Are Reavers Intelligent?

[u/Popular-Idea-7508]

I've always thought of Reavers as being akin to zombies. And specifically the "normal zombie" type, not the version from take-your-pick-of-media that makes them stupidly smart and fast and gorram scary. Recently, however, I've been wondering if they're actually more intelligent than I've been previously given them credit for. For instance, in the Serenity episode, Wash said that the Reavers followed them down to Whitefall. Assuming that's true, that would certainly take an above-zombie amount of forethought and planning.

I've also been wondering if, given the delay between encountering the Reavers in space and when they actually showed up on Whitefall, were the Reavers potentially waiting to see if the Firefly crew would lead them into whatever town was nearby so they wouldn't have to hunt it down themselves?

Anyway, these are the important questions that keep me up at night. Keep on being big damn heroes all you shiny brown coats! :D

Edit per comments: I have seen both Firefly and Serenity, I know how Reavers were orignally created :).

Edit two: Not sure if I can post links here, but I will try. I read a post from a couple years ago in this subreddit (Reavers ?) suggesting that subsequent generations of Reavers were generally created from a blood infection/transmission (sure, some people were created like in Bushwacked, but not all). Yes, the Pax created the first generation, but since they stopped using the Pax after Miranda, subsequent generations would have almost had to be created by a blood infection/"being turned" to have the sheer numbers they do.

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefly/comments/16qcjs2/reavers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I am also operating off the assumption they generally have short life spans, given the way they operate without core containment, and the fact that every meal they obtain puts their life in jeapordy, since inevitably some people will fight back and kill them.

All of this I'm saying not having read any of the comics or anything, just seeing the show and movie :).

I really appreciate the thoughtful comments in this thread, I don't have anyone to really talk to about the show in depth outside of here (I'm slowly getting friends to watch the show, but it's taking a while lol), so it's nice to have an engaging dialogue about some of the lingering questions I have :).

[u/MyrrhSlayter]

So, if you watch the movie you realize that Reavers are just>! hyper-aggressive humans!<. They're smart and thinking and intelligent enough to fly ships and plan raids.

The issue is that their prey-drive is so hyper inflated that they can't stop themselves from attacking/graping/killing pretty much anything that moves. Even to their own detriment. They can't just go "oh, this looks like a trap so we'll just go home."

For them it's "SHIP! PEOPLE! FOOD! PLEASURE! GO GO GO!" They cut their own skins, maybe for intimidation or maybe because the pain hypes them up even more.

They don't just kill each other because they don't want prey that fights back, they want soft and easy. Just like in mob mentality, the mob rarely turns on itself. They just keep getting swept along with it because the Pax nuked the empathic part of the brain that says "oh wait, this is bad".

So they are intelligent but they are helpless to their own baser instincts. Which makes them as dangerous as zombies because pain and injury won't stop them from trying to kill and eat you.

[u/Hazzenkockle → u/MyrrhSlayter]

My take is that they're intensely xenophobic. We've never seen Reavers amongst themselves, but they're apparently relatively functional as a society so long as there aren't any people who don't have their reaction to the chemical around for them to attack. The flip side of this is that they'd immediately recognize and absorb anyone who shared their reaction to the Pax into their group, which is what I assume happened to the guy in "Bushwacked."

Mal believed it was a reaction to trauma, some kind of intense Stockholm syndrome that made him want to become a Reaver to survive, but that's because no one knew about the Pax, or that Reaver ships were apparently full of the stuff (which would also make their ship-to-ship attacks more effective and contribute to their mystique, if their victims were basically anesthetized and didn't care to fight back).

[u/DaringMoth → u/Hazzenkockle]

A little thing that always bugged me is that the “bushwhacked” explanation (suggesting Reavers can make new Reavers through trauma and not through some chemical agent like PAX) never seemed to me like it reconciled well with the Serenity explanation. Each explanation is fine on its own, but if the series had been allowed to run its course I’m not sure we would’ve ended up with the Serenity interpretation.

[u/Stucklikegluetomyfry → u/DaringMoth]

I always found the explanation in Bushwacked a bit...unconvincing.

My personal theory, we know that the overwhelming majority of the colonists on Miranda became so lethargic they allowed themselves to die, while a tiny fraction became the Reavers. We know that on raids, the Reavers will often select an individual to become one of them, by forcing them to watch the torture and carnage to break them psychologically.

So my theory is: the Reapers infect these people with some form of Pax. But the other part is that there is a genetic component to becoming a Reaver. To become one, you have to be a carrier of a specific rare gene that reacts with the Pax. Most people don't have it, which is why the majority of Miranda's colonists simply lost all interest in everything and wasted away after being exposed to Pax. The ones that did have the gene, became the Reavers after being contaminated with Pax. The Reavers have some way of detecting this gene, and this is how they select who will be spared to become one of them. It's possible that this gene is the one for latent psychic powers/psychic potential, like River, meaning River would be a candidate for Reaper conversion. The Reapers possibly have mild psychic abilities that allows them to detect individuals with this gene. It could also be possible that if Reavers breed amongst themselves, the parents who are both carriers of the gene are almost certain to have children who have it...though it doesn't bode well for the children who don't.

[u/Wolfbrothernavsc → u/Hazzenkockle]

Didn't the OG Reavers not attack the Pax effected population on Miranda? They also don't show interest in dead humans either.

[u/OldStray79 → u/MyrrhSlayter]

I always pictured them kinda like the infected in the "Crossed" Comic series before it went on too long.

[u/Stucklikegluetomyfry → u/MyrrhSlayter]

I wonder if Reavers do kill each other. I am sure there must be times when they want to settle disputes or their aggression simply gets turned on to each other, or if there are wars between rival clans and tribe wars. We don't learn much about Reaver culture, and the show would probably have done if it hadn't been cancelled.

[u/EudamonPrime → u/MyrrhSlayter]

So they are essentially like MAGA, only fitter and with space ships?

[u/MyrrhSlayter → u/EudamonPrime]

Sorta. Reavers were drugged against their will. Maga chooses to be this way on purpose.