River as a Weapon by zzetta13

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River as a Weapon

POSTED BY: ZZETTA13
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 9, 2009 02:20
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009 2:00 AM

River the Weapon

Good morning fellow band of browncoats. This past weekend being a holiday weekend in the US like a lot of people I had some of my family come back into town. We had a get together at my sister’s house and she, my brother and I had a little discussion about Firefly and Serenity. Since I am more the “browncoat” in the family they asked me when there would be more from the Joss verse? All I could tell them was to keep “holdin” because I have a feeling something will come about later.

All this talk about Firefly did get me to thinking about the Joss verse again though. Some of those thoughts ( or ideas) concerned River and her use as a weapon.

Thought 1) River is not “Supergirl”. Even with all her abilities River can not fly. At least not without a spacecraft. She can’t bend steel with her bare hands and she can’t melt a wall with x-ray vision. River is although…..a super weapon. She has an amazing ability with guns and firearms ( shown in eps. WAR STORIES & SERENITY the BDM) and she can kick a$$ better than Bruce Lee. I almost get the feeling in some cases though that River has to have had physical contact with an object before she can get a grasp on how it works.

Thought 2) River and the Vulcan Mind Meld. Although River the weapon had incredible abilities that would make a Navy Seal or British Commando sit down and cry I do believe that her importance to the Alliance wasn’t because of these. No, my thoughts are that her importance lay in her talent to “mind read”…. or “semi mind read” if you will. Just think, what better weapon could someone have than to be able to know what someone else was thinking. You could sit across a table at a conference and know what your opponent/ competitor really had on their mind. Unlike war were you know the other guy’s out to kill you the “Compromise Table” and the human animals ability for civilized deceit are much harder to question.

I don’t think that River was the only Alliance detainee with these abilities, or even that she was the best. She may have been in the top 100 or maybe the top 10. In any case she seemed to be a threat to them and the Alliance did not want to let her go unbridled.

Thought 3) Blue Hand guys. Were the Blue Hand Guys robots? Were they Terminators with blue gloves on their hands? How can a living, breathing soul be so cold….so heartless? The ironic fact about this is that Summer played a Terminator herself. Nope, I don’t think the Blue Hand guys were robots. They were just cold hearted men programmed and drained of every human emotion……like a fisherman can bleed a shark. Although she was unlike them River did understand them.

These are just some of the things that on occasion run through the ol’ brain pan…..helping me to understand Joss/ friends and where the verse may have been headed, also it keeps FF current in my mind.

Z, out

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Tuesday, September 8, 2009 2:15 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Wow. That's much to go over on a Tuesday morning after a 3 day weekend.

Might be the Blue hand guys had some similar procedure that River had. Maybe they were prototypes, and River was the more advanced version ? No idea.

But just to add my 2 cents, w/ respects to River being a weapon, it fits right into something Spike said, I think to Buffy. ( I think it was her, might have been Faith - can't recall )

Spike had killed not 1 but 2 Slayers in his day. Each time, they had made a fatal mistake, and it cost them dearly. Each time, while they were fighting w/ Spike, they were reaching for a stake, knife, or what ever, and lost focus on their opponent. They were reaching FOR their weapon, and had forgotten one simple rule.

THEY were the weapon . Not the object in their hands, but they themselves were the instrument of destruction.

River certainly seems to understand.

The T.Rex they call JANE!

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Tuesday, September 8, 2009 2:56 PM

KINGEICHOLZ

No i don't think she was better then Bruce Lee.Lee was stronger and faster Lee's striking speed from three feet with his hands down by his side reached five hundredths of a second a little slower then mine. Lee could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks I prefer to use grains of sands for this.But i think if Summer would take Kung fu she has enough skills to become very good at it I'm basing this of the fact she had very little training and yet she looked like she's was doing it for years.

everybody was kung-fu fighting

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Tuesday, September 8, 2009 4:44 PM

AERIN

zzeta13-

Some great points to think on! I think River also would have been a tremendously useful weapon due to her opponents' tendency to vastly underestimate her abilities. She looks small and fragile and you just want to protect her from the world! But, in fact, you'd be the one needin' protectin'. I think she would also have easy access to a lot of places your ordinary Operative couldn't go. After all, she got on Serenity.

I'm just messin' with that last point. I don't really think the Alliance allowed River to escape in order to make her a sleeper agent (yet!), since when she was activated in the BDM she was destructive, but not particularly useful due to a lack of direction.

Imagine if the show had played out for several seasons before rushing on the the BDM and River had periodic "activations" where she reported back to the Alliance without herself or the crew realizing what was happening! She would be a perfect spy if the Alliance was worried about old rebels like Mal. Joss could have done amazing things with a story arc like that. Damn FOX!

Thanks for stirrin' up the ol' brain pan!

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Wednesday, September 9, 2009 2:20 AM

ZZETTA13

AURAPTOR, Kingeicholz & Aerin

I’m glad that you guys have posted up.

AURAPTOR

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Wow. That's much to go over on a Tuesday morning after a 3 day weekend.

Might be the Blue hand guys had some similar procedure that River had. Maybe they were prototypes, and River was the more advanced version ? No idea.

But just to add my 2 cents, w/ respects to River being a weapon, it fits right into something Spike said, I think to Buffy. ( I think it was her, might have been Faith - can't recall )

Spike had killed not 1 but 2 Slayers in his day. Each time, they had made a fatal mistake, and it cost them dearly. Each time, while they were fighting w/ Spike, they were reaching for a stake, knife, or what ever, and lost focus on their opponent. They were reaching FOR their weapon, and had forgotten one simple rule.

THEY were the weapon . Not the object in their hands, but they themselves were the instrument of destruction.

River certainly seems to understand.

Very good observations and I agree with every point that you made.

Kingeicholz

Quote:
Originally posted by KingEICHOLZ:
No i don't think she was better then Bruce Lee.Lee was stronger and faster Lee's striking speed from three feet with his hands down by his side reached five hundredths of a second a little slower then mine. Lee could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks I prefer to use grains of sands for this.But i think if Summer would take Kung fu she has enough skills to become very good at it I'm basing this of the fact she had very little training and yet she looked like she's was doing it for years.

everybody was kung-fu fighting

Actually I was being a little satirist with the Bruce Lee comparison. The observation was like……here was a small girl child, the most unlikely crew member of Serenity to be a bad ass and yet she was. It seems ironic that in the beginning of the FF episodes the secret that the Tams were hiding was not that River had witnessed a crime that was committed by parliament or that she overheard someone in a powerful position talk about a secret weapon but that the secret was that she were the weapon herself.

Quote:
Originally posted by Aerin:
zzeta13-

Some great points to think on! I think River also would have been a tremendously useful weapon due to her opponents' tendency to vastly underestimate her abilities. She looks small and fragile and you just want to protect her from the world! But, in fact, you'd be the one needin' protectin'. I think she would also have easy access to a lot of places your ordinary Operative couldn't go. After all, she got on Serenity.

I'm just messin' with that last point. I don't really think the Alliance allowed River to escape in order to make her a sleeper agent (yet!), since when she was activated in the BDM she was destructive, but not particularly useful due to a lack of direction.

Imagine if the show had played out for several seasons before rushing on the the BDM and River had periodic "activations" where she reported back to the Alliance without herself or the crew realizing what was happening! She would be a perfect spy if the Alliance was worried about old rebels like Mal. Joss could have done amazing things with a story arc like that. Damn FOX!

Thanks for stirrin' up the ol' brain pan!

A lot of good observations Aerin.

Yep maybe River was a more advanced weapon over the hands of blue guys. She showed she had the talent for it. Another reason I thought of this was because in the last episode “ OIS” Jubal Early to me was showing some of the same talents as River. Had he also had Alliance training? Wish we could have had more time to find out.

Z

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