# Serenity/Firefly Fans: How Smart/Advanced are the Reavers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 28, 2008, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774 "2008-11-28T06:12:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/21 "2008-11-29T00:11:07Z")
I’m pretty sure I remember from one of the DVD commentaries that certain things–like aliens or robots–were deliberately left out, on the grounds that they were cliched and too easy to do badly. I may have overstated on the AI thing, but I’m pretty sure _Serenity_ wasn’t going to acquire any cute, wisecracking crewdroids or anything like that. I think Whedon wanted to keep the dramatic focus on _people_. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/22 "2008-11-29T00:14:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > No aliens at all, apparently: A carnie claims to have a genuine alien on display, but it’s just an upside-down cow fetus. The verdict’s still out on AIs, though: Mr. Universe’s girl robot might have been what we would call an AI, and would almost certainly have been smarter than any computer we have now. > > On the other hand, he had the good sense to know his limitations. Ever notice how few measurements or units we hear on the show? We’re never told any distances between worlds, and only rarely travel times. We don’t know what year it is. We don’t even know what units are being used for the money, most of the time. And other details like the fuel used by the ships are also scant. All that says to me that Whedon knew the sorts of fans that he’d be drawing, and that if he gave too much information he’d screw up, and we’d catch him in a miscalculation. Reminds me of some of the technology in Elizabeth Moon’s _Vata’s War_ series of books. The main character, a merchant captain with military training, knows all about firearms and tactics and maneuvers and supply and demand and things of that nature. But when the hyperdrive on her ship breaks down and she goes to inspect it, it is described quite literally as a black box with some wires coming out of it, as that’s all she can make of it (other people on her ship know more about this thing, fortunately, but it’s not their job to be the POV character in the book :D) But yeah, Joss Whedon shows tend to gloss over details that he’s unfamiliar with and doesn’t need for the show. Kinda like how Buffy and friends can go through three years of high school, and yet we learn little of chemistry, math, or grammar that their lives presumably include quite a bit of (granted, Buffy and Xander arguably didn’t learn much of this stuff either, while Willow probably knew it all before she stepped into the classroom). ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/23 "2008-11-29T00:22:21Z")
Oh, come on. Y’all are slackin’. > [@](#): > > River and the Reavers Band name! ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/24 "2008-11-29T01:17:06Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > But yeah, Joss Whedon shows tend to gloss over details that he’s unfamiliar with and doesn’t need for the show. Kinda like how Buffy and friends can go through three years of high school, and yet we learn little of chemistry, math, or grammar that their lives presumably include quite a bit of (granted, Buffy and Xander arguably didn’t learn much of this stuff either, while Willow probably knew it all before she stepped into the classroom). Needless nitpick, but Buffy scored a 1430 on the SATs so she learned a bit. Xander, though . . . ---
**Author:** ![Wheeljack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@Wheeljack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheeljack)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/25 "2008-11-29T02:00:44Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Hey, they just wanted to make it go, cut them some slack. They also deserve some credit for taking the initiative to look for things with which to make it go. ---
**Author:** ![AllWalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@AllWalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllWalker)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/26 "2008-11-29T02:02:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > No aliens at all, apparently: A carnie claims to have a genuine alien on display, but it’s just an upside-down cow fetus. The verdict’s still out on AIs, though: Mr. Universe’s girl robot might have been what we would call an AI, and would almost certainly have been smarter than any computer we have now. Another coming scifi element left out is faster-than-light travel. There is no mention of hyperspace, or wormholes, people seem to get about the solar system using good olf-fashioned, unspecified shiny propulsion. Even the ships that left Earth-that-was weren’t necessarily FTL - they could easily have been arkships, or cryogenics, or even just really, really fast. And I like it. Scifi waves away _c_ when it is necessary, but it is not in the 'verse. Physics has not been pointlessly shat on. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/27 "2008-11-29T03:04:52Z")
> [@](#): > > I have never seen an episode of “Firefly,” I assume you are going to remedy this situation after seeing Serenity. ---
**Author:** ![maikai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@maikai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maikai)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/28 "2008-11-29T03:29:17Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > There is another plot hole regarding how much knowledge Simon has about River’s abilities, but that one is acknowledged by Whedon as a victim of cramming 2 seasons of story into one movie. Can you refresh my memory about this? It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/29 "2008-11-29T03:38:48Z")
> [@pulehoopo](#): > > Can you refresh my memory about this? It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it. I think he’s thinking about how Simon got a very basic description of what they did to River at the Alliance facility he broke her out of. Which isn’t a plot hole by any stretch of the imagination. Having someone tell you they preformed brain surgery on your sister doesn’t mean you don’t want to do an MRI to find out the particulars. And so far as I can recall Whedon never said anything like that. If Mahaloth could post a link to that I’d like to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/30 "2008-11-29T05:21:43Z")
The big conflict was that in the pilot episode, Simon, who was under some degree of duress to explain himself to a crew that he didn’t know if he could trust, said that he paid someone a great sum of money to bust River out of the Academy and get her to him so he could get her to safety, while the movie showed that Simon himself snuck into the Academy and busted River out himself with someone else’s help. Not really a plothole, it’s easy for me at least to assume that the guy who had been lying up until he was caught by Mal decided to lie a bit more rather than tell the whole truth, and then it just never came up during dinner conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/31 "2008-11-29T07:46:43Z")
I hate the explanation of the Reavers. They’re made to sound like a looming ever present threat that’s growing worse “They’re pushing out ever farther” (or some words to that effect) but of course when you get the explanation the opposite would be true. Accidents, radiation poisoning, being shot on raids, poorly maintained ships, all this would be consistently reducing their numbers and given the rather small pool they had to begin with they’d be gone in a matter of years. Unless Joss planned on giving them a way to increase their population (other then occasionally finding a psycho among some crew who they don’t even bother to take with them) they would be a non-issue. I think this idea for the Reavers is better: Two major fleets left Earth-that-was one the Chinese, American group was well organized full of top of the line ships and people. The second was one cobbled together by desperate and in many cases shady people. This second fleet was filled with substandard living conditions and moved slower then the first fleet. As time went on more and more people began to suffer from various mental and physical problems due to the poor conditions and many ships began to attack one another to salvage supplies. Eventually a belief in the strongest survive develops among them. They also begin to have a code of laws and an insane violent society develops but it’s still a functional society. They reach Ariel destroy the local population in accordance to their own beliefs but enslave many. They start using their old ships (in poor repair) and ships looted from Ariel to attack local interests both to gather ever more resources but also because their vicious society demands territorial dominance. Soon their society splits the most violent savage members constantly raiding and destroying while the bulk of the population stays on Ariel building up resources planning to invade several more worlds and convert them to their way of life. Now the hardest part would be not to make the ‘civilized’ bunch into some kind of crappy Ming the Merciless type villain or a Star Trek type villain that shows we’re all people deep down. Instead they should be savage cruel fanatics that have just slightly less berserker fury in them but still nobody you can reason with or make deals with. However their society should make sense FOR THEM. Crazy, violent, savage, to an outsider. But stable in its way and able to increase the threat to the rest of the system. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/32 "2008-11-29T11:49:18Z")
I always interpreted it such that the Reavers were need-driven. For instance, in the flyby in the pilot, the Reavers are fully cognizant of Serenity passing by right beneath them. They don’t turn around immediately and chase, which is remarked upon by Mal: “I guess they weren’t hungry.[Snip]” ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/33 "2008-11-29T15:14:43Z")
There _is_ a semifactual canon answer to this actually. Here are the stats of an average reaver as described by the core rulebook for the Serenity RPG. According to the Serenety RPG gamebook info on Reavers: REAVER Agility. . . . . d8 Strength . . . . d10 Vitality . . . . d10 Alertness . … . d8 Intelligence . . d6 Willpower . … . d10 Life Points … . 24 Initiative . . . d8 + d8 Unarmed Combat d6/Brawling d10. Discipline d6 Jayne, by comparison has: Agility. . . . . d6 Strength . . . . d10 Vitality . . . . d10 Alertness . … . d6 Intelligence . . d4 Willpower . … . d6 Life Points … . 18 Initiative . . . d6 + d6 Unarmed Combat d6/Brawling d8. Discipline d4 So they are smarter and more diciplined than Jayne (who knew!). Mal however is twice as smart as Jayne, so smarter than a reaver and equally disciplined. Sounds fairly balanced to me. To be honest, I think a combination of willpower, intelligence and discipline is what would count as smart/advanced. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/34 "2008-11-29T15:15:57Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > The big conflict was that in the pilot episode, Simon, who was under some degree of duress to explain himself to a crew that he didn’t know if he could trust, said that he paid someone a great sum of money to bust River out of the Academy and get her to him so he could get her to safety, while the movie showed that Simon himself snuck into the Academy and busted River out himself with someone else’s help. > > Not really a plothole, it’s easy for me at least to assume that the guy who had been lying up until he was caught by Mal decided to lie a bit more rather than tell the whole truth, and then it just never came up during dinner conversation. I always assumed that he had paid people a lot of money in order to bust her out, but that he had done it himself. eg, the ship waiting, the weapons needed etc > [@Darkhold](#): > > I hate the explanation of the Reavers. They’re made to sound like a looming ever present threat that’s growing worse “They’re pushing out ever farther” (or some words to that effect) but of course when you get the explanation the opposite would be true. Accidents, radiation poisoning, being shot on raids, poorly maintained ships, all this would be consistently reducing their numbers and given the rather small pool they had to begin with they’d be gone in a matter of years. Unless Joss planned on giving them a way to increase their population (other then occasionally finding a psycho among some crew who they don’t even bother to take with them) they would be a non-issue. > . They were pushing out further because they were wiping out more and more settlements, and needing to wander further afield to find food. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/35 "2008-11-29T15:39:26Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > I always assumed that he had paid people a lot of money in order to bust her out, but that he had done it himself. eg, the ship waiting, the weapons needed etc > > They were pushing out further because they were wiping out more and more settlements, and needing to wander further afield to find food. But they weren’t gathering food (aside from humans they ate while attacking I guess) in fact we never see them take anything from any of the places/people they attack. When they took over the colony ship filled with useful items that Mal couldn’t wait to loot they didn’t even take the ‘meat’ of the crew instead stringing them up. Even so it doesn’t matter. They simply have an unsustainable culture as the threat would grow quickly less. People know there’s no point in running or surrendering so might as well shoot as many Reavers as you can before you go down. Suddendly no more Reavers as they can’t replace what they lose. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/36 "2008-11-29T15:39:52Z")
I look at their piloting as being similar to drunk driving. While drunk drivers have a much greater probablility of being in an accident, most do make it home safely. Probably there are tons of accidents and botched landings in the reaver fleet, but they can still keep it sort of together and most ships can go where they want. Also, I agree that the reavers bloodlust is periodic and is fixated on non-reavers. Kind of like an exaggerated version of the way humans will commit atrocities against outsiders but will be moral and polite to members of the tribe. Also it grows in direct proportion to the proximity of non-reavers and to the amount of reavers in the mob. And the longer it takes them to get their pray the more frustrated and enraged they become, eventually changing from people who can more or less fly spaceships to mindless zombie hordes. Looking up I notice **Ex-Tank** has made similar comments, but I’m posting anyway. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![VoluntaryPlan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/9fc29f/32.png) [@VoluntaryPlan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VoluntaryPlan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/37 "2008-11-29T17:10:36Z")
If I recall correctly, there was even an episode where Reavers left a fairly advanced trap for anyone that attempted to dock with a ship they had victimized. The trap didn’t really do anything beneficial for the Reavers, though. It just damaged the ship as it tried to fly away, or that was the point, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/38 "2008-11-29T19:29:41Z")
Figure you could have both the Reavers pushing farther out every year, and them having a finite limit before they can’t do that anymore. Eventually, they’ll hit a point where they can’t push out further and they’ll start to collapse inward from lack of resources and personnel, but they haven’t hit that point yet (well, maybe they did after the shootup between the Reavers and the Alliance fleet at Mr. Universe’s hideout, where it looked like the Alliance guys had the upper hand once they got over the initial shock) Also, standing your ground and shooting the Reavers up sounds like a solid plan, until you consider that the majority of people flying around are probably minimally armed for self defense at best. Serenity’s crew, being outlaws generally, are better armed than you’d expect many people on a transport to be, and even they would rather play possum than pick a fight with a Reaver ship, and indeed, the only times they ever fight with the Reavers (all during Serenity), it’s either because they have nowhere to run (Mr. Universe’s hideout), have no choice but to fight as they run (the bank heist in the beginning, running at this point only having a real chance of success because the Reavers are busy ravaging the town), or because they _want_ the Reavers to give chase (Miranda, on their way to an Alliance ambush at Mr. U’s hideout) Other than that, the only guys shown to successfully fight off the Reavers are River and the Alliance forces themselves, more heavily armed than even Mal’s crew could hope to be. It stands to reason that anyone who stood their ground and fought didn’t get to shoot up a significant number of Reavers, or even worse, given that many folks debate the existance of Reavers, decided to run instead when confronted and were simply run down rather than putting a fight up at all. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/39 "2008-11-29T20:25:27Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Also, standing your ground and shooting the Reavers up sounds like a solid plan, until you consider that the majority of people flying around are probably minimally armed for self defense at best. Serenity’s crew, being outlaws generally, are better armed than you’d expect many people on a transport to be, and even they would rather play possum than pick a fight with a Reaver ship, and indeed, the only times they ever fight with the Reavers (all during Serenity), it’s either because they have nowhere to run (Mr. Universe’s hideout), have no choice but to fight as they run (the bank heist in the beginning, running at this point only having a real chance of success because the Reavers are busy ravaging the town), or because they _want_ the Reavers to give chase (Miranda, on their way to an Alliance ambush at Mr. U’s hideout) > > Other than that, the only guys shown to successfully fight off the Reavers are River and the Alliance forces themselves, more heavily armed than even Mal’s crew could hope to be. It stands to reason that anyone who stood their ground and fought didn’t get to shoot up a significant number of Reavers, or even worse, given that many folks debate the existance of Reavers, decided to run instead when confronted and were simply run down rather than putting a fight up at all. Even if they did, that logic is the logic of someone playing an FPS, not the logic of an untrained, poorly-armed civilian who is about to die. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774/40 "2008-11-30T17:33:21Z")
My impression is that they’re like sharks or Whedon vampires: Perfectly functional until they get a whiff of what they’re hungry for, which sends them into a feeding frenzy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serenity-firefly-fans-how-smart-advanced-are-the-reavers/474774.md?page=1)