Q: How does Mal know so much about Reavers ?
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Monday, February 16, 2004 10:36
VIEWED: 9272
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I love the Looong reach. Joss likes to be intentionally vague with regards to backstory; it keeps it fresh and gives him options for future stories.
Joss has always created wonderful antagonists. Its sad the series ended before we got to meet Reavers. I'm guessing they wouldn't be what you would expect. So, my Looong reach:
Despite being animals, they're not stupid: They take off their 'skin coats' etc. and act like "normal" people (if a little rough or weird), gain intel on victims etc. Maybe Mal has already met reavers and doesn't know it!
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Seems to me that even though Mal might have a lot of "book knowledge" about Reavers, he probably had never experienced or had an unusually traumatic incident involving them. Remember, it's not like he remembered right away what would happen to the guy they saved. It sort of slowly came to him after obtaining various bits of information. So in my opinion, most of what they know is just stuff passed around by other people.
Something else I sort of wonder about Reavers, they're supposed to be savages/animals, but on the other hand, they must possess some kind of intelligence if they're able to run a starship. I mean, it takes a genius mechanic (Kaylee, not Bester) to keep Serenity running, and the ships flown by Reavers are even older and most likely even harder to maintain. How do they do it?
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I mean, it takes a genius mechanic (Kaylee, not Bester) to keep Serenity running, and the ships flown by Reavers are even older and most likely even harder to maintain. How do they do it?
Sheer force of will.... oh, and duct tape, lots o duct tape (prolly made from human.... ugh, I'll stop there.) Like Mal said, "A man comes up against that kind of will, the only way to deal with it, I reckon, is to become it".
-The SpAz
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Here's my pet theory. I think the Reavers have been around for a long time and that the Browncoats started out as militia on the rim to protect communities from them. Mal was a Browncoat before the war and learned about Reavers in the Browncoats. He must have seen the results of Reaver raids and seen Reaver survivors then too. By the way, Zoe knows a lot about Reavers too, and she's also a Browncoat vet, so it seems to go with Browncoat experiance.
As to why the core folk don't know much about Reavers I think has to do with Alliance propoganda during the war. To justify disarming the Browncoats the Alliance told people the Reavers don't really exist. Alliance commanders from the core probably believe this, until they encounter Reavers themselves.
Traveller, if you go to Sparta, tell them you have seen us lying here as the Law commands.
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Since Firefly is a space western it's easy to draw parallels with the old west. The browncoats represent the early settlers and the Alliance are like the government that wanted the west to follow the laws that were made in the east. There was a big cultural divide between the east and the west. The Reavers would be like the Indians. The settlers in the west knew about Indians, the so-called civilized people in the east only heard stories about the Indians.
I like the theory that Mal's family was wiped out by Reavers. It's not much different than a cowboys family getting wiped out by Indians. The cowboy would know a lot about the Indians and want to stay as far away from them as possible.
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Originally posted by Ranger:
Here's my pet theory. I think the Reavers have been around for a long time and that the Browncoats started out as militia on the rim to protect communities from them. Mal was a Browncoat before the war and learned about Reavers in the Browncoats. He must have seen the results of Reaver raids and seen Reaver survivors then too. By the way, Zoe knows a lot about Reavers too, and she's also a Browncoat vet, so it seems to go with Browncoat experiance.
I like the idea that Browncoats were originally protecting the rim from Reavers. And it made me have another thought -- perhaps the Reavers have once been militia themselves? Troops stationed out in the middle of nowhere before the planets on the rim were terra-formed? I'm thinking kind of a version of The Thing: buncha guys stationed deep in the black with little or no contact with HQ or actual society -- they're out there long enough, the sheer boredom alone could've driven them over the edge. It could easily have gone all Lord of the Flies --but with adult military guys. Might also explain the age of their ships.
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As to why the core folk don't know much about Reavers I think has to do with Alliance propoganda during the war. To justify disarming the Browncoats the Alliance told people the Reavers don't really exist. Alliance commanders from the core probably believe this, until they encounter Reavers themselves.
I like this, too,because I find propoganda interesting, and it gave me another thought. Simon said that he'd heard campfire stories about the Reavers, which immediately made me think of the camp stories we all heard -- you know, guy with a hook hand kills kids who are necking on a deserted stretch of road, stuff like that. I'd be willing to bet that another reason the core folk don't know much about the Reavers is because they think Reavers are urban legend. And there's never anything concrete in urban legends- just stuff like "don't flash your running lights cause Reavers are hitting ships that do that! It totally happened to my friend's uncle's mechanic's priest's sister! My hand to God!"
And since Reavers don't typically leave survivors, and they sure don't visit the core, the citizens in the core've got nothing else to go on but the campfire stories. Cause people like that can't really exist.....
"But she was naked! And all...articulate!"
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I like the idea that the Reavers may have been troops stationed out in the black. That would explain how they are able to take out settlements; they have access to some of the military hardware they used back when they were solders. They have to have some weapons and knowledge to take out a town. If they were just animals or primitives the town's foke would mow them down with machine guns.
I was thinking that the Alliance has probably already has lots of encounters with Reavers. A cruiser spots a ship docked with a transport they don't respond to hails, they pick up a distress call from the transport, so they blow the Reaver ship away and clamed they were pirates plundering a ship.
Oh Ankhagogo that ship that was hit by reavers cuz it had its running lights turned off really just got ran over by a bulk freighter that didn't see them cuz of their lack of running lights.
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Interesting Point, Since revears are suicidal, driving around in all ships with no reactor shielding, extremely anti-social by the sounds of it, were do the next generation of reavers come from, do they :-
a) reproduce by rape or something
b) convert normal humans into reavers. Like some kind of virus.. ??
Guardian.
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Interesting Point, Since revears are suicidal, driving around in all ships with no reactor shielding, extremely anti-social by the sounds of it, were do the next generation of reavers come from, do they :-
a) reproduce by rape or something
b) convert normal humans into reavers. Like some kind of virus.. ??
I vote for B, sorta. I did just assume that the next generation were probably the crew members or passengers the older group had kidnapped after attacking the ship. Could be a reason why there are no survivors -- they wouldn't have to take prisoners every time, just often enough to keep it going. Plus, here's a creepy thought -- Reavers often hit ships packed full of settlers, right? Families. With small children. Hit one ship like that, grab all the ones under the age of, say, 16...I'm not going any further with that thought. I'm creeping myself out.
I don't really care for the idea of Reaverness being a virus, because that's giving a tangible, medical reason why they are like they are,and that kind of implies that either they can't help it, or there might be a cure. I like having no reason beyond "they're all insane", because that's infinitely scarier to me.
"But she was naked! And all...articulate!"
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