Hands of Blue + Playing with Brains = Reavers? by TenthCrewMember

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

Hands of Blue + Playing with Brains = Reavers?

POSTED BY: TENTHCREWMEMBER
UPDATED: Friday, March 18, 2005 11:05
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Sunday, October 10, 2004 5:21 AM

TENTHCREWMEMBER

Could you please just make it stranger? Stranger. Odder. Could be weirder. More bizarre. How about uncanny?

Something I mentioned on our local Firefly list as it just *popped* into my brain

...

What if Reavers aren't simply crazy men on the edge of space...what if they were projects of the Hands of Blue, much like River is, except they were "failed" projects (and when I say failed I mean either truly a mistake, or simply a project that "no longer exists").

River/Reaver, hmmm.

Makes sense why the Alliance is always quick to dispel the notion that "Reavers did it", especially given how many people "know" of them.

CILANTR

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Sunday, October 10, 2004 5:51 AM

SPOOKYJESUS

This could work.....

Their brains have been fucked with so they're reverting back to a more feral state.

Since they're all psycic/telepaths any one in their proximity get their own brains caught up in the evil brain buzz and turn feral their own selves.

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Tuesday, October 12, 2004 8:24 AM

CHEYENNECM

I've felt for a mighty long time that the Reavers were a Blue Sun project gone awry. Or perhaps even intentionally loosed.

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Friday, February 11, 2005 9:36 PM

BLUEBOMBER

I notice no one's responded to this thread in a while. I think it's a fascinating question, so I'll try to re-open the discussion, if y'all don't mind.

I do think the Reavers were likely spawned by Blue Sun. They were probably failed experiments - though I don't know why Blue Sun would release them instead of just killing them. River, possessing natural talents and a gifted mind, was probably in the same experiment/project/mission/whatever, but she fared better than the Reavers due to her superior intellect.

This would explain why River is able to sense the Reavers before anyone else (see "Serenity II," "Bushwhacked"). She has a common link with them. Had Simon not ripped her out of the Academy, she wouldn't have turned out like them, but much more evolved than any ordinary human. She's only crazy because her programming is incomplete.

The Reavers' programming is also incomplete. However, they are far worse off because, again, their will is too weak to endure whatever torture Blue Sun put to them.

Assume the Reavers are a creation of Blue Sun, and Blue Sun is some commercial extension/entity/subsidiary/partner of the Alliance government. I think that it's interesting how the Alliance, which represents order, structure and discipline, and the Reavers, the epitome of chaos and madness, can have so much in common. To Mal and River, at least, the two might as well be the same.

DJ

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Friday, February 11, 2005 11:25 PM

THEGREYJEDI

I have to disagree. You often hear tall of people who once belong to a civilized society going ape-snot due to isolation. Have any of you ever been camping for a week or so? There are some people that you just start to hate. These are civilians, not trained military. So these people, settlers, are stuck on this hunk of worthless moon with little or no help or supplies. For years. Decades. No contact with the Alliance. Weeks and months from the next closest world. Over time, these settlements, the people in them, devolve into madness. It's almost like they went so far out, they became tainted by their distance from humanity, but the vast emptiness of space. So they go mad. Crazy psycho living by impulse cannabalistic mad. It might have started as simple as one remote moon as severe food shortages. So the biggest and baddest start killing off the weak for food. Then it's only them. And instead of devouring each other, one takes the notion to grab a ship and go. And they do. And it's months, maybe years that they've been at this cannabalistic, rape pillage plunder burn stuff, and it gnawed and gnawed and gnawed at their souls, their consciences until nothing was left but raw bone. Pure beast, no humanity. So they went. And it spread. They'd leave the one behind. And the only way to survive was to become. And it spreads.

River can sense them because the sheer power of that much raw viscera makes a potent stench, so to speak. She's got senses we don't understand, so she can feel the unmitigated corruption and evil the way we feel the wave of heat from a gas explosion or the bone-deep chill of a icy wind.

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Friday, February 11, 2005 11:46 PM

SOUPCATCHER

I completely agree with TheGreyJedi. (I guess that means I completely disagree with the earlier posts...

- Okay, I'm confused already).

I would be very disappointed if there was any tie-in between Blue Sun/River and the Reavers. One of the reasons I think the Reavers are such a scary presence for those out on the rim is the whole "there but for the grace of God go I" factor.

They're the ultimate extension of man's inhumanity to man, brought on by pushing the envelope just a little too far. That humans can get that way, all on their own, is what's scariest.

---------------------
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Saturday, February 12, 2005 12:19 AM

TLACOOK

I was told my post said something by saying nothing so I deleted it.

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Saturday, February 12, 2005 5:40 AM

TENTHCREWMEMBER

Could you please just make it stranger? Stranger. Odder. Could be weirder. More bizarre. How about uncanny?

Well, TLA, that was a lot of nothing you just said.

I am glad to see this thread got revived, and that there are other viewpoints as well as ones that agree.

Personally, I think the fact that the character is named River is a subtle indicator to her connection to the Reavers, however distant it may be. River - Reaver. Too close to be coincidence, in my mind. So to get back to something someone stated earlier about why if Reavers were a failed project, did they let them go...perhaps they escaped. Ate the people who made them, stole their ship(s) and bam! They are now a spaceborne threat.

Let's look at this with a logical progression:

The Alliance decides the system is too big to logically control effectively as a governing body, yet being government, they won't give up that power. They commission a project, in secret, to begin on ways of controlling people.

Scientists, working for Blue Sun build a facility way out on the rim when they begin this project because, simply stated, if anyone knew, that would be bad for arguably the largest provider of goods and services to the civil worlds. Not to mention they've probably done other work for the Government that people do and don't know about (military vehicles, weapons,supersoldier drugs (performance enhancers), protien bars...)

It goes south in a hurry. Something they did goes wrong, wholesale fashion. It escalates quickly, too quickly, and everyone is killed by the "project" and for whatever reason, no message or signal is, or can be sent.

By the time anyone gets there to investigate the situation, the "project" is no where to be found, only dead scientists and one missing ship. Everything is cleaned up, data collected, and it is brushed under the carpet. The project, as it was ends there, and plausible deniability can begin.

However, after a few years of researching the data, someone decides they have a better way. They build the Academy and restart the project in a slightly different fashion. Instead of the "expendable" lab rats whose brains failed to handle the reprogramming, they go for the genius children of the future, honing and cultivating them. (Possibly Jubal Early was among them, but that is speculation to a whole new level!)

Meanwhile, the Reaver project runs loose in space, attacking settlements and ships in the ass end of the system, where the Alliance doesn't feel the need to spend resources, and therefore aren't directly exposed to the threat...though it probably has happened and they simply cover it up and deny it exists. "Do you know how many times I've heard 'Reavers did it'?"

Reavers also show that, despite their feral nature, they are intelligent enough to
a) fly ships (Serenity, Bushwhacked)
b) set traps (Bushwhacked)
c) stalk a ship instead of attacking to see if it leads to more food (Serenity)
d) leave a sole survivor most likely with the intent of spreading their madness (Bushwhacked)
e) herd their cattle(people) (Bushwhacked: all those bodies locked in one chamber and no evidence of violence anywhere else? They coerced them all into one location and then descended on them like wolves on sheep in a pen...perhaps they have an unconcious telepathic ability to project fear so people do not fight back. again new speculation)
f) perform rituals (Bushwhacked: the bodies all tied up together in one chamber probably has signifigance; Serenity: Zoe talks about how they rape, eat and most importantly, sew the skin of their victims into their clothes)

So savages they are, but mindless zombies, not so much. They probably have a pack mentality, and will even feed off their own if food gets scarce...but then again the Alliance just keeps sending (encouraging) people out to the rim, so dinner arrives with free delivery.

Just some food for thought. Feel free to agree/disagree.

(as an aside, who else noticed that the transport in Bushwhacked belonged to the same TG Freight company that was Badger's (see the sign as Mal enters his office in Serenity) on Persephone?)

Cilantro!
TCM

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Saturday, February 12, 2005 9:06 PM

BLUEBOMBER

Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:

I would be very disappointed if there was any tie-in between Blue Sun/River and the Reavers. One of the reasons I think the Reavers are such a scary presence for those out on the rim is the whole "there but for the grace of God go I" factor.

They're the ultimate extension of man's inhumanity to man, brought on by pushing the envelope just a little too far. That humans can get that way, all on their own, is what's scariest.

---------------------

Why do you say you'd be disappointed? Do you think that, were it not for Simon, River could end up being just as dangerous - or possibly even more dangerous - as the Reavers?

DJ

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Saturday, February 12, 2005 11:08 PM

SOUPCATCHER

Quote:
Originally posted by BlueBomber:
Why do you say you'd be disappointed? Do you think that, were it not for Simon, River could end up being just as dangerous - or possibly even more dangerous - as the Reavers?

DJ

In advance, I should warn you that this entry is sponsored by two-buck-chuck

(I should've learned by now that, after years spent acquainting my liver with Budweiser, trying to throw wine into the mix would just mess everything up)...

I have no problem with River ending up as dangerous as the Reavers. I just have a problem with introducing Blue Sun (or any outside agency) as the cause of the Reavers. It would be a cop-out, in my mind.

To me, the Reavers are terrifying because they represent a state that anyone could attain. If the only reason that people are Reavers is because they've been experimented on by an outside agency then all you have to do to avoid becoming a Reaver is avoid that outside agency. If, instead, people became Reavers because their minds could just not handle being out in the black then everyone is a potential Reaver.

What's more terrifying: being in a situation where insanity is the only defense mechanism, or being forced to become insane through experimentation?

I'll accept whatever Joss decides to do with the Reavers in the BDM, it's his baby after all. I'll go see it as many times as I can afford. But I think that coming up with an outside agent as a cause for the Reavers dilutes their power.

Of course, it could also just be the wine talking

Quote:
Originally posted by TenthCrewMember
f) perform rituals (Bushwhacked: the bodies all tied up together in one chamber probably has signifigance; Serenity: Zoe talks about how they rape, eat and most importantly, sew the skin of their victims into their clothes)

The first time I saw the episode, that hanging collection of bodies reminded me of slabs of beef in a freezer. I just assumed that the Reavers had left a little stash. If they ever got hungry they could come back and snack a little. Anybody caught in the boobytrap was just gravy.

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Sunday, February 13, 2005 12:25 AM

BLUEBOMBER

Well said, Soup, even if it is just the liqour talking.

The idea that anyone, under the extreme circumstances of prolonged isolation in space, could end up like the Reavers is indeed unsettling at best, and the notion puts things in perspective. But even if that were the case, how does it account for the spread of their affliction? Consider "Bushwhacked." Although the derelict ship was re-fitted for deep space, there was no indication of how long the Survivor had been out in the black. And when Mal tells the Commander that his [the Survivor's] only way to survive was to become one [a Reaver], I have a hard time believing his statement - unless They possess a psychic ability to dominate another person's will, not unlike River's ability to perceive the deepest thoughts of others.

And besides, if The Alliance/Blue Sun had nothing to do with the Reavers' creation, they would have no reason to deny them (remember the Commander destroys the derelict at the end of the episode, most likely as a cover up).

Random question: What name would you give to the Reaver disease? Reaver-ness?..."Reaver-itis?" (gimme a break; it's 3:00 in the ruttin' morning!)

DJ

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Sunday, February 13, 2005 8:35 AM

THEGREYJEDI

The kid, a kid, teenager, not fully formed mind, not an above average teen, just a normal teen, watched as the reavers raped, ate, and mutilated his entire family. And his friends. And his neighbors. He was forced to watch. I can't even begin to fathom how traumatizing that must have been. To watch as these beastial men in clothes made of human flesh descended upon everyone he knew and RAPED them, tortured them, ATE their flesh, and took chunks of their skin and sewed it into their clothing. That will make ANYONE go nuts. The only way to survive is to become.

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Sunday, February 13, 2005 9:08 AM

OLDFAN45

I started reading this thread with huzzahs and confetti-tossing for 10's Blue Sun Hypothesis. Soup's eloquent formulation of the alternate interpretation has me throttled back to a pleased-sounding "Yeah!" since I think Soup is right about this: It's far, far scarier to me to think that Reavers are just "that way" because it's innate in humans to be "that way."

We're doomed by the content of our character, or whatever evolutionary pressure put into our genes before we thought up civilization anyway. And the whole "floating larder" idea is just flat chilling. You're a scary one, Soup; get busy on some fanfic from the Reavers' POV, please!

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Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:09 AM

the movie is not the Series. Only the facts have been changed, to irritate the innocent; the names of the actors and characters remain the same

Quote:
Originally posted by BlueBomber:
And besides, if The Alliance/Blue Sun had nothing to do with the Reavers' creation, they would have no reason to deny them (remember the Commander destroys the derelict at the end of the episode, most likely as a cover up).

Remember also that, earlier in the ep, Mal had advised the commander to do just that.

Keep the Shiny Side Up

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Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:44 AM

THEGREYJEDI

An alliance commander would be just as motivated to destroy the reaver-torn ship for reasons of public order. Plausible deniability. Keeping the public calm by ignorance. Ignorance is bliss. I imagine many higher ups know of the threat of reavers. But publicly deny it. It would create a panic in the whole allied union of planets if suddenly everyone knew that there were mad cannibals loose in the 'verse. And they were normal men and women until something out there drove them over the brink. I'm gonna have to stick with Soup on this one. It's a hell of a lot scarier to think a man can become a reaver on his own than if he were toyed with. Because the latter makes him the victim, the former makes him truly a monster.

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Saturday, February 26, 2005 2:52 PM

CATWOLF

Quote:
Originally posted by BlueBomber:
And besides, if The Alliance/Blue Sun had nothing to do with the Reavers' creation, they would have no reason to deny them (remember the Commander destroys the derelict at the end of the episode, most likely as a cover up). DJ

Um, I was with you til this last bit. I mean, the alliance government, like any institution charged with administrating a large empire, is going to be balkanized into dozens and dozens of different groups, with different functions, different agendas, and often very limited communication with each other. Assuming they're all on the same page is kind of like assuming that the different departments of the US federal government are all on the same page.

So, other than collecting the occasional BS fugitive, quotidian alliance military officers and ships seem to have nothing to do with Blue Sun's super-secret esoteric operations, and probably know next-to-nothing about them.

Instead, regular alliance military vessels like the one in Bushwacked seem to be there mainly to keep public order, or what passes for public order in the black of space. And Reavers are pretty much the ultimate public order problem. It makes perfect sense that they would blast that vessel-- both to stymie the Reavers AND to keep the central planet public unaware of just how bad things are out on the fringes. That's their job and their imperative.

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Saturday, February 26, 2005 4:06 PM

SIGMANUNKI

Don't have time to read the entire thread *sigh* but I had this same idea a little while ago as well. Nice to know that others have it as well.

But how about this. What if the Reavers are Blue Hands Men with Mad Cow Disease?

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Saturday, February 26, 2005 4:27 PM

BLUEBOMBER

Good point Catwolf. Hadn't thought of it like that.

"Mwa ha ha...mine is an evil laugh. Now die."

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Sunday, February 27, 2005 5:19 AM

TENTHCREWMEMBER

Could you please just make it stranger? Stranger. Odder. Could be weirder. More bizarre. How about uncanny?

Hey Soup, et al,

I think what you say is accurate, about Reavers being what men are inherently inside. That was actually the course I initially was headed in. All I was indicating was that the Reavers *began* as a Blue Sun project, and when the first subjects reverted to that natural violent monsterous state, they became uncontrolled, and then Darwinism took over.

Current Reavers (if I can bend time for a moment LOL) may well be those who simply *became* Reavers as an exposure to them and their ways. Whereas the former, or originals, were created in the sense that whatever experiments were being done "broke" their civilized natures and once they escaped (either by accident or design) they simply grew in numbers...not rapidly, but just enough to become a serious threat to those who encounter them.

Reavers are obviously insane in some fashion, however they are very intelligent, as the ability to fly spaceships, stalk other ships, avoid contact with the Alliance on a regular basis, store bodies, make the survivors watch to torture/convert them, and building of sophisticated booby traps would suggest.

Intelligent and crazy...more dangerous than a griswald laden apple.

I like where this thread has gone/is going. Thanks everyone for participating. :)

Cilantro!
TCM

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Sunday, February 27, 2005 2:01 PM

SIXGUN

The "men gone mad on the edges of space" reasoning Mal presents makes total sense. Ever have to read "Lord of the Flies" when you were in high school? The plot involved a group of young boys, prep school students I think, who became marooned on a deserted island. It chronicaled how they began to degenerate into savagery with no adult supervision or law during their isolation.

Since Firefly is part western, I think Reavers are sort of the Indians in Joss's Firefly 'verse. People used to call the indians savages too after stories of scalping and the like got around.

I doubt Joss meant for Blue Sun to be resonsible for every bad thing in the 'verse. That's a little too X-filey. I could be wrong. I hear the movie addresses this so we'll find out in September.

Well, as a rule I say girl folk ain't to be trusted.

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Wednesday, March 16, 2005 8:02 PM

WORKEROFEVIL

I'm going to have to agree with the people who think the Reavers are just people who have descended into savagery after being isolated for so long. Being out of society for so long just made them feel that they didn't have to answer to the rules of society. So they became violent plunderers (which by they way is what the word Reaver means. I don't think it's similarity to River is significant). The Reavers would have started by attacking another ship and probably killing and likely raping the other people. When they saw no consequences from their actions because of the spotty Alliance protection in the fringes, they continued committing crimes that got worse and worse. That cycle of escalating crime is seen today. Then other groups of vicious people would hear about the violent actions with no real repercussions and start on their own cycle of savagery. And there you have the Reavers. They're just humans who have stepped outside of society and instead feed off of it. Of course, I could be completely wrong. September should reveal the truth.

P.S. The taking of scalps started with the white folks. I believe it was the French who offered a bounty for each Indian killed, so people took the scalps as proof. The Indians later started copying it in revenge.

Now we have to be married. I'm in the family way.

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Thursday, March 17, 2005 8:40 AM

PENNSYLVANIA

am I missing something or why is no one mentioning what Mal said about the Reavers being men who had no shielding on their nuclear engines on their ships and got mutated from that? or am I remembering something wrong?

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Thursday, March 17, 2005 9:18 AM

CHANNAIN

i DO aim to misbehave

Quote:
originally posted by Pennsylvania
am I missing something or why is no one mentioning what Mal said about the Reavers being men who had no shielding on their nuclear engines on their ships and got mutated from that? or am I remembering something wrong?

Well, let's review.

From FireflyWiki transcript for "Serenity"
http://www.fireflywiki.org/100.html

With regard to the Trans-U...

WASH
I'm picking up a lot of radiation... they're burning without core containment. Well, that's < nuts >, that's suicide...

MAL (upon slow realization)
Reavers

And that's all that's said with regard to the Reavers and the radiation.

The next mention of Reavers is in "Bushwacked"
http://www.fireflywiki.org/102.html

BOOK
I don't accept that. Whatever horror he witnessed,
whatever acts of barbarism, it was done by men.
Nothing more.

JAYNE
Reavers ain't men.

BOOK
Of course they are. Too long removed from
civilization, perhaps -- but men. And I believe
there's a power greater than men. A power
that heals.

MAL
Reavers might take issue with that philosophy.
If they had a philosophy. And if they weren't
too busy gnawing on your insides.
(then)
Jayne's right. Reavers ain't men. Or they
forgot how to be. Now they're just... nothing.
They got out to the place of nothing. And that's
what they became.

So if there was any mutation, it wasn't due to any radiation. Joss Whedon has maintained throughout that Humans can be much more cruel than any demon he ever dreamed up.

Personally, I'm much more inclined toward TheGreyJedi's description... which by the way was pretty darn creepifying and well written.

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Friday, March 18, 2005 11:05 AM

THIEFJEHAT

Quote:
originally posted by Pennsylvania
am I missing something or why is no one mentioning what Mal said about the Reavers being men who had no shielding on their nuclear engines on their ships and got mutated from that? or am I remembering something wrong?

In addition to Channain's comments, we also know that Reavers self-mutiliate as stated by Mal when he was under interrogation by the Aliance officer in Bushwacked. Mal stated that the lone survivor of the transport ship would "start acting like a reaver" and that one of his first acts would be to desecrate his own flesh.

So by that we would know that they mutiliate themselves as well as others. We know that he split his tounge by what the Alliance officer said. If you pause the DVD when the crazed man tries to throttle the officer near the end of the episode you'll see he also cut his cheeks open and drove shards of metal into his face like piercings. It's downright savage.

I believe that the reavers truely are "men gone mad at the edge of space" and not products of the Hands of Blue. Blue Sun is a corp located in civiliazed space. Reavers are out beyond the rim worlds. The distance has to be freakishly extreme.

I watched a documentary on the History Channel 2 months ago about Easter Island. Easter Island is perhaps the most isolated place on the entire planet that was ever settled by humanity. Just look on a globe, it's all by itself in the middle of the Pacific...no other island chains anywhere. Evidence points to a grand peaceful civilized culture that landed there after a long ocean voyage in impressively large canoe-like ships of pacific islanders. These people landed there, dismantled their boats for no known reason and started to build an impressive society, which after perhaps a thousand years yielded, among many things, the statues and mysticism the place is associated with. Then in as quickly as 50 years everything devolved and the culture falls into oblivion. The program maintained that scientific evidence proves that this occured because at one point all the trees and larger plants had been cut down for housing or burned for fuel. This created a unbalance in the society as agriculture failed and is the reason why the island is covered in only grasses and small shrubs today(with the exception of trees transplanted in the 20th century) The people of Easter Island 1000 years ago became Reavers. Tribes killed and ate other tribes. Then those stronger tribes turned on themselves and killed and ate each other. This wholesale slaughter continued until only a few hundred people remained. This is why the island was so sparcely populated in the 18th century when English explorers first landed and why the natives had no explaination for the statues on their own island that had always "just been there" as far as they knew. The Old Kingdom of Egypt fell into a Reaver-ish chaos when a climate shift in the Earth caused vast famine in northern Africa and the Nile dried up to a trickle. There are accounts on tomb walls in upper egypt of adults "eating their own children" Earth history proves that when people are isolated and subjected to hardship, slaughter can easily result.

Just like Joss said, Humans have the potential to be far worse than any monster he could conjure.

Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony.

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