“How come they ain’t blowing us out of the air?!”
”They wanna run us down, the up-close kill!”
- Jayne Cobb and Malcolm Reynolds upon being pursued by a Reaver land stalker.
A Reaver land stalker (frontal view).
These land stalkers were a type of small spacecraft heavily modified into hover tank-like speeders, that were used by Reavers, and were sometimes carried in Reaver landing ships.
Armament and Specifications[]
Reavers land stalkers were fast and agile, and could easily catch up with MF-813 Flying Mules, being also capable of significantly boosting their speed for an unknown period of time.
They were armored to the point where small fire-arms were inefficient against them (although it’s heavily implied that explosives, like grenades, could potentially blow them apart). Their armament was constituted of lethal disk-throwers and anti-personnel harpoons (obviously designed to grab a victim and suck it inside to be devoured by the Reavers).
A Reaver land stalker firing a harpoon.
The exact crew complement for a Reaver land stalker remains unclear, however judging by it being somewhat longer and larger than a MF-813 Flying Mule, it’s possible that it could carry a crew of around either five or six total (although this is just both observation and merely speculation).
History[]
The first ever recorded encounter with a Reaver land stalker occurred on the planet Lilac, located on the outskirts of the Alliance’s territory, where the members of the Serenity crew were in the middle of a bank heist, only to be interrupted by a Reaver raiding party. Realizing the immediate danger they were in, Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Jayne Cobb, and Zoë, along with River Tam, immediately climbed aboard their MF-813 Flying Mule and began to flee, but not before the Reavers took noticed and quickly sent a Reaver land stalker after them.
A Reaver land stalker relentlessly chasing after the Serenity crew's MF-813 Flying Mule speeder.
The Serenity crew’s own speeder (piloted by Zoe) tried to desperately outrun them, but the Reaver land stalker quickly caught up to them and began bumping them on purpose (possibly as an intimidation tactic). Malcolm Reynolds and Jane returned fire with their small arms fire, but their shots just couldn’t dent the enemy vehicle’s tank-like armor. When Jayne attempted to retrieve extra ammo from the rear compartment, the Reaver land stalker crew fired a harpoon into one of Jaynes legs, while attempting to drag him into the maw like opening of the Reaver land stalker so the Reavers could kill and eat him. Fortunately, Captain Malcolm Reynolds managed to cut the harpoon’s tow rope via his revolver, thus saving Jayne’s life in the process.
The Reaver land stalker continued to chase them and attempted to ram into them again, that is until Malcolm Reynolds ordered Zoe to graze their own speeder against one of the rocks, which broke off and slammed right into the intake of one of the land stalker’s engines, causing the Reaver land stalker itself to momentarily lose control, while narrowly avoiding more boulders. The crew thought they had lost the Reavers upon reaching the flats, unfortunately the Reaver land stalker, while slightly damaged, suddenly appeared behind them while bellowing smoke. Noticing this, Zoe, quickly told everyone to hold on as she immediately swung their MF-813 Mule speeder around to face the relentless Reaver vessel, that refused to give up the chase. The Reaver crew seeing this, decided to increase their land stalker’s speed to full in order to deliberately ram them in a suicide attempt. Fortunately the Serenity appeared just in the nick of time and scooped up the Mule speeders crew. The Serenity couldn’t raise up in time as the Reaver land stalker instantly crashed right into them and suddenly exploded upon impact, while a piece of the Reaver land stalker had managed to make it inside along with a surviving lone Reaver, who was quickly shot dead when it attempted to attack the crew. The remains of the dead Reaver and the leftovers of the destroyed Reaver land stalker were quickly disposed of as soon as the Serenity crew quickly left the system, after making sure no more Reavers were chasing them.
Appearances[]
Background Information[]
- Most of the Reaver land stalker craft was portrayed using CGI, however some of the parts of the Reaver land stalker craft were built and modeled by the filming crew for extreme close ups when filming the epic speeder chase sequence for the 2005 film Serenity.