Reavers, what's their deal?

POSTED BY: athertonwing
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 06:24
VIEWED: 17272
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NOOCYTE

Friday, March 26, 2004 7:11 AM

Ya know, the theory does have some appeal, in that it ties two big arcs together into one gnarly meta-arc.

This is one of the reasons it doesn't really sit too well with me. I kind of like the notion that these two big arcs are just sitting there, independent of each other; has more of a feel of reality, where literary connections don't necessarily pertain, and things can be all-too random.

More centrally, though, I'm rather taken with the idea of "men gone savage on the edge of space," since it is in keeping with Joss' overarching thesis that people go out into the Black and meet....themselves. Makes me think of Nietzsche, and the whole "look into the abyss and the abyss looks back into you" thing. Each of our characters is Out There, finding some aspect of themself, making meaning for each other.

Now imagine a group of people, wandering through the Black, growing less and less concerned with the basic little things which accompany Civilization: hygeine, health, nutrition (there's where your brain damage starts to happen; try living without potassium for a few months...), morality, empathy, respect for the dead. They make meaning for each other by confirming, in a host of little ways, that there is no meaning. Slippery slope.

My head keeps coming back to that line in "Bushwhacked," the "open up. See what's inside" line. What's most chilling about it is the cold, idle, empathy-less curiosity of it, like something a cat might say of the mouse it has no intention of eating, but is just going to muck with till it gets bored, or the mouse stops struggling. Whichever comes first. This is the comment of a person who is dead inside, and so has no compelling reason to give a lemur's liver about the pain which he will cause to another. Doesn't matter, since it's all the same Emptiness.

Personally, I find this orders of magnitude more creepifying then even the most sinister conspiracy. It suggests that people don't need to be Experimented on to turn that horrid...all they (WE!) need is the company of their own inner shadows in a dark enough place.

shudder

Department of Redundancy Department

THECRAZYIVAN

Friday, March 26, 2004 7:18 AM

Reavers....i want some answers. I like that theory! Just wish there were more episodes that included them and such.

~~~~~~~~~~
Take me out to the black.....

CALHOUN

Friday, March 26, 2004 10:21 AM

Tere has to be some sort of hierarchical comand structure and technical knowledge base/training within the reavers society. How could "insane madmen" maintain let alone fly and navigate spacecraft? And they must be fairly proficient at it too otherwise one would think that sane rational thinking pilots should be able to escape them..

CALHOUN

Friday, March 26, 2004 10:27 AM

Tere = There ..... How did I miss that..

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, March 26, 2004 1:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ItsAllShiny:
Something doesn't have to be scientific down to the nitty gritty details to work on television -- it just has to be plausible We have two plausible scenarios here -- one with escaped Alliance brain-damaged experimental subjects, and the other with brain-damaged (from radiation or some other unspecified cause) sub-humans on the edge of space. I think the edge of space scenario (the simpler of the two) would be easier to convey to the audience, and it's already been alluded to by Mal in "Serenity" when the reavers were introduced.

Are you telling me or someone else? Because I agree. I'm just looking for the plausibility in both theories.

Quote:
Originally posted by ItsAllShiny:
At least the mythodology was introduced. We won't know for sure what reavers are until Joss tells us. But if they are some kind of failed Alliance rejects, it's going to take some masterful skills to tell the story. Can you imagine the complicated story arc that would take? You'd have to have reavers in a whole bunch of episodes to have the characters make the necessary discoveries to go from the myth to the Alliance's doorstep. Maybe in season 2...

However, I don’t think it is necessary that complicated of an arc to use the “failed experiment” approach. One need not invent it in detail, nor connect to the characters at all or right away. It is sufficient to mention a “breakout of failed experiments.” I think that would be understood, and I think it’s a good theory that has worked successfully many times.

My only concern is that such a scenario has already been done, and seems to be somewhat of a standby in Si-Fi.

Then again Star Trek has run that “special” particle thing into the ground too. But I have to say that I like the idea of the Reavers going mad on the edge of space because of failed reactor shielding. Largely because we’ve seen evidence of this in the series. This carries with it the problem of a radiation that only causes you to go mad. Such a thing might be accepted by most people. Not me, but I try to look the other way when the “special” particles come up.

My own personal opinion though: I would like to see the Reavers be 1) part human in that there savage ways are represented by a need to be savage, and 2) modified by a disease or drug that is transmitted between Reavers which enhances strength while reducing pain reception, something like PCP. Imagine it as a drug taken by deep spacefarers originally used to combat the effects of low-gravity, but which has since been outlawed and obsolete by the use of “gravity drives” and a discovered side-effect of being addictive and causing mental illness.

That may be a little complicated, I know. But maybe not so much, it’s really just typical human savagery modified with a mind-altering drug. Something that takes its plausibility from our own current experience.

Do you suppose Joss will take any advice from me? Probably not.

CONNORFLYNN

Friday, March 26, 2004 1:36 PM

Who's to say the Experiment is over? Perhaps it is still ongoing? There have been many experiments in our own real history that involve the separation of individuals from normal society.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, March 26, 2004 1:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Connorflynn:
Who's to say the Experiment is over? Perhaps it is still ongoing? There have been many experiments in our own real history that involve the separation of individuals from normal society.

That’s true. None of them resulted in Reavers.

However, I see the "failed Experiment" approach as being an attempt to create a "super-soldier" of sorts. It's not an original idea, but it is one that has worked in the past.

KUGELBLITZ

Friday, March 26, 2004 1:57 PM

Bah. Look at history if you want to find some excellent examples of organized savagery. The cult of the Thuggees in India for example. They were essentially a religion that predated upon other people. They were creepy people too, lots of ritual sacrifices. They were suppressed by the British in 1930, and some sources place their existence in the 13th century.

How long did the Independents/Alliance War last? The Thirty Years War spawned numerous atrocities created by bands of roving soldeir/mercenaries. The reavers could simply be some very, very bad people who care very little about anyone who isn't them. I don't think you have to be brain damaged to perpetrate evil acts upon innocents (or the "other side"). Sure it may help, and it may explain some of the strange attributes the revers have, but the insanity thing doesn't gel with me.

I am thinking the Reavers are some kind of violence cult/religion. One that doesn't necessarily have to be a vibrant expanding one, just one that leaves BIG footprints. There are a few religions that have dead ended for various reasons. We don't know yet how long the Reavers have been around, so reproducing their kind may not be a critical element.

Or the reaver's could be culturally separate from theirr victims. Consider the Japanese Warrior code as it applied to Allied POWs in WWII. Or the Sioux versus settlers in the west, and so on.

"We are exporting democracy because we have all of this unused democracy lying around at home. Why not make some money doing it?"

ITSALLSHINY

Friday, March 26, 2004 3:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
My own personal opinion though: I would like to see the Reavers be 1) part human in that there savage ways are represented by a need to be savage, and 2) modified by a disease or drug that is transmitted between Reavers which enhances strength while reducing pain reception, something like PCP. Imagine it as a drug taken by deep spacefarers originally used to combat the effects of low-gravity, but which has since been outlawed and obsolete by the use of “gravity drives” and a discovered side-effect of being addictive and causing mental illness.

Ooh, I like that scenario! Didn't someone here write a fanfic about reavers who kidnap Jayne and use drugs on him to make him one of them? Maybe the drugs have always been elicit -- something that was originally designed to suspend the need for sleep, or something, but had drastic side effects when abused or with extended use? Side effects could have been adopted 'culturally' and glorified by the Reavers...

Quote:
Do you suppose Joss will take any advice from me? Probably not.

Ya never know...

-------------------------------
Jayne: "Can we just move away from this eerie-assed piece of work and get on with out increasingly eerie-assed day?"

BROWNCOAT1

Friday, March 26, 2004 3:32 PM

What do we really know about the Reavers anyway? Only what speculation & the horror stories told to scare children at night tell us.

TO our knowledge there have been no survivors of a Reaver attack, so how do we know the Reavers actually eat their victims flesh? How do we know they sew their skin into their clothes? We don't. We do suspect from "Bushwhacked" that they torture their victims and make survivors watch, which causes them to snap. This would explain how they recruit.

As far as where they come from, who can say? Deserters from the war between the Alliance and the Independents? Settlers that got lost and went insane from a core leak or too long in space w/ no food and turned cannibal. Maybe there were a dozen or so that were failed experiments from the Blue Hands that escaped and stowed away aboard a ship, then later came out, killed the crew and took the ship as their own.

As far as being dumb beasts, I think that is a grave underestimation. They can obviously pilot space ships, and rig magnetic grapples, as well as lay elaborate booby traps on ships they attack. I think they are depraved, evil men and women who prey on other folk for necessity as well as some sort of sick, twisted pleasure.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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