Did the alliance plan to turn River into an assasin ?
POSTED BY: dbell46
UPDATED: Saturday, April 3, 2004 03:44
VIEWED: 7662
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I think River was being deconstructed and turned into the ultimate military AI.
Her instantaneous calculation of trajectories to kill three opponents were child's play for her...
...So she did it with her eyes closed. "No power in the 'verse can stop me."
It is my belief that BlueSun/Alliance were attempting to create a strategic super-genius to cement, for all time, their dominance against future aggressors/revolutionaries.
If one cannot create a thinking computer, perhaps one could take a group of 'cognitive leapers' -- geniuses -- and turn them into computers by removing their human behavior?
Does anybody recall the part of Rinver's brain Simon said they'd been toying with? Amygdala, was it? And then he said it was the seat of her emotions(?).
From http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/med532/amygdala.htm
amygdala (uh mig' dull uh)
It is a set of subcortical nuclei that is important for perceiving in others and having in oneself emotional or affective behaviors and feelings (e.g. fear, anger). It is, therefore, a component of the limbic system.
Based on a quick 'net search, the amygdala is responsible for bodily reactions to threatening stimuli. I'd say River's has been hyperactivated based on her characteristically physical overreactions to her environment...
Respectfully,
zoid
"River didn't fix faith. Faith fixed River."
- Senator Richard Wilkins, Independent Congress
from A Child Shall Lead Them
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Quote:
Originally posted by corwyn:
I think she closed her eyes so that she wouldn't see herself murder people, not so that she could concentrate. 1) She needs to concentrate TO close her eyes "don't look, don't look". 2) I have not seen her need to concentrate to do anything external. Remember she can not forget things.
If we go with River being a reader, we've seen her exhibit maybe three different types of reading. The possible one is in Safe, and the two definite ones are in Objects in Space.
In Safe, she "read" what had happened to Ruby. Now, River could have simply asked Ruby "Why won't you talk?", Ruby thought about what had happened, either in actual words or in mental images, and River literally read her mind.
In Objects in Space, however, River was exhibiting two very different kinds of reading. One - she was hearing what was in people's heads. Notice I didn't say she was "hearing what they were thinking".
I'm gonna use Book as an example to make this less twisty. I don't think when River "heard" Book say, "I don't give half a hump if you're guilty or not..." that was what Book was consciously thinking at the time. He was probably thinking, "This knife is pretty sharp, I better cut carefully" or, "Yeah, right, like Jayne could give up chicks!"
Same for everyone else -- the thoughts River heard likely weren't actually being thought at that moment. It seems to me like River heard something they were trying to keep hidden, and that's a very different, much deeper thing from reading someone's actual thoughts.
Second -- We've been told that River's amygdyla (sp?) is stripped, and that she can't not feel anything. That could make her an empath, albeit a reluctant empath. We saw her experiencing Zoe & Wash's emotional states rather intensely, and that's what empaths do -- feel the emotional states of other people.
The empath things kind of figures in with why I think she was able to hit all three of those guys. I do think she was concentrating when she closed her eyes, but on their emotions or minds, not on their physical location. If she can sense emotions like that, then physical sight could be a distraction.
Or even if you don't buy the empath theory, I still think that River is probably aware that what she thinks she sees isn't always reality, so she wanted to close out her physical vision, in case she what she thought she saw wasn't real.
I've kinda just been assuming that the blue hands were doing experiments to enhance/create psychic abilites, but like someone said, to what end, I do not know. I don't know if "assassin-spy" was the ultimate goal, or if they were just hoping they could get assassin-spies out of the deal.
"So...would his job be available?"
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There are quite a few examples of the empath behavior you mentioned. When she's dancing, she reacts to what I presume to be Mal's distress at seeing Book on the ground. She picks up on very strong emotion involuntarily, but can, if she tries, delve deeper. She also seems to react to the "aura" of a place, as in Bushwacked--the idea that strong emotions linger even if the people are gone. She may well have picked up on the emotions of the soldiers attempting to get into Serenity in War Stories (never thought of that). I just figured she "did the math," which seems to be a recurring theme with her. Emotion can distort what you see, but math is precise.
Jen dao mei.
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Quote:
Originally posted by kalimeeri:
She picks up on very strong emotion involuntarily, but can, if she tries, delve deeper. She also seems to react to the "aura" of a place, as in Bushwacked--the idea that strong emotions linger even if the people are gone. She may well have picked up on the emotions of the soldiers attempting to get into Serenity in War Stories (never thought of that).
I really wonder if her delving deeper is voluntary. Whatever they did to her inarguably screwed up the way she receives all different types of information, and Simon says (har) that she has her good days and bad days. So it's possible that her ability to percieve whatever rises and ebbs -- a good day would be when her reading abilities are low, because then she's not getting so much information that she can't process it all correctly. A bad day would be when she's reading everything and everyone and just
can't tell reality from delusion.
Quote:
I just figured she "did the math," which seems to be a recurring theme with her. Emotion can distort what you see, but math is precise.
I didn't really mean "she perceived their emotions and used that to help her aim", I meant "focused on where the emotion was originating from in order to give herself a target."
But it is quite possible that she just "did the math", as in "there are three guys. There are three sides to a triangle. That guy is --" ok, I forget all my geometry terms, but you get what I mean. She is supposed to be a math genius, and I suspect she has a photgraphic memory.
"So...would his job be available?"
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