Serenity premise by Blackadder7

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Serenity premise

POSTED BY: BLACKADDER7
UPDATED: Monday, December 31, 2007 17:59
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Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:32 PM

Ok, so I've been thinking about this, let's see if someone can come up with a plausible explanation (other than 'suspension of disbelief' or 'then there would have been no movie').

One of the premises of Serenity is that the Alliance doesn't want anyone to know that they in fact created the Reavers. Since they clearly will go to great lengths to protect a secret such as that (witness the Operative obliterating Haven and killing anyone who's harbored Mal and crew before), why not just eradicate the Reavers? They'd be protecting the 'verse from mindless, raving, cannibal-killers, and then their 'secret' would be a non-issue.

So why DIDN'T the Alliance just wipe out the Reavers? It's not like they were hiding. They all congregated in the space outside Miranda, and given the state of their ships, they're pretty easy to spot.

Thoughts?

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:46 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

Cuz Reavers are

ing scary. You saw how badly they freaked the Operative out...

I don't think that being cautiously ashamed, or selectively ashamed, or in any way ashamed of who I am is any way to live my life.

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 4:00 PM

ANONYMOUS1

Quote:
Originally posted by Blackadder7:
One of the premises of Serenity is that the Alliance doesn't want anyone to know that they in fact created the Reavers. Since they clearly will go to great lengths to protect a secret such as that (witness the Operative obliterating Haven and killing anyone who's harbored Mal and crew before), why not just eradicate the Reavers? They'd be protecting the 'verse from mindless, raving, cannibal-killers, and then their 'secret' would be a non-issue.

So why DIDN'T the Alliance just wipe out the Reavers? It's not like they were hiding. They all congregated in the space outside Miranda, and given the state of their ships, they're pretty easy to spot.

Thoughts?

1. The Reavers were actually protecting the secret of Miranda.

2. If they killed all the Reavers, people would find out that Miranda was a beautiful colony with all these dead people who just lied down. Someone might figure it out.

3. The Reavers served a purpose of keeping the central planets in order. Better safe under the Alliance then eaten by Reavers. Stuff like that.

Remember when Mal said Try again on this very ground wiped clean. The Alliance might have just been waiting until the Reavers all died out (they were riding around without core containment) and then the Alliance would have cleansed Miranda and started over. It is a perfect planet. Has one moon just like Earth.

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 4:13 PM

BLACKADDER7

I had considered your points 1/2, and came to the conclusion that if you kill all the Reavers and clean up Miranda, there's no 'secret' to keep. It seems too reminiscent of the evil villain that puts the hero in a death-trap room and walks away (you KNOW the hero will escape every time). You leave such an awful 'secret' out there and just wait it out, someone's bound to find it.

I keep coming back to the hiring of the Operative to 'clean up the mess' regarding River, including killing Dr. Mathias, and it is inconsistent to me that the Alliance wouldn't just 'clean up the mess' of Miranda.

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 5:42 PM

PHYRELIGHT

Because exterminating the Reavers and fixing Miranda would cost too much money and manpower, so the Alliance decided came up with a more cost-effective plan: tell everyone that Reavers are only a myth and hope it goes away. It's supposed to be a fictitious example of how governments can be irresponsible in handling their mistakes.

"I swear, having you guys in my corner is like being friends with Zorro."
-Joss on us fans and our persistent reputation
Thanks, Joss!

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 5:53 PM

FREEBROWNCOAT

One other point: to destroy the Reavers takes military force. How can you keep a secret with all those people out there fighting? It's gonna get back home no matter what you do to keep it down.
All the other points are just as true.
'Course now that the secret's out, why not just go and wipe them out? May improve the Parliament's image too.

"Target the Reavers. Target the Reavers. Target everyone. Somebody fire!"

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 6:08 PM

PHYRELIGHT

Yeah, originally I didn't say anything about it, then I added the "and manpower" bit.

"I swear, having you guys in my corner is like being friends with Zorro."
-Joss on us fans and our persistent reputation
Thanks, Joss!

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 7:25 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Having key members of Parliament keeping a secret is one thing. The thousands of workers needed to clean up Miranda, they'd need to keep the secret, or just kill all the workers when they were finished on Miranda. Harder to keep those secrets.

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 7:41 PM

CHARLIEBZ

Maybe because Miranda occurred before just before the war. All the Alliance's resources were devoted to the war effort. Then, after the war, they just figured that if they had to fight the Reavers that would only draw attention to the situation.

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 7:44 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

another issue-- the Reavers are a great scare tactic. " Give thanks to your benevolent Parliament, government, and Army for protecting YOU against the Reaver menace. Just think of what they might do to your town or planet. The War against Reaver Terror must go on." ( Forgive me, a moment of RWED seems to have slipped in there...)

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Sunday, December 30, 2007 10:13 PM

FIREFLYFANDOTME

My thought is that the Alliance does not get rid of the Reavers because it helps them control and/or lessen the combined strength of the fringe worlds. Those living outside Alliance territory could never gather arms against the Alliance if they are too busy fighting or guarding themselves against the Reavers. The Reavers pose a formidable threat to the those similar to our BDHs but certainly not to the Alliance

Your thoughts?

-fff.me

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Monday, December 31, 2007 6:25 AM

CHRISTHECYNIC

My thoughts have mostly already been said:
1 Cleaning up Miranda without raising eyebrows would be impossible. How does one clean up 30 million bodies without anyone wondering why they died?

Remember that the operative seems to be as loyal as they come (er... came) and they wouldn't even tell him about it. Where are they going to find enough workers more loyal than the operative to clean up 30 million dead bodies?

2 Even if they did clean up Miranda the question would still linger, "What happened here?" since it's a perfectly good world with nothing wrong with it and no one lives there.

3 The Reavers never leave any survivors with minds intact, if people didn't do things like lock themselves in vaults no one would ever know what was happening. Even with people locked in vaults, and an entire Alliance cruiser seeing the Reaver's handy work in Bushwacked there is still no proof of their existence by the time of Serenity. They clean up after themselves because, though they leave bodies, they never leave witnesses (at least not sane ones) and they never left anything that had been able to be presented as proof.

4 They also clean up after Miranda. Everyone who came close to spotting Miranda died until no one came close to Miranda for fear of death. That means that no one needs to know about Miranda, not even the operative who was, in effect, heading up the cover up.

It really is simply more efficient to let the Reaver's keep the secret for them. It took eight people seeing Miranda to get the truth out there. Eight. Think about how many people would have had to see it if they tried to clean the place up because the Reavers were no longer keeping it a secret for them? Any one of those people could have potentially discovered and revealed the truth.

They could have killed those people, but then the people killing those people would have also known a deep dark secret of the Alliance (that they killed a lot of people who worked on Miranda) so then what? Kill the people who killed the people who could have learned about Miranda?

As far as we know no one in the Alliance outside of Key Members of Parliament knew about Miranda, that's why it remained a secret for so long. If they'd taken actions, like killing the Reavers, that would have necessitated an active cover up of what happened there the secret wouldn't have lasted nearly as long.

-

In closing, the way they decided to keep it a secret was flawless until some idiot put Key Members of Parliament in a room with a psychic and even then it probably would have been kept if not for an unforeseeable string of events. Were it not for that one mistake their method would have worked and only they would know what happened.

If they had killed off the Reavers, and thus destroyed the thing protecting Miranda from the public, either they would have needed an active cover up in which case everyone involved would be exposed to the truth (though there is a slim chance no one involved would make use of that exposure), or they would have had to leave Miranda as it was, sitting there waiting to be discovered. Either way it is less efficient, leaves more people in a position to know the truth, and has a lower probability of success than what they actually did in the movie.

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Monday, December 31, 2007 11:10 AM

ZZETTA13

A lot of good points have been made.Here's some of what I think is going on.Somewhere in the BDM Mal says "There's a universe full of it(the PAX)." This tells me that it isn't only Miranda or the quadrant where Miranda is found that has reavers.The powers that be know that it is everywhere. My thoughts are that they are well aware of the problem, they just haven't any idea of a solution.Not the first time a government had to deal with Frankenstein's monster. The body of this new solar system has been infected. You can't just start cutting off body parts. Soon you'll have no arms or legs.There's a lot more of this story needs tellin. Another couple of moives and a new seires may do the trick :)
Z

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Monday, December 31, 2007 11:43 AM

RIVERFLAN

Everyone has really good points. I think that the Alliance thought the damage was done, they might as well not make it worse and try to salvage the situation.

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Monday, December 31, 2007 5:59 PM

FREEBROWNCOAT

Cannot find where Mal says the Universe is full of it. Perhaps something about the Parliament?

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