General / Off-Topic How are Reavers possible?

[EUS]

I like Firely, I think it was a good show, even though it was a bit hokey.
However, how in the world could Reavers exist?
Ultar-pshycotic beings that act as non-thinking monsters, yet they can fly (well), and heavily modify spaceships. Also militaristic thinking seems to be not beyond their grasp.
So, reasoning is there, yet their interaction with other beings is limited to the horrors depicted in the show and movie.

 

[Para Handy]

Well zombies are not exactly scientifically viable but that doesn't stop a million and one movies, TV shows and games full of them.

 

[EUS]

Trying to picture a group of reavers sitting around the table at the weekly mgmt meeting, calmly reviewing the last week's results, assigning tasks, crew replacements, but all I get is an image of a few hundred Tasmanian devils whirling about.

 

[MottiKhan]

Being that they're just infected humans, perhaps some of their faculties are still there. But the infection made them all insane in the same way.

Their technology could be left over from when their planet was thriving.

That, or maybe they're just made up monsters for reasons.

 

[Nagual]

Essentially all the PAX did was increase their levels of anger and violence. Arguably all their skills remained.

 

[Manticore]

Ultar-pshycotic beings that act as non-thinking monsters............

That pretty much describes the human race........... and/or large corporations.

 

[Stigbob]

Trying to picture a group of reavers sitting around the table at the weekly mgmt meeting, calmly reviewing the last week's results, assigning tasks, crew replacements, but all I get is an image of a few hundred Tasmanian devils whirling about.

One with a spiked clipboard and a neon tabard that says "Health and Safety officer".

 

[Chaparral]

No. It's silly. They mod their ships to emit radiation to kill themselves.

 

[Genus]

I like Firely, I think it was a good show, even though it was a bit hokey.
However, how in the world could Reavers exist?
Ultar-pshycotic beings that act as non-thinking monsters, yet they can fly (well), and heavily modify spaceships. Also militaristic thinking seems to be not beyond their grasp.
So, reasoning is there, yet their interaction with other beings is limited to the horrors depicted in the show and movie.

Psychopathy tends to follow intelligence on the scale. A brainy psychopath, is capable of so much more than a dull one.

 

[Paul_Crowther]

Reavers are people whose aggression and primal instincts have been boosted way beyond basic madness into rage, sadism and savagery. They still retain skills like being able to fly ships and use equipment but they've lost any sense of restraint or fear, which is why they can fly around with radiation spilling into their holds or make weapons that put their ship at extreme risk. Basically they're vicious pack animals but with human skills.

 

[Genus]

Reavers are people whose aggression and primal instincts have been boosted way beyond basic madness into rage, sadism and savagery. They still retain skills like being able to fly ships and use equipment but they've lost any sense of restraint or fear, which is why they can fly around with radiation spilling into their holds or make weapons that put their ship at extreme risk. Basically they're vicious pack animals but with human skills.

So a bit like playing EVE, or being in Open then?

 

[Sir.Tj]

Reavers are people whose aggression and primal instincts have been boosted way beyond basic madness into rage, sadism and savagery. They still retain skills like being able to fly ships and use equipment but they've lost any sense of restraint or fear, which is why they can fly around with radiation spilling into their holds or make weapons that put their ship at extreme risk. Basically they're vicious pack animals but with human skills.

I thought you were describing the Mod team for a min....

 

[dayrth]

Think 17th century pirates. They worked well together and created their own quite successful societies (Tortuga). But to the rest of the world they were bloodthirsty cut-throats with no morals or mercy.

 

[Chris Simon]

Think 17th century pirates. They worked well together and created their own quite successful societies (Tortuga). But to the rest of the world they were bloodthirsty cut-throats with no morals or mercy.

I think you watch too many movies.

 

[dayrth]

Nothing to do with movies. A potted history:

http://www.thewayofthepirates.com/regions-and-places/tortuga/

 

[dayrth]

I thought you were describing the Mod team for a min....

...to the rest of the world they were bloodthirsty cut-throats with no morals or mercy.

Actually I might have been thinking of the mod team here

 

[Zak Gordon]

Sadly you have decent tv/film sci-fi and ok tv/film sci-fi and lots and lots of pretty poor tv/film sci-fi.

Firefly is one of the good ones, but even the good tv/film sci-fi is never as good and well thought through as the best book sci-fi.

It's even worse in this modern era, and really Firefly was in that period when tv sci-fi could still be good (if flawed). Just look at the hot mess Star Trek and Star Wars now is!!

The Orvil is parody, so is not quite the same thing, and the one promising show (apparently) i forget the name off was dropped by it's network. We are in dumbsville for dummies in terms of tv and film currently.

 

[EUS]

Reavers are people whose aggression and primal instincts have been boosted way beyond basic madness into rage, sadism and savagery. They still retain skills like being able to fly ships and use equipment but they've lost any sense of restraint or fear, which is why they can fly around with radiation spilling into their holds or make weapons that put their ship at extreme risk. Basically they're vicious pack animals but with human skills.

Also they procreate somehow, and yet manage to not eat, rpe, skin their children, just non-reaver people.
It's too bizarre, selective absurd-level savagery?

 

[Paul_Crowther]

Also they procreate somehow, and yet manage to not eat, rpe, skin their children, just non-reaver people.
It's too bizarre, selective absurd-level savagery?

Reavers were

Spoiler

created when the PAX was released on Miranda and in the timeline of the Firefly series that wasn't that long ago. They weren't a centuries old boogeyman story but a more recent threat in the timeline that spread as rumour, so it makes sense that procreation may not have been a prominent aspect

. They also had distinctly tribal qualities (As in they tended not to attack other Reavers) that likely stemmed from the PAX poisoning. Kind of like animal packs.

 

[Chris Simon]

Nothing to do with movies. A potted history:

http://www.thewayofthepirates.com/regions-and-places/tortuga/

Well, yes, but what I meant was that the picture of a "pirate" is, to use politically correct term, romanticized.
They were sailors, that, outside their job, had families and kind of normal lives. And, save the exceptions, weren't any tougher or wilder than any other sailor.
Saying "pirate society" makes about as much sense as saying "Viking society". And just as you go on Vikings (raids), which, in our modern eyes, makes you "a Viking", they went out pirating, but mostly buccaneering, which makes them pirates. But doesn't say anything about who they really were or how they lived.


Reavers, on the other hand, as OP pointed out, simply wouldn't be able to exist in real world, because their behaviour is self-destructive, instead of self-preservational. (Hmm, self-preservational probably isn't a word, but never mind)