The first thing we learn about the Reavers on Joss Whedon’s Firefly is that when they take a ship: “they’ll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing – and if we’re very very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.” In the show we see Reaver ships, but not the Reavers themselves. We do see a guy who emulates Reaver behaviour. He cuts his own tongue in half and jumps on top of an Alliance officer, screaming and bleeding and attacking him. We see more of them in the movie Serenity, but everything suggests Reavers are not big thinkers.

Attack, scream, rape, eat seems to be their motto. And sewing, oddly. We all watch Star Trek right? Who the fuck is the Reaver captain? Who is the engineer? I’m going to assume they have neither a chief medical officer nor a ship’s counselor. You need to have some kind of organization to run a ship. Where are we going? Who is going to plot the course for the ship to get there? How would a discussion be had about this? Reavers seem not much different than zombies.

Space zombies (that can rape and sew) would be an isolated threat. “Oh my God, zombies took over the space station,” would mean you can’t go back to that space station anymore. Unless a space zombie accidentally gets inside an escape pod that launches, that zombie problem is isolated. They would not have ships, destinations, or air space as the movie Serenity suggests. If there is such a thing as a Reaver chef I’m not sure I would want to try his eggs.