As much as I love the movie and am looking forward to the TV series once it arrives... by Whiplash4ever

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

As much as I love the movie and am looking forward to the TV series once it arrives...

POSTED BY: WHIPLASH4EVER
UPDATED: Monday, January 29, 2007 11:05
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VIEWED: 4669
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Saturday, January 27, 2007 7:54 AM

What's the deal with the Reavers? Has Joss ever really adequately explained their role? I understand the basic premise of how they came to be through the movie Serenity, but why are they still around? I'm baffled as to why the Alliance lets them just hang out and raid the outer planets whenever they feel like it without consequence, but they go to extreme lengths to recover River to keep the secret of their existence and how they came to be. Why do they just hang around the planet that spawned them, only sending out raiding parties to bring back the fresh meat? Why did Mal have to fly straight through them to get to Miranda when he could have just flown in from the other side of the planet undetected? It's the only hole I've come across in his otherwise flawless world.

Whip

____________________________________________
Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 7:57 AM

JLIN13

to answer your question about Mal having to go through the Reavers to get to Miranda, well it wouldve been incredibly hard to go around the planet due to teh fact that planet is on the outstretches of the solar system

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 8:02 AM

WHIPLASH4EVER

Quote:
Originally posted by jlin13:
to answer your question about Mal having to go through the Reavers to get to Miranda, well it wouldve been incredibly hard to go around the planet due to teh fact that planet is on the outstretches of the solar system

So you're saying it's sort of like a bed up against the wall? You can't get to it but from the one way? That doesn't track well for me.

Whip

____________________________________________
Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 8:13 AM

YINYANG

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

He couldn't have flown anywhere fast enough. They were being followed by the Operative, River was going even more nuts, Book had croaked, and going around the giant band of Reaver territory would have been very time consuming. Besides, Mal was a man on a mission; it was almost as if he had to do it then, or never.

Edit: Why does the Alliance keep Reavers out there? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe they don't know a way to get rid of them; maybe they're afraid of the monsters they created. Maybe they just don't care about all the people that die.

Quote:
Why do they just hang around the planet that spawned them, only sending out raiding parties to bring back the fresh meat?

I dunno. You'd have to ask a Reaver (or Joss) to answer that question.

There isn't a whole lot known about Reavers because it makes them scarier (one of the cast or Joss said something to that affect, I think, in one of the commentaries).

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 9:13 AM

EVILDINOSAUR

Good questions. I'm guessing the Alliance hasn't done anything to get rid of them because maybe they can't for some reason or another. Or I just had a random thought, maybe since they really only effect people on the rim, they don't really care, they consider it a way of getting rid of the remaining browncoats, the majority of which im sure are living out on the rim.

As for why they stay around Miranda, it could be that they're very territorial and they believe the planet is theirs, so they stick around it to defend it and kill anything that comes near.

I also have a theory as to why Mal had to go through them to get to Miranda, I think it's reasonable to assume they don't just stay on one side of the planet, they're probably positioned on all sides of the planet, which would go along with my previous theory of being territorial, they don't want to leave a whole side of the planet unguarded.

These are just my theories that I came up with on the spot though. The only real answers can come from Joss.

"Haha, mine is an evil laugh."

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 9:23 AM

PADDY

The alliance would have to acknowledge the existence of the reavers if they decided to wipe them out which would mean accepting that they had made a mistake. Something that they were shown to be totally against throughout Serenity. Remember in bushwacked where that commander didnt believe that the reavers existed, it is easier for the alliance to pretend that the reavers dont exist than do anything about them.

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 9:24 AM

GEEKMAFIA

They wouldn't be just on one side of the planet, there's no reason for it. I'd say they're floating around on all sides orbiting it. Mal going around to the other side of the planet wouldn't have made a difference.

When it comes to their staying around miranda, I'd say it's strength in numbers. if they all club together they get safety and can go get "food" whenever they need, if they all head off on their own they'll spread themselves too thin and would be easily taken out one shipsworth at a time by some of those big alliance battleships.

As for why the alliance doesn't just kill them, There's a couple of reasons I can see. Firstly there's a lot of them, an awful lot, and they're quite good at the fighting so you can't really send in a battalion to fight them one on one. The only way to really clear them would be to use some sort of massive scale weapon to blow them away en masse. That isn't a good way to hide the fact that you variously killed/ mutated a whole planets worth of innocents now is it? And like you said they were going to great lengths to keep that bit a secret.
The other reason is that they mightn't really want them gone. I know it sounds weird but think about it, they want to convince people to join the alliance and enjoy all the safety that comes with that, what better way to keep people on the bed than by having a boogie man under it? reavers became a mythical danger, the big bad wolf that'll get red riding hood if she strays too far from their path. They create the fear that the alliance can use to their advantage. And the alliance are sneaky guys I wouldn't put it past them to be using even the reavers for their own means.

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 9:40 AM

SIRI

Yes, those are good questions. Most of the questions that arise, people who've been long-time Browncoats seems to be able to find some reasonable answers.

I'm wondering if the Reavers aren't another one of those pieces of the story that Joss planned to fill in later - if the show hadn't been cancelled. They obviously mutated in bizzare ways - they run their ships so they are constantly exposed to radiation which apparently doesn't kill them but just makes them more vicious and hungry. The Alliance may have decided to just let them control that part of the sky - the boogeymen of the verse - to scare folks and keep the remnants of the Browncoats dodging them.

As to the chase for River to keep the secret - I don't see that as quite the same thing as allowing the Reavers to continue to exist. As someone else stated above, it appears they are territorial - at least to some extent. They appear to be almost guarding Miranda - so who the hell wants to go there and go thru them. They may also have a limited lifespan - due to the mutation and radiation - they may not be able to reproduce so except for when they take a ship or a colony and due to trauma to the people they terrorize who might "turn Reaver" they could be limited in number. The Alliance might be biding time till they are gone. Maybe their days are numbered which would be another reason to up the anty to catch River before the planet is exposed and consequently the story.

Only Joss knows for sure - and like Book - he don't have to tell us - unless we get Firefly back on again one of these days.

"I keep hoping..."

Siri

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 11:21 AM

STAKETHELURK

Any thorough effort to clean up the Reavers would have forced the Alliance not only to admit their existence but also likely lead to the realization of the Alliance's complicity in the genocide on Miranda, which would de-legitimize their entire claim to power. The Alliance leadership post-Miranda is left in an ugly position: on the one hand they have an army of cannibals prowling the edges of inhabited space, preying on the already loosely held fringes of Alliance territory, but confronting the Reavers would mean in all likelihood admitting to their creation and the genocide on Miranda, which could potentially destroy the Alliance.

Ultimately, the "key" members of Parliament decided it was better to pretend the Reavers don't exist and let them nab the occasional Rim ship or settlement than risk the Alliance itself, trying to destroy them. After all, the Reavers don't attack Alliance ships. The leadership was probably left hoping the problem would go away.

As to the larger question of the ultimate purpose of the Reavers, I do feel that Joss started out with more to say about them and with more of a role for them that isn't fully explored. Additionally, Whip, the nature and origin story for the Reavers seems to change somewhat between the series and the film--perhaps to condense it down into something more digestible in a two hour film rather than the intended 44 episodes (two seasons). Or perhaps both explanations are meant to be accepted. The series in particular suggests that Reavers do be have in ways that seem predictable, even culturally-dictated. The notion of a Reaver culture is both terrifying and intriguing (and also helpful in explaining how they could operate complex equipment), which I suspect was something else Joss wanted to explore, along with Mal's unusual degree of knowledge regarding the Reavers' behavior.

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 5:40 PM

WHIPLASH4EVER

So, basically, other than the guess work of long time fans trying to fill in the holes, Joss hasn't really gone out of his way to explain the whole Reaver phenomenon. I don't have the series yet, so I have nothing to answer my questions other than the movie (which I just finished watching again a few moments ago) and the information those of you have through watching the FF series. I guess I can go along with the reason Mal went straight through them was because they surround the planet (I hadn't thought of that because they only point to the screen between Haven and Miranda, but it's reasonable to think that they would guard the planet on all sides). The rest of it though, I still struggle with however. I know I'm taking some of the fun out of the movie when you over analyze stuff like this. You can do it to almost any movie made. I just can't help myself though - LMAO. Miranda is the planet furthest out on the rim as I understand it. The Reavers numbers, given the information gleaned from the Research Rescue officer, 10% of 30,000,000 is what... 3,000,000 right (correct me if I'm wrong there, math is not my strong point). Three million Reavers. Mad men who, even though now mad, are still human and able to do the same jobs they did prior to becoming exposed to the PAX. So far, I can buy that. No holes. However, can they breed? It's been twelve years, surly time has taken many of the Reaver population down. The number may not be in the millions, but who knows, a couple 10,000 seems reasonable given their lifestyle. Without breeding, maybe, as Siri suggests, maybe the Alliance is just waiting them out. The idea that by making a full scale attack on them would force the Alliance into admitting their mistake is another commonly given response. I have trouble with both. Firstly, even if they Reavers will eventually die off, why would Parliament want evidence of their mistake floating around any longer than necessary? Given the governments responses here on earth, government is always slow to admit wrong doing, I find it hard to believe that has changed just because they moved from here to there. Governments are still governments. Leaving the Reavers out there to ravish the outer rim just exposes them unnecessarily. They could send a huge compliment of warships out there and rid the system of their mistake, and who would be the wiser. It's the farthest planet out. No one around but Reavers, who would all die. The common man would never have to even know about it, or don't you think the government capable of a cover up - LMAO

Anyway, I realize these are questions only Joss can answer. I was just looking to hear from you fine folks if maybe he had answered them in the TV series or some interview I missed because I'm so late to coming to the party.

Whip

____________________________________________
Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong

http://www.myspace.com/whips_world

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 5:48 PM

OPERATIVE1985

Quote:
Originally posted by Whiplash4ever:
What's the deal with the Reavers? Has Joss ever really adequately explained their role?

Joss probably would of explained them a little more in depth if the series wasn't canceled and the movie had a sequel. He cant exactly continue the story without a medium to do it through. Its hard to make assumptions or complain about flaws when we only have 14 episodes and 1 movie. The whole world is very incomplete and will probably remain that way.

"I already know you will not see reason" - The Operative

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 6:08 PM

WHIPLASH4EVER

Quote:
Originally posted by Operative1985:
Quote:
Originally posted by Whiplash4ever:
What's the deal with the Reavers? Has Joss ever really adequately explained their role?

Joss probably would of explained them a little more in depth if the series wasn't canceled and the movie had a sequel. He cant exactly continue the story without a medium to do it through. Its hard to make assumptions or complain about flaws when we only have 14 episodes and 1 movie. The whole world is very incomplete and will probably remain that way.

"I already know you will not see reason" - The Operative

Agreed

Whip

____________________________________________
Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong

http://www.myspace.com/whips_world

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Sunday, January 28, 2007 7:13 PM

RHYIANAN

Actually, it wasn't 10 percent of the population that turned reaver, it was a 10th of a percent, so there's even less than what you estimate.

Another reason that mal didn't go to the far side of the planet instead of going straight through is that the ships don't travel faster than the speed of light (Joss said that somewhere, don't entirely remember where). It would take too long to go around, plus, as was previously stated, they probably were surrounding the planet.

I'm a leaf on the wind

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Sunday, January 28, 2007 7:22 PM

CINTYA

Perhaps the Alliance WAS doing something to get rid of them, maybe River was just the first success in a line of secret super-soldiers meant to keep the Reavers under control. Don't forget either that the Alliance ARE just people and that if they fought a way against the Reavers anybody may have discovered their dark origins and leaked it to the rest of the Verse.

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Monday, January 29, 2007 11:05 AM

WHIPLASH4EVER

Quote:
Originally posted by Cintya:
Don't forget either that the Alliance ARE just people and that if they fought a way against the Reavers anybody may have discovered their dark origins and leaked it to the rest of the Verse.

True, but isn't that happening anyway with the Reavers raiding the planets on the outer rim? If the Alliance allow it to go on, isn't it going to leak faster than if they send in the troops?

Whip

Whip

____________________________________________
Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong

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