User:JarlaxleArtemis/Reavers
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In the television series Firefly and the movie Serenity, the Reavers are packs of savage human cannibals who occasionally raid and terrorize settlements on planets that are on the fringe of the galaxy. They inhabit a small area of territory around the planet known as Miranda, living in macabre ships stained with blood and decorated with corpses chained to the hulls. Many of these spaceships have spikes and a few even have pincers. Reavers are known for their delight in eating live human flesh. They also growl and snarl like beasts. They are somewhat of an urban legend to the inner planets of the galaxy, but in the frontier, they pose a very real threat.
River learned of the truth of the Reavers soon after the Alliance experimented on her and gave her psychic powers.
The Reavers are responsible for the deaths of two major characters: Hoban Washburne (Serenity's pilot) and Shepherd Book.
[edit] History
Twelve years prior to the time setting of Firefly and Serenity, the Alliance created a gas to calm people down, to end all fighting and bring tranquility. They let the still-untested gas out into the atmosphere of the planet Miranda. The gas worked on 99.9% of the population, but perhaps too well. It calmed the people down to the point that they did not have the will to do anything. They stopped arguing, stopped walking, and eventually they even stopped breathing. The planet became populated by the dead.
The gas had an adverse effect on the remaining 0.1% of the population, however. They became extremely aggressive and lost all means of sanity. (The gas probably resulted in permanent overstimulation of the amygdala or a part of the hypothalamus.) They broke into the laboratories where the scientists had locked themselves in and tortured them and ate them alive. Such were the beginnings of the Reavers.
