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Originally posted by ljosalf:
Ah, yes, as far as operating without core containment, Wash tells us it is suicide but doesn't elaborate. Who knows, operating without core containemtnt might up your energy output and redline your engine making you go really, really fast. But it might also increase your chances of blowing up at the same time. Kinda like the difference between riding bareback and with a stiff, heavy saddle. Bareback you get a real good feel for the horse but you risk falling off more readily than if you use the saddle. 'Course if you ride so well you're apt to be mistaken for a centaur, you might not think fallin' off was all that likely. Might be contemptuous of those as employ saddles.

See, it might not have anything to do with radiation poisoning....

Ljosalf

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)

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Originally posted by LeMat:
While I think your possible explanation for the origins of the Reavers is well thought out, Zoid, I think it is wrong.
I think that from a dramatic stand point, you are very right that the Indians in older Westerns are similar to the Reavers. I personally think of the Reavers in terms of the boys (good, civilized, English boys) in Lord of the Flies and the Vikings or some other raiding culture

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Originally posted by zoid:

Perhaps -- and this is a stretch -- the new worlds upon which the Earth settlers performed terraforming and established colonies were not uninhabited? Perhaps some form of hive mind microorganism inhabited one or more of the planets. When these come into contact with human life, they invade the body and eventually take over the mind of the victim. Hence the delay btween finding the survivor and his 'conversion' into a Reaver.

While I'm shooting in the dark here, what if the 'hive' don't care about radiation poisoning, because a human body is just a vehicle to them, and their use of it wears it out pretty quickly anyway. They only need to make sure they get a fresh supply of humans, some for food and some to supply new bodies for the ones they're burning out. This would explain Reaver raids of human colonies, the stated fact that their territories are spreading, and why sometimes they would attack, others not, depending on whether or not they "are hungry".

...Or just needing a new set of wheels?

What if Reavers aren't the 'Injuns'... What if the native life form of the local region of space -- inhabiting men's bodies -- is?

P.S.
I know this theory may be reminiscent of "Ghosts of Mars", but then again, so was the physical appearance of the one 'converted' Reaver we've seen...

Respectfully,
zoid

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"The Seneca were also great conquerors, highly skilled at warfare, and having been given guns by the Dutch colonists, were fierce adversaries to any other tribe who tried to resist their takeover. One of the distinctive features of the Iroquois warriors' appearance was their hair, which they kept shaved in "Mohawk" fashion, and their heavily tattooed bodies. Iroquois warriors were also believed to have participated in ritual cannibalism, and were also know to torture their prisoners.

"Ironically, Iroquois politics were the most sophisticated in all of the North-American Native cultures; the Seneca, with the exception of one tribe (The Tonawanda), having adopted a democratic form of government after years of questionable leadership by Chiefs who had come into their positions out of lineage rather than virtue. The Seneca women were in charge of elections, and decided who was to become tribal leader, Leaders usually held their posts for life, but could be removed if they became corrupt or proved to be incompetent; the Seneca political system also included a constitution, which is believed to have been the model for the American constitution."

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Originally posted by zoid:
Still, the broad-stroke treatment that Native Americans have received in Westerns belies their actual history, in which they saved the European settlers from starvation at Plymouth Rock (see also, "Thanksgiving") and Jamestown (which repaid the debt by later becoming the first port for African slaves in the continental US).

I was just hoping that JW was coming from a different angle on the whole 'Injuns' thing, that they were only engaging in savagery to protect their territories; but then again, he included slavery in Firefly, too...

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Joss has made the Reavers into the old time "Injuns" who you couldn't put into a movie or TV show nowadays. He's made them pure bad guys, unremorseful and unredeemable, but also unilateral with no racial, cultural, or religious ties to their barbarism.

They're simply the darkness that lies within mankind with no exceptions.

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Originally posted by embers:
I'm pretty sure the whole 'raping to death' aspect kind of refutes the concept of cannibalism to honor one's ememy...

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Personally I think Joss just wanted to come up with something vaguely terrifying, something much worse than the Alliance could ever be.

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