By Dr. Lev Solokai, PhD in Xenopsychology, Dean of the Ghandi Political Science College, Weirdo Zone University
First printed in The Modern Thought in 2980, reproduced in 3002 with the author's permission
There seems to be a great misconception in the Weirdo Zone today about the mental individuality (or lack of) of the members of the Reaver Biological Collective. This is natural, of course, considering that we and the RBC have been at war for over five hundred years, and it is the natural reaction of any state and its citizens to villify, in many extents unfairly, the enemy it is forced to fight. The Angloid Allied forces of the Second Terran World War villified their Germanic opponents as robotic, their Italian opponents as posturing fops, and their Japanese opponents as sub-human. All of these slanders had at least a passing basis, if not in fact, at least in experience--the Germans were methodical to a fault, the Italians loved life too much to be elite fighters, and the Japanese had so much experience fighting in jungles (unlike their American foes, who thought the jungles just as otherwordly as the mythical red weeds of Mars) that they appeared like great apes with their mastery of the foliage. The Weirdo Zone has characterized the Reavers as soulless automatons controlled by a higher hive-intelligence, specifically the High Mind Empress from her throneworld of Shkai. This mindset has evolved from the fact that yes, the Reavers are telepathic and yes, they are capable of a sort of pseudo-control through the manipulation of neurotransmitters. However, this mindset is still wildly inaccurate.
The name itself--Reaver--implies a sort of mindless demon, never sated, always thrusting forward to crush anyone hapless enough to find himself in front of it, much like an agricultural combine with no driver. I'm just a xenopsychologist, not a linguist, so I cannot comment on the veracity of the dictionary implication that the name "Reaver" has its semantic roots in the Reaver language. If it does, it was truly a windfall to the Weirdo Zone propagandists who had to make the public fear the enemy and do it fast. It truly was effective, seeing how it has been able to make a generally pacifistic populace support an aggressive war for around five hundred years. But the fact remains that the beast is not mindless and is not truly a beast, as clearly defined evidence states.
For one, think about our conquests of Secondary and Tertiary galaxies. What happened to all of the Reavers who used to live there? It is true, as far as we today can tell, that most Reavers died in defense of their Mind Queens and territory, but a great number survived to be assimilated into our society. No one has ever heard of, or I presume, ever will hear of a revolt by these dispossessed Reavers, mostly because they were never brought up to defy authority in the first place. Yet these Reavers have been quietly living within our borders as full fledged citizens and doing perfectly well as free agents. It is doubtful, assuming that Mind Queens intended them solely as puppets, that they would have been granted the ability to exist as free agents at all unless it served some purpose (which honestly, I can't think of). Psychiatric reports of captured Reavers showed a high incidence of post-traumatic syndromes, but they were able to recall their pasts and described their lives under the "tyranny" of Mind Queens much as any free citizen of the Weirdo Zone would have. The only peculiarity was that most of these patients never had a sad or depressing moment in their life until their Mind Queen (their "crutch," as some of the more heartless among us have said) was taken from them.
That is the major function of the Mind Queen; she acts much like any parent vested with the power to make their children truly happy would. She can prevent the Universe from making her children sad, and so she does it. Of course, there are domineering Mind Queens who use this power to force her children to do as they wish with a combination of positive and negative reinforcements as well as punishments, but this classifies more as a very powerful form of persuasion than of mind control. It is not as if the Mind Queen thinks "jump" and the Reavers follow; no, a domineering Queen would cause a subject to be in pain and then think "jump, and then I'll make you happy." Someone with a strong enough will could fight this, but Reavers are really not brought up to be strong-willed against authority. That is why captured Reavers are so docile; although they pine for their homeland, they were never taught that they could form resistance groups after they were assimilated; they simply know that authority has transferred from the usual Reaver chain of command to the Weirdo Zone and will thusly obey the Weirdo Zone. That is also why Reavers taken back by the RBC even after assisting the Weirdo Zone are accepted with open hands; the concept of traitorous conduct does not strike so hard when acting in an opposite manner (resistance) is so unlikely.
It is argued that this war has been over freedom and to protect what we ourselves hold dear. The Reavers have shown to be nearly helpless against our military might, and all that has been achieved has been a war of imperialistic conquest. Historically, it has always been this way; someone would attack the Terran Dominion or the nascent Weirdo Zone, which would then counterattack and press on until the enemy acquiesced. If the enemy failed to do so in time, they were swept away from the register of the Universe like the Klaxi. It is probable that this war against the Reavers will continue untill the Collective (and in particular, the High Mind Empress) decides that it does not want to suffer any more and finally waves the proverbial white flag. Untill then, our own peculiar forms of mind control will bring up new hordes of soldiers to fight against them--for who is to say that propaganda and legitimized hate are more legitimate than direct biological control?
Weirdo Zone Forum for Open Debate netdoc
WZ.12.41.1A.893
Published 7.26.3002