver ship has a crew of about twenty-five. Then you can man about 1,200 ships. That's a lot; but they die easily too (which is to say, they do not seem to take particularly great care not to die). So, in ten years time, they should have thinned out a bit, I guess.

Should they reproduce somehow (eeew), then I'm not sure it would really increase their number, even. Due to the PAX, their aggressor response increased beyond madness. But I'm not really sure the effect can be passed on to their children. Also, it's hard to imagine a Reaver raising a child. :)

I guess we'll have to call it "late quantum state phenomenon". Only way to fit 30,000 Reavers on the same fleet. :)

--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

EMPXENU

Saturday, February 18, 2006 1:52 PM

There hasn't been any indication that "reaverness" can be passed on directly. Pax just alters the chemical composition of the brain. The Alliance wanted to turn people into couch potatoes, not mutate them.

----
"I think, therefore I am... I think"

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