Avatar Military Wankers Read This First

[jollyreaper]

Starglider, the question of what we'd do to Pandora all depends on how badly we need the unibtanium. Yes, the RDA ain't the government but if they need help covering shit up, just look at TEPCO and BP. Governments leaping to help a brother out.

Maybe an alternative could be found but given the cost of pandora trips, the pressure to synthesize the stuff domestically must already be huge.

Note that I like the movie, not a hater. Just talking the implications over. If this were shut like Battlefield Earth it wouldn't be worth the keystrokes.

[Starglider]

Starglider, the question of what we'd do to Pandora all depends on how badly we need the unibtanium.

I have previously argued on exactly that basis, that the RDA actions were understandable (although not excusable) on the basis that human civilisation (and hence billions of lives) may depend on the mining. This is mainly based on the leaked early script for Avatar as it's ambigious in the final film. Regardless given the level of technology that the humans have in the film, they do not need to engage in open cast mining and they certainly don't need to blow up villages and genocide alien biospheres. Even if we generously assume that the mining was absolutely necessary, the strategy chosen by the humans in the film was clearly determined by profit margins, desire for revenge and racial hatred - yet still constrained by some residual morality or fear of legal punnishment, as the perfectly viable 'nuke them from orbit' strategy was not on the table.

Yes, the RDA ain't the government but if they need help covering shit up, just look at TEPCO and BP. Governments leaping to help a brother out.

A better comparison would be the Bhopal disaster, but neligence is not comparable to actively gunning people down and firing rocket barrages at children.

Note that I like the movie, not a hater. Just talking the implications over.

As I've said, I earlier made similar arguments to you, but on reflection I was being a bit excessively pessimistic about humanity. Fortunately genocidal sociopaths like Darth Hoth are the exception rather than the rule. Although I'd hope that Jake Sully would be at least somewhat worried about the potential response - he has more insight into the thought processes of Earth's military leaders than the average human - and do everything possible to de-escalate the situation.

[Connor MacLeod]

What I'm wondering is whether "nuking" them (By whatever method) is cost effective to begin with? Much less that they can effectively deliver it? I'm also wondering if nuking the village might not make it inaccessible to the RDA (if they use nukes, will there be fallout or radiation hazards?)

I'm also not convinced that the other Na'Vi would just sit by and let the target village be nuked. So warfare may end up being a inevitability with that route. Does that mean you're going to keep nuking villages until they're all wiped out?

[Starglider]

What I'm wondering is whether "nuking" them (By whatever method) is cost effective to begin with? Much less that they can effectively deliver it? I'm also wondering if nuking the village might not make it inaccessible to the RDA (if they use nukes, will there be fallout or radiation hazards?)

Antimatter produces a lot of hard gamma, but no neutrons, so fallout will be negligible. Kinetic bombardment produces no fallout. Given the availability of SSTO shuttles the costs of dropping 100 tonnes of rock on the village at hypersonic velocities are negligible; just give the techs some time to produce some heat-shielded aeroshells. Accuracy will suck if you don't take the time to rig some guidance, but they have the skills and materials for that or alternatively they can just repeat the operation until they get a hit. Actually they have numerous spare shuttles anyway - they bring two with each trip and the spare ones get turned into gas giant fuel harvesters - so they could easily sacrifice one as a giant guided bomb.

I'm also not convinced that the other Na'Vi would just sit by and let the target village be nuked. So warfare may end up being a inevitability with that route.

In the film, they blew up the village but they let the population go as refugees. Jake Sully was around to convince everyone that they can and should retaliate. If the humans hadn't gone for the home tree, presumably the Na'vi would've assaulted their base camp.

I don't know what the response to slaughtering the entire tribe would be. My guess would be that if they did it just once fear of them same thing happening to them would prevent the other Na'vi from attacking, but if the humans did it repeatedly at some point they'd say 'fuck it, we're going to die anyway, let's try and take some humans with us'. The attack in the film was at least comprehensible to the Na'vi - the gunships are analogous to their flying beasts, the rockets and gas are a visible, comprehensible threat. Villages randomly exploding (from hypersonic rock bombardment) would be completely incomprehensible and terrifying.

So yes, had the humans gone for ultraviolence from the start they'd probably have easily won with no issues. Fortunately even the corrupt exec didn't think that the 'oops a tragic autopilot fault lead to an unmanned Valkyrie crashing into a village full of blue people at mach 5' excuse would be bought by the people back home.

Does that mean you're going to keep nuking villages until they're all wiped out?

Probably just the local continent.

[Metahive]

Eywa reacted rather violently to Na'vi dying in droves. Lobbing nukes/asteroids/whatever everywhere would make her disposition even more hostile probably necessitating the removal the entire biosphere of Pandora just to ensure the safety of the mining operation.

I can not in any way see Earth approving of this mass extermination of the one discovered alien planet with intelligent life on it, even less one that is basically a sentient being. That would break the RDA's neck quickly.

[Starglider]

Eywa reacted rather violently to Na'vi dying in droves. Lobbing nukes/asteroids/whatever everywhere would make her disposition even more hostile probably necessitating the removal the entire biosphere of Pandora just to ensure the safety of the mining operation.

Unless the solar system is extremely unusual, Pandora is hit by asteroids on a regular basis anyway. One or two strikes isn't going to register as an exceptional, although I admitt that a mass bombing would.

I am unclear whether taking out the spirit tree thing the humans were going for in the film would lobotomise the hive mind enough to prevent it making the connection from 'random explosions' to 'must attack humans'. The Na'vi seemed to think it would.

I can not in any way see Earth approving of this mass extermination of the one discovered alien planet with intelligent life on it, even less one that is basically a sentient being.

Oh I don't know, the ultra-Randians seem convinced that some day soon we will all see the light and embrace the purity of our absolute muderous selfishness.

[Zixinus]

Here's a thought: Jake knows how military actions works (well, as well as a grunt does, maybe he reads the news?). He knows that there is one thing that can curb all of it: politics.

If Jake and the other Avatars or human scientist can use the comms to broadcast the video of the attacking of the Home Tree, politics will take care of the rest. The sheer emotional reaction of the video will speak in the Na'Vi's favour and RDA will have a hard time justifying why their security forces engaged in what appears to be massacre.

Politicians wanting to exploit the outrage will pop out soon enough, especially if they happen to be backed by the RDA's enemies or rivals. The fact that the security forces were later killed might somewhat counterbalance this, but not enough considering that the Na'Vi let the other RDA personal go back home (so you cannot use the "mindless savage" argument").

Either way, some humans in power will certainly want to ask as to why a lone, corporate entity is making the decision of starting a war with an alien species.

The fact that the Na'Vi lack any interstellar (or even interplanetary) travel and the like will also make aggression upon them a bit harder.

[Connor MacLeod]

Antimatter produces a lot of hard gamma, but no neutrons, so fallout will be negligible.

Can the Venture star sacrifice some of its antimatter payload though? My impressions are that they're pretty stingy on excess mass for the ship, which includes fuel. That also doesn't tell us whether it is more cost effective either (how hard is it to produce even? Will they notice the missing amount, will someone catch hell for it, etc.)

Kinetic bombardment produces no fallout. Given the availability of SSTO shuttles the costs of dropping 100 tonnes of rock on the village at hypersonic velocities are negligible; just give the techs some time to produce some heat-shielded aeroshells. Accuracy will suck if you don't take the time to rig some guidance, but they have the skills and materials for that or alternatively they can just repeat the operation until they get a hit. Actually they have numerous spare shuttles anyway - they bring two with each trip and the spare ones get turned into gas giant fuel harvesters - so they could easily sacrifice one as a giant guided bomb.

What are you basing this all on to determine it is "cost effective?" I'm especially uncertain why you feel they can make what amounts to a "guided bomb" so trivially (and if so why they didn't do it in the movie.)

Probably just the local continent.

something tells me trying to nuke 'just' the continent (or even just parts of it) is not neccesarily going to prove 'cost effective.'

[Batman]

Just how important is the unobtanium to Pandora? The movie never comes out and says as far as I remember, the problem was from the word go that the RDA went about getting it in a way that was basically guaranteed to result in not inconsiderable conflict, not the basic fact of the Earthers taking the stuff away. I don't see why an arrangement couldn't be had were either less environmentally destructive mining methods are used, or Eywa actually decides to roll back/write off the biosphere around possible mining sites (given that there seem to be plenty of carnivores-including the Na'vi-on Pandora, it's definitely not an 'all life is sacred. Waah' approach) if she thinks it's worth it.
Unless unobtanium is somehow important to the continued existence of the Eywa planetmind, there's no reason the Na'vi would necessarily object to mining it per se (other than the natural distrust created by the behaviour of the RDA, of course, but with the Avatars and access to Grace's memories, Eywa should know humans don't always act like that).

[Lord of the Abyss]

I think you miss his point- that the people who ridicule the Na'vi for being absurdly perfect and thus "Mary Sues"* are wrong.

<snip>

*Is it just me, or has that fanfiction term gotten badly overused? Though I see the need for something like it...

Oh, yes. Horribly overused and the definition broadened and broadened until it amounts to "a character I hate whom I don't want to justify my dislike of". Too competent, not competent enough; survives the story, dies at the end; is special and unique, or completely ordinary; I've seen all sorts of mutually exclusive definitions of "Mary Sue" qualities.

Just how important is the unobtanium to Pandora? The movie never comes out and says as far as I remember, the problem was from the word go that the RDA went about getting it in a way that was basically guaranteed to result in not inconsiderable conflict, not the basic fact of the Earthers taking the stuff away. I don't see why an arrangement couldn't be had were either less environmentally destructive mining methods are used, or Eywa actually decides to roll back/write off the biosphere around possible mining sites (given that there seem to be plenty of carnivores-including the Na'vi-on Pandora, it's definitely not an 'all life is sacred. Waah' approach) if she thinks it's worth it.
Unless unobtanium is somehow important to the continued existence of the Eywa planetmind, there's no reason the Na'vi would necessarily object to mining it per se (other than the natural distrust created by the behaviour of the RDA, of course, but with the Avatars and access to Grace's memories, Eywa should know humans don't always act like that).

The humans could even offer Eywa asteroid protection as payment; that's one of the few natural forces that threaten her, and she may well have unpleasant memories of such impacts depending on how her memory works.

[Starglider]

Can the Venture star sacrifice some of its antimatter payload though?

I'm going by the Atomic Rocket description which states that antimatter is produced locally;

When the ship wants to depart Alpha Centauri and return to Sol, it re-fills its antimatter and propellant tanks from the local fueling stations, uses the matter-antimatter engines to boost up to 70% c again, coasts for five-odd years, and is decelerated to a halt by the laser batteries at Sol.

I don't own a copy of the relevant book (JCA:AASG) so feel free to correct this if you do.

My impressions are that they're pretty stingy on excess mass for the ship, which includes fuel.

The vast bulk of the fuel is hydrogen reaction mass; a relatively trivial amount of antimatter is carried, and its containment structure almost certainly weighs a lot more than the antihydrogen gas itself.

What are you basing this all on to determine it is "cost effective?" I'm especially uncertain why you feel they can make what amounts to a "guided bomb" so trivially (and if so why they didn't do it in the movie.)

Contemporary ICBMs are not guided past the boost phase, and achieve a CEP of under 100m. 1960s computer and INS technology sufficies to compute an appropriate ballistic trajectory; the flight computers on the Valkyries will have absolutely no trouble plotting an appropriate suborbital burn. All you need to do then is have some guys in space suits shove the projectiles out of the cargo hatch, then turn the engines back on and return to orbit (or re-enter on a shallower trajectory). The main problem will be that simple rocks will ablate unevenly and probably explode in the lower atmosphere. I'm sure they have spare heat shield material around to service the Valkyries, so I don't think making a conical shield will be a problem. As I said, if you feel 100m CEP isn't good enough and you need terminal guidance (why?) then use an old worn-out Valkyrie on autopilot for a direct hit.

They didn't do it in the movie due to some combination of (a) they didn't have precise enough co-ordinates for the soul tree site, (b) they underestimated the threat and thought that a conventional bombing run would be trivial and/or (c) escalation to weapons of mass destruction was beyond what they thought they could get away with; most likely 22nd century Earth has international treaties governing this (large-scale orbital strikes could well be an automatic war crime).

something tells me trying to nuke 'just' the continent (or even just parts of it) is not neccesarily going to prove 'cost effective.'

Probably not, although note that the Valkyries use fusion engines, so Avatar tech can achieve fusion (probably aneutronic given the minimal shielding) in compact lightweight devices with no fission trigger. Regardless, the RDA aren't going to have blueprints for fusion bombs even if the military can make them cheaply. Dumping mine tailings out of Valkyries is relatively cheap though.

[hongi]

How do we know that Eywa isn't the one making unobtanium? It may need very specialised conditions for creation c.f. petroleum, and Eywa could be doing that by herself.

[Starglider]

How do we know that Eywa isn't the one making unobtanium?

How do we know that Eywa isn't a biotech fuel refinery for a race of galactic conquerers who soon come back and use it as a staging post to assault earth if we don't destroy it first?

Occam's razor applies.

[NecronLord]

Please note, laser stations for boosting stuff cannot do that (unless they were designed to do it in the first place,

Which they were. The laser continuously accelerates ISVs for half their trip out there, a smaller target easily over two light years. Hitting Pandora would not be at all hard.

You should stop thinking in terms of "what is right and what is wrong" and start thinking in terms of "what is effective and what is not" if you want to be victorious and not just die for a just cause.

No.

Off topic, I am not talking about practical ways - I am talking morals. Any internet armchair general, including me, can outdo either side in almost any film with ease.

Anyway, when I was talking of ant hives I was talking of level of awareness/intelligence.
Mind Transfer does not instantly make you able to manipulate DNA.

Oh yes it does; in that transfering memory would generally include some way of reading an entire lifetime's worth of experience and then forming protein bonds in the target brain to replicate it. We don't know how long term memories are formed but while memory RNA is discredited almost all ideas I, a layman, have heard of are on the same level.

It came up with a mindless

Mindless? It thought to program the beasties to serve as mounts for Na'vi, overriding their basic behaviour, beforehand. That's hardly mindless.

Have you read what I wrote to andrewgpaul in the same post? I'm sorry, I tought I have placed a pointer to it in the first answer to you.

You have not proved that the Na'vi are against all mining operations and you have certainly not proven that future interactions with any humans must be conflict (protip: there are humans living there!)

Yes, there were some arrows in a RDA bulldozer, and there was the incident where the Na'vi set fire to one. That's not proof that there must be conflict. By that standard there can never be peaceful relations between Germany and France because when the Germans were being dicks the Marquis shot some Nazi soldiers and blew up some trains. In your mind I suppose that in the grim darkness of the European Union there is only war?

If humans do not immediately try and be massive, enormous asstards, maybe the Na'vi and their environment wouldn't want to kill them. (Which hey, is what happens in the film's ending too)

You must prove your claim that any approach will result in conflict.

To do which you'll probably have to buy the franchise so you can canonise your fanfic.

[Simon_Jester]

I can not in any way see Earth approving of this mass extermination of the one discovered alien planet with intelligent life on it, even less one that is basically a sentient being.

Oh I don't know, the ultra-Randians seem convinced that some day soon we will all see the light and embrace the purity of our absolute muderous selfishness.

Such an Earth would not produce the better humans we see in this film.

Also, the phrase "Ayn Rand, speaking for Boskone!" just popped into my head, for anyone who gets the reference

I think you miss his point- that the people who ridicule the Na'vi for being absurdly perfect and thus "Mary Sues"* are wrong.
<snip>
*Is it just me, or has that fanfiction term gotten badly overused? Though I see the need for something like it...

Oh, yes. Horribly overused and the definition broadened and broadened until it amounts to "a character I hate whom I don't want to justify my dislike of". Too competent, not competent enough; survives the story, dies at the end; is special and unique, or completely ordinary; I've seen all sorts of mutually exclusive definitions of "Mary Sue" qualities.

Hah. I think there's a fairly consistent consensus definition mind you: a character who is clearly intended as a sort of higher being, fated to triumph* due to superior skill or virtue, by the author... but who fails to present themself as a higher being in the story and convince the reader.

Gandalf is not a Mary Sue under this definition because he displays a combination of wisdom, power, honor, and fallibility that convinces the reader that he is worthy of the great things he achieves.

The average bad fanfic protagonist... not so much.

*Triumph may not mean a normal victory- the character who's just too angelic to live in this filthy filthy world can manage it too, with a moral victory even combined with a defeat in conventional terms.

[someone_else]

Btw, Finally found why unobtanium is critical. Pandorapedia page about RDA says that it is used to make a world-wide net of maglev trains, that allow people to commute hundreds or even thousands of miles.
If that fails, Earth's economy (used to have people commuting to go to work every far) will go to hell fast.
Just as oil prices rising may make using cars to go to work at 30+ km from home every morning unpractical and cause serious economic damage since you have to rethink your whole world's economy.

Which they were. The laser continuously accelerates ISVs for half their trip out there, a smaller target easily over two light years. Hitting Pandora would not be at all hard.

Pandorapedia says the acceleration phase is only 0.46 years, and the acceleration is 1.5 gees. There are relativistic effects involved (that I'm unable to work on) so I'm just taking the stated cruise time and hope they did the math correctly, it coasts 5.83 years at 0.7 c.

That's somewhere around 5.83years *0.7light-years-per-year = 4.081 light years of coasting. So we have only 0.6 light years of acceleration/deceleration. Since they are equal in time and performance as stated, the boosting phase is only 0.3 light years.

When I say it is not in range, it isn't in range. Not to mention that you have to aim at the position where that moon will be 4.6 years in the future, due to light lag, and that Pandora orbits another (big) planet so it will stay behind it for a while.

Since solar sails aren't particularly resistant to heat, the beam must be *very* disperse even at 0.3 light years. At most you are causing Global Warming on Pandora. Hooray.

Off topic, I am not talking about practical ways - I am talking morals.

Can you show me when in history a civilization acted some way because of morals? You seem to assume that because it is wrong it will never be done. What if that assumption was wrong?

Oh yes it does; in that transfering memory would generally include some way of reading an entire lifetime's worth of experience and then forming protein bonds in the target brain to replicate it.

Your knowledge of human brain is limited. Long-term human memory is basically the position synapses have in the memory areas (so, the "shape" of the circuit between different neural cells). There are lots of them as you can imagine. "Reading" human memory should be something like scanning the brain and seeing where all the synapses between all the cells are. Something like this, but much more sensible.

To transfer memories you have to move all neural cells down to a cell-to-cell basis.
This involves moving a buttload of very touchy material at a cellular scale without screwing anything up, and there is a huge quantity of other stuff that is there to prevent any tampering (like say the blood-brain barrier).

People like me think that it is not feasible at all, since it's slightly unlikely that different people will have neural cells placed in so similar ways to allow the procedure. You need to grow a clone and subject its cells to exactly the same stimuli to have an exact copy.

While Jake and his Avatar shared an obvious genetic similarity, how your cells connect to each other depends from your life experiences and what you learn. Jake an his brother were twins, but had a very different life. They were very different persons. The brain will be thus wildly different.

My personal interpretation is that they just made shit up in this case.

Mindless? It thought to program the beasties to serve as mounts for Na'vi, overriding their basic behaviour, beforehand. That's hardly mindless.

You remember the blue-flying-thing-taming scene? The creature was trying to kill Jake. Then Jake had to keep it down and connect to its biological USB.
Then his brain took control of the beast's and it obeyed his mental orders.

Jake did some training to learn how to do so with the horse-like creature (that still had the biological USB port), that was domesticated-ish and wasn't trying to kill him.

No Forest Goddess involved.

You have not proved that the Na'vi are against all mining operations and you have certainly not proven that future interactions with any humans must be conflict

Yeah, the Na'vi can always surrender and go away to remain alive. It's the only way it cannot end badly for them. It's still a defeat.

Anyway, another interesting point is that the Venture Star's mission duration (a trip to Pandora and back) is 14.5 years (Earth frame of reference). So, any mission to re-establish control over the supply of Unobtanium will last 7 years to get there, and then you'll have to wait 4.6 years for an overpowered laser to send a signal to Earth that everything went as planned.

This means that if you want to secure the mineral asap, as everything indicates in the movie and pandorapedia, you will send an expedition with the means to win a conflict if necessary. Otherwise the risk of wasting a decade is too great (they will still receive unobtanium regularly for 5 years or so since there were at least 5 ships like the Venture Star en route to Earth, then they have to hope to last enough).
Then you will talk and try to reach an agreement. If they refuse to listen, you are forced to start the mining operations anyway and defend them from any attack.

Given that the opposition is going to be basically part-time warriors, to defend the mining operations you are killing anyone but the elder and the kids. Not a genocide but close.

Now, you can say "hey! you said you will talk to them before! why are you so sure that they won't listen?"
-because their overlord (Jake) is an idiot, and the only smart character (grace) got killed. And there are more than enough proofs of that.
-because lots of Na'vi were killed in that battle, and a good quantity of them (or the now-orphan offspring of the causalities) won't accept humans coming again so easily. Yes, there are humans living there, but those are the ones that helped them in the battle, or that didn't do a thing in the battle, and anyway Na'vi aren't a monolithic entity, a decent quantity may still hate humans even if they obey their Jesus (Jake) that told them to leave the ones at the base alive.
-because the humans simply can do all pressure they want since they have the means to win anyway. Similar situation with native americans lead to them closed in shitty places.
-because it is a very tense situation and even something very minor could escalate into a war the Na'vi will lose.

By that standard there can never be peaceful relations between Germany and France because when the Germans were being dicks the Marquis shot some Nazi soldiers and blew up some trains.

Technically there is still detectable resentment towards Nazis in most of Europe. But they left the command of Germany some time ago if I remember correctly.

You must prove your claim that any approach will result in conflict.

Since humans were stealing unobtanium before and none had a shit to say, I think that coming back again and coming back to protect the mining operations with heavier equipment won't encounter so much resistance.
The slaughter of Na'vi will be the battle where the blueskins try to drive them away, and if it happens will be only the Na'vi's decision.

Anyway, my main proof about the high probability of a conflict is that human civilizations taken as a single being are assholes even if most of the population composing them isn't, as the last millenia of history show (do I need to make a list?). And that for corporations it is much more so. If there is massive profit to be done, shit will happen.

[Ilya Muromets]

You should stop thinking in terms of "what is right and what is wrong" and start thinking in terms of "what is effective and what is not" if you want to be victorious and not just die for a just cause.

In this case, violence can only have the adults killed. The elders will then be forced to sell their lands for protection.
Thus violence isn't a tool to reach their objective.
I'd advise a more non-violent Ghandi-like tactic (that worked well in India, to the contrary of native americans in the US).
It would also show that they are really better than us.

Wait, hold on, what? "It worked in India?" Something that worked for a different situation with very different socio-political factors is not going to apply to every other remotely similar situation. Heck, it wouldn't even apply to other situations in Earth's own history. Do you really think Gandhi's tactics would work against an enemy who really wants to slaughter them en masse or just plain get rid of them? Do you really think he would've been successful against Nazis or Stalin and Beria's merry bunch if they were there instead of the British? Do you think those tactics would've worked against Pol Pot? Or Spanish conquistadors?

That's not even taking into account what Gandhi's actual tactics were. It wasn't just the rose-colored "peaceful protest" as most people think. It also involved a great deal of actively boycotting British businesses and institutions, as well as exerting political influence and pressure, to the point actually causing some significant disruption for the colonial authorities. His movement also had the advantage of occurring during the time the British Empire was on its last legs, when it was fast losing the impetus or economic ability to try to forcibly hold its colonial holdings.

That does not apply in Pandora. What can the Na'vi boycott that will impact RDA's operations? What sort of political influence can they peacefully exert that will have any meaningful effect? Lastly, how is the RDA comparable in any way to the British Empire on its last legs? It's mining facility is well-supplied and self-sufficient. So how, pray tell, can the Na'vi apply any sort of pressure to the RDA in the same way Gandhi's movement did to the British Empire?

[Metahive]

Btw, Finally found why unobtanium is critical. Pandorapedia page about RDA says that it is used to make a world-wide net of maglev trains, that allow people to commute hundreds or even thousands of miles.
If that fails, Earth's economy (used to have people commuting to go to work every far) will go to hell fast.
Just as oil prices rising may make using cars to go to work at 30+ km from home every morning unpractical and cause serious economic damage since you have to rethink your whole world's economy.

Think about it, it's a room-temperature superconductor, it's not a consumable like oil! The comparison is therefore invalid. Think about another thing, the sole source of unobtanium is ten years worth of travel away, and is transported in relatively small amounts. Just what kind of total chickenshit economy would it have to be to make itself completely dependent on that? Last thing, economical woes are no justification for murder and genocide. Not now, not then, not ever. Or do you really side with the Independence Day aliens who've build their entire society around such asshattery?

Since humans were stealing unobtanium before and none had a shit to say, I think that coming back again and coming back to protect the mining operations with heavier equipment won't encounter so much resistance.
The slaughter of Na'vi will be the battle where the blueskins try to drive them away, and if it happens will be only the Na'vi's decision.

Anyway, my main proof about the high probability of a conflict is that human civilizations taken as a single being are assholes even if most of the population composing them isn't, as the last millenia of history show (do I need to make a list?). And that for corporations it is much more so. If there is massive profit to be done, shit will happen.

Remember when the Middle Eastern nations embargoed the West and caused an energy crisis? Remember the lack of military, much less genocidal response to this act despite oil being way more vital to western economies than unobtanium to future Earth's? Yeah, that's history for you.

And then people complain that humanity was portrayed as one-dimensionally villanious in Avatar. Fuck ass, they should watch all the Space Orks and Khorne worshipers here.

[NecronLord]

Btw, Finally found why unobtanium is critical.

Already aware of it. There's a whole passel of technical issues regarding how important that would actually be - note that the RDA ran the maglevs before Pandora was discovered, just fine. There is also the issue of how long the unobtanium lasts - it's not fuel, and doesn't get used up in the same way, it's more like a rare earth metal.

Pandorapedia says the acceleration phase is only 0.46 years,

I stand corrected. Nonetheless, there is no reason it's not a viable weapon.

I'm going to have to explain this aren't I? You're failing to grasp that space is big. Any laser that can hit something so small over such a distance must be incredibly collimated.

Right. Let's assume the laser has an aperture of 1m (this favours your argument).

If it can hit a 16 Km wide solar sail at .3 Ly...

Θ = 2 arctan ( (D(f) - D(i)) / 2 L)
Θ = 2 arctan ((16,000-2)/2*2,836,276,486,700,000)
Θ = 2 arctan (15,998/5,672,552,973,400,000)

Θ = 5.64049382*10-12 Rad
Θ = 5.64049382*10^-9 mRad

This monster has a divergence best represented in picoradians.

But... let's determine what kind of area it'd cover at Pandora...

5.64049382×10-12 = 2 arctan ((D(f) - 2 )/2 * 41,598,721,804,000,000)

Solving for D(f) we get...
D(f) = 83,197,443,608,000,000*tan(1/354578883306)+2
D(f) = 234,639.333

Let's test it.

Θ = 2 arctan (234 637.333/83,197,443,608,000,000)

2 arctan(234 637.333/83,197,443,608,000,000) = 5.64049381* 10^-12

Θ = 5.64049381*10^-9 mRad, so the beam diameter at Pandora would be 234,639.333 m if we use a laughably small beam aperture that favors your idea which seems like a pretty big number.

That's actually meters, though, remember, so we're talking about something only the size of a small county.

43,239,843,016.97479 m²

Now, Atomic Rocket cites an example of a hypothetical design of 1.5 petawatts to produce acceleration a sad fraction of the Venture Star's, but we're not greedy, so we'll assume the beam is set to an output of 1.5 petawatts when Genghis Hitler, RDA CEO fires it.

1,500,000,000,000,000 W / 43,239,843,016.97479 m² = 34,690.2277 W/m²

Thirty four kilowatts of energy per square meter LOW END

In orbit of Earth, there's about 1.4 KW/m² (assuming optimal exposure to the sun) - with many areas of the earth receiving only a few hundred watts per square meter here. We're talking dozens of times that area's normal heat, aburptly raising the amount of incoming radiation to something exceeding Mercury's equatorial dayside.

We're literally talking about lighting areas the size of Denmark on fire with a button push here.

Now, I can think of ways to imagine the laser (adding a beam-waist, for instance, or imagining multiple generators) that would remove this ability, but there's nothing in the film or expanded material to recommend them over the simpler theory that it's just a fucking enormous laser.

When I say it is not in range

"I am talking out my ass" is the correct end to that sentence.

Not to mention that you have to aim at the position where that moon will be 4.6 years in the future,

You're saying they can hit it with RKVs bud. That's at least as difficult.

due to light lag, and that Pandora orbits another (big) planet so it will stay behind it for a while.

Have I not fucking explained this? Space has more than two dimensions. There's no reason to think Pandora's orbit of Polyphemus or its star is aligned with the Sun.

Urgh. I'll deal with the rest later.

[NecronLord]

Corollary to the above: it should be assumed that the laser's beam is wider than the Venture Star, but if it could manage a continuous petawatt+ on the ship at .3 Ly, it can set Denmark on fire at 4.4 - anything that would otherwise miss an ISV is just gravy.

Can you show me when in history a civilization acted some way because of morals?

Lord Palmerston in the Don Pacifico Affair where the British Empire blockaded Athens with its navy because one of its jewish citizens had been attacked by an anti-semitic mob his property stolen and the Greek government refused to take up the case because he was jewish.

The American Civil War, on the Union side, while the Union would have fought to recapture the southern states even if there was no slavery, was sparked by moves by the North to abolish slavery for moral reasons. Later, the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment further aligned the Union to abolitionism.

The British West Africa Squadron, a force of ships maintained by Great Britain throughout most of the 19th Century to put down slave traders on the Atlantic, at one point it comprised fully one sixth of all British naval assets. It was later assisted by the Americans.

1868 British Expedition to Abyssinia to liberate captured British citizens at enormous cost rather than abandon them to unjust imprisonment and torture by the Emperor.

World War 2, where Great Britain declared war on Germany when it invaded Poland, an action that did not directly threaten Britain.

The United States and Soviet Union simultaneously demanded that Israel, France and Britain cease their invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis. Soviet Premier Bulganin even threatened to fire nuclear ballistic missiles at London and Paris (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Jan 1958) if they did not cease.

I could go on (the many chivalrous deeds of Saladin, for instance).

If we expand it to more than just the moral deeds I approve of, we get a whole passel of religious wars ranging from Aztec flowery wars {the aztecs sure thought it was moral, weirdos} to crusades, and great religious deeds, like building pyramids.

And if we move from the epic to the everyday, every single welfare state or state with even a rudimentary health service, takes action every single day because of its morals.

Doubtless an informed commentator can argue against some of those, so I'll nail my colours to the mast of the West Africa Squadron; there, right there, is a superpower spending enormously for its morals.

You seem to assume that because it is wrong it will never be done. What if that assumption was wrong?

I seem to assume the RDA exists in a political climate where it has limits on its actions, as the movie and secondary material seem to imply.

Your knowledge of human brain is limited. Long-term human memory is basically the position synapses have in the memory areas

And what do you think synapses are made of? I'll give you a clue, 'taint made out of copper. Anything that can create specific memories has the ability to control billions of protein and lipid structures very accurately.

My personal interpretation is that they just made shit up in this case.

Wow. Captain obvious. The point remains that it's capable of restructuring a brain accurately, which gives it remarkable abilities to shape cells to its whim, certainly beyond what would be required to manufacture a bioweapon. It also implies a very good grasp of neuro-transmitters (including alien ones) which is pretty closely related to a whole variety of viruses.

Jake did some training to learn how to do so with the horse-like creature (that still had the biological USB port), that was domesticated-ish and wasn't trying to kill him.

Err, I suggest you watch the film. I'm talking about where a thanator looks at Neytiri, stops, and then permits her to ride it, something they've never been known to do before.

then you'll have to wait 4.6 years for an overpowered laser to send a signal to Earth that everything went as planned.

If you're using Pandorapedia, then they've got FTL comms, albeit really low bandwidth ones.

Technically there is still detectable resentment towards Nazis in most of Europe. But they left the command of Germany some time ago if I remember correctly.

Urgh. Simple metaphor.

German = Human.
Nazi = RDA

Anyway, my main proof about the high probability of a conflict is that human civilizations taken as a single being are assholes even if most of the population composing them isn't, as the last millenia of history show (do I need to make a list?). And that for corporations it is much more so. If there is massive profit to be done, shit will happen.

So you have no proof that the RDA is going to be able to make your genocide fantasy happen. Good good.

[Spoonist]

@NecronLord
In the OP the headers does not stand out as much as they should, maybe increase size or center them?

Two things that I'm missing is
1) Jake is an idiot.
Lots of milwankers make claims or base their claims on Jake's military experience. That is just simply BS. It is well established in the movie that he is a failure. A grunt who most smart people think is an idiot. (See interaction with scientists, suits and RDA security command). Even the pilot who switch side make comments about this.
Everything Jake does shows that he is one of the big group of males who don't think before they act and let their hormones do the thinking for them. Lots of heroes are like this so it should come as no suprise, but again and again milwankers try to prop him up.
2) Quarich is a manipulative homocidal maniac out for revenge.
Again, there are several key scenes were it is clearly shown that Q act in self interest and that this interest is in escalation of the conflict against not only the navi but against pandora as a whole. The company goals are just used as a means to an end for this. Several of his decisions are not the most effective unless one this is taken into acount. Also that he slowly builds up each escalation so that he can motivate them according to the corporate agenda.
We also see his manipulation of the head suit in several scenes, where Q manipulate the suit to be more aggressive than is necessary for the company goals.

[Knife]

On Quarich, absolutely. From the get go with his little safety speech and his story about the scar on his head, you know he's a psyco. Jake, on the other hand, I don't agree with your assessment. He didn't strike me as failure, more of Joe Average with necessary military cred to work in the story line.

[Spoonist]

On Quarich, absolutely. From the get go with his little safety speech and his story about the scar on his head, you know he's a psyco. Jake, on the other hand, I don't agree with your assessment. He didn't strike me as failure, more of Joe Average with necessary military cred to work in the story line.

How could you miss it? It's all over the film, especially in the intro.
All over he is rash, impulsive and acts on instinct. He never thinks ahead even when its to his own detriment.

JAKE (V.O.)
The egghead and the jarhead. Tommy was
the scientist, not me. He was the one
who wanted to get shot light years out
into space to find the answers.

JAKE (V.O.)
Me -- I was just another dumb grunt
gettin’ sent someplace I was gonna
regret.

JAKE
Right.
(to camera)
So, whatever. Here I am. Doing science.
(looks around)
Never been in a lab before.

GRACE
(turning to Jake)
Yeah, yeah, I know who you are, and I
don’t need you. I need your brother.
(to Max)
You know -- the PhD who trained three
years for this mission.
JAKE
He’s dead. I know it’s a big
inconvenience to everyone.
GRACE
How much lab training have you had? Ever
run a gas chromatograph?
JAKE
No.
GRACE
Any actual lab work at all?
JAKE
High school chemistry. But I ditched.
...snip...
MAX
Here, tomorrow, oh eight hundred. Try to
use big words.

NORM
Irrrreiyo. Irrrreiyo. You’ve gotta roll
the R, r-r-r-oll it.
Norm makes Jake repeat the word, getting more frustrated.
JAKE (V.O.)
It’s good he’s back on board, but he
thinks I’m a retard too.

That is after weeks with the natives. So months together. etc

Evidence in scenes, (from memory):
1) Trying out the Avatar for the first time. Ignoring orders, ignoring warnings, showing standard reckless behaviour.
2) First time in the jungle. Nerveous, trigger happy, then shows boredom and goes rashly away from the group, meets massive native life, etc.
3) Science shack, doesn't take care of himself - don't eat don't sleept etc acts like a junkie, doesn't take advice from more those with more experience. Even when its bad for his performance and goals. ie don't think.
4) With the Navi - reckless, impulsive etc doesn't grasp the spiritual ideas of the navi even when the thickest numbnuts in the audience has. Shows typical ignorance and compensation of that ignorance vs the natives.
5) Knowing that doom is coming to the navi hometree he ignores it and does not warn them or Grace until its too late, again acting on instict, impulsive without thinking.
6) Not reporting to Q when he has to, showing that he has a problem with his "priorities" to the one man who can effectively put a stop to whatever he thinks he got going with the navi/avataar thingie. Not even trying to trick Q or give him false data. Again not thinking. Just trying to get more time to get his next "fix" of linked in avatar joyride. Again detriment to both his goals, ie either legs or navi stuff.
7) Attacking the truck when it arrives, striking at the camera - its impossible not to realise that he has been caught on film, again impulsive instinct not thinking.

etc Do I need to go on?
He's an idiot, a failure and act mostly on "instinct". That is pivotal to him succeeding on pandora where the other more learned do not. Because its a back to basics thingie. His battle tactics and plan shows it as well.

But again it is key to him succeeding where others could not, like jumping the big bird.

[Knife]

Being impulsive is a bit different than being an idiot which was your first description. Most people are going to give him a pass on being impulsive when it comes to getting a new pair of legs and using them. He is not a 'failure', you wanna go with reckless and impulsive? Sure, I can agree with that.

[Spoonist]

Being impulsive is a bit different than being an idiot which was your first description. Most people are going to give him a pass on being impulsive when it comes to getting a new pair of legs and using them. He is not a 'failure', you wanna go with reckless and impulsive? Sure, I can agree with that.

He was acting like this before losing his legs, he was like this when he got his first skintime, he was acting like this during and after getting the offer from Q, he was acting like this after weeks with the navi, he was acting like this throughout all the glimpses we get from the film. Its not a temporary thing, its a character trait.
Not thinking things through, not thinking ahead, high school drop out when the brother got a PhD, not officer material, acts rashly to his own detriment, acts without thinking what effects it will have on friends and loved ones, etc. I don't think I'm being too harsh when I call the man a failure and an idiot before and during the events in the film. But agreed that it is a relative verdict so some might disagree. Me I'd say that being a failure before is what drives him to go native better than those before, being rash and impulsive is what is needed to be successful in the pandora environment and being an idiot is what enables him to become the hero at the end.
If he had been smart he would have gone with the corporate program, had he not had a compensation complex he would not have rebelled against orders.