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Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
There are a few animals that are vicious killers (and kill for fun) that haven't killed themselves off yet. Though they tend to be solitary. There are also more mild types such as wolves. Etc.

I think that it should be pointed out that behaviour towards "outsiders" or "prey" can be very *very* different than behaviour towards the same. And we don't know what they are up to when they are by themselves. So, ...

At any rate, Joss is about the story. Which is why nothing was really explained. How did the ship work? I just does. Reavers? They're just there. Be scared.

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Originally posted by Yersinia:
I've been wondering: If the Reavers are really THAT savage and brutal, then how come they haven't raped and eaten EACH OTHER -- into extinction? Also, if flying "without core containment" is "suicide," how come THAT hasn't killed them off? And on top of that, it seems they've maintained and developed spacefaring technology (as in the grapplers and other specialized technology for their raids) -- which IMO would require them to collaborate and cooperate with each other on a level which is way too civilized for their purported savagery.

I know, I know, I know, formidable and/or really frightening enemies make for better storytelling, and the Reavers certainly fit the bill here, but....well, I'm not so sure they make much SENSE -- not even with the BDM's explanation of their origins.... I still have the original "if they're that savage, how come they haven't brutally killed each other off?" question...

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Originally posted by two:

Flying without core containment does kill Reavers quickly.

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Originally posted by two:

But what the hell does Mal know? He's no psychiatrist.

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Originally posted by two:

Here is my guesses about how ordinary people who were never on Miranda become Reavers.
...snip...

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Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
I think that you need to be careful using the word "would" here. That's very absolute and quite frankly, there are many counter-examples of that. Star Trek, for instance, has many many many examples of the tech getting in the way of the story. But, it still kind of worked there, because the tech was a major driving force of (most of?) the plot lines. Tech also introduces a consistency nightmare. It's really, really hard to keep track of all that. In fact, the way the Stargate worked in SG-1 changed from the beginning of the series to the end. I believe because they had a story they wanted to tell, and sod consistency, eh.

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Guess I need to mention that by the time I was introduced to Firefly (this past July), I had been a hardcore Trekkie for three decades... so for me, adding tech details (per se) does indeed add depth to a story (and/or provide direction for additional stories). Stargate I never saw, so I have no knowledge from which to comment.

But -- where "tech" details are concerned, it's not entirely the scientific/mechanical (how the ships and technological gadgets work) ones which are actually crucial in terms of the storytelling (my boyfriend is the one who has greater appreciation for this end of it) -- yeah, I LIKE most of that stuff and find a lot of it helpful in adding depth/providing ground for new stories, but it's ALSO, in a big way, the cultural/sociological details of the non-human alien beings I liked so much and considered so riveting, blending THAT stuff into the stories. Scenes shot on the alien ships (later on even the aliens' home planets), or which included the Enterprise, DS9 or Voyager crew interacting with them and learning about their cultures IMO this gives way more insight into the characters of the enemies than just having them attack at every possible opportunity.

The Verse of Firefly has no non-human characters like Star Trek has Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, and so on, but it does have the Reavers who are obviously different from "normal" humans, so what I'd have liked to have seen would have been occasional scenes aboard a Reaver ship about to begin a raid (or in process of one -- such as attaching that multi-snakelike booby trap thingie to snare or destroy rescue ships as they did in Bushwacked), stuff like that, every once in awhile -- not every single episode made (or even every single episode in which there were Reavers), but here and there in occasional episodes with Reavers, just enough to show us how Reavers interact with each other and what their "society" is like. That's the kind of thing which to me adds depth to the worldbuild and makes the storytelling even more meaningful on the character-driven plane.

And no, I don't think "would" is too absolutist a term to use here. Had Firefly not been cancelled, Joss Whedon would indeed have conceived and produced more episodes -- the actual storylines of which we cannot say since the show WAS cancelled so he didn't create the episodes. I had merely thought it would've been nice, and an enhancement of the show (had it lasted), IF one of the things Mr. Whedon would have expanded on through additional episodes would have been "Reaver society," that's all. (That, and of course Shepherd Book's mysterious past! )

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Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
1. Working around unsheilded radioactive nuclear material is unhealthy. The reactor on craft of the verse are apparently nuclear, have not seen info disputing this, but not exactly spelled out that I recall. Running without Core containment means unsheilded. Reproducing in the way we think would create more mutations. How many started after the Pax release? 30 Million was Miranda population, was it 300,000 or 30,000 that became reavers? Longevity is 120 years average, so dying within 10 years may be considered "quick" in the verse. In the past 12 years I don't think 30,000 have died off yet. It took several years fro many of thier ships to lose containment - it is not a normal condition.

2. Maintaining technology? not that hard if they had already the training when they were human - see most of the zombie films.
Creating technology? no, just use what they find aboard the ships they capture/pirate/raid.

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If memory serves me correctly (and it should, since I watched the BDM the day before yesterday), the Alliance scientist whose taped message was found on Miranda said that Miranda's population had been 30,000,000, and that 1% of them had the opposite-from-intended reaction to the Pax, so...1% of 30,000,000 is 300,000. I guess that IS a lot of Reavers! Hmmmm, maybe that's even enough of them to not have died off naturally or, even with their excessively violent tendencies, killed each other off into extinction even 10-12 years after the Pax incident.

Now that's interesting -- the 26th century human lifespan in the Verse is 120 years? Wow. Well, I can definitely see that on the high-tech core planets, but find it a little harder to believe about the Rim where life itself is harder, medical technology is less advanced, and medications are hard to get. And yes, if the Reavers are exposed to unshielded radiation (running without core containment), it only stands to reason that would shorten their natural lifespans too, even if 300,000 of them were enough, and they do somehow have some kind of code in their society which keeps them from killing each other off. Hmmmm, maybe denizens of the technogically advanced core planets actually live longer than 120 years, but earlier deaths of people on the border planets are what bring the Verse human lifespan "down" to an average of 120 years.

Yup. Stealing ships they raid (after raping and eating the crews and passengers) makes a lot of Reaver sense -- as in how they can get their hands on ships without the collaboration and cooperation inherent in building their own ships or developing their own technology, but this would leave me kind of surprised that they didn't simply take the colony transport in Bushwacked after they raided it -- they left that multiple snakes-like booby trap thingie (I call it that because to me, that's what it looks like) which almost caught Serenity except Mal noticed it and Kaylee figured out how to disable it -- so maybe they have to be "in need" of new ships to steal them, just like they seem to have to be "hungry" to conduct a raid?

Zombies? Ummmm no, I don't go there! YUCK!!

Ehhhhh. Maybe someday I'll really and truly get these Reavers figured out.

"Call me if anyone interesting shows up..."

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Originally posted by Yersinia:

The Verse of Firefly has no non-human characters like Star Trek has Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, and so on, but it does have the Reavers who are obviously different from "normal" humans, so what I'd have liked to have seen would have been occasional scenes aboard a Reaver ship about to begin a raid (or in process of one -- such as attaching that multi-snakelike booby trap thingie to snare or destroy rescue ships as they did in Bushwacked), stuff like that, every once in awhile -- not every single episode made (or even every single episode in which there were Reavers), but here and there in occasional episodes with Reavers, just enough to show us how Reavers interact with each other and what their "society" is like. That's the kind of thing which to me adds depth to the worldbuild and makes the storytelling even more meaningful on the character-driven plane.

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Originally posted by two:
The Firefly Wiki covers Reavers. http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/Reavers
Here is a quote:
Most people are happy with "Reavers are that way because that's how Joss Whedon made 'em."

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Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:


After this post, I must admit a guilty pleasure of mine. I like to daydream about future episodes of Firefly. The Alliance goobers deny the existence of Reavers. Most sensible folk are aware and wary of them. I fancy the Alliance patrols coming across reaver ships, or booby-trapped ships and being eradicated by the reavers they don't believe in. I fancy this a repetitive ongoing sequence in the show, becoming a cliche perhaps. The verse version of Wily E. Coyote dying every episode.
This gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Does this make me a bad man?

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Originally posted by Yersinia:

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Originally posted by two:
The Firefly Wiki covers Reavers. http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/Reavers
Here is a quote:
Most people are happy with "Reavers are that way because that's how Joss Whedon made 'em."

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I clicked the link and read this whole WIki in full -- so I "snipped" all of your posted quote except the one here I consider relevant (because I unfortunately suspect this is also part of the reason why we didn't get to actually see anything which would explain Reavers or their "society," and why they were portrayed as cardboard villians with no dimension of their own). So, OK, IF -- and I say IF because I'm not a psychic with access to Mr. Whedon's thoughts -- if this is how Joss Whedon really felt, that viewers would be happy to believe, with no explanation whatsoever, that Reavers are, and can be the way they are simply because he says so,

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Nothing about Miranda and its' 30 million dead people makes any sense. Nothing about the 30,000 Reavers makes any sense. And for me it doesn't have to. The Miranda storyline provided a nice vehicle for River & Mal to air out some of their inner struggles, and that made for some great cinematic drama. The "science", or any logical reality surrounding the Miranda/Pax holocaust is pure fantasy speculation, likely given to us in that manner by Joss on purpose to drive us all a bit nuts ourselves.

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Originally posted by Yersinia:
...I've been wondering: If the Reavers are really THAT savage and brutal, then how come they haven't raped and eaten EACH OTHER -- into extinction? Also, if flying "without core containment" is "suicide," how come THAT hasn't killed them off?

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Originally posted by Yersinia:
If the Reavers are really THAT savage and brutal, then how come they haven't raped and eaten EACH OTHER -- into extinction?

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