Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

ehind by an Alliance government official, describing the tragic fateof this once thriving metropolis. In the holographic visual recording,the young, terrified female officer frantically recounts how agovernmental attempt to perform a pharmaceutical experiment onthe population of Miranda has gone horribly, horribly wrong:“It’s the Pax, the G-23 Paxilion Hydrochorate that weadded to the air processors. It was supposed to calm thepopulation, weed out aggression. Well it works. The peoplehere stopped fighting, and then they stopped everythingelse. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding,talking, eating. There’s 30 million people here and they alljust let themselves die. I have to be quick. About a tenth ofa percent of the population had the opposite reaction to thePax. Their aggressor response increased, beyond madness.They’ve become – well, they’ve killed most of us, and notjust killed. They’ve done things… I won’t live to report this,but people have to know, we meant it for the best. To makepeople safer.” (Serenity)Therefore, like Grendel who has been rendered monstrous as aresult of the ancient sin committed by his human ancestor, Cain,the Reavers are also revealed to be cursed human beings, turnedmonstrous by the modern technological sins of their fellowhuman beings whose medical experiment on the population of aplanet had catastrophically negative results. Viewers learn that theReavers’ lineage is human and are confronted with the terrifying, yetfascinating realization that the Reavers are not so far removed fromeven the film’s beloved heroes. For it becomes clear that any memberof the crew could have easily become a Reaver as well, had theysimply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Just as Grendeland Cain’s monstrous kin horrify and captivate both medieval14 afternoons of alterity