River vs Cleric John Preston

[Thirdfain]

Obviously it's not quantifiable, but River's telepathy might turn this in her favour. Preston is an incredbily skilled fighter, but can he beat someone who not only exhibits significant physical prowess, but can also read his mind? It's entirely possible that River would kill him in a manner of seconds- read his first attack, play along till the last second, and then use her precise knowledge of what he's going to do to kill him.

Can we quantify her reaction time? Or her psychic ability?

[Comrade Tortoise]

We might be able to, the problem is we have only seen her engage in that sort of behavior something like three times. 4 if you count Objects in Space

Reaction time: She is capable of engaging multiple frenzied opponents simultaneously. These creatures, unlike the Grammaton clerics Pretson engages in such combat with, are not predicatable using standard non-telepathic techniques Potentially body positioning, but no human can realistically track that many people. The only reason preston manages it is because he has memorized, by rote, the statistical probability of any given group of people being in a certain position. He simply would not be able to apply is techniques to RIver Tam, who would know how he fights via telepathy, and could compensate.

I have to hazard the guess that her reaction time is augmented by her telepathy.

Telepathy: She is capable of deep scanning people's thoughts with no effort. She is capable of tracking moving opponents with just her mind (objects in space. Neither of those ships had onboard location systems to my knowledge. in order to track what was going on, she would have had to have been using her telepathy) She is capable of feeling the pain and suffering of indiduals who have been dead for 20 years, and arguably, from a system away. There is no reason to suspect that she could not read Preston's thoughts on the fly. No reason at all.

I would also point out that he is trained, by rote memorization, to engate multiple opponents. It is where the majority of his training is. And while he is good with a sword, he uses a set fighting pattern which is predicatable to a good swordsman (am I right Thirdfain? I know you fence rather well)
River, ESPECIALLy with her telepathy, but probably without it, could pick up on this. Remember, her analytical ability is insane.

[frigidmagi]

If all he had was rote memorization then he would have died when confronted by a group of humans with the same memorization. There is clearly more to Preston fighting still than computerized repetation of the same moves over and over.

I will futher state that the Reavers as well as the bar brawlers are not impressive oppotents. I would bet a platoon of Marines against larger group of Reavers on foot anyday. Mindless rage does a good fighter make, one should note that Reavers also attack helpless targets! There is no record of them attacking anyone who could reasonable fight back until Serenity.

[Hotfoot]

There was that kid who was made a Reaver, who took down at least two armed military guards and escaped from a cruiser. I'll not count the medbay escape, since that was jumping a bunch of medical personnel.

[frigidmagi]

I'll have to watch that one again but if I remember correctly the armed guards were jumped from concealment weren't they and not expecting a fight of any kind?

And evading a armed enemy is very different from defeating an armed enemy. I have no question in my mind River could evade John for example.

[Shroom Man 777]

River needs time to analyze dance steps. I doubt Preston will give her that time.

And murdering a bunch of angry, frothing at the mouth space barbarians in melee combat can't compare to murdering a bunch of extremely well-trained Grammaton Clerics before they could even blink - with their own weapon, no less!