Super SPOILER FILLED Serenity thread

[Tetsubo]

Further thoughts on the movie:

I don't think that Book was an Opertaive. You do not let an Opertive retire. You send out a New Operative to take out an Old Operative. If the New one wins, you have a new man for the job. And if the Old one wins you know that he's fit for duty. I figure that Book was the Control for an Operative.

The Reavers are done. Period. The only reason they had any success was the fact that the Alliance was denying their existence. That is no longer required. Which means the Military can step in now. A small Military unit caught in an ambush took out an entire Reaver fleet and completed their mission (assist the Opertaive in the capture of the Tams). The Reavers just became a live fire exercise for the Alliance Fleet.

The Reavers can't continue as a functioning group anyway. They are a disorganized lot of psychopaths. Barely able to maintain their ships and personal firearms. Some can't even do that, resorting to hand weapons and primitive missile weapons. In addition I believe that they are all males. They rape, skin and kill anyone that isn't a Reaver. They are not parent material. You could never get them all to agree to NOT eat the small, helpless infant.

I can see the Alliance weaponizing the Pax gas though. Here's why:

You have a planet of citizens that have decided they don't need the Alliance. The Alliance takes a group of political prisoners (I'm sure they have planets full of them) and exposes them to Pax. They put the new Reavers into ships and "dump" them near the planet of disagreeable citizens. The Fleet waits a few hours after the SOS call goes out about the Reaver raid. The Fleet flies in and "saves" the day. The grateful citizens don't mind having an Allinace base built on their world suddenly... Problem solved. If any Reavers get away, the Alliance detonates the bombs built into their ships. Bye-bye Reavers. The Reavers will become a tool of the Alliance.

But then I'm a bitter, cynical old man...

 

[Xath]

You have a planet of citizens that have decided they don't need the Alliance. The Alliance takes a group of political prisoners (I'm sure they have planets full of them) and exposes them to Pax. They put the new Reavers into ships and "dump" them near the planet of disagreeable citizens. The Fleet waits a few hours after the SOS call goes out about the Reaver raid. The Fleet flies in and "saves" the day. The grateful citizens don't mind having an Allinace base built on their world suddenly... Problem solved. If any Reavers get away, the Alliance detonates the bombs built into their ships. Bye-bye Reavers. The Reavers will become a tool of the Alliance.

But remember, only 1/2 of one percent of people exposed to Pax become reavers. The only reason there were a substantial number of reavers to start with was because they gassed an entire planet.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

I didn't much like the scene where Simon busts River out. As someone else pointed out, Simon has d4 hitpoints. He shouldn't be kicking ass. It seemed really out of character to me, although I understand why they did it.

The Operative really makes me want to throw a Lawful Good villian into my game. Or maybe a blackguard.

Think about what Simon really did. He bluffed his way into a facility after spending a ton of money on a uniform, credentials, and presumably the layout of the place. He set off a stun bomb. He ran like heck to a pickup waiting in an air shaft. He paid somebody else to freeze River so he could smuggle her out unnoticed. All you really need for this is tons of cash, a willingness to break the law, and the ability to bluff with an, "I'm in charge here," attitude.

The hard part would have been finding out enough info without tipping off River's captors that somebody was nosing around. But, as the Operative said, their sin was hubris.

At best, I would peg the Operative as Lawful Neutral. He acknowledge he did evil, but he was doing it because he believed in a higher purpose.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

But remember, only 1/2 of one percent of people exposed to Pax become reavers. The only reason there were a substantial number of reavers to start with was because they gassed an entire planet.

I heard 10% of the population, which would have meant about 3 million psychos. Presumably, a bunch would have been too far gone to run a spaceship, but you could safely estimate at least a million possible reavers. One would guess that reavers run on a pack mentality. At least some of them also seem to be able to make simple repairs to equipment, since they clearly cannibalize ships and settlement equipment in addition to the settlers.

 

[Jeremy]

Having seen it twice now, I believe it was approximately a 10th of a percent of the population that had the opposite reaction.

So not 10%, but 1/10 of 1%.

 

[Rykion]

The Reavers are done. Period. The only reason they had any success was the fact that the Alliance was denying their existence. That is no longer required. Which means the Military can step in now. A small Military unit caught in an ambush took out an entire Reaver fleet and completed their mission (assist the Opertaive in the capture of the Tams). The Reavers just became a live fire exercise for the Alliance Fleet.

That "small military unit" was a fleet of Alliance ships. It sure looked like the Alliance suffered massive losses in their victory over the Reavers. I don't suspect that they wish to get thousands of their soldiers killed fighting an enemy that seems to prey on Frontier Worlds they don't care about.

The Reavers' ships looked like wrecks, but all had weaponry that didn't look like standard equipment. The Reavers seem to be decent engineers for crazies that don't care.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The Reavers can't continue as a functioning group anyway. They are a disorganized lot of psychopaths. Barely able to maintain their ships and personal firearms. Some can't even do that, resorting to hand weapons and primitive missile weapons. In addition I believe that they are all males. They rape, skin and kill anyone that isn't a Reaver. They are not parent material. You could never get them all to agree to NOT eat the small, helpless infant.

yeah, thats about the long and short of it. Goes back to the old D&D question of inherently evil races. You just can't have a species with is 1) without empathy and 2) mammals. The two won't work together. Reavers could only reproduce by contagion, the biological method just isn't happening.

 

[Nareau]

Thinking more on the film, I kinda have to wonder how much it was influenced by the abusive relationship Firefly had with Fox.

For one thing, the tagline for the film is "Can't stop the signal". The basic plot is that a bunch of intrepid heroes are fighting against the establishment to broadcast their message. Maybe I'm reading way too much into it...but how many sci-fi movies have you seen where the heroes win by broadcasting a video?

Even if it has nothing to do with Fox, I still really like the "winning conditions" in the movie: they destroyed the big bad without killing him, and they dealt a huge blow against the Alliance without firing a shot (more or less).

I must admit that I was slightly disappointed by the film at first...but now I can't get it out of my head. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Spider

 

[Nareau]

yeah, thats about the long and short of it. Goes back to the old D&D question of inherently evil races. You just can't have a species with is 1) without empathy and 2) mammals. The two won't work together. Reavers could only reproduce by contagion, the biological method just isn't happening.

I don't think the Reavers are inherently "evil". They've just had their agression turned up to 11. I'm sure they can still feel empathy, when they're not eating people.

Given the 10% figure (that's what I heard, too), there should have been 3 million Reavers at one time. Given the number of ships in orbit, it wouldn't surprise me if there were less than 1,000 left.

Spider

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I heard 1/10 or 1/2 of one percent.. I fall in the "reavers can't reproduce" camp. The Reaver phenomenon would burn itself out after a period of time - I can't imagine that even if they can draw in new members that they can do it quickly enough to replace those dying in battle, old age (eventually) or due to radically poor ship maintenance/radiation poisoning. I'm imagining about 150,000 Reavers to begin with.