GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Speculations/theories on Reavers and the role they play.

POSTED BY: CANDALL
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 12:25
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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 6:21 PM

CANDALL


Now, I'm not 100% certain that this is the place for theories, nor am I certain that there is one, but I take to corrections well, so please let me know if there is, and this isn't it.

On to business. I have some theories as to the truth of Reavers which I'd like to share. I have not seen any leaked scripts from Serenity, nor would I care to read them if I had. I am not claiming this to be knowlege, I am claiming it to be what I consider a pretty good guess.

I think that Reavers are past versions of River. In other words, they're the Blue Sun Group's precursor (or even concursor) experiments... and they've either escaped or been abandoned.

I have some info to back me up, too, though some of it could be chalked up to reaching for straws.

1. The first and most obvious (and straw-reachiest) one I'm going to point out is the similarity between the name "Reaver" and the name "River." Could be Joss's play on their connection which we're to look back on later and say, "huh."

2. Mal pointedly referred to River as a "reader" in the episode "Objects in Space." Another similar word, and could be the reason behind the savages' names. Someone referred to them as the "readers," and the listener mis-heard. This is assuming that "reader" is a word commonly interchanged with "psychic" in the Firefly universe.

3. Reavers are insane. This is a point that's driven home many times. We know someone else who's insane too, though. My guess is that it's not isolation that drove the Reavers mad... it's the madness that caused them to be isolated. The use of their brains as "rutting playgrounds" probably caused too much stress, and they caved. Perhaps that's why Blue Sun is selecting highly intelligent subjects like River nowadays. Maybe their minds can handle it... better. Maybe the Reavers were transients and criminals.

4. Reavers, for their savagery, are remarkably organized and good at what they do. Could easily be a psychic link among them. They're also good at setting traps. There are no trap-setting classes off in the voids of space, to my knowlege, nor are there piloting schools. It could be that they've been transforming people along the way (a la "Bushwhacked,") but it could also be that they've been trained in tactical ops, or already knew how to set traps due to their speculated criminal pasts.

5. River is absolutely terrified of them. This is the girl who shot three of Niska's men without even looking. She sees them coming miles away (though admittedly, she sees MOST things coming miles away), but she absolutely goes into total meltdown whenever Serenity is near Reavers. The only other people she's that afraid of are the Blue Sun Group. To my mind, that's another loose -- but present -- connection between the two entities.

The guy who got "turned into" a Reaver in "Bushwhacked" is sort of a "Joker" in the hand that I showed you. In keeping with my theory, there could be two reasons for his existance... one being that the Reavers actually performed the surgery on him and really did MAKE a Reaver out of him, the other being that he wasn't really a Reaver at all... just, as Mal implied, imitating them in a serious bout of post-traumatic stress disorder (a disorder which was briefly explored in the episode "Safe," for what it's worth).

So. Is this worthy of the honor of a "maybe so?" Did I miss anything that could be construed as another clue? Did I say something shockingly inaccurate? Did I leave the oven on? Who shot Kennedy? Do you know the muffin man?


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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:09 PM

PURPLEBELLY


Quote:

Originally posted by Candall:
5. River is absolutely terrified of them.


In Bushwacked River appears to be empathetic with the victims rather than the Reavers.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:12 PM

PURPLEBELLY


Quote:

Originally posted by Candall:
The guy who got "turned into" a Reaver in "Bushwhacked" is sort of a "Joker" in the hand that I showed you.


I would agree with you that the Survivor is a victim rather than a Reaver.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:25 PM

PURPLEBELLY


Quote:

Originally posted by Candall:
4. Reavers, for their savagery, are remarkably organized and good at what they do.


Elsewhere a parallel has been drawn to pirates of the seventeen/eighteenth centuries, who also sustained a degree a technical expertise, for their time, on the fringes of society. If your violence produces income , it will at least get you to tomorrow and even encourage recruits from the hopeless My kind of life don't last too long, Preacher

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:26 PM

CANDALL


Quote:

Originally posted by PurpleBelly:
In Bushwacked River appears to be empathetic with the victims rather than the Reavers.



Appears to be, yes. You are, of course, correct. But it's still ambiguous enough for me :)

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:29 PM

PURPLEBELLY


Quote:

Originally posted by Candall:
it's the madness that caused them to be isolated.


It has been suggested elsewhere that Reavers eat human flesh because it is concentrated source of the cumulative food additives that Blue Sun uses for control.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:33 PM

PURPLEBELLY


Quote:

Originally posted by Candall:
But it's still ambiguous enough for me :)


I certainly don't want to discourge you, please run it as far as it goes

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:39 PM

CANDALL


Quote:

Originally posted by PurpleBelly:
Elsewhere a parallel has been drawn to pirates of the seventeen/eighteenth centuries, who also sustained a degree a technical expertise, for their time, on the fringes of society. If your violence produces income , it will at least get you to tomorrow and even encourage recruits from the hopeless My kind of life don't last too long, Preacher



Wow, great rebuttal! This is going to be a really fun discussion for me :)

Although, my thought is that the connection to piracy is broken in that, from what we've seen, the Reavers aren't necessarily looking to turn any sort of profit. They didn't attempt to take anything in terms of cargo from the transport ship they hit in "Bushwacked," including the much-needed food. And that statement can work with either the supplies that Mal and Zoe found, or the bodies they left hanging from the ceiling when they could have easily dragged them onto their ship and eaten them later.

Their drive to kill seems purely animalistic. They destroy life, eat their kill, and then move on. I just don't buy the idea that this all happened merely because they were isolated. I think there's more to it, and I'm ready to admit that my own theory could be, and probably is wrong... but I'm sticking to it, because it still makes sense to me.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:47 PM

KOHAN


Quote:

Originally posted by PurpleBelly:

It has been suggested elsewhere that Reavers eat human flesh because it is concentrated source of the cumulative food additives that Blue Sun uses for control.




eeeww


"If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of Hell, a level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater."

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:48 PM

PURPLEBELLY


Quote:

Originally posted by Candall:
They didn't attempt to take anything in terms of cargo from the transport ship they hit in "Bushwacked,"


We don't know what they took, because it's gone? We know from the remaining logs that there is something on board that requires special reception, but IIRC we don't know if that is the genseed, or something no longer on board.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 9:04 PM

CANDALL


True. My impression was, however, that the ship was so tightly packed with people, that what was left was all that could be crammed in with them.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 2:59 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.


Quote:

Originally posted by Candall:
Quote:

Originally posted by PurpleBelly:
Elsewhere a parallel has been drawn to pirates of the seventeen/eighteenth centuries, who also sustained a degree a technical expertise, for their time, on the fringes of society. If your violence produces income , it will at least get you to tomorrow and even encourage recruits from the hopeless My kind of life don't last too long, Preacher



Wow, great rebuttal! This is going to be a really fun discussion for me :)

Although, my thought is that the connection to piracy is broken in that, from what we've seen, the Reavers aren't necessarily looking to turn any sort of profit. They didn't attempt to take anything in terms of cargo from the transport ship they hit in "Bushwacked," including the much-needed food. And that statement can work with either the supplies that Mal and Zoe found, or the bodies they left hanging from the ceiling when they could have easily dragged them onto their ship and eaten them later.

Their drive to kill seems purely animalistic. They destroy life, eat their kill, and then move on. I just don't buy the idea that this all happened merely because they were isolated. I think there's more to it, and I'm ready to admit that my own theory could be, and probably is wrong... but I'm sticking to it, because it still makes sense to me.



The behavior of the Reavers in Bushwhacked puzzled me on several points. Why did they leave some of the bodies of the cargo ship behind hanging up if they eat the flesh and wear the skins? Why would they take some, but not all? Seems they would want to store the kill, or was the abandoned cargo ship to act as a food cache, hence the booby trap. The trap could have been to protect their food and perhaps trap other food.

Why did they leave the young man behind? Did he hide and saw & heard what was done to the rest of the crew, driving him insane, or was he left behind intentionally? Could the bodies left behind have been "food" for him? Did they mean to return for him once he fully turned?

Why were there no signs of a struggle? The ship's log did not indicate any sort of trouble, and Kaylee said that the engine was working fine, so the ship was not disabled. So why did the people on the ship not put up a fight? Surely some of them were armed. Did the Reavers use some sort of ruse to dock w/ the freighter and gain access? If so, that implies that they are not merely single-minded beasts, but thinking, devious hunters.

Why was that one body (the one that bounced off of Serenity's cockpit glass) floating around in space? Was it a Reaver or a pilgrim? Was the person forcibly ejected from the ship, or did they commit suicide to avoid being taken by Reavers?

Lots of unanswered questions. I wonder what Joss will cover in the movie as it has been said that there will be Reavers in the movie.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."


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Thursday, June 17, 2004 4:25 AM

CARDIE


I can't answer many of those questions either. I did assume the floating body was one of the settlers who threw himself out an airlock rather than face Reaver torture.

The other big question is how Mal knows so much about Reavers.

Cardie

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 4:32 AM

MANTICHORUS


'Reave' is an archaic (really, really old) term for taking something by force.
Therefore, a 'Reaver' would be someone who takes things by force. Just thought I'd add my own two cents...

-------------------------------------------
"BADGER: You think you're better than other people.
MAL: Just the ones I'm better than." -Shindig.
-------------------------------------
"MAL: Gotta say, doctor, your talent for alienatin' folk is near miraculous.
SIMON: Yes, I'm very proud." -Safe.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 4:54 AM

CYBERSNARK


Hmm. . . So couldn't a reader also "take" something by force?

Remember what River said about being able to kill Jayne with her mind. Maybe the Reavers (or at least the "turned" victims) are "walking dead."

Some psi-enabled "Queen Reaver" mind-rapes them, ripping out everything in their head --effectively killing their brains' higher processing capabilities. The sub-cortex, OTOH --the reptilian sub-brain that handles things like feeding and sex drives-- that remains intact (either the mind-rapist can't reach it, or there's just nothing useful there).

The victims regress to animalistic monsters (raping victims and wearing their skin as some subconscious attempt to regain what was taken from them), while the "Queens" now know (and feel) everything that the victims knew --like how to set traps and operate ships.

I like this idea. . .

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 5:05 AM

MANTICHORUS


Now, that idea seems a little disturbed to me Cybersnark... (Not implying a damn thing.)

Mind you, it is an interesting theory (or possibly even a theorum. (Nods like he knows what he's talking about...))

N.B- It's spelt 'theorem', NOT 'theorum'. Ruttin' idiot.

-------------------------------------------
"BADGER: You think you're better than other people.
MAL: Just the ones I'm better than." -Shindig.
-------------------------------------
"MAL: Gotta say, doctor, your talent for alienatin' folk is near miraculous.
SIMON: Yes, I'm very proud." -Safe.
-----------------------------------------------
Writing at: [url] http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=520496 [/url]

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 5:27 AM

THEFERRYMAN


My thought is that Reavers are normal humans. Not necessailry savageas. More like barbarians. They hit transport ships, people who cannot stand up against them. Barbarians weren't stupid (they crushed Rome). Merely a lower level of civilization.

Eating flesh and wearing skins? They might. They didn't find then everyone on board (16 families, I believe).

That entire set-up seemed like a trap to me (which is why the Alliance destroyed it I think).

Lasytly, River was scared of them. Who wouldn't be? Inara had her little death serum ready and Jayne almost shits his pants at the thought of them.

"No power in the 'verse can stop me."
-River

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 5:28 AM

THEFERRYMAN


My thought is that Reavers are normal humans. Not necessailry savageas. More like barbarians. They hit transport ships, people who cannot stand up against them. Barbarians weren't stupid (they crushed Rome). Merely a lower level of civilization.

Eating flesh and wearing skins? They might. They didn't find then everyone on board (16 families, I believe).

That entire set-up seemed like a trap to me (which is why the Alliance destroyed it I think).

Lasytly, River was scared of them. Who wouldn't be? Inara had her little death serum ready and Jayne almost shits his pants at the thought of them.

"No power in the 'verse can stop me."
-River

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 6:06 AM

DAVEY




We do know that at least one Reaver ship had some kind of magnetic grapples, and was fast enough to outrun a Firefly lovingly maintained by the best mechanic in the verse, not to mention being flown by an ace pilot, so running down a colony ship, modified for a one shot trip should be a piece of cake compared to that.
The fact that the ships log didnt show any signs of trouble could just mean that they were too busy trying to get away, I suppose.
I always thought that the corpse they ran into was a suicide, killing himself rather than letting the Reavers take him, but when you think about it this could be an indicator that the settlers werent armed, after all if you are going to kill yourself and you have a gun handy you would use it on yourself rather than go through the lengthy death involved in spacing yourself.

As for my theories about the whole question of Reavers I'm starting to wonder if they are going
to be as bad as our imaginations have made them, I'm toying with the idea that they are going to be the Firefly version of Native Americans.You may scoff but when you think about it at one point people believed them to be bloodthirsty, inhuman savages nothing more, sound familiar?
I imagine that people coming across a wagon train full of settlers in the Old West that had been hit by a war party would see pretty much the same results as we saw on the settlers ship, after all skinning someone is only an extension of scalping them!The stories told would only grow more lurid with each retelling until the legend of the Reavers is born.
Of course this is probably rubbish and I'm on the wrong track altogether!


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Thursday, June 17, 2004 6:23 AM

VIVAFIREFLY


I agree that River and the reavers are probably connected some how. But there is one thing no one ever mentions about the reavers. Reavers existed in the X-men comic books years before they were ever in Firefly (something I found out by accident a few months ago). When I saw this I was intrigued so I started looking up a few things about them to see what they were.
The x-men reavers were cyborgs created by the government to kill mutants. I think that the firefly reavers might also be cyborgs created by the government (or the blue hand men) although I don't know what their purpose was. Because this is only a theroy I don't have any proof but I do have a few other things that lead me to this conclusion.
First (and my strongest point) is the man in bushwacked. After Mal says that he's crazy and that he would try to become a reaver. You only get a few shots of that mans face and none of them are really clear but at one point it looks like he's stuck pieces of metal onto his face. Now if he's doing this while imataing the reavers then theoretically the reavers also had metal on their faces (or were made of metal like the cyborgs).
There is also the fact that Joss Whedon is a X-men fan (I think he even wrote a x-men comic book). And since their not widly known it wouldn't shock me if he changed them a bit and put them in firefly. Plus it wouldn't be the first time Joss Whedon had robot-people in one of his shows.
I have other points too but most of them don't have much proof and one is kind of disgusting and mostly psychological.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 6:32 AM

SHINYSEVEN


1. There's a Faulkner novel called The Reivers, so it's probably an off-hand literary reference among other things.
2. I really hope they don't have Reavers in the movie in the sense of actually showing them--they're much scarier not being shown.
3. Good point about "savages" and "scalping"--I suspect that actually nobody really knows very much about Reavers, the stories just keep getting scarier
4. Psychoses manifest themselves differently in different societies--Reavers could be what they have instead of, e.g., ritualistic serial killers

"Sadistic crap legitimized by florid prose"

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 7:13 AM

JCOBB


Quote:

Originally posted by TheFerryMan:

Inara had her little death serum ready



I seem to remember watching the commentary on it, and, if I remember correctly, that wasn't death serum. Merely something they were going to elaborate on later in the show, (an addiction perhaps?) but never got the opportunity to. (I think I remember one of the commentators saying that it actually worked out well because many people that it was a suicide kit.

I don't care, I'm still free.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 7:21 AM

CANDALL


I get the impression that Mal has actually seen Reavers before, as he does understand their patterns and characteristics. I also get the impression that he hasn't been very close to one, since the idea that he walks around being all alive is made pretty clear as well. He knew that the man who'd been "turned" would start to defile his flesh, just like the Reavers do. The "defiling" appeared to me like tribal decoration. Lots of piercings with heavy objects.

If I'm right, and the Reavers are psychic, then they could have easily taken the entire ship without much of a struggle since they knew where the people were and the people had no idea where they were.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 9:08 AM

HOTPOINT


My theory would be a bit less esoteric than some.

Reavers are colonists/explorers who found themselves cut off from supplies and eventually resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Over time, and partially to obtain a bit of legitimacy to their lifestyle, the eating of human flesh and the keeping of trophies became a cultural ritualistic thing (hence the wearing of human skin).

Even once other less gruesome sources of food became available, thanks to the rising number of terraformed worlds, the Reaver "Blood Cult" was too established to end.

They're religious fanatics!



...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 9:54 AM

HIGHIRON02


My theory is somewhat more simplified.

Alliance = Rock

Reavers = Hard Place

Serenity is somewhere in the middle

We got you partially surrounded.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 10:37 AM

GUNRUNNER


Quote:

Originally posted by Hotpoint:
My theory would be a bit less esoteric than some.

Reavers are colonists/explorers who found themselves cut off from supplies and eventually resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Over time, and partially to obtain a bit of legitimacy to their lifestyle, the eating of human flesh and the keeping of trophies became a cultural ritualistic thing (hence the wearing of human skin).

Even once other less gruesome sources of food became available, thanks to the rising number of terraformed worlds, the Reaver "Blood Cult" was too established to end.

They're religious fanatics!



...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First



I've been thinking the same thing only that they were military folk on very remote outposts or people from one of the colony transports that left Earth-That-Was and got lost.

Now if you watch Bushwhacked you will hear Kaylee say "The Port Thrust is gone that’s what making her spin." So the transport ship was missing a thruster so it couldn't maneuver away or out run the Reaver ship. Also I think that the Magnetic Grappler is the same tech as the Junker's Net in OMR, Mal in Serenity "If they get a bead they'll lock us down" Book OMR "Some of the newer ones will just hold you" sounds a lot alike to me.

Oh and is just me or was Jayne loading that double barrel shot gun in Serenity to kill him self, it seems to me that if he was going to fight the Reavers he would have loaded one of those SMGs or automatic pistols that are next to his bunk.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 10:49 AM

LUPINADDAMS


Er, guys... the name Reavers is a little older than X-Men.

The origin of the term Reavers (or, Reivers to use the Gaelic preferred spelling) is from the Borders of Scotland, referring to a group of feuding families and clans who carried out cross-border raids, cattle rustling, kidnap for blackmail (according to some sourses, they coined the term) and other shenannigans from the early 14th to 16th Centuries. Oddly, their code of honour and fierce independance from both Scotland and England make them far more like the Serenity crew than Joss's Reavers!

A Google search will give you a lot of nice variations on the resulting legend.

(I only know this as one of my true loves is from the Borders herself!)



"You are what you do."
Andrew Vacchs

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 10:57 AM

PURPLEBELLY


Quote:

Originally posted by GunRunner:
it seems to me that if he was going to fight the Reavers he would have loaded one of those SMGs or automatic pistols that are next to his bunk.


And his hands might be steadier. Of course those who see Jayne as Hero rather than a blustering bully will try to tell you different ...

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 11:08 AM

PURPLEBELLY


Quote:

Originally posted by LupinAddams:
Er, guys... the name Reavers is a little older than X-Men.


Not to forget their role in the Ulster Plantations, with reverberations to this day ...

The names of some of the Riding Clans are familar over the Atlantic, too; Nixon, Johnson, Graham, Armstrong.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 11:32 AM

PIERSNICA


Reavers.

I'm sort of fascinated by reavers. My take on them; they're just humans cut loose at the fringes of space and went mad. I like that they've not been shown, and I hope they never show one; scarier that way. They're clearly the "injuns" in this modern space-western, but I think what they're supposed to represent is the innate depravity present in humanity.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 11:55 AM

KOHAN


This is a bit of a strech, but what if... and I mean what if, the Reavers arn't all that bad? so far, "no one" has ever seen a reaver and lived to tell the story, all we know are from rumors.

So, my thought is that the "Reavers" is really an underground movement against the Blue Sun (funny how the Japanese Flag is the Red Sun). Maybe they were ex-experiments that got away in time? the whole ruthlessness is just a smoke screen so that other people won't dare to look to closely at what they actually do. To convert people into joining thier cause against the Alliance? (please don't ask me to explain the bodies and the skinning, maybe it's done by something else... let's say nine-by-nine, feet of pine?)

or perhaps an on going experiment with the blue sun? River is the mind experiment and Reavers are the physcial experiment? and the the skinned body left behind is part of the clean-up?

Of course this would mean that our fabu captn, (who's rarely wrong) is wrong about the Reavers, and it doesn't explain how Mal and Zoe seem so certain about their Reaver info...

oh well... just a thought

-------------------------------------------------------------------
"You know, they say mercy is the mark of a great man.

Guess I'm just a good man.

Well, I'm all right.
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Thursday, June 17, 2004 3:48 PM

LJOSALF


Quote:

Originally posted by davey:
...after all skinning someone is only an extension of scalping them!


And the Native Americans learned scalping and a lot of other torture techniques from their European allies circa the French and Indian Wars. And I do mean they learned from both sides of that conflict. We have the Alliance officer saying disgustedly that he hadn't seen torture like "that" since the war. Begs the question, I say!

Also, as far as being Reaverized goes, don't you think the shock, brutality and horror of the Battle of Serenity Valley and its aftermath (not to mention 6 years of war) might have had a similar effect on the combatants? Mal says the survivor hasn't actually left the bushwhacked ship, that he's stuck there by what he's seen and experienced, that he has absorbed it, become it. In the cut scene from Serenity, Zoe pretty much says the same thing about herself and Mal and Serenity Valley.

No, Mal won't be whole until he can leave Serenity (Valley) behind.

Ljosalf

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

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 4:05 PM

GUNRUNNER


Quote:

Originally posted by Kohan:
So, my thought is that the "Reavers" is really an underground movement against the Blue Sun (funny how the Japanese Flag is the Red Sun). Maybe they were ex-experiments that got away in time? the whole ruthlessness is just a smoke screen so that other people won't dare to look to closely at what they actually do. To convert people into joining thier cause against the Alliance? (please don't ask me to explain the bodies and the skinning, maybe it's done by something else... let's say nine-by-nine, feet of pine?)



If your right I wonder if the group that helped get River out might be them. Maybe even whom ever Private Declan Everton in Dead or Alive was working for might be them.

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Thursday, June 17, 2004 11:47 PM

MANTICHORUS


Quote:

Originally posted by Highiron02:
My theory is somewhat more simplified.

Alliance = Rock

Reavers = Hard Place

Serenity is somewhere in the middle

We got you partially surrounded.



Very concise.

-------------------------------------------
"BADGER: You think you're better than other people.
MAL: Just the ones I'm better than." -Shindig.
-------------------------------------
"MAL: Gotta say, doctor, your talent for alienatin' folk is near miraculous.
SIMON: Yes, I'm very proud." -Safe.
-----------------------------------------------
Writing at: [url] http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=520496 [/url]

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Friday, June 18, 2004 10:56 AM

RYSH1


My theories in regards to the reavers.
1.They originally were troops in the alliance army and very likely were at the battle of sernity.
2.When Rations ran low they resorted to canibilism.
3.They were sentenced by Book who was a military judge at the time to a prison ship or planet/moon/asteroid in a remote region of space.
4.They were tampered with (in a cruder fashion than River)either before the war to augment them as troops or after the war as expendble test subjects.possibly both.
5.At some point they overthrew whatever/whoever was containing them and now raid in an ever expanding radius from their base.
6.Their behavior is simple in that their reputation is important to them and their survival.They would not be the first civilization that lives by aquiring a nasty reputation for themselves so noone seeks them out or confronts them.They do what they must to survive.This includes canibilism both for sustenance and reputation and justifiable vengence for being abandoned/betrayed by the alliance(in their minds).
7.They have a civilization because otherwise they would no longer exist.Mindless cannibilism is not a sustainable culture.It requires an us and them philosophy. It also requires spareing at least some of their prey that meet the qualifications for becomeing one of them to renew numbers.
It requires special treatment for breeders and may lend importance to River as to what status she would have amoungst them if they were altered by the blue sun corp.
8.Somewhere they have a leaderor a communal mind to some degree, because mindless barbarians do not pilot spaceships nor find or track anything in space..they would all run around on their little piece of space till there was one left who had a full belly.But interesting that they find the ship when someone tries to link send a signal to federation (mole first episode).It is out of federation answer range but perhaps in range for them to track.
9.To sum it up Reavers are organised/civilized(by their own terms). They cultivate their reputation purposefully and methodically and give the powers that be the excuse that they do not need to deal with them because eventually anyone doing what the reavers do,cannibalism/travelling without shielding/self desacration without purpose(once again a rep thing) would just burn out so why expend resources on a dangerous and costly proposition of taking them out.
Fear is also the largest adrenaline boost there is...imagine if you were feeding off somone elses...great perk for a soldier..hmmmmm


Rysh

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Tuesday, June 22, 2004 12:25 PM

RYSH1


would like any feedback on theories.

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