River Tam

[ray gower]

What makes the characters in Firefly tick?

The series finished before it got going, leaving a huge hole in what we know and understand about them. So there must be some good theories about them, so let's have some thoughts?

Let us have a go at River here?

[ray gower]

We know a lot about River, one way or other.

She is very childlike in her sane moments, yet highly dangerous at other times. All this neatly explained by the Alliance's operations.

We know that she can read minds. As the series has unfolded, I think this is something that is only just starting to develop. In the beginning it was simply recurrent nightmares of what had been done to her, as things progressed it passed through strange babblings of prediction. By the time we meet Early she has learnt to read and understand, it meant that she could use her intelligence to play mind games.

The obvious question is how will this develop?

I suspect it might get to the point where she could physically control the actions of others, though I suspect there are some that are going to end with splitting headaches

[Hal Jordan]

So far, this is what I've come up with and this is with the help of other Browncoats' opinions. Those experiments that were conducted on River is transforming her into some type of super soldier/assassin/advanced human (not sure what to call it). Here's a few obvious points for why I think that:
- she can aim precisely at targets using mathematics and memory recall with just a quick glance.
- can mimick accents like how she did with Badger in Shindig
- can read thoughts
- can sense one's presence (ghosts or the reaver victim in Bushwacked, Blue Hand guys in Ariel, etc.)
- can sense danger from far away (Book getting shot in Safe, Simon getting snatched in Safe, the arrival of the Blue Hand men in Ariel)

I'm sure there's still a lot more to find out about River. I wouldn't be surprised if she has combat skills or even pilot skills. And as for what's to come around, I don't even know. I'll take a wild guess though. And just so that you know, I'm known for taking crazy guesses (might be because of the X-Files influence). Anyways, I don't think she's part of the government's secret plot. I think she's a part of the Blue Sun thing. And maybe the plan is to make her part of a powerful army that'll rule over the alliance and independents? Yeah, that kinda sounds far-fetched but somewhat of a fun guess in my opinion. But if you think my guesses are pretty wild, here's some others that I've seen:

- River is part mechanical.
- she's a clone
- she's been fused with alien DNA

Yeah, there's still seems to rumours going around that FF isn't dead yet. I guess 'cause a lot of browncoats who won't believe it until Joss personally says so. Well if that day comes, I hope he'd be willing to tell us his ideas on what he had planned for the Serenity crew and the 'verse. It would at least give us Firefly fans some kind of closure.


Cheers,
Hal

[ray gower]

Not sure if I would entirely agree with all of your conclusion.

Certainly her abilities are developing we've seen it as have her mood swings. I hope the development takes a turn for the worse at some stage as her powers increase beyond both her and Simon's ability to control.

Can almost be read that she will excel in a lot of technical fields, she is very intelligent.

That she is a weapon of some sort is also certain, my mind goes towards something along the Scanner series of films. But I think the Bluehand gang are part of the Alliance Government one way or other, they are getting too much help otherwise. So she is being developed to counter a threat that they percieve. Perhaps we have a last bastion of Independant resistance forming?

I think this would become a major line in later episodes.

Hope Joss doesn't give too much away until I've tried to start building my own series of writings!

[Hal Jordan]

Hey Ray,

I hope I don't sound dumb but what's the Scanner series of films?

Hope Joss doesn't give too much away until I've tried to start building my own series of writings!

Do you have any fan fiction? Would love to read 'em if you do.

Thanks for you input.

Cheers!

[Tabitha]

I haven't read any Firefly fan fic, but I would certainly be keen to see what you make of the characters.


Scanners is a film by Cronenberg, you have probably heard of the famous scene in which a guy's head explodes. From 1981 IMDB ENTRY.

Plot summary from IMDB:

Â*Darryl Revok is the most powerful of all the scanners, and is the head of the underground scanner movement for world domination. Scanners have great psychic power, strong enough to control minds; they can inflict enormous pain/damage on their victims. Doctor Paul Ruth finds a scanner that Revok hasn't, and converts him to their cause - to destroy the underground movement.

I agree Ray, I do see River as having these kinds of powers. And the effects that the Blue Hands had on those feds would back this up.

[ray gower]

Latest (and greatest?) work is in Lord of the Rings.
Otherwise I pretty well monopolise Star Trek Fan Fiction

I will have a go at Firefly, will take a month or two though and need to finish gathering thoughts on the characters for my crib notes!

[Lonewolf89]

I think River understands a lot more than Simon and the rest of the crew think. She seems very aware of what’s going on on the Serenity, and knows what it is the crew does. I think she’s more aware of that than her brother is.

One of the reasons she was so mind bending in ‘Objects’ is because Simon was finding medication that actually helped her break out of her shell and reveal the real her. Also, shje was trying to pay Simon back for helping her. She seems to want to protect him almost as much as he tires to protect her.

I don’t think she was being formed into an assassin or killer. I think she was a brain child of sorts. If anyone is familiar with the show ‘The Pretender’ I think the Alliance was using her like the Center used Jarod. She was going to make their attack plans, analyze their data. She was smarter than they thought and so they cut into her brain, hoping to force her to be more open to their brainwashing techniques.

[Dave]

I think Joss was trying to give us an insight into her mind in 'Our Mrs. Reynolds' when she begins to tear pages out of the Bible to try and 'make it right' because of it's inconsistencies.

It is a popular misconception that all people with autism are highly intelligent -- there is a range of abilities just like the population as a whole. But the 'autistic savant' is something promoted by films like 'Rainman'. People with autism do like things to be ordered, because they find it difficult to cope with disorder, and those qualities are also useful in subjects such as maths and music. River certainly shows some autistic tendencies here. I think Joss was trying to say something along those lines.

BTW I love 'Scanners' and have seen it more times than I can count. It was a chemical given to pregnant woman that caused the scanner power effect in their developing fetuses (originally as a mistake, then later on purpose.)

It could have been a chemical given to River that caused her powers. We saw wires, but who knows if they were passive monitoring equipment or directly plugged in.

No one has speculated on whether River was the only experiment. If it was a chemically induced effect then maybe she is not so special, and if so, they could have had a team of experimental subjects.

[Rik_the_Riff]

Well, Simon explains in Ariel that part of it, at least, was an operation to render part of her brain inoperative - the part that pushes away feelings, if I remember correctly. And we know that it was done at an 'academy', which suggests other students. I favour the weapon theory - remember that she tells Jayne she can kill him with her mind. I reckon she'd make a good weapon against Reavers, who are slowly beginning to invade Alliance space, driven by an evil alien force (sorry, you guys are getting tired of this theory, aren't you).

Just a thought,

Rik