Avatar Military Wankers Read This First

[NecronLord]

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.

There's a couple of PhDs who also rebel. Are they not smart?

[Ahriman238]

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.

Confused.

Where did it ever say that Sully was a high-school drop-out? The only reference to his schooling I remember is him telling Grace that he used to ditch chemistry. That could easily have been a joke, and if it wasn't, I fail to see the relevance.

Jake Sully was a United States Marine, a uh, warrior of the Jarhead clan. Marine's are elites that recieve extensive training, at a minimum twice the basic of any other service branch, and they don't accept dropouts or morons.

More than that. Quaritch was quite impressed with Sully's record, complimenting him on surviving a particular warzone they'd both done tours in. He's a cripple who can't afford whatever form of regen they use, that's about the only way I can really consider him a 'loser.'

I'll agree that he is rash, and that is consistently presented. I consider it more of a neutral characteristic, since so much good comes of it, even though it is not traditionally considered a virtue. Sully intrigued the Na'vi specifically because he was nothing like the scientists, the only 'dream-walkers' they had met.

[Knife]

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.

Wha? We don't ever see him when he had his original legs, and the whole reason he was reckless and impulsive is that he was a fucking cripple who got a second chance. It's a nice little theme running through the movie, what do you do if you get a second chance. Marine loses his legs and gets a second chance to get them back, what does he do? Exactly what he's told to do by a psycho asshole and every thing turns to shit. He gets a second chance to set the record straight and what does he do, the right thing this time and not what he's told. Not sure how that theme jives with a supposed character trait of loser or failure.

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.

Nnot sure where you're getting those little factoids from. Don't remember anything in the movie about whether or not he dropped out of school, been a long time since the Marines accepted high school drop outs but it is the future so I don't know. His brother did have a PhD and he was a grunt in the military, not seeing how being enlisted makes him a loser or failure. Perhaps he wasn't as smart as his brother, doesn't make him a loser or a failure.

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.

LoL, the more you go into it, the more I think you are being harsh and projecting some weird bias you have against the character.

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.

I think he's rash and impulsive and let his personal interests cloud his better judgement for a while, not that that has much to do with his impulsiveness, but in the end got a second chance to make the right decision. Kind of a redemption story line going on there. His rashness and impulsiveness sticks out from the cold and calculating RDA and the nerd scientists the Na'vi are used to. He went with the corporate program, though, and that's when everything turned to shit, it took a rash and impulsive person to buck the trend and do something about it. Nothing in there says loser or failure, so still not sure where you're getting that.

[Spoonist]

Looking at the different responses, am I placing a different value on "idiot" than most? Isn't 'idiot' apt for someone who acts thoughtlessly, recklessly and to his own detriment?
So is it the word "idiot" people react to? As in you agree that he acts foolishly and recklessly but not that he is an idiot?

If so which of the seven examples I gave do you think does not cut it as evidence?

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.

There's a couple of PhDs who also rebel. Are they not smart?

Nowhere did I equate rebelling with being an idiot.
One does not exclude nor include the other. Its only with the compounded evidence that I call Jake an idiot. We get very little evidence to the contrary.
For the scientists its in line with their direct interest to take the navi side, their research depend on it. Grace and Q are antagonists from the get go. Grace hopes that she can convince the top suit with the result that Jake has with the natives. etc
Most of the scientist's decisions make rational sense.
Jake like so many other males in reality and in movies doesn't. He is of the act first think later type. Most buccaneer/swashbuckler heroes are like that, some more reckless than others, some smarter than others. Jake is on the stupid side of the scale. He does not know how to act in his own self interest even when the POV of that self interest is changing or ambivalent.

...high school drop out...

Confused.

Where did it ever say that Sully was a high-school drop-out? The only reference to his schooling I remember is him telling Grace that he used to ditch chemistry. That could easily have been a joke, and if it wasn't, I fail to see the relevance.

If so the confusion is mine. I could be misunderstanding american culture/language here. This was my train of thought:
ditching high school chemistry=skipping high school chemistry=failing high school chemistry=failing high school=drop out
Looking at google it seems that the last step is a big error as failing and dropping out is not the same.
In the US can you graduate high school without chemistry?

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.

LoL, the more you go into it, the more I think you are being harsh and projecting some weird bias you have against the character.

If there is any bias its not against the character per se. I like the character because of its flaws. Characters withot flaws are much less interesting.

[Zixinus]

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.

Whoever thought of making a world-wide meglev track made out of unobtanium needs a few accuntants sicked on him.

Considering the cost of getting even small amounts of the stuff, it makes about as much sense as making a freeway out of platinum-alloyed gold (it probably would be even cheaper to do so). If anything, it shows RDA stupidity on a greater level.

Also, the pandorapedia mentions nothing about the necessity of the unobtanium for the world's continued existence. It only mentions RDA's continued existence and their reliance on the material, not Earth's.

[someone_else]

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. [snipped stuff] 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?

In the same way Ghandi did. By causing uproar in the enemy's population members that aren't assholes and can change things if they all band together. I remember that people in the command room were crying while the hometree was brought down.
And I expect that at least half of the miners won't like to see Na'vi slaughtered while they don't defend themselves.
They camp in the mines, where they want to blow up rock. Who has the balls to press the button now?
It's fucking risky, and some will die, just as most of ghandi's stuff. Of course they will have to communicate their needs in a very obvious way at any occasion.

This is a similar enough situation for the tactic to have decent chances to work.

Last thing, economical woes are no justification for murder and genocide.

It is more like securing control over foreign supplies of critical materials. If for that you have to fight, so be it. You aren't going there to kill Na'vi, but just to ensure spice still flows.
I just pointed out that any attack from Na'vi is likely to be the doom of their civilization since they lose most of their able-bodied individuals.

Think about it, it's a room-temperature superconductor, it's not a consumable like oil! The comparison is therefore invalid.

It is to show that the RDA has the balls of the world in its hands. IT IS THE BIGGEST FUCKING MONOPOLY OF THE WORLD.
It owns the lines. It can decide how often the trains get from A to B. None has the right to force them to do otherwise.
Even a small decrease in train density will be a major economic hit for any country.

Remember when the Middle Eastern nations embargoed the West and caused an energy crisis?

It was solvable diplomatically, since everyone knew that the fuckers did it to ask something. Not the same situation as here.

Now, Atomic Rocket cites an example of a hypothetical design of 1.5 petawatts

To give an acceleration of 1.5 gees at a vessel massing say 10'000 tons (around the mass of the Venture star, although it's an eyeballing), you must use a photon drive emitting 147150000 newtons *300 MW = 44'145 petawatt.
Since this is a solar sail and solar sails can be made of a reflective material (that bounces back the photons), you can only put half that, 22'000 petawatts.

a 16 km-radius circle is roughly 200 km2, or 2000000000000 cm2. 22 petawatts shining on that give a 22000000000000 kW/ 2000000000000 = 11 KW per cm2.

In theory that's a reflective sail, so 90% of that goes away and you still have 1.1 Kw/cm2.
Current laser-grade mirrors laugh at that, but I don't know about solar sails a few nanometers thick.

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.

That's something every nation has to do, to show it doesn't have to be messed with.

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

It did. It showed that Hitler had mires of conquer everything.

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

With crappy accuracy and after 4.6 years. And I don't want to think what kind of damage it can do to Earth. I doubt they will allow them to build it able to do so.

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

lolwhut? It's the same as a ship. If the ship can go there, so can the RKV. It won't have an accuracy to speak of, but will hit Pandora.

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.

Huh, if I wanted to be nitpicky it is just the ability to move cells around without damaging them.
That's just interfering with external structural proteins, although with a very high degree of accuracy and number-crunching.
In a lenghty ritual involving a buttload of Na'vi.

Manufacturing bioweapons requires the capability to write DNA/RNA, that is making genetic modifications. This was not shown.

German = Human.
Nazi = RDA

Would be more like nazi = "anyone that mines unobtanium like RDA did", but anyway.

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

Fine, your arguments against that hold water. Point conceded.

Still, this is a defeat of the NAVI WILL DIE 100% theory, but there are still chances of the RDA doing whatever else and invading again.
It is just not sure it will happen.

[Ilya Muromets]

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. [snipped stuff] 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?

In the same way Ghandi did. By causing uproar in the enemy's population members that aren't assholes and can change things if they all band together. I remember that people in the command room were crying while the hometree was brought down.
And I expect that at least half of the miners won't like to see Na'vi slaughtered while they don't defend themselves.
They camp in the mines, where they want to blow up rock. Who has the balls to press the button now?
It's fucking risky, and some will die, just as most of ghandi's stuff. Of course they will have to communicate their needs in a very obvious way at any occasion.

This is a similar enough situation for the tactic to have decent chances to work.

No, it's not. You're still looking at the rose-colored vision of Gandhi's actual movement. The peaceful movement helped, but colonial powers have handily ignored public uproar when it suited them. Gandhi's movement effected changes because so many joined it in boycotting British institutions that the economy was impacted, and shooting them all would only make it worse because (a) it would inspire violence (and violence still did break out from time totime despite history remembering the movement as peaceful) and (b) rounding up and killing any movement that big, even if they won't/can't fight back costs a lot of fucking money and military resources (which was why the Nazis switched to factories for their mass slaughter since they were more efficient than shooting all the Jews and burying them all in a ditch) that a waning colonial power is hard-pressed to spend, especially with all the stuff they have to deal with in Europe. Those factors ultimately determined the success of Gandhi's movement, not because of any public uproar.

Again, that does not apply here. The scientists tried to do their damnest to interfere and it didn't do jack shit because the boss and his hired mercenaries (and the leader of those mercenaries) have all the guns and don't give a fuck about mowing down natives. Who has the balls to press the button? The same assholes that blew the Hometree the fuck up when the Na'vi were still in it, maybe? You remember people in the command room crying, but that didn't stop the guy who runs the whole thing or Quarritch and his mercs, did it? Few of them had the balls to stand up to the guys with the guns to do anything, and those that did didn't have enough numbers or access to do anything except ask help from the Na'vi.

It is enormously naive to think that the RDA would refuse to do anything to people who don't fight back when they blew up the Hometree knowing full well that there'd were not just warriors there but most of the population, including children.

[NecronLord]

Concession accepted.

I am laughing, hard, oh so hard, at the idea that Venture Star has a loaded mass of ten kilotons. That's three Saturn V rockets. The thing is a click long, sail retracted. You're missing some zeroes there bud.

If that's your eyeballing, I suggest you see an optician.

[hongi]

I can't recall a sci-fi movie ever getting so much stubborn hatred towards it. Seriously people, just get over it. I can't believe we're on page 8.

[Simon_Jester]

Movies that tell the audience something about themselves they were afraid to hear get targeted for stubborn hatred a lot. In this case, Avatar has told a lot of science fiction fans something about themselves that they are not proud to hear: that there is a real potential for the classic SF vision of "Man Colonizing The Stars" and "HARD SCIENCE and the Capitalist Consensus Narrative Uber Alles!" to turn into something dark and abusive if it encounters (as it probably would) alien biospheres and cultures that are too weak to oppose us meaningfully.

That is a threat to certain people's dreams, and their sense of the righteousness of those dreams; I'm not surprised that they react poorly.

[Metahive]

It is more like securing control over foreign supplies of critical materials. If for that you have to fight, so be it. You aren't going there to kill Na'vi, but just to ensure spice still flows.
I just pointed out that any attack from Na'vi is likely to be the doom of their civilization since they lose most of their able-bodied individuals.

If your next post doesn't contain any evidence of unobtanium being critical (as the spice melange or oil) I'm going to lob asteroids in your direction.

It is to show that the RDA has the balls of the world in its hands. IT IS THE BIGGEST FUCKING MONOPOLY OF THE WORLD.
It owns the lines. It can decide how often the trains get from A to B. None has the right to force them to do otherwise.
Even a small decrease in train density will be a major economic hit for any country.

If the train network were that important, Earth would have turned Pandora into a colony protected by actual military forces and not left it to some private corporation to exploit. Also, what would stop Earth bigiwgs from grabbing the RDA's assets in case they get uppity? The RDA has nothing to prevent that other than the government's goodwill. Those few hundred mercenaries at their service won't stand up to a capable military force.

It was solvable diplomatically, since everyone knew that the fuckers did it to ask something. Not the same situation as here.

And the situation on Pandora isn't solvable by diplomatic means? Bullshit. Anyway, my example served to disprove your fairy tale of humanity being dead set to react with genocidal rage at the prospect of some vital resource being in short supply, and unobtanium isn't even vital.

[Srelex]

What difference should friggin' trains make anyway? I'm pretty sure that at this stage people could simply make use of the internet as a substitute.

[Shroom Man 777]

Movies that tell the audience something about themselves they were afraid to hear get targeted for stubborn hatred a lot. In this case, Avatar has told a lot of science fiction fans something about themselves that they are not proud to hear: that there is a real potential for the classic SF vision of "Man Colonizing The Stars" and "HARD SCIENCE and the Capitalist Consensus Narrative Uber Alles!" to turn into something dark and abusive if it encounters (as it probably would) alien biospheres and cultures that are too weak to oppose us meaningfully.

That is a threat to certain people's dreams, and their sense of the righteousness of those dreams; I'm not surprised that they react poorly.

Quoted for truth.

You see this happen in Avatar, you also see it happen in all sorts of other scenarios, many of which are in real life. You take something people whack off too, their idealistic naive or jingoistic nonsense, and dash it to pieces and shit on it and reveal that the thing they thought was beautiful was actually grotesque and hideous, and they'll rush to defend it like a pack of slobbering mongoloids. Avatar, the War on Terror, Vietnam, its all the same. They're fat bunch of Hydrocephalic Platypus Cuckolding Animals.

[Simon_Jester]

What's often missed is that it's complicated.

On the one hand, shit, we're going to Alpha Centauri and studying the blue people, and that is cool and interesting and kind of awesome. And the starships, likewise cool and glorious and awesome.

On the other hand, we're going to Alpha Centauri in these glorious starships to kill blue people for their floaty rocks, which is... the opposite of all those things.

And the blue people object to this and systematically try to drive out the human presence that is trying to kill them for their floaty rocks, and to a certain category of people who wank to the heavy machinery in SF, that means they have declared war on progress. Or science. Or humanity's future, or glorious starships, or something like that.

The grotesque is mixed with the beautiful, and that's what makes so many people want to ignore the grotesque in favor of the beautiful.

[Connor MacLeod]

I always kinda got the feeling it was the same levle of outrage you see when some SW fans talk about the Battle of Endor OMG THE EWOKS WON as if that is some major, significant detail in the grand scale of things (of course, since it usually is in the context of vs debates, it IS IMPORTANT because its a talking point, but I digress.)

Alot of sci fi fans seem to take umbrage at the idea/theme of 'nature over technology' despite it being somewhat prevalant in sci fi (or fantasy.) Maybe becuase it represents a blending of the two, or its not "logical" (some people have too much of a hardon for sci fi realism or 'hardness', if you'll pardon the bad joke.) and it leads to this sort of rage.

I don't think its neccesarily just those things though. Some fans probably are closet xenophobes/racists/whatever and it says something about their natures they don't like (as Simon says.) I suspect others are as I said and get offended at the "illogical" outcome of technology not managing to FIND AN ANSWER. Some of it may even just be sci fi elitism (because the Na'Vi have a strong fantasy/religious theme to them, nevermind the "native tribe/dances with wolves/going native" angle.) There probably are other factors I'm not alluding to. It could even be a combination of those things.

[Simon_Jester]

I always kinda got the feeling it was the same levle of outrage you see when some SW fans talk about the Battle of Endor OMG THE EWOKS WON as if that is some major, significant detail in the grand scale of things (of course, since it usually is in the context of vs debates, it IS IMPORTANT because its a talking point, but I digress.)

Alot of sci fi fans seem to take umbrage at the idea/theme of 'nature over technology' despite it being somewhat prevalant in sci fi (or fantasy.) Maybe becuase it represents a blending of the two, or its not "logical" (some people have too much of a hardon for sci fi realism or 'hardness', if you'll pardon the bad joke.) and it leads to this sort of rage.

I don't think its neccesarily just those things though. Some fans probably are closet xenophobes/racists/whatever and it says something about their natures they don't like (as Simon says.) I suspect others are as I said and get offended at the "illogical" outcome of technology not managing to FIND AN ANSWER

For the subgroup of people who dislike Avatar that I'm thinking of, I don't think it's so much racism or xenophobia as it is technophilia, which ties into two of your points. Basically, people who don't like the idea that there are problems which should not, or can not, be solved by throwing more heavy metal at them. Who would rather have to live in biodomes than accept curtailment of their use of electricity in an attempt to mitigate the environmental footprint of their lifestyle, things like that.

The idea that we have problems that revolve around our nature as beings, not around the quality of our tools, seems to strike some as distasteful. So when presented with a crisis provoked by our nature as beings, one which we can't (or don't) invent our way out of, you get a sort of instinctive rebellion against the whole concept of the crisis.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

What difference should friggin' trains make anyway? I'm pretty sure that at this stage people could simply make use of the internet as a substitute.

They can ship things by internet in Avatar? That's some internet.

[NecronLord]

What difference should friggin' trains make anyway? I'm pretty sure that at this stage people could simply make use of the internet as a substitute.

They can ship things by internet in Avatar? That's some internet.

Actually, yes, they probably could. The setting's supposed to have some fairly advanced 3d printers (only complex components like turbines are actually brought in on the ISVs) I'd think it's reasonable that a lot of stuff probably is 3d printed at home in the setting, for relatively easily shipped raw bulk, so in that sense, internet technology would reduce the amount of freight required.

Of course, it's not going to be perfect, and people in service industries still need to move in many cases.

So yeah, the trains are important.

But the trains were in place before unobtanium was discovered. The existing trains will need to be replaced or serviced eventually, but it's not like they'll stop working overnight.

It's genocide, or the RDA having to suck it up and retool their factories to use designs they already have. Given that they can 3D print (called stereolithography, in Pandorapedia) aircraft of the same period on Pandora (The Sampson) it's a safe bet they can make the old style trains still.

Of course, if they're making their trains with century old patterns, it's possible that they're out of copyright and without unobtanium-derived superconductors the RDA has no competitive advantage in its Earth operations, in which case, the invisible hand of the market may well crush them

[open_sketchbook]

As I recall, it's not frieght they're moving, it's people. Namely, third world workers, shipped to first world nations so they can work in developed industrial areas without having to pay them a living wage, and without having to develop third world areas.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Think about it, it's a room-temperature superconductor, it's not a consumable like oil! The comparison is therefore invalid.

It is to show that the RDA has the balls of the world in its hands. IT IS THE BIGGEST FUCKING MONOPOLY OF THE WORLD.
It owns the lines. It can decide how often the trains get from A to B. None has the right to force them to do otherwise.

Unless a government decides otherwise. No corporation by its nature has "the balls of the world in its hands", since if they irritate the government enough the government will squash them. Using mass destruction weapons when specifically forbidden would be an excellent way of provoking governments into doing just that, and if the RDA complains the government can just say "Tough. You think it's OK to get what you want by force? Well, guess who has more force than you do."

[Ilya Muromets]

For the subgroup of people who dislike Avatar that I'm thinking of, I don't think it's so much racism or xenophobia as it is technophilia, which ties into two of your points. Basically, people who don't like the idea that there are problems which should not, or can not, be solved by throwing more heavy metal at them. Who would rather have to live in biodomes than accept curtailment of their use of electricity in an attempt to mitigate the environmental footprint of their lifestyle, things like that.

The idea that we have problems that revolve around our nature as beings, not around the quality of our tools, seems to strike some as distasteful. So when presented with a crisis provoked by our nature as beings, one which we can't (or don't) invent our way out of, you get a sort of instinctive rebellion against the whole concept of the crisis.

I think it's also the fact that their "technophilia," in actuality, is rather shallow. It focuses only on the things that are "awesome," which in most sci-fi invariably means military technology. Thus, their idea of science and scientific progress invariably ends up being centered on things military.

In fact, the very same "it's anti-science!" subgroup frequently dismisses the fact that a good number of the protagonists are human scientists and that those scientists have been trying to use scientific progress to solve the problems with the Na'vi. I mean, look at the titular Avatars. Those are artificially-created lifeforms you can control, fully functional and compatible with an alien biosphere. I mean, holy shit. If they can do that with even alien biology, that same technology would have countless medical applications. It really boggles the mind just thinking of how significant such technology, or even just derivatives of it, would be for the improvement of the human condition. If someone achieved that in real life, the scientific community would hail them a hero.

But it's not something that can blow shit up, so it somehow doesn't really count as "science" or "progress."

[hongi]

and they'll rush to defend it like a pack of slobbering mongoloids.

Yo Shroom, you know I like you man. But please don't call Down Syndrome people Mongoloids.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

What difference should friggin' trains make anyway? I'm pretty sure that at this stage people could simply make use of the internet as a substitute.

They can ship things by internet in Avatar? That's some internet.

Actually, yes, they probably could...:

I didn't know that about the setting, I've seen the movie more times than I care to remember (I didn't have cable or internet at home for about seven months, so I ended up watching all of my dvds multiple times) but I never got into it enough to check out its expanded universe.

My biggest complaint about Avatar is that I've seen it before, back when it was animated and called Fern Gully

[Whiskey144]

For the subgroup of people who dislike Avatar that I'm thinking of, I don't think it's so much racism or xenophobia as it is technophilia, which ties into two of your points. Basically, people who don't like the idea that there are problems which should not, or can not, be solved by throwing more heavy metal at them. Who would rather have to live in biodomes than accept curtailment of their use of electricity in an attempt to mitigate the environmental footprint of their lifestyle, things like that.

WRT problems which should/can not be solved by throwing more heavy metal at them, I certainly agree. OTOH, I dislike some of Avatar because I do admit I'm somewhat of a xenophobe.

But that comes from my opinion that any xenoform life we meet that we can communicate with on any semi-equal level is going to be mean, rather than any innate hatred of the not-like-me.

But it's not something that can blow shit up, so it somehow doesn't really count as "science" or "progress."

While I admit that I love scifi weaponry, possibly a little too much, I also really like thinking about propulsion, power, and navigation systems. And especially interface designs, that's probably my favorite. I've gone through iterations with a scifi setting I'm working on where ships are controlled using analogue joysticks, to a combination of analogue+neural input, to straight neural, to holographic-style keyboards, to holographic keyboards+neural input.

And now I'm thinking "why not just throw it all together in varying quantities and mixes?", because that would be an interesting dynamic.

Incidentally, this has me thinking, just how is the navigation of an ISV handled?

My biggest complaint about Avatar is that I've seen it before, back when it was animated and called Fern Gully

Aw, come on. Ferngully is an eternal classic. Avatar is Dances with Wolves IN SPAAAAAACE!

[Shroom Man 777]

and they'll rush to defend it like a pack of slobbering mongoloids.

Yo Shroom, you know I like you man. But please don't call Down Syndrome people Mongoloids.

Can I call the milwankers mongoloids instead?