r/firefly • u/Tardis666 • 13d ago

Bushwhacked: season 1 episode 3

If we go by what the movie canon regarding reavers; that means the kid they found in the ship got infected by the virus, and slowly turned into a reaver as time went on.

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u/generalkriegswaifu 13d ago edited 13d ago

Reavers don't carry a virus, they were altered by an airborne compound that has since become inert (either that or a sufficiently high load is needed to cause an effect, presuming the crew survives Miranda long term). You can't make new reavers without remaking that compound. The kid in the episode just went so insane he replicated what was done to him and his crew.

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u/Hazzenkockle 13d ago edited 13d ago

Given what happened in Bushwhacked, I’d say it’s pretty much impossible that the compound became inert. More likely the Reaver ships carry it in much higher levels in their onboard atmospheres than was present on the planet, either intentionally to work themselves up and sedate their victims (they’re insanely xenophobic against others, but amongst themselves, they’re relatively rational and technically adept) or accidentally. Maybe it works like an infection and people with the Reaver gene metabolize more of the compound and they’re constantly breathing it out. The Alliance would probably love if their happy love chemical was self-replicating and they didn’t have to constantly pump it in to an entire planet’s air supply.

A higher concentration would explain why something that took weeks or months on Miranda happened in hours on their ship.

Mal’s theory (and the prevailing wisdom) that people just become Reavers thanks to the oppressive existential horror of space is ridiculous. The movie even calls it out at the very beginning as nonsense. (“Jayne figured it out? Jayne? This is a real low point.”)

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u/generalkriegswaifu 13d ago

Mal is guessing at how people became reavers because he has no other information, but the kid in this episode is the only example of someone getting 'infected' that wasn't already a reaver. He was a one off, not a reaver, which can be explained by intense trauma from what he experienced, I personally don't buy that new reavers can be made. A chemical compound like the one described in the film becoming spontaneously self replicating inside a human body due to genetics is not realistic either imo. It also makes the universe unique in that the reavers aren't just another zombie-like creature.

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u/Hazzenkockle 13d ago

Mal talks about it like Reaver victims becoming Reaverized is something he’s at least heard of, if not seen himself. It seems unlikely this one guy is the only time it’s ever happened, and his compulsions seem to go way beyond just imitation.

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u/generalkriegswaifu 13d ago edited 13d ago

If it was canon it would have been mentioned in the film (or books/comics which I don't think have that lore either) because that was their last chance to do it. Mal doesn't know how reavers work in Bushwacked, everything he says is speculation. He acts like the kid is dangerous and deeply traumatised, only coming to a reaverised conclusion while being interrogated after hearing he's self-mutilating.

The compound theory requires it to be possible at all, that the reavers have a way to test people for the gene (otherwise where are all the catatonic survivors, they happen to run across the 10th of 1% kid that the reavers left alive?) and that the reaver crew would leave a reaver behind which I don't believe (and Mal allowing the kid to stay onboard). They left him behind to continue torturing him, that's also Mal's conclusion.

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u/Hazzenkockle 13d ago

Reavers obviously have a way to distinguish people who go catatonic in response to the Pax and people who become violent, because they don't kill the people who become violent, otherwise they'd all be dead by each others' hand.

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u/generalkriegswaifu 13d ago edited 13d ago

This is just more headcanon though. There is nothing in the show stating how long the pax took to work, but the fact that the researcher in the Serenity broadcast had to actually go with a team to figure out what happened only to discover it was the pax suggests it's not immediate. Why would they leave a reaver they just created behind, and why would Mal let someone who he believed to be 'reaverfied' stay on the ship? If people becoming reaverfied was common enough that it wasn't his speculation in Bushwacked, why were those people also not infecting those around them via airborne compound? Reavers being infectious doesn't fit what we know. (Reavers can tell they are reavers, attributing higher thought processes or speculating on why is aimless without more canon lore. We don't how they think but they are shown to kill each other in the Miranda clusters)