How do Reavers pilot ships, them being insane cannibals and such? by chrisisall

Ok, I’m not going to respond to most of what you said, if you want me to just say what you would like a response to and I will give it, but I want to focus the issue here. Our primary disagreement seems to be over anger and aggression as they relate to each other.

Lets cut everything else out, there is no need to talk about Reavers, rape, cannibalism, murder or any of that because if we differ on basic premises any argument, no matter how well constructed, will not be able to carry over to the other side.

On the other hand, you said:
Aggression (of the type we're talking about) is the outward manifestation of Anger.

If you can explain why the type were are talking about must be a manifestation of anger, and not any of the other possible sources (always seemed like desire to me, though I have heard strong arguments for greed) then we can skip the entire issue.

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One important thing is the different definitions of aggression, an example at the end, but I think we’re on the same page for the most part.

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On the psychological page you linked to the first thing I noticed was that it said, “Anger and Aggression,” in large red letters. The second thing I noticed was that directly below that it said that there would be three things addressed, the first and last were about anger, the second about aggression.

Maybe I’ve been taking language and literature too long, but that seems to be a pretty clear distinction. At the very least it is clear from that point that they are not being used interchangeably. Actually it makes a very clear distinction:

“Anger is feeling mad in response to frustration or injury.”
“Aggression is action, i.e. attacking someone or a group.”

And what does it have to say about the relationship between the two?

Aggression is usually a result of anger, but it goes on to say that it isn’t always and gives such diverse examples as “the bomber pilot, the judge who sentences a criminal, the unfaithful spouse, the merchant who overprices a product, [and] the unemotional gang attack” of aggression that is not related to anger. The example of the gang attack interests me but I think that I should move on.

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The partial quote that you gave from the next site:
“Anger, aggression and addiction are intertwined in many ways.”
is certainly true. As it says anger has been indicated in relapse by Alcoholics anonymous. Addictive drugs have often times been linked to elevation in both aggression and anger, and many times the reasons behind the addiction are related to acts of aggression.

I fail to see the relevance though, obviously the three are related, in many ways even, but far from in all ways and it seems a mistake, to me, to immediately assume that just because there is aggression there is anger.

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The partial quote from your next source:
“Anger can be expressed in the form of crying, teasing, yelling, sarcasm, attack, depression, violence, suicide, pouting, silence, aggression, and violence.”
is again true, but I again fail to see how it is related. Anger can be expressed though aggression just as a resident of Washington can be an American, but aggression need not be an expression of anger just as an American need not be a resident of Washington.

Using that quote to support your claim that a specific case of aggression is necessarily a result of anger is equal to using it to say that any arbitrary instance of silence is also a result of anger.

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Your next site again points out that aggression can be the result of anger, but once again this doesn’t touch on the place where I see us disagreeing: you say that aggression implies anger, I say that aggression implies only aggression.

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The last site you have does not even contain the terms aggression or aggressive so it’s not part of the narrower topic I want to address.

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Before the example I’d like to address something that is, unfortunately, outside of the scope I’d like to cover. It seems important enough to include anyway.

Quote:
Firstly you require proof of me that it does, but do not require proof of your self that it doesn't.

To my knowledge that is the way it always works.

You say that something beyond what it explicitly stated in the movie exists, and I say that it does not, what proof can I give? Exactly as much proof as I can give that Wash is not a woman: none.

Could be that Wash is a lesbian who pretended to be male to get work and married Zoe after telling her the truth. (The something that bothered her was that she was able to tell Wash was hiding something but uncertain as to what.) When Zoe says she wants a child she means she wants to have an operation where Wash’s genetics are implanted in one of her eggs and they have a child that way in spite of both of them being female. We’ve seen nothing in the show or movie that directly contradicts this, but if someone came out and said it is true I think the burden of proof is on the one suggesting it, not the one refuting it.

If someone said that Wash loves Zoe, something not explicitly stated, again the one saying it would have to provide proof, or at least strong evidence, and in that case the person arguing for the thing that was not explicitly stated would win. I least I think he or she would, I don’t know of anyone who thinks Wash does not love Zoe when presented with evidence.

In this case you’ve added a factor to the movie, you brought an outside idea in, maybe it does belong there, maybe Joss wanted you think that anger is a factor, maybe the woman who played the scientist was meant to convey that very fact. Maybe. But also maybe not.

So what proof can I give? None. If that means I’m putting forth a bad argument then I guess I am, but it is the same argument that I use to say that the dinosaurs are no longer alive: if there is no direct evidence for something, and there is no need for it to be a part of the equation, leave it out until given stronger reason to believe that it is true.

The movie does not in any way made clear to me imply anger, it states very high aggression, and as such I think it should be looked at only as very high aggression unless a reason is stated why it should be otherwise. I have yet to see you state that reason. You have said that the two are linked, repeatedly, but the very first sight you linked to in your own defense made clear in it’s introduction that Aggression is not necessarily the result of anger.

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As for varied definitions of aggression and aggressive look at this quote you used:
aggressive driving: speeding, tailgating, failing to yield, weaving in and out of traffic, passing on the right, making improper and unsafe lane changes, and running stop signs and red lights.
This definition of aggressive has no counterpart for aggression that I know of, and more importantly it is not related to anger, which you have so nicely pointed out many types of agression are.

Example:
On the interstate nearest me speeding, failing to yield, weaving in and out of traffic, passing on the left, and making lane changes that are both improper and unsafe are all quite common. Tailgating is not all that common and being an interstate it lacks stop signs and traffic lights, however any one of those things would qualify as “aggressive driving” in the study you quoted.

I have been in various cars with people doing some or all of those things on that very interstate, and I have never been on any interstate with an angry person behind the wheel.

(I didn’t realize that until I wrote this. Not once have I been on an interstate with an angry person in the driver’s seat. Been a lot of other places with angry drivers, but not an interstate.)

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I apologize if there are any misspellings in the above, it is very late here.

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Saturday, October 15, 2005 6:39 PM

Citizen,

You made some extremely long posts. Let me try to respond.

1. I wasn't offended. I thought maybe you were. I'm pretty difficult to offend. Offline, I'm a lot like Jayne, so you'd have to be pretty insulting to offend, but also by the same logic, I'm generally insensitive.

2. My fan theories were fan theories. I never stated they were correct, only that they were fan theories. Any fan theory I would take as valid until proven false.

3. For example, "Reaver's are telepathic" meaing mildly, or empathic, not River-like, was a suggested possibility. I don't know if even I support that position, but I hold that's it's a valid possibility until nixed by Joss. I was by no means saying this had to be so.

4. Parapsychology and psi are flakey myths. Regular Psychology is very close to being a flakey myth by itself. I think the underlying science is chemisty, neurology and information theory. Outside of this I'm not sure if I believe in anything else. Re: the mind that is. Psychiatry is also a flakey myth, close to religion. Religion is a very flakey myth.

5. I am not setting out to convince anyone else of anything. I understand things well and seek to understand them better, and then apply that understanding. If someone comes to me and say "People act X way because it's the will of God," I will simply ignore them. It's certainly not worth my time to try to change someone's mind that is not ready to be changed, and it's possible it's a waste of time in any event.

6. River is in many ways like a Reaver. I think I was the third person to say so on this thread. Since it's all on your screen right now you could check that. It's no longer on mine as I'm replying. But I recall this to be the case. I'm not tempted to argue the point. River is insane and violent, and a highly effective combat unit. In all three ways she is more like a Reaver than she is like anything on Earth.

7. Allow me to interject this: this is a facet of old school sci-fi which I believe Firefly is. Anything not introduced with potential pending explanation, which may not yet be revealed, can be assumed to be the science you are already familiar with. Therefore, the fact that River is more Reaver-like than any Earth-human is significant to some of us. It's also an intersting possibility upon which to speculate.

Quote:

It would also prevent the emergence of 'Reaver society' or any level of teamwork what so ever (including pack hunting).

8. I believe this to be pattently false. Where did it even come from? I think this statement requires a lot of backing up. I'm seriously familiar with human behavior, lunatic behavior and animal behavior, and nothing would lead me to this conclusion. Nothing would lead me anywhere near it.

(I have to skip over the writing point at the moment because I don't have the context I said that in in front of me. There are many things which work in theory and don't work in stories for various reasons, I promise to come back to this when I reread the thread.)

9. I've seen Joss make errors. There are a fair number in buffy. This doesn't strike me as one. I think Joss is pretty clean usually, and Firefly especially. I said there are nitpicky problems, but nothing major that would make it unworkable.

10. Beyond insane is probably mroe animal than alien. Anger is a more complex state than other emotions. You can't really extend anger to that level, because anger is an absence of focus and perspective. An absence cannot really be less than zero. It's simply not possible to take a beings anger and crank it up infinitely, since what you are really doing is cranking down it's perspective and focus. I suspect Reavers of being very focused, lacking much perspective, but very nervous so as not to become depressed, which would be the state that they would end up in otherwise. Basically I think that they arent "more angry" they are "manic-psychotic-angry" but not it a human way, in a shark/wolf way. Shark is very heavily instinctive, as might happen to a human if you pump their brain full of norepinephrine and remove the serotonin. A wolf is very focused, like a brain overloaded with dopamine might become. This pretty much is all very biochemically consistant. It's also possible that there were specific brain sites shut down by the pax, which prompted this response in some. It's entirely logical that it would prompt this response in some and not others, but some of the initial shutdown areas might remain shut down in spite of the biochemical overreaction by the hypothalmus.

If you can I can go into this in more detail. I fully assume that someone on Joss' staff or Joss himself already went through this all, and that's how Reavers came to be. Joss frequently deals with mental illness and he does it excellently. River is probably the most believable lunatic ever to appear on a TV show. She's far more believable than most movie looneys. He or someone close to him has a vast understanding of the subject that exceeds what the fielf of psychiatry currently knows.

I'm going to kill them all. That oughtta confuse 'em.

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Saturday, October 15, 2005 7:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by XeroGravity:
Aren't they simple mindless zombies like in all the "hollywood" movies?

No evidence to suggest that anywhere. I think, though am not sure, even Citizen would agree with me on that.

Quote:
I mean, c'mon already. Nobody rapes, murders, and then devours their victims unless they are zombies.

Well that's gratuitously untrue. Real life refutes that quite nicely.

People kill people, people eat people, and people rape people. Some people even do all three in various orders. This is in real life, past and present. You want to call the modern ones psychotic and I’m right there with you, you want to call the historical ones savages and I’ll go along with that too, but if you claim that they are zombies I have to break with you.

You tell us to ignore history books but I really don’t think you can reasonably do that.

People rape and eat victims often enough for us to at least admit that they exist in non-zombie form. As for eating people alive Citizen does have a good point, there are not all that many examples of that. It happens, but not so much. On the other hand if you combine the fact that some people like to eat food alive* and that Reavers view humans as food it really doesn’t seem all that odd.

*The primary example I know of this is specific to bats, for some reason people in some places like to eat live bats. I don’t get it; I think if you’re going to eat a bat you should just have bat soup with a nice dead and boiled bat in it. Then again I don’t really get the idea of eating bats at all, for one thing people tend to eat the smaller ones that can’t have much meat in them. For another bats are incredibly useful and as such I think they should be used for purposes other than food (pest control for example.)

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Saturday, October 15, 2005 7:36 PM

Okay, now I've read more posts and it's time for my blatantly insensitive troll posting.

Apologies in advance.

I don't want to attack any other users, it's not what I set out to do, but I notice a pattern here. I'm not the moderator by any means, and many thanks to the moderators for doing a splendid job. This is really one of the least hostile forum environments I've seen.

1. Citizen, Re: my "writing" comment was related to omniscient psionics. It's just not an interesting development from the point of view of a writer who wants to develop plot and intrigue. Don't take my word for it, ask any published author. Just about anyone out there will take the same point of view. This is about what works in a story, not real life.

2. I agree with the vast majority of posts on this thread, and it started out to be fascinating. I think there were some fascinating posts, like doncoat prion one, and some things about wolves and sharks, and a lot of other neat stuff.

3. Citizen I really don't mean this as a personal attack. I don't think you have the underlying scientific understanding to keep consistantly attacking everyone's theories. If you want to post some of your own, feel free. But you seem to be assaulting everything that everyone else says as if you were coming from a position of superior understanding of the subject. I just don't think you are. There's nothing in sci-fi fandom that would make this a prerequisite for speculating. Anyone can post theories without having advanced degrees in the physical sciences, by all means. But I would try to only gainsay someone if you have absolute proof that they are off on the wrong track, but one having done so, don't belabor the point. I find that I agree with them more than I do with you from a completely objective position. I try to be completely objective, and I'm sure I will always continue to look at each new post without prior bias to what that person might have posted before, I would hope that others would do the same. In an inquisitive discussion, speculation and counterspeculation, there's a thin line between counterpoint arguments and trolling. This argument is presently getting in the way of the debate, and kind of souring the mood.

Also, I need to learn to make shorter posts, and so do you.

Okay, I'm done being trollish. Before we get into fisticuffs can we return to random rampant speculation and let everyone say whatever their threories are without hounding the point on our disagreements?

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Saturday, October 15, 2005 8:23 PM

EYETOOTH

There certainly is a distinction between aggression and anger, but in the case of Reavers there's no way their behaviour is not dictated by hypertrophied libidos/anger.

Aggression, in its primal state, can only be conceivable as tied up with anger/lust/hunger/other libidinous forces. However with humans there is the capacity for intellectualised aggression, of which there is any number of examples in modern life. Conversely we have the capacity to sublimate and even completely internalise anger. By this logic the Reavers, assuming they're not divested of higher functions, might through force of will stay their aggression until an appropriate target passes by, in the meantime fixing the engine and gnawing on bones. If this seems too tall an order for people constantly dealing with psychotic rage, consider that there could have been a eugenic vetting process on Miranda: the Reavers too affected by the Pax/unable to control their urges when needed would be isolated and killed, just as the ones who didn't have the wherewithall to operate a ship would have stayed planetbound. Fairly sloppy, but internally coherent.

Someone said above that the Pax effect didn't necessarially lead to "absolute" apathy or libidinousness. As dramatically powerful as those absolutes of Platonic ideal are, they have to be watered down for things to work.

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Saturday, October 15, 2005 10:34 PM

WILLIAMWALLACE

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Citizen said they're too messed up to efficiently run a spacecraft or work together coherently; I maintain that they have selective psychosis, and are able to do what needs to be done in service to their insane bloodlust.

What are the theories regarding this, anyone care to set us straight?

Chrisisall creepafied

Being crazy doesnt make them stupid.

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Saturday, October 15, 2005 11:17 PM

XEROGRAVITY

I retract my earlier statements about this being absurd. It's alot to read and chew on, but it's becoming more and more interesting.

Gonna sit on the sidelines and continue to read on with absolute fascination. That's the thing I love most about this site... very engaging minds post here.

Cheers.

XG

No such thing as gravity. The "Earth-that-was" just sucks.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 12:05 AM

Firstly I was going to reply to the threads above by dreamtrove and christhecynic, then suggest we agree to disagree.
I happen to agree dreamtrove, the anger/aggression argument was getting tiresome, so I'll drop it. Needless to say my interpretation of the PAX is different (but entirely based on what we see in the movie) than yours (again entirely based on what we see in the movie).

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove
1. Citizen, Re: my "writing" comment was related to omniscient psionics. It's just not an interesting development from the point of view of a writer who wants to develop plot and intrigue. Don't take my word for it, ask any published author. Just about anyone out there will take the same point of view. This is about what works in a story, not real life.

I understood where you were coming from. I was attempting to put your mind at rest by saying that I doubt it's an issue as far as River is concerned.

Quote:
3. Citizen I really don't mean this as a personal attack. I don't think you have the underlying scientific understanding to keep consistantly attacking everyone's theories. If you want to post some of your own, feel free. But you seem to be assaulting everything that everyone else says as if you were coming from a position of superior understanding of the subject. I just don't think you are.

I understand you didn't mean that as an attack, so I won't take offence. However I will say that I think that's a little unfair to me. I don't think I was being particularly superior in anyway. I have had my understanding of various subjects questioned repeatedly, and to a lesser extent my ability to form an argument and my intelligence. That statement should not be solely turned on me.
I don't think I've been 'constantly' attacking others theories, either. I have done on occasion, but if I may clarify, it was in self defence. It was in response to my opinion being described as baseless and wrong (which I obviously don't agree with).

Quote:
In an inquisitive discussion, speculation and counterspeculation, there's a thin line between counterpoint arguments and trolling. This argument is presently getting in the way of the debate, and kind of souring the mood.

True, and I agree, which is why I had decided to say lets agree to disagree.

Quote:
Also, I need to learn to make shorter posts, and so do you.

You may be right. The odd long post is fine, but every single one

?

So, as you alluded to, and as I said, let’s agree to disagree and all go back to being friends, yeah?

EDIT:

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
No evidence to suggest that anywhere. I think, though am not sure, even Citizen would agree with me on that.

Not sure I like the 'even Citizen' part

, but I entirely agree.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 12:28 AM

THEBLACKRABBIT

They just need a hug. Won't someone love the reavers?

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 1:06 AM

DONCOAT

Kaylee: "I love my Reaver!"

Select to view spoiler:

Actually, she just might, since they did bring her and Simon together!

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 4:14 AM

My two kopeks worth:

River was intended as the Operative to the power 10 - imagine a controlled telepathic assassin able to get the truth and then ensure no-one else survives to know... However she's more unpredictable than the expected, hard to control someone whose telepathic and can see through your lies and add to that her hyper-intelligence and you have River using a type of self-induced autism to escape the programming...

There is a theory that Autistic people are too intelligent and therefore reject certain aspects of reality that they find - difficult... Once the programming is shattered, she is able to merge everything back together under her own control (apparently)...

Mankind is a social animal, even in its most psychotic, only the strongest survive variations, it groups together into clans and its leaders will allow those like them to survive and serve them even if only because even the alphas know that it might be able to take any one or even two others down dbut would not survive if all the others worked together against it, even if only for a moment - human velosiraptors anyone? So social co-operation exists but only while it serves their own interests. Even Reivers have to sleep sometime and need someone to guard their back...

Alliance allows Reivers to survive a) because it protects their secret at Miranda and because b) as it allows the Government to control the outer colonies and stop a larger percentage of its core planet population from moving out... It has possibly got a little out of hand in recent years but as its only the outer colonies being hurt so far why worry... The threat of reivers will help them control the core. Fear is a wonderful social control as many governments have found.

Reactor breach on Reiver ships - perhaps this is the only way they can make their converted transports go as fast as they want? They don't have a genius Kaylee to tinker with their engines so they settled for a fast and dirty answer to make them faster and more maneuverable? Like the pirates (and Scot's Reivers like my own ancestors) they know that they will only have a short lifespan anyway (you'll never see an old, infirm Reiver, the clan will kill it as soon as it starts to get weak and less powerful) so why worry about the long-term effects - yes it will make a large percentage sterile over time but as Chernobyl has proved, a percentage will be able to reproduce and birth mutations are generally either result in still birth, early termination or cause cancers later but given their short lifespans caused by lifestyle who would care anyway?

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 4:51 AM

BROWNCOATBABE

This is majorly OT, someone mentioned the script?

I am dying to get a hold of a copy-I have a final due in a couple months and I want to do a Serenty and Chinese Philosophy, so if anyone can point me to a link....or the script?

On this reaver thing, the PAX is some nasty stuff...I'm just still hung up on the whole reproduction thing. I'm not into the creating reavers with transmitting the pathogen by breathe, but one wonders if there were 30,000 about 12 years ago...some of them must have died off. Maybe not even half, maybe not even 1/4, but some will have died off...I hope.

Some of this dicussion is geting into the zombie realm, and it's clear reavers are still humans (forgive me, I've only seen the movie 3 times) I think Jayn says something like

Select to view spoiler:

"Don't know how a fella goes so wrong, cuttin his own face"

so they are still human, right? I'm not entirely eduacted in this area (see below).

Never seen the series, but am saving my monies to buy it...wish to god I had started earlier. Also, yay for a fandom that desn't degrade into insults everytime we differ in opinion.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 5:01 AM

Citizen

I'm fine to agree to disagree. I think I've figured out why we won't come to an agreement on this. I think you're analyzing this from a point of few of psychology, which I regard as a philosophy, which I don't subscribe too. I understand the whole thing from a perspective of the physical sciences, so it would put you in a position analogous to arguing the existance of God with an atheist. Re: naysaying posts, you naysayed my stop naysaying post. I think as long as you naysay excessively you're going to get flamed for it. Sometimes people are wrong, admittedly, contradicting them is fine. I was actually getting irritated reading your exchange with chris, not with me. But anyway, water under the bridge over the damn.

Quote:

orignally posted by The Black Rabbit
They just need a hug. Won't someone love the reavers?
Quote:

Hug a Reaver? Love a Reaver? Well, if we take the "River is a Reaver" angle, I'm in.

Gershom:

I don't think River would resort to normal after her programming is cancelled out. I think these are almost separate issues. But I agree re: Alliance, and it's attitude towards reavers, on reaver behavior. Good points all.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 7:00 AM

SLAYTHIS

Hey Babe,

The complete shooting script is contained within the "The Official Visual Companion." I don't know if the script is on-line anywhere, but this book is well worth owning. I'm sure you can find it at any book-store chain, but just in case, here's the Amazon link...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1845760824/103-7991794-1775838?v=glan
ce&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 7:31 AM

Dreamtrove,

Quote:
I don't think River would resort to normal after her programming is cancelled out. I think these are almost separate issues.

I never said normal, I said under her control - Her first fight is River as the Allience puppet operative while I would say River vs. the Reavers at the end of the film is an example of River in total and absolute control of herself, accepting her new abilities as part of her overall personality in the same way that she accepted that at three she was capable of correcting Simon's spelling!

"Every heist, he's gotta start yelling my name..."

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 7:59 AM

Oh sorry misunderstood. Anyway, it's a long time before she does the killer tralk thing. ie. we could have used it earlier. I think that two factors will make it continue to be random:

1. Periods of lucidity for lunatics are pretty random.
2. It's better for the story. If she can go all Yu Shu Lien on us whenever she feels like it, then it's totally broken. Much better as a sometimes thing.

she's going to kill us all. That oughtta distract us.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 8:22 AM

CARNYASADA

I think you all are working overtime to explain something that doesn't really require a complicated explanation.

Assume a starting pool of 30,000 Reavers 12 years ago. How many Reavers would it take to man the fleet shown in the movie?

Number one: The large number of ships shown doesn't necessarily imply enormous numbers of Reavers. Firefly has a "crew" of seven (in the movie), but only two are really needed to run the ship.

We never see more than a couple dozen Reavers in a shot; it's possible that no more than 50-100 were crewing the large Reaver vessel that attacked the town. A highly aggressive, armed force with the advantage of surprise taking on a mostly untrained and underarmed civilian population already demoralized by the Reavers' reputation wouldn't need to overwhelm them with numbers.

Many of the vessels in the Reaver fleet were considerably smaller than the vessel that attacked the town; many might not carry a crew much larger than Firefly's.

Even assuming mortality of 30 percent over the past 12 years, you would still have 20,000 Reavers, or theoretically enough to crew 100+ large vessels plus 1,000 or more Firefly-sized vessels.

On the other hand, it strains credulity to think of the Reavers successfully breeding -- and, importantly, raising! -- children. Even if Reavers were able to have kids, the oldest kids would be preadolescent and pretty useless for either piloting spaceships or carving up settlers.

Other than the isolated survivor in "Bushwhacked," we have no evidence the Reavers "recruit" replacements -- none of the news reports or rumors talk about kidnappings, just killings. I think it's more likely the survivor was displaying an idiosyncratic response to the psychological strain of what he went through. I would point out that Agent Dobson also apparently "survived" a Reaver attack, and yet was not much Reaverish in the comic books than he was when we first met him in the series.

Finally, could the Reavers be creating "instant Reavers" by infecting captives? Again, news reports and rumors we hear don't talk about kidnappings, only killings, so where are these captives coming from? You'd have to have large numbers disappearing to make much of a difference in the number of Reavers. I think the prion theory of Pax is an interesting one, but prion diseases typically take years -- even decades -- to develop. Are Reavers going to be willing to wait for this?

I think it's more credible that the Reaver fleet is crewed by the remnants of the original Reavers than that new Reavers are being created or even need to be created.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 8:39 AM

MORNINGREIGN

Warning... this thread is all spoiler. If you've read this entire thread and still have no clue about the plot, you obviously have the operative's detachment. I salute you.

...

Granted, this is a science fiction story, but...

What if the women in the holo is wrong about .1% being driven mad? She was making a supposition and she was, after all,... in a hurry. I think if you presumed .1% were already mad, it would be a pretty low number.

I think the reavers could easily have been the crazy people amidst the sane majority. It's possible they were the ones left behind after the civilized folks lapsed into apathy.

Maybe the .1% who survived did so merely because extreme aggressiveness leaves one immune to apathy.

After the structures of civilization collapse, how many examples of extreme, brutal behavior can you think of? Genocide 'Killing the other' as someone earlier put so well happens now.

Perhaps 'reaverism' as triggered by solitude at the edge of space is the same as that triggered by PAX and also the same as that caused by the significant emotional event surviving a reaver attack would have to be.

Solitude can and has driven people mad. (Edge of Space/civilization and there is only me)

So can being the sole survivor of a disaster. (Everybody died but me)

And, this can also be true of those surviving a brutal assault. (Reavers came and left only me... and I'm not so sure about me)

Even if the PAX effect started the barbarism of the reavers, it isn't necessarily necessary for the effect to continue for the reavers to continue.

The idea of a reaver isn't unbelievable. They look like barbarians and the actions of barbarians often appear insane and unsustainable to folks too civilized to have come across such.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 8:44 AM

I don't think this discussion was really ever about trying to justify what happened in the movie. We're not Joss apologists. I assume everyone is more interested in what is going on with the Reavers.

BTW, on a footnote, someone made the note about "reverse" I think that might be solid, because there may be a reason they are called reavers and not savages, cannibals, raiders or any of a number of other things. Joss might have had that in mind. Most of the time when people say to him, "did you plan it this way or was it an accident?" he says he planned it. Sometimes I thnik he might be lying. But then sometimes I think he's lying when he says it was an accident.

I'm sure everyone's heard the explanation of the numbered shirts in buffy as "we just wanted to f*&k with people." Maybe, Joss.

Bushwacked shows us not just that it happens in frount of our eyes which is undeniable, but that it's what everyone expects to happen, which is pretty near proof enough for me.

Quote:

prion diseases typically take years -- even decades -- to develop.

BSE does, I don't think we know nearly enough about prions to make this kind of generalization. Someone could encounter HIV and make that assertion about viruses, or encounter Lyme Disease and make that assertion about spyrochetes (sp?)

In short if you put a fast acting prion into a story, no one's going to say "nah, that can't happen" or if they do, they can very easily be wrong.

As to reaver kidnappings, since the reavers take the people they eat, and don't generally leave the bones around to be counted, even if someone would and could go through and say "we don't have harry's skull, he must be a reaver" they can't, because they don't have the bones. So no one knows what happened to any other the people taken by reavers except that they never come back.

Re: comics, I haven't read any, but comics and books associated with other series have always been treated pretty much like fan fic, as far as the show's bible is concerned. The events there don't get entered into the core source material, and often conflict with it.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 9:10 AM

Quick note, not trying to start another little flaming session, just trying to explain myself.

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I think you're analyzing this from a point of few of psychology, which I regard as a philosophy, which I don't subscribe too. I understand the whole thing from a perspective of the physical sciences, so it would put you in a position analogous to arguing the existance of God with an atheist.

I think your thinking on that point is a little flawed, but I won't labour the point. I look forward to discussing it with you in the future (in a more pertinent time and place). You seem new here (at least I haven't seen you around before) so I'll point you to the RWE threads. In particular my post:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=13976
I'd be interested in hearing your view points.

Quote:
Sometimes people are wrong, admittedly, contradicting them is fine. I was actually getting irritated reading your exchange with chris, not with me.

I think that’s kinda unfair, chris was at least as hostile toward me as I was toward him.

Quote:
But anyway, water under the bridge over the damn.

Good too hear, no hard feelings

.

As for the reason I'm here (again

):
Ignoring my reservations on the new origins of Reavers (and based on their actions within the series/film):
Human society is largely 'Alpha male/female' oriented. The Reavers are necessarily going to be a much more 'enhanced' version of this. I find it un-doubtful that any Reaver society will be based around an animalistic Alpha male system.
The strongest will lead, and they will be constantly challenged for that leadership, probably in violent confrontations.
As with any workable society you'll have Reavers who can fight, and Reavers who can think. Your thinkers will be the ones that can maintain and perhaps operate the ships, but will hold a fairly low place in the 'hierarchy'. They'll get the off casts from the 'fighters', which are the Reavers we see descending from the ships in the film, and the ones we hear most about. By off casts I mean mainly food and the like, the ‘thinkers’ will eat what is left behind by the ‘fighters’.

Regarding the children aspect it takes somewhat of a leap of faith that children would exist, I think.
However if Reavers raise children they will have a largely 'lion' like attitude to them. I.e. the Alpha male will rear children, and if the alpha male is replaced, then the children will be killed.
Reaver children will necessarily have to 'grow up' quick. Probably with some right of passage that includes a violent confrontation of some kind. I also think birth rate will be very high (due to the low level of 'impulse control' I believe they have, and the fact that they probably don't have much regard for birth control

). Also attrition rate amongst the newborn will be extremely high, for one because only the strongest infants would be allowed to survive, and I think 'sibling rivalry' will be actively encouraged.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 9:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Re: comics, I haven't read any, but comics and books associated with other series have always been treated pretty much like fan fic, as far as the show's bible is concerned. The events there don't get entered into the core source material, and often conflict with it.

The first name listed on the front of the Serenity comics is:
Joss Whedon.
I think we can take the comics as more canon than your average

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
I can't

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 10:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Firstly I was going to reply to the threads above by dreamtrove and christhecynic, then suggest we agree to disagree.

Stops us from having any kind of useful debate, but if we can not agree there's no point not admiting it, and thus stopping.

Quote:
Not sure I like the 'even Citizen' part , but I entirely agree.

Not meant as an insult, it's just that you seem to be the one who disagrees with me most strongly so us agreeing on something in spite of vastly different views at least implies it is worthy of consideration.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 10:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Stops us from having any kind of useful debate, but if we can not agree there's no point not admiting it, and thus stopping.

Yep, I think that particular debat is going to end up with us polarized at opposite ends of the spectrum, so to speak, and repeating the same arguments over and over...

Quote:
Not meant as an insult, it's just that you seem to be the one who disagrees with me most strongly so us agreeing on something in spite of vastly different views at least implies it is worthy of consideration.

Heh, didn't think it was, I was being flippant, hence the tongue.
And yeah, I think it requires a certain level of 'ignoring' the obvious to assume the Reavers don't do things intelligently.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
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Sunday, October 16, 2005 10:40 AM

Since we seem to have gone beyond the Reavers’ origins and back to survival I’d like to address something mentioned before.

You can’t raise a lion to be a French girl, but you can raise a dog to be a cat. That’s an important thing, I think. You can’t raise a lion to be like a human because of fundamental differences in both biology and instinctual basis.

Even in spite of vast physical differences behaviors can be learned, I once saw a cat that was raised by a crow, and sure enough it acted like a crow, a vastly deformed flightless crow, but a crow none the less.

There are a lot of examples of things like this, people often like to talk about dogs and cats because, as far as I know, that crossover is most common. Reavers are people, children of Reavers would also be people. There is no physical gap, and psychological gaps are easily bridged.

Obviously not anyone raised in that way would act Reaver like, there are always dissenters, but I don’t think that a dissenter could last to maturity in that setting.

Perhaps some less nasty Reaver subculture could evolve, perhaps, but not quickly. At the time of Firefly and Serenity any raised Reaver, as opposed to infected or otherwise created from an adult, would be like the ones they were raised by.

When speaking of Reavers I use “raise” in the loosest of fashions, I mean only given enough help to survive and being immersed in the environment. (Out of curiosity what is the minimum possible assistance needed for a strong infant to survive until able to fend for itself?)

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I think that’s kinda unfair, chris was at least as hostile toward me as I was toward him.

Well that's a demonstration of my lack of social skills, nothing I said was intended to be hostile, though it obviously it came out that way.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 10:43 AM

Yeah, I am new, I think I said so.

Quote:

By citizen:
I think that’s kinda unfair, chris was at least as hostile toward me as I was toward him.

This is subjective. I had already replied to your posts to me, this wasn't how I read the exchange, but as I said, it's a purely subjective matter. I wasn't trying to make an issue of it.

Re: Comics, I said I hadn't seen them, if they're written by Joss that's another matter.

I'll respond to the psych thing but let me make this into two posts so the issue isn't confused.

On reaver kids, I suspect reavers probably reproduce by infecting other reavers with the prion. A curious argument my sister gave me on this was "why hasn't river infected the others" and I said "maybe she has" reaverism might take months to show up. Reaver Inara would be the most entertaining to watch, since reaver Jayne wouldn't be much of a change

I don't subscribe to the alpha male thing. I don't think it's safe to say for sure, but all theories are valid. It could be that the geeks who knew stuff might rule, possibly there would be no rule. If someone did rule, I don't think primal dominance would be the deciding factor, I think it would be raw evolution. Those most apt to expand the reaver group would be the leaders.

Remember that primal dominance exists in animals because of the constant sexual competition. Notice how in the absence of one gender, the primal dominance shifts to the power to do harm. The alpha boys at a boys school are not necessarily the ladies men, as they would tend to be in a coed environment. This part isn't theory, it's observation.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 11:01 AM

Okay, Psychology.

You sent me that post, on parapsychology. Before I say anything else, I have to tell you as someone who does not believe in psychology, I mean plain old psychology, selling me on the idea of parapsychology is going to be a tough sell. I'm a skeptic, at times an extreme skeptic. I'm the sort of person who does not accept the existance of God without proof. To me, Judeo-christian God is an absolute absurdity.

Don't get me wrong, some psychologists, such as Carl Jung, have given us great insights, Maslows hierarchy of needs isn't total garbage, but in general, I think that the idea, that people can understand complex behavior this way and actually do something about it borders on pure fantasy. Without absolute understanding of the chemistry and neurology involved, you'd be shooting in the dark. The myth of psychology has led to the religion of psychiatry.

Can these people ever do anything to help anyone? Sure, by random luck. But for the most part, if I can use an analogy, this would be like saying faith healers have a grasp on solving surgical problems because people occassionally got better.

Now, that said, on to abe.

Abe had people trying to kill him all the time. These people weren't aparitions, they were assassins, and they were trying to kill him all the time. It was on his mind a bit.

The study. Being prepared for exposure to something potentially reaverous, might be emotional. It's nothing at all unexpected to see, it's far from proof of psychic phenomenon.

Parapsychology is the lunatic fringe of psychology, which itself is a field of study I'm already tremendously skeptical of. Most cause and effect relationships studied and proven in the social sciences are bogus. Often they are nothing more than elaborate arguments usually set up by people seeking to forward a particular political point of view, and the broadcast that conviction upon the masses. So why wouldn't parapsychology be any different, only instead of a mainstream political idea, a fairly wacky notion.

I think chris said something about my telepathic ants post, I think that's a very long way from this. Telepathic and precognitive humans isn't something I support as an idea, or a possibility.

Here are some things that are possible:

The brain internally does a lot of subconscious reasoning. Stored in your brain are personality templates of people you have met, this is known. It's also highly likely that there are situational templates. These can then be played out and conclusions can be arrived at that to the untrained mind appear to be psychic. But no one is moving forks with their mind.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 11:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
On reaver kids, I suspect reavers probably reproduce by infecting other reavers with the prion. A curious argument my sister gave me on this was "why hasn't river infected the others"

River was never exposed to the PAX. She was made the way she is by medical operations and essentially torture. I'd say that's why she hasn't 'infected' the rest of the crew.
Further more River's been on the ship for more than two years (the movie takes place 18 months after the end of the series, and the series takes place over several months).
The guy in Bushwacked probably wasn't on that ship for more than a few days, so IF it's a prion element I'd hold that as proof that none of the crew, including River, have been exposed.

Quote:
Remember that primal dominance exists in animals because of the constant sexual competition. Notice how in the absence of one gender, the primal dominance shifts to the power to do harm.

That was pretty much what I was trying to get at. The fact that I think the Alpha Male would be the Breeder is much to do with Humans evolutionary past. Look at most social mamals. It's nearly always the Alpha Male who has dominance on the breeding. It is also nearly always the strongest and best fighter who becomes Alpha Male.
Even in modern human society it is the most assertive member of the group, and often the best 'fighter' who becomes 'leader' of the group. It is seldom (if ever) the most intelligent.
It makes sense to me, given Reavers aggressive tendencies, that the most aggressive Reaver, with the strength and abillity to 'back it up' would take control.
But that's just my opinion.

As for the Parapsychology thing, it would be great if you would post on that thread. I think we could have a lively and inspiring debate on the subject.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Even though I might, even though I try,
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Sunday, October 16, 2005 1:39 PM

Okay, I see an inconsistancy here. I have to disagree with something posted be DREAMTROVE.

Firefly has some element of fantasy in it because River is psychic. I think the implication is an increased state of mental awareness is psychic, rather than just appearing as such. I don't know if Joss believes this or not, but it's a more interesting possibility for the story than the other.

So, in firefly reality, sure, characters who are hyper aware are psychic. I don't know if this applies to reavers.

River not being exposed to the PAX we have no idea whether this happened or not, there's no reason not. Someone suggested that you have to ingest infected flesh. If this were the case, than River would not have passed it on, she hasn't been eaten by anyone on the ship. She wouldn't have eaten anyone, she might have been exposed to the PAX directly under controlled circumstances. In addition to infecting by ingestion, someone could infect possibly by direct blood contact. Has River bitten anyone and made them bleed or scratched them? This is all just speculation of course, but it's fun.

I'm beginning to think alpha male breeder rules as a matter of the minute, not as the result of long term evolution, which is what I was suggesting. Make everyone sterile, or change things in any way, and this would probably change. But the social dominance you described could take place.

What happens with this in gay society? Does anyone know? I'd be interested in hearing alpha male dominance among a completely gay population, if anyone would care to share any relevant experience.

As for parapsychology, I'd be up for a debate on the topic if it moved a little closer to what I call reality. I've seen all the fuzzy picture UFOs of the psychic world. I'd be interested in a) is any of this hypothetically possible outside of normal humans; and b) what mechanisms might this happen within normal humans, such as the active subconscious I was describing earlier.

I'm not interested in discussing it as it relates to Abe Lincolm, however. I'm only interested in discussing it as it relates to Firefly.

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 5:13 PM

I think it's time to name this thread BDT

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Sunday, October 16, 2005 9:31 PM

DRAMAKING

I think we (as in YOU guys) are missing one element that has been present in many of the episodes and the movie. We are not privy to ALL the information! We do not KNOW what is really happening all the time and the reports we get from the crew are often flawed.

With that in mind, consider how many of histories "savage" societies were treated. With fear and paranoia. Reports were exaggerated and fabricated.

This is not to say that the Reavers are not bloodthirsty, raving, cannibals. But be careful in your suppositions. Native Americans were all considered bloodthirsty savages at one point, as were most of the tribes of Africa and the vikings. Some tribes were indeed cannibals, but it did not stop them from having a society of sorts. This is not to say the Reavers are anything like the above mentioned races. Just look at the other "barbaric" races in Sci-fi history. All have a horrible, fear-inducing pathos that is barely overcome by heroics or the "you must be a monster to fight a monster" scenario. I do NOT support the "River is Reaver" theory either!

I think that there are too many analogies to the old west to ignore Reavers as a such as well. The represent what we fear: "rape, cannibalisms, desecration of the dead. The fact they were created by the "enlighten" society is ironic and borders poetic justice (when they are lead as a diversion for the Serenity crew).

So to answer your question directly, "How do Reavers pilot ships, them being insane cannibals and such?" because they NEED to. They need to be on the same playing field to be a threat. You can't just stick them on a planet that anyone can avoid. They need to be in your face.

Your real question should be, "ARE the Reavers insane?" Are they a by product or a mistaken mutation. Many people can act in the heat of anger with deliberate and calculating efficiency. And our society (American that is I don't know too much about other countries) is filled with brilliant yet insane murders (Ted Bundy as an example).

I think if the series continues (and I pray it does), the Reavers will play out to be more like vikings on PCP (to butcher a previous assumption). They can act in conjunction (albeit in a horrid state) and as they move in for the attack they are filled with a blood lust that defies "rational" explanation that explodes into the worst a human can imagine.

Or... I could have been drive3n insane by the fact that I just spent the last 2 and half hours reading this entire thread and it is now 3:20 am (which would explain why I even bothered to post in the first place)!

Cheers

THE Dramaing!

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Monday, October 17, 2005 2:03 AM

Quote:
(Out of curiosity what is the minimum possible assistance needed for a strong infant to survive until able to fend for itself?)

Infants have survived from a few months old by being nursed and looked after by other species such as nursing bitches (or even slightly older children) etc. However children as young as three have survived on their own despite pretty horrific lifestyles (the ghettos and death squads of South America for example) however they rarely thrive, their natural intelligence generally being used merely to continue surviving, and again co-operative behaviour becomes the norm' - after all while you have little to fear a couple of six year olds even armed with sticks and stones, an entire tribe of armed six year olds could succeed in killing (and eating) an adult, especially if said adult was lured into a trap first.

IF and I do say IF, children are surviving on the Reiver ships then they could very easily be clanning together from a very early age against the threat of adults to create no go areas in extremely inaccessible and hostile areas of the ships.

I'd suggest a quick read up about the sewer children of Brazil or the rookerys in Victorian London as possible examples.

Now that might make an interesting adverture - Serenity dead in the sky, their only chance of survival is to board an apparently dead Reiver ship and remove spare parts. however Kaylee finds a Reiver child and refuses to abandon her (a female child has a higher emotional value than a young male to most people) but then a rival child gang arrives and wants to destroy the last survivor of the juvie war... Ouch!

"Every heist, he's gotta start yelling my name..."

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Monday, October 17, 2005 10:15 AM

CLETUSMUSASHI

Unless we're granting unscientific radiation resistance, I find the possibility of Reavers breeding to be negligiable, unless either they have a nonradioactive home base somewhere or it's just Joss's bad comic-book science.. which is, unfortunately, the most likely possibility, but not an enjoyable one to fanwank, so I'll move on.
Have we seen any female Reavers? I haven't noticed any. Maybe there aren't any. Or, alternately, the Pax affects them differently. Perhaps Reaver society is matriarchal, with females flying the ships and making complex group decisions while the males just snarl and pounce whenever fresh meat is around. Perhaps the skin trophies that we always hear about but they don't seem to wear when we actually see them are just something they put on after the battle is won, as a sort of... I suppose there's really no UNdisturbing way to say this, but we are talking about cannibal serial killer rapists here, so presumably the overly squeamish have already stopped reading... intimate apparel. Want to score with that hot Reaver lieutenant? Pick up a nice bottle of wine, kill someone, and dress up in their skin.

I'll be in my bunk.

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Monday, October 17, 2005 10:31 AM

CLETUSMUSASHI

Or, for an alternate theory, what if the Reaver legend pre-dated the Pax? It's not uncommon at all for people to embrace strange archetypes when deteriorating psychologically. Jayne even made that "like the bogeyman out of stories" comment, and while it was such bad OOC dialgue that it made me cringe, maybe he wasn't speaking figuratively. Maybe Reavers really were a campfire story for decades or even centuries before people en massse started emulating them. Serial killers in 18th century France, for example, often believed themselves to be werewolves. Certain American Indian tribes had the Wendigo legend, which told of people forced by circumstances to abandon their humanity and become cannibalistic ogres. Or if you'd like a more contemporary example, how about when Gilligan got bitten by a bat and thought he was a vampire? If the "rules" for Reaver behavior were already established, I can see the same behavior being manifested by space-mad travellers, reverse-effect Pax victims, and the occasional driven- mad by- watching- Reavers survivor as well.

I'll be in my bunk.

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Monday, October 17, 2005 11:33 AM

Dramaking,

I agree entirely. That's why all of this is speculation. ie. one possibility: reaver is a prion. or reavers are empathic, river is a reaver or whatever. No one is saying, "Hey, I know the fact about reavers and it's XYZ." The fun thing about an unknown is rampant speculation.

Reavers are clearly the firefly old west equivalent of indians, but that doesn't mean they are indians.

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Monday, October 17, 2005 11:38 AM

... or the PAX could be a mislead, and the reaver-izer could be a parasitic organism that lives on miranda, and anyone who spends x number of years or months the could become a reaver, only for most settlers the PAX got them first.

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Monday, October 17, 2005 12:59 PM

IAMSPACECASE

In the series it is stated that River's abilities are hyper-awareness, they removed the part of her brain that allows her not to feel Simon,"She feels everything, she can't not". What intuition and "psychic abilities" are, could be argued, are they a realization of the subconcious. The genius child and the harnessing of the subconscious to have "superpowers" is a staple of sci-fi, i.e. one of my favorite reads This Alien Shore. Did the conscious develope to protect us from the subconscious. Most of the experminting was done in River's sleep, when River's subconscious was at the forefront. I'm taking some large leaps here, but we really know very little about the human brain, so it would be hard to ague any point about the brain. Things that we beleived to be true in the more developed physical sciences are being disproved all the time, let alone the half mythology of psychology and psychiatry is a "practice". Individuals spend many, many years going to school to learn how to control the human brain through chemicals, and they would like you to beleive that they know what they are doing. We like to fools ourselves into beleiving things inoder to protect our sanity. What happens if this was removed and we were brilliant already? Would this be insanity, by definition obviously, yes? Are River and the reavers similar yes. They both have something removed which allows us to survive in a society. Could the reavers survive as a society doubtful. If every invidual was ultra-aggresive to that point they would kill each other off rather quickly. Could they fly a ship most definately. Can you drive while intoxicated or on PCP? I have no evidence to support being able to drive on PCP and have never done PCP myself. There would have to be alpha-males, ect. in any group of animals. I would find it interesting to have an explination for River's miraculous recovery in the movie? Did part of River's brain heal it's self all of a sudden or did another part of her brain adapt to take over the function of the part that was removed? Exposing the Reavers for what they were to the public caused her to be healed? From what little I know of Joss I find it hard to beleive he would leave this big of a plot hole?

Imagination is more important than knowledge HA

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Tuesday, October 18, 2005 5:09 AM

Quote:
Unless we're granting unscientific radiation resistance, I find the possibility of Reavers breeding to be negligiable, unless either they have a nonradioactive home base somewhere or it's just Joss's bad comic-book science.. which is, unfortunately, the most likely possibility, but not an enjoyable one to fanwank, so I'll move on.

Do we actually know what type of reactors are supposedly used in the Firefly Universe? Fission or fusion or some hybrid form of reactor? And if fission using what isotope? U-235 is the most common used currently but in 500 years time?

The reality is that I don't know so I can't give a definitive answer re the effects, however if we assume its similar to today's Fission reactors this theory of Reivers all being sterile doesn't hold water (if you excuse the pun).

As the firemen who fought chrynobyl's U-235 containment breach discovered, personal survival after major exposure is remarkably short - I believe all those directly exposed died within 6 weeks. Yes they were probably sterile but who bothered to check.

Many of those living nearby (I spent some time in the city of Gomel in Belarus which suffered major contamination from Chernobyl thanks to prevailing wind conditions at the time) survived though many would die early from cancers and the accumulative effects of the contamination. However, despite the continuing high levels of background radiation (it was in the air, in the soil, their foodstuffs etc.) people were still giving birth... Same thing occurred after Heroshima et al.

Automatic sterilisation requires either major or long-term exposure to radiation, the type that kills the exposee within a few years at most and most of these Reivers have been around for what? About ten years?

Something doesn't add up if we are to automatically assume all reivers are sterile as a result of radiation poisoning. Sure most of the adults may be completely sterile now but they don't seem to be so ill and cancerous that they can barely move etc. Radiation poisoning sufficient to cause sterility would leave other disabling signs as well and would definitely affect their stamina.

Also what about children born earlier in the exodus? Before the radiation was sufficient to sterilise? What about children born downside who were affected by the Pax?

Whatever type of containment breach Joss was talking about on Reiver ships it certainly isn't an all out meltdown...

What might occur, as it did in Gomel and Heroshima, is an increase in the number of miscarriages and early deaths, a massive increase in childhood leukememia resulting in vastly reduced lifespans and possibly long-term genetic damage of the second generation but to rule out all births as a result is I think unrealistic.

So if some Reivers COULD breed, at least in the early years, have they?

I agree that we haven't as yet seen any female Reivers but homocidal maniac's are rarely celebate and it doesn't look to me as though there are sufficient raids on normal settlements to account for Reiver sexual satisfaction especially if they then kill and eat their victims.

So what's left? Female reivers onboard possibly as sex slaves of the Reiver Alphas (and thrown to his men when he no longer wants them); Female Reivers as equals possibly acting as the pilots and mechanics perhaps; or a male only Reiver society functioning as a sort of prison culture with same-sex rape occurring onboard? Reivers as Greek warriors on PCP?

What I definitely don't see occurring on Reiver ships is a celebate lifestyle.

If I get a vote (and this is after all just speculation at the end of the day) then I'd vote for Reiver females as equal members of the clan and I'd still vote for the inclusion of feral Reiver young...

Jayne.. 'I don' care if he's just a young'un Kaylee he's still an Ai ya Reiver an' he's tryin' to eat ma' gorram leg!!! BANG!'

"Every heist, he's gotta start yelling my name..."

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Tuesday, October 18, 2005 5:43 AM

I agree for the most part. I think some know a lot quite a bit more about the brain though. Psychiatrists in general, and even at the expert level, know dick about the brain. I have talked to many many. The people who know are researchers who work with mice. For those who don't know, a human is essentially a mouse for all practical purposes (human is a monkey, and monkey is an evolution of mouse.)

Removing the balance that makes us "normal" would not make us a genius. It can be done with drugs, temporarily. You can create a sense of much heightened awareness. It's important to realize that River was already a genius before they did this to her. We gather she was an einstein level genius.

We know what was done to her surgically because Simon can physically see it on the scan. He wouldn't necessarily know if anything else was done to her, say chemically.

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Tuesday, October 18, 2005 6:10 AM

I agree they wouldn't be sterile. I think they'd have mutant kids.

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Tuesday, October 18, 2005 6:13 AM

IAMSPACECASE

Quote:
The people who know are researchers who work with mice. For those who don't know, a human is essentially a mouse for all practical purposes (human is a monkey, and monkey is an evolution of mouse.)

Yes, gov. think tanks know alot more than the general public thinks they know. I know this first hand, but I'm not a psychiatrist or researcher. I was refering to the psychiatrist down the street in his office, but even the uber-geeks that have million dollar budgets to do research with are still stabbing in the dark and will be for many more generations.

Quote:
Removing the balance that makes us "normal" would not make us a genius. It can be done with drugs, temporarily. You can create a sense of much heightened awareness. It's important to realize that River was already a genius before they did this to her. We gather she was an einstein level genius.

I would say well beyond Einstein, they wanted a combination ultra-genius and ultra-aware. Remove the part of the brain that seperates the more "primitive" parts of the brain from the conscious.Give River access to her intuition, i.e. the part of her brain that observes evrything. I received the impression that they were stabing in the dark also and she was their only semi-success.

All I can say is I love this show.

It's my day off I'm off to see the movie again.

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Tuesday, October 18, 2005 1:44 PM

Wish I were off to see the movie again, that was tonight's plan, but I am still sick :( so I am in bed.

I meant that before they did this to her to make her a perfect agent, she was an einstein genius. Simon's commented on it before, and we saw the flashbacks.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 2:11 AM

Ah, seems the original script called for a female Reiver to participate in the town attack outside the bank vault. Now I didn't see 'her' in the film but possibly the script got changed but it definitely adds support to the idea of female Reivers as equals theory...

"Every heist, he's gotta start yelling my name..."

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 11:09 AM

CAT1620RD

I am obsessed with the Lord of the RIngs
so I compare the Reavers to the Orc-kai, they are able to make talk and stratagize so they obviously have some intelligence but that does not keep them from tearing eachother apart and eating eachothers flesh when they get angry, or hungry, or bored, or if the other one gets on their nerves.

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 7:29 PM

NCBROWNCOAT

I've seen the paradoxial effects of medicine myself.
That's why sometimes it takes tries of several different meds and doses in order to find out what works. Been there and done that with my daughter who has mild Asparger's Syndrome(Asparger's Syndrome-normal to genius level brain function with borderline autistic tendancies. Mainly problems interacting with other people socially. She is a A-B student when she applies herself and is happiest behind a computer keyboard. She embraces her geeekiness and was the one that introduced me to Firefly and Serenity).

The problem is that with the medicines we know of now require continous dosing in order to get the effects. Reavers must have some sort of the supply of the Pax or it must have changed their DNA.

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 12:52 AM

AERIN

Wow, I just found this thread and it's full of great ideas. Sorry my post is long, but I just read the whole thread.

1) I think relatively intelligent Reavers (enough to pilot ships and set traps) is scarier than mindless killers. I find Hannibal Lecter scarier than Jaws. I believe they are only REALLY aggressive around human prey, and that’s how they can function. I like the telepathic idea a lot, although there’s no evidence. Flesh-craving, rapist Borg.

2) I prefer the PAX explanation to the vastness of space driving folks batty. The Reavers seemed pretty concentrated around Miranda rather than randomly from every planet on the edge. Plus they all seemed to have gone nuts in just the same way. And what about the long trip out from earth? I think blaming the emptiness of space was partially an Alliance rumor and partially a projection of the fears and loneliness of space crews.

3) I love the prion idea! Although PAX was a chemical rather than a protein (something hydrochloride, so as a chemist I’d like to see the real name!), there are chemicals which can cause prion-like symptoms. Why not a chemical which causes some crucial protein to malfunction, creating a prion? In most people PAX screws this one important protein such that you lose the will to live, but in others it causes a slight misfold in that same protein and it’s now a prion which makes you crazy and can be spread to others. Of course, in humans prion diseases take years to develop and kill within about 6 months of the first neurological symptom, but that’s why I like science fiction! The best way to spread a prion disease is by direct exposure of your nerve tissue to infected nerve tissue (like brain surgery instruments), but consuming infected tissue would be a great way (dramatically speaking) to make new Reavers. What if Reavers eat normal people because they need a normal form of that protein to live? That’s a big vampire parallel. Based on Mal’s prediction of the Bushwacked guy’s becoming a Reaver I imagine he’s had a more intimate experience.

4) I’m against Reaver children. Somehow it makes Reavers less savage and scary to me. Plus, they rape people to death and live with a suicidal lack of core containment on their ships, so I just can’t see it. I think Reaver numbers are growing (Mal’s seen some converts and Reaver territory is expanding), but spreading a Reaver disease is way creepier to me.

5) I don’t think River is a Reaver, although there are some really good literary parallels there (intentional, I’m sure). As has been stated before, I think the Alliance was trying to make the ultimate Operative. Strong governments fear there own people more than anything else. I agree that the Alliance didn’t deal with the Reavers 1) so they wouldn’t draw attention to their mistake, and 2) because it keeps the rim worlds scared, dependent, and distracted.

One movie and 14 TV episodes? What a tease!

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 3:40 AM

PURPLEYIN

No reason why a protein can’t be hydrogenated, and chlorinated.

Also, might be to do with epigenics- the protein might methylate nucleosomes with behavioural genes. If methylating the glucocorticoid receptor genes can make a mammal introverted, who knows what could be done in 500 years.

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 3:28 PM

GIANTEVILHEAD

I don’t think the pax actually created the rage within the Reavers. The rage exists within us all but it’s just buried deep in our mind. The pax simply removed all of the Reavers’ inhibitions, reducing them to an instinctual level. The effects of pax probably wore off long ago but the psychological damage it has done cannot be repaired.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

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Monday, November 21, 2005 6:38 AM

PURPLEYIN

In a way methylating the nuclesomes would be like 'releasing the rage'- methylation simply prevents transcription of a gene that’s already there, it blocks a part of you. If the targeted gene function was to promote neocortical control, suppressing it would permanently (until the gene was 'switched on' again) remove inhibition. There would have to be some kind of pleiotropic effect, where the targeted gene had more than one terminal function, to explain the pack behaviour.

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005 2:36 PM