Avatar Military Wankers Read This First

[Ilya Muromets]

forgot a reply to

(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

This is the same for Pandora.

No. The very point of the milwankers is that, if Quarritich and his fucktards really wanted to, they could genocide the lot of them if given the right resources or if they had no concern about fucking up Pandora. Not even in their wildest dreams could the British Empire glass the entirety of India or threaten most of its population.

And, if you'll note, RDA nearly fucking succeeding. The Na'vi only managed to fight back cohesively thanks to being united by Jake. And, even then, they still needed the planet to fucking help them--and the planet only helped because Jake begged it too, taking its sweet damn time doing so. Fighting back still nearly got them steamrolled. How the fuck effective do you think they'll be if they just sat there and did nothing? Do you think the same asssholes would have no trouble blowing up the Hometree just because the Na'vi sit on their ass instead of fighting back? Given how many of those assholes were grinning and whooping while they were shooting the fuck out of the thing in the move, all that would get is a bunch of them saying "I killed twelve dumb scientist blue aliens today and not one of them fought back" while stroking their post-massacre boners.

Going Gandhi will just get them killed faster because, and this is important, Quarritch and his goons don't give a fuck. Even the British, at their worst, balked at even thinking about massacring all or even most of Gandhi's followers. Quarritch and his goons don't have any qualms at all about slaughtering the Na'vi and it was clearly shown that those assholes just wanted an excuse/an order to do so. They also have the backing of the local corporate big shot. They can also kill most of the Na'vi before any outrage or political pressure from Earth can stop them--exactly what they were counting on in the movie.

[folti78]

Causing chaos and mayhem at home is bad for business!

Why are you assuming they have to open fire on Earth? It will be used to stop any kind of attack to their space assets. That given how big the laser is, are going to be significant.

There's no way they'd be allowed to have control of something like that without at the very least some sort of failsafe (such as remotely controlled nukes with deadman triggers built into the structure) the government felt was unbreakable. And more likely, there'd be government troops watching over the technicians operating the things; I expect that the techs will lose interest in using the laser as a weapon when some soldiers point guns at them

Does the RDA even own and operates the laser stations? Earth powers can find a million reason to invoke John's law and don't allow some pesky corporation operating essentially WMD level stuff in the solar system. Not without some oversight.
Or you can have other setups, like requiring that the lasers are run by a separate company (degree of separation is another matter) or at the other end, have the laser stations owned and operated by the military where they are used both for civil transportation reasons also being a part of some defense systems.

[someone_else]

If they start trying to play hardball with the government none of that matters.

Why should they? The easiest route is simply claim in a court that Quarritch and the other idiot acted of their own volition and the problem is solved.
I don't understand why everyone has to take out guns and shoot up stuff to save his ass. That's gross and rarely effective.

For example, what happened to BP after the oil spill? They payed some money and some random guy got arrested. BP still up and running.

There's no way they'd be allowed to have control of something like that without at the very least some sort of failsafe

Totally seconded. It's something that makes nukes look like firecrackers, and can keep the beam for at least half an year. It must be owned by US government.

Room temperature superconductors are not worth the cost of shipping them across interstellar distances.

As if making world-wide maglev train lines makes loads of sense.

Anyway, Unobtanium seems to be something better than a room-temp superconductor. It seems to be a superconductor that works even at red-hot temperatures.

The radiators of the Venture Star fucking glow red hot. To glow red-hot it needs to be at around 1000 kelvins. (assuming perfect blackbody)

You all know that a radiator must be cooler than the thing it is cooling. So the things that are cooled (the unobtanium making the magnetic nozzles and the rest of the engine assembly) must be at an undefined temperature, higher than that.
Heat pumps are not practical at this scale (they are ok if you are trying to dump the life-support heat in your laser-cannon's heat radiator, but don't scale very well).

if Quarritich and his fucktards really wanted to, they could genocide the lot of them if given the right resources

Yeah, the problem is giving them the right equipment to do so without using WMDs. There are 12 Venture Star-like vessels, that means there is one vessel arriving on Pandora every year or so (the trip is 14 years or so). Each of them can carry 350 tons of stuff, plus landers and 200 people.
It's a very crappy army.
They handwave... I mean create stuff on Pandora with 3D printers, and the ships carry only chips and other commodities they can't make.

(then one wonders from where, for the fuck's sake, comes the raw materials to build the fucking huge mining equipment and the swarm of helicopters. They need mines for iron, copper and an exlosives fab, minimum)

Any serious military presence is murderously expensive. Unless you ship a satellite with a few WMDs and employ some to scare the shit out of the natives and say that if they don't comply you dump the whole load on their heads. That's cheap, mass-wise.

The Na'vi only managed to fight back cohesively thanks to being united by Jake. And, even then, they still needed the planet to fucking help them--and the planet only helped because Jake begged it too, taking its sweet damn time doing so.

True for the fact of Jake as Jesus-the-Leader, but If I don't remember wrong, Quarritch was pissing himself saying

These orbital images show the hostiles'
numbers have gone from a couple of
hundred to over two thousand in one day,
and more are pouring in. By next week it
could be twenty thousand. Then they'll be
overrunning our perimeter here. We can't
wait. Our only security lies in pre-
emptive attack. We will fight terror
with terror.

from here
They did fight only against the closer tribes, the others were still on their way.

They also have the backing of the local corporate big shot.

It is more like they forced his hand a little.

SELFRIDGE
This thing is completely out of control!

Quaritch ignores him, turning away to focus on ordnance
loading.

SELFRIDGE
Listen to me! I am not authorizing you to
turn the mine-workers local into a
freakin' militia!

QUARITCH
I declared threat condition red. That
puts all on-world assets under my
command.

SELFRIDGE
You think you can pull this palace coup
shit on me?! I can have your ass with
one call --

Quaritch grabs him and PINS him against the side of an
ampsuit.

QUARITCH
You're a long way from Earth.

Btw, there are lots of scenes that I can read in the script but I don't remeber seeing in the movie. (like say the Na'vi storming the Hell's gate command center)

Do you think the same asssholes would have no trouble blowing up the Hometree just because the Na'vi sit on their ass instead of fighting back?

Even Nazi had problems in killing mass amounts of non-fighting people (jews mostly) by just shooting at them (that would have been massively easier than making camps like they did). Their best nazi men selected for the work were going crazy.

Even the British, at their worst, balked at even thinking about massacring all or even most of Gandhi's followers.

Huh? What about this massacre aimed to kill (literally) the protests of people for the arrest of Ghandi's movement representatives in the region.

It just didn't worked as well as they thought.

They can also kill most of the Na'vi before any outrage or political pressure from Earth can stop them

The aim of the tactic isn't the Earth, but the civilians already on Pandora.
Like the miners and administrative staff. And possibly some grunt.
The more of such people see the Na'vi demonstrations (and maybe slaughter), the more will be convinced to help them.
And for fuck's sake, don't think it has to be a shooting contest Quarritch VS Rebels. Armies march on their stomach. That's what civilians will do, disable military vehicles and stuff at any occasion, cooperate only at gunpoint (forcing the Colonel to waste his tiny army to keep the base running).
At this point you can stage a coup and remove Quarritch with their help.

The main point of the demonstration is not posing themselves as a threat while still demanding something. Fighting back will be easily interpreted as "they wanna kill us!!!!! Let's fight for our lives!!!!!!" by the civilians and grunts. (just as it was in the movie for the last battle)

Let's not forget that Na'vi suffered significant casualities in the attack at the end of the movie (heh, cavalry charge against machineguns... what were you expecting?). I think this way the number of bodies would have been lower. But deads there will be anyway.

[Ilya Muromets]

True for the fact of Jake as Jesus-the-Leader, but If I don't remember wrong, Quarritch was pissing himself saying

These orbital images show the hostiles'
numbers have gone from a couple of
hundred to over two thousand in one day,
and more are pouring in. By next week it
could be twenty thousand. Then they'll be
overrunning our perimeter here. We can't
wait. Our only security lies in pre-
emptive attack. We will fight terror
with terror.

from here
They did fight only against the closer tribes, the others were still on their way.

And, yet, the movie still showed the Na'vi dying in droves and clearly losing. And the point of that preemptive attack was to killfuck them all before they could concentrate or coordinate, and they almost succeeded.

It is more like they forced his hand a little.

SELFRIDGE
This thing is completely out of control!

Quaritch ignores him, turning away to focus on ordnance
loading.

SELFRIDGE
Listen to me! I am not authorizing you to
turn the mine-workers local into a
freakin' militia!

QUARITCH
I declared threat condition red. That
puts all on-world assets under my
command.

SELFRIDGE
You think you can pull this palace coup
shit on me?! I can have your ass with
one call --

Quaritch grabs him and PINS him against the side of an
ampsuit.

QUARITCH
You're a long way from Earth.

Yeah, after he spent most of the movie not exactly dissuading them. And it's quite clear that one Quarritch took control, he would support them anyway, for the sake of his own hide if nothing else.

Even Nazi had problems in killing mass amounts of non-fighting people (jews mostly) by just shooting at them (that would have been massively easier than making camps like they did). Their best nazi men selected for the work were going crazy.

Yeah, going crazy shooting people who looked and felt human. Which Quarritch and his men had no problem with since the Na'vi were alien and far easier to dehumanize, and the movie clearly showed most of them enjoying their massacre.

Huh? What about this massacre aimed to kill (literally) the protests of people for the arrest of Ghandi's movement representatives in the region.

It just didn't worked as well as they thought.

No, it was designed so that the general could open fire, kill several, while the rest ran away. In such a way that they could wash their hands of it as necessary. Which is quite different from rounding them up and or hunting them down for complete or near-complete annihilation.

Like the miners and administrative staff. And possibly some grunt.
The more of such people see the Na'vi demonstrations (and maybe slaughter), the more will be convinced to help them.
And for fuck's sake, don't think it has to be a shooting contest Quarritch VS Rebels. Armies march on their stomach. That's what civilians will do, disable military vehicles and stuff at any occasion, cooperate only at gunpoint (forcing the Colonel to waste his tiny army to keep the base running).
At this point you can stage a coup and remove Quarritch with their help.

The main point of the demonstration is not posing themselves as a threat while still demanding something. Fighting back will be easily interpreted as "they wanna kill us!!!!! Let's fight for our lives!!!!!!" by the civilians and grunts. (just as it was in the movie for the last battle)

Let's not forget that Na'vi suffered significant casualities in the attack at the end of the movie (heh, cavalry charge against machineguns... what were you expecting?). I think this way the number of bodies would have been lower. But deads there will be anyway.

[/quote]

What the hell movie did you watch? Those miners and other civilians did nothing, NOTHING, to stop Quarritch even if a number of them didn't like it and were horrified during the blowing up of the Hometree, and the Na'vi weren't even capable of resisting then. They were too afraid of Quarritch's gun. Oh, and how many of his mercs went over to help the Na'vi. We have a pilot and Jake. The rest gleefully looked forward to blowing the fuck out of the Na'vi.

You're trying to shoehorn something with too many vastly different social dynamics to apply to a situation when it cannot realistically work. Heck, even your counterpoint shows that.

You mentioned Nazis. The Jews pretty much sat there and did not resist, else they tried to flee. Most of the Jewish partisan groups only rose after the Nazis started killing them. That's already one historical situation--a contemporary one to boot--where not resisting didn't just do bupkiss, it made it easier for killers who don't give a fuck about or actively hate the nonresisting group to round them and genocide huge numbers of them. It clearly shows that nonresistance does not work all the time. And many of the Germans who were horrified about it didn't resist because they didn't want the guys with the guns to kill them, and the rest went along with "just following orders."

And that's just Earth, with fellow humans who are harder to dehumanize even with centuries of bigotry and hatred. Pandora is filled with nonhumans far easier to dismiss and unimportant precisely because they're not human, and somehow not resisting will work better for them when Quarritch and many of his mercenaries thought nothing about killfucking them by the truckload?

Basically, Pandora =/= colonial India, and what worked there historically very likely won't work in the other. Just look at all the RAR arguments on this very site where people try to transplant one situation onto another and watch how many of the more historically knowledgeable board members shot nearly all of those down with ease. All major historical events happen because of interlinked causes and factors where the removal of even one can cause quite different results. It's never just a case of it worked here, so it'll work there just like that!

[someone_else]

And, yet, the movie still showed the Na'vi dying in droves and clearly losing. And the point of that preemptive attack was to killfuck them all before they could concentrate or coordinate, and they almost succeeded.

the attack's objective was blow up the tree of souls to break their morale (when you restort to this kind of terrorist tactics, you basically recognize you have total inferiority). And even then it's debatable if that action wouldn't have angered the Na'vi even more.

Yeah, going crazy shooting people who looked and felt human.

Going a bit meta here, but Na'vi were specifically designed to inspire simpathy in the audience (humans). To allow the audience to feel like Na'vi. And it worked even too well if you look at all the goddamn idiots dressed Na'vi and painted blue you see on the net. Unless the ones in the movie aren't humans it should work for them too.

movie clearly showed most of them enjoying their massacre.

The movie showed only Quarritch having fun. The others weren't having so much fun and were clearly afraid of him.

Which is quite different from rounding them up and or hunting them down for complete or near-complete annihilation.

I have to point out that Quarritch had no intention to go and kill them all. He likely wanted to kill all the individual of the closest tribe because they annoyed him too much, but was authorized only to blow up the hometree to have them go away.

The battle at the end over the tree of souls is a desperate attempt to save his own ass. If Na'vi had just gone away, he wouldn't have done anything more.

There is no proof that Quarritch would round up Na'vi and kill them by the bucketload nazi-style.

Those miners and other civilians did nothing, NOTHING, to stop Quarritch even if a number of them didn't like it and were horrified during the blowing up of the Hometree, and the Na'vi weren't even capable of resisting then.

Because they had no leader and only biased sources of informations. You don't do anything overnight.

Oh, and how many of his mercs went over to help the Na'vi.

Na'vi were raising up an army with the obvious intent of attacking them (and likely kill them somehow since they are the soldiers), mercs had no reason to help Na'vi if the Na'vi want to kill them. They don't even know how to communicate with each other.
Also, the only source of informations for them about what was going on was Quarritch.
Biased source isn't it?

You're trying to shoehorn something with too many vastly different social dynamics to apply to a situation when it cannot realistically work.

Meh, and you are assuming they are all worse than nazi.

You mentioned Nazis. The Jews pretty much sat there and did not resist, else they tried to flee.

First, the Nazi's main goal was to kill jews, while Quarritch's main goal was drive them off and then save his own ass when they built an army.
Second, even Nazi that had a "religion" that dishumanized jews and told them to kill Jews had to make up gigantic places where they could kill the jews without losing their own best most fundamentalist nazi men.

It clearly shows that nonresistance does not work all the time.

Yeah, it doesn't work when the enemy wants to genocide you. But this wasn't the case. Na'vi are an annoyance, not Space Jews to be exterminated. Extermination is very expensive, there are usually cheaper alternatives if you just want to win.

And many of the Germans who were horrified about it didn't resist because they didn't want the guys with the guns to kill them, and the rest went along with "just following orders."

You are talking of the people working in the camps. That shows how effective the tactic was.
I was talking of the nazi following the main army, rounding jews up from a village, having them dig a big hole and then shoot in their head with their own handgun. Those elite corps had a very high suicide rate, and were eventually phased out.

It's the same reason why most executions in the US use tricks to make the people working there less-guilty. Like timed injections, or 2-4 guys pressing the KILL button and neither of then knows what is the right button and what is the fake one.

[Ilya Muromets]

the attack's objective was blow up the tree of souls to break their morale (when you restort to this kind of terrorist tactics, you basically recognize you have total inferiority). And even then it's debatable if that action wouldn't have angered the Na'vi even more.

The Hometree was the Na'vi equivalent of a major city. Blowing up something like that isn't a terrorist act, it's a fucking act of war.

Going a bit meta here, but Na'vi were specifically designed to inspire simpathy in the audience (humans). To allow the audience to feel like Na'vi. And it worked even too well if you look at all the goddamn idiots dressed Na'vi and painted blue you see on the net. Unless the ones in the movie aren't humans it should work for them too.

Of course, handily ignoring the assholes this very thread was designed to answer. You know, the ones who fantazie about blowing up the Na'vi just because they happen to not like the message of them move? The same ones who include people that say genociding the Na'vi is okay because they're not human. Those are just stupid fucking fatty internet nerds, not hardened mercenaries. And they STILL think like that.

Also, way to miss the point. The point was that even being human does not stop fellow humans from dehumanizing you and killing you without a second thought, so the Na'vi--who already differ enough that they're only humanoid, not human--are going to be even more easy to dehumanize. ESPECIALLY by fucking assholes mercenaries who enjoyed blowing them up.

I have to point out that Quarritch had no intention to go and kill them all. He likely wanted to kill all the individual of the closest tribe because they annoyed him too much, but was authorized only to blow up the hometree to have them go away.

The battle at the end over the tree of souls is a desperate attempt to save his own ass. If Na'vi had just gone away, he wouldn't have done anything more.

There is no proof that Quarritch would round up Na'vi and kill them by the bucketload nazi-style.

And there, again, you said it yourself--kill all the individual of the closest tribe because they annoyed him too much. And you think Gandhi-style nonresistance would work against this asshole? My entire beef with you is based around the naive notion that Gandhi-style tactics would work better for the Na'vi and leave them morally superior than rightfully fighting back. Bullshit.

Also, Quarritch already displayed a hard-on for killing the Na'vi throughout the movie. You notice that, when the tribes were gathering, his option was, yet again, a preemptive strike? The same option he pursued against the Omaticaya since the very reason he sent Jake out there for was to find a reason, any reason, for the preemptive strike? That asshole saw all of the Na'vi as an "annoyance", his dialogue makes it clear. Pretty much everytime he talked about the Na'vi he was referring to them as whole. the Hometree just happened to be a convenient concentration of one of the largest tribes on Pandora. And when all the Na'vi started concentrating, he wasted no time in trying to kill them all.

So, again, how is a Gandhi-style nonresistance going to be effective against that kind of assholery?

Those miners and other civilians did nothing, NOTHING, to stop Quarritch even if a number of them didn't like it and were horrified during the blowing up of the Hometree, and the Na'vi weren't even capable of resisting then.

Because they had no leader and only biased sources of informations. You don't do anything overnight.

Na'vi were raising up an army with the obvious intent of attacking them (and likely kill them somehow since they are the soldiers), mercs had no reason to help Na'vi if the Na'vi want to kill them. They don't even know how to communicate with each other.
Also, the only source of informations for them about what was going on was Quarritch.
Biased source isn't it?

And how many mercs shed a tear? How many of the radio transmissions after the hometree blew up had whopping in the background? How many seemed regretful after the assault? How many hesitated before they fired on the Hometree? We saw only Jake and the pilot--only them actively showing regret. Yet you're conjuring up entire groups of regretful mercs to force your Gandhi scenario to work.

First, the Nazi's main goal was to kill jews, while Quarritch's main goal was drive them off and then save his own ass when they built an army.
Second, even Nazi that had a "religion" that dishumanized jews and told them to kill Jews had to make up gigantic places where they could kill the jews without losing their own best most fundamentalist nazi men.

And, again, you missed the point. The driving motivation behind an enemy that has no qualms about blowing you up doesn't matter if those qualms do not exist to begin with. Quarritch goons clearly had no problem blowing up entire swaths of unresisting or helpless Na'vi when they attacked the Hometree, so how is Gandhi-style nonresistance going to work in the first place?

You've given me nothing other than how people off screen might act, even though those same people mostly sat on their ass and did nothing to dissuade Quarritch when he went on his Hometree killing spree. They were perfectly content to sit by the sidelines and let the mercs blow things up and let Jake, the scientist, and hot pilot chick try to stop. They did not step in then, why would they step in now? You have not answered that.

Yeah, it doesn't work when the enemy wants to genocide you. But this wasn't the case. Na'vi are an annoyance, not Space Jews to be exterminated. Extermination is very expensive, there are usually cheaper alternatives if you just want to win.

An "annoyance" they wanted to preemptively kill. You said it yourself, Quarritch wanted to kill the all the individuals in the Hometree, home to the entirety of the Omaticaya clan. One of the largest Na'vi clans and a major cultural group. Genocide is defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group (Merriam-Webster). Those assholes already launched an attempted genocide in the movie.

I was talking of the nazi following the main army, rounding jews up from a village, having them dig a big hole and then shoot in their head with their own handgun. Those elite corps had a very high suicide rate, and were eventually phased out.

It's the same reason why most executions in the US use tricks to make the people working there less-guilty. Like timed injections, or 2-4 guys pressing the KILL button and neither of then knows what is the right button and what is the fake one.

Except that most of the RDA's major firepower wasn't delivered face-to-face, it was delivered from far away the air in the form of heavy ordinance. Very easy to dehumanize targets from way up in the, blowing shit up and watching pretty explosions or mowing them down from the comfort of a side-mounted machinegun.

Again your argument as to why the Na'vi not resisting only works under a set of conditions that are vastly different from what is present in Pandora. So, again, tell me. HOW. You have not given me a concrete how. You have only given me might-bes based on different situations on Earth or the possible reactions of people off screen.

[someone_else]

The Hometree was the Na'vi equivalent of a major city. Blowing up something like that isn't a terrorist act, it's a fucking act of war.

Yes, and then Quarritch suddenly finds that Jake is rallying up enough Na'vi to spank his ass. He starts a war by blowing the Hometree, and then restorts to terrorist tactics (destorying useless symbols like the Tree of Souls instead of equipment, troops and resources).
That shows that he is unable to fight a war with the Na'vi properly, only to play bully.
Otherwise he would have bunkered up and waited for them with machineguns ready (and missiles in an area where missiles worked fine) instead of trying a massively risky plan like that.

Those are just stupid fucking fatty internet nerds, not hardened mercenaries.

Big deal, everyone can play tough behind a computer screen. ex-US soldiers (like the mercs on Pandora) generally have seen what war is, and apart from some psychos, they aren't homicidal maniacs on average.

The point was that even being human does not stop fellow humans from dehumanizing you and killing you without a second thought,

I am trying to make you understand that shooting people in the head and seeing them die and then burying their corpses has a vastly different emotional impact than shepherding them in a place where everything happens automatically and you don't see a damn thing.

Ok, you can have teams of psychos do the killing with handguns, but psychos are too rare to do a genocide on a decent scale (also unreliable, but that's another matter). Nazi realized this detail.

Na'vi--who already differ enough that they're only humanoid, not human--are going to be even more easy to dehumanize.

You are an idiot. Na'vi have traits specifically designed to inspire simpathy, specifically designed to inspire compassion. Humans don't have that on average.
They have Big Eyes like cartoons, they have feline features, they are sensual (for both sexes if the feedback I got means anything) they are human-shaped.

If we were talking of slaughtering Aliens or Predators (specifically designed to look Evil), it would have been another matter alltogether. Pointy, small eyes, feral, violent, big.

And there, again, you said it yourself--kill all the individual of the closest tribe because they annoyed him too much. And you think Gandhi-style nonresistance would work against this asshole?

Not against him but against his troopers and other people, that won't like slaughtering everyone.
The aim is making them understand how fucking mad is the guy, and make them understand that he is the only real enemy, not them.

Gandhi-style tactics would work better for the Na'vi and leave them morally superior than rightfully fighting back.

Not only that, they would have showed that they were not just goddamn humans painted blue.

That asshole saw all of the Na'vi as an "annoyance", his dialogue makes it clear. Pretty much everytime he talked about the Na'vi he was referring to them as whole.

His actions were aimed at showing he had the bigger dick, and scaring them into submission. In both the blowing up of the tree and the final battle (killing cadres of Na'vi would have been pretty easy in the former situation and would have solved his problems, but he didin't do it. In the latter the mission objective was hitting their morale by bombing the Na'vi Trade Cent... I mean Tree of Souls). He hates them but he just wants to be the Top Dog, not genocide them.

the Hometree just happened to be a convenient concentration of one of the largest tribes on Pandora.

The Hometree is the most likely source of the only Na'vi attacking the mining operation. There is also a significant ignorance of the enemy on the part of Quarritch.

And when all the Na'vi started concentrating, he wasted no time in trying to kill them all.

You are again an idiot. Quarritch's mission objective in the final battle wasn't killing Na'vi, but blowing up the Tree of Souls, to scare the Na'vi into submission. Clearly stated in the part I quoted above (where I said he was pissing himself), and clearly seen in the battle.

We saw only Jake and the pilot--only them actively showing regret. Yet you're conjuring up entire groups of regretful mercs to force your Gandhi scenario to work.

You need to give them things to regret first. Na'vi were an annoyance, attacking and doing shit to them. So they blew their home.
If the Na'vi start getting there and the mercs are ordered to shoot them down while they don't defend themselves, then the will have something to regret, if they do so at all.
Also, hearing other voices than quarritch's about them will surely help in their decision-making process.

Quarritch goons clearly had no problem blowing up entire swaths of unresisting or helpless Na'vi when they attacked the Hometree

Huh? They blew up a near-empty building. And then went away while Na'vi were shooting arrows at them.

They did not step in then, why would they step in now? You have not answered that.

Because you give them a leader. Rebellions need both the general resentment towards something and a leader. People rarely has enough balls to do something if isn't in an organization. And even if someone has the balls and does something, he can't accomplish a damn thing without a coordinated effort.

Quarritch wanted to kill the all the individuals in the Hometree

He wanted to blow it down to relocate them, not slaughtering the tribe. He shot tear gas in the hometree well before blowing it up and gave warnings, remember?

Except that most of the RDA's major firepower wasn't delivered face-to-face, it was delivered from far away the air in the form of heavy ordinance.

What kind of firepower are you talking about? The lander dropping a pallet of rigged mining explosives? I'm *very* afraid of that.
Missiles are SAM, not meant for engaging ground targets. No, shooting them in a precise point does not count. Buildings don't evade.

Again your argument as to why the Na'vi not resisting only works under a set of conditions that are vastly different from what is present in Pandora.

You are assuming something that isn't shown in the movie (as pointed out above). Of course you don't understand.

[Shroom Man 777]

Uh, a lot of the refugees were sheltering at the Soul Tree, which was why they had to stop the ship from dropping the bomb on it. It wasn't just 'lol symbolic tree/building' or something. A lot of Na'vi were there, and in danger of being killfucked.

[Ahriman238]

You are an idiot. Na'vi have traits specifically designed to inspire simpathy, specifically designed to inspire compassion. Humans don't have that on average.
They have Big Eyes like cartoons, they have feline features, they are sensual (for both sexes if the feedback I got means anything) they are human-shaped.

If we were talking of slaughtering Aliens or Predators (specifically designed to look Evil), it would have been another matter alltogether. Pointy, small eyes, feral, violent, big.

Eh? Why has this conversation veered onto superficial appearances? What the hell does their appearance have to do with the morality of slaughtering them? Maybe it would be easier, psychologically, but morally? They could be giant insectoids whose looks could wither a turd, or Lovecraftian horrors whose true faces would drive men mad, and it would still be wrong to kill them and take their stuff.

[Ugolino]

The Navi didn't invoke any sympathy from me because of their appearance. They just looked wrong.

[Ilya Muromets]

Yes, and then Quarritch suddenly finds that Jake is rallying up enough Na'vi to spank his ass. He starts a war by blowing the Hometree, and then restorts to terrorist tactics (destorying useless symbols like the Tree of Souls instead of equipment, troops and resources).
That shows that he is unable to fight a war with the Na'vi properly, only to play bully.
Otherwise he would have bunkered up and waited for them with machineguns ready (and missiles in an area where missiles worked fine) instead of trying a massively risky plan like that.

What Shroom said: "It wasn't just 'lol symbolic tree/building' or something. A lot of Na'vi were there, and in danger of being killfucked." The Na'vi's "equipment" are stones, sticks, and local wildlife. Their troops and resources are right in the goddamn Hometree. Not just that but their entire civilian population too. There's nothing "symbolic"

The majority of the population of the nearest tribe was in that Hometree. Quarritch blew it up in his first strike to kill them all, then tried to do so again later in the movie when the Na'vi were conveniently massed for a saturation strike.

He had no intention of ever just bunkering up. The whole movie he was looking for reasons to strike first and opportunities for where the Na'vi amassed so he could remove their threat.

Big deal, everyone can play tough behind a computer screen. ex-US soldiers (like the mercs on Pandora) generally have seen what war is, and apart from some psychos, they aren't homicidal maniacs on average.

Right, because all signs of asshatery on the internet are just superficial right? Which is why bullies always back down when you stand up to them, right? Because soldiers never got caught in the heat of the moment and started massacring innocent civilians right? Because no army in the world has ever committed atrocities right? Because even people who wouldn't have otherwise gotten involved in the first don't ever do it anyway because they're too afraid of disobeyeing orders or earning the ire of their more assholish comrades, right?

By that logic, My Lai should have never happened at all because, on average, the American soldiers in Vietnam weren't psychos. The rape of Vietnamese women, which even the US Army's records show happened far too often, should never have happened too. The torture of Viet Cong or suspected Viet Cong should never have happened because the average American soldier isn't a nutcase. Vietnam was so admirable for being squeaky clean, right?

I am trying to make you understand that shooting people in the head and seeing them die and then burying their corpses has a vastly different emotional impact than shepherding them in a place where everything happens automatically and you don't see a damn thing.

Ok, you can have teams of psychos do the killing with handguns, but psychos are too rare to do a genocide on a decent scale (also unreliable, but that's another matter). Nazi realized this detail.

And I am trying to make you see that even if the vast majority aren't psychos, that still changes nothing if the majority decide to follow the psychos because they're too afraid of not following orders. See the fucking Nazis. It's widely acknowledge that the majority of the Germans were perfectly aware that the Jews weren't just being relocated, but that terrible things were happening to them. They just tried not to think about it because it didn't affect them and they were too afraid of Hitler and his goons to stop them.

You ever hear the stories of concentration camp guards who tried to be nice to the Jews inside when no one was looking because it secretly horrified them? But when they were ordered to send the Jews into the ovens/gas chambers/whatever, THEY STILL DID IT because they were afraid of not following orders. Just like most of the RDA still followed Quarritch's order to attempt bomb a stone age culture into oblivion even though they had no real chance of resisting until the planet intervened, which no one expected.

You are an idiot. Na'vi have traits specifically designed to inspire simpathy, specifically designed to inspire compassion. Humans don't have that on average.
They have Big Eyes like cartoons, they have feline features, they are sensual (for both sexes if the feedback I got means anything) they are human-shaped.

If we were talking of slaughtering Aliens or Predators (specifically designed to look Evil), it would have been another matter alltogether. Pointy, small eyes, feral, violent, big.

And YOU are the biggest fucking moron if you think features that inspire sympathy will still stop people from pulling the trigger when caught up in the moment, you asshat. PEOPLE have murdered children, even babies. REAL LIFE children and babies, which we are biologically-hardwired to sympathize with and find adorable so we'll feel the need to care for them.

HUMAN BEINGS HAVE KILLED OTHER HUMAN BEINGS, SYMPATHY BE DAMNED, WHEN ORDERED TO DO SO. PEOPLE HAVE KILLED CRYING CHILDREN AND THEIR HELPLESS MOTHERS EN MASSE. SO FUCKING WHAT IF SOME--SOME--REGRET IT LATER, THAT DOES NOT STOP THE ONES THEY KILLED FROM BEING DEAD. NOR DOES IT MEAN ALL WILL REGRET IT AND START REFUSING TO DO SO LATER. NOR DOES IT MEAN THAT SYMPATHY WILL REMOVE YOUR OWN FEAR OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF RESISTING ORDERS. That is in all caps because you are do idiotically naive that you seem to miss that fact.

Gandhi-style tactics would work better for the Na'vi and leave them morally superior than rightfully fighting back. Not only that, they would have showed that they were not just goddamn humans painted blue.

And you have the gall to call me an idiot. SITTING BY AND LETTING THE PEOPLE WHO MOWED DOWN THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY KEEP MOWING DOWN THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY IS THE ONLY WAY TO BE MORALLY SUPERIOR?! FIGHTING BAC SOMEHOW REMOVES THAT?! ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING?!

I guess if a woman sits back and lets the rapist rape her without fighting back even if she could is the only way she becomes morally superior. I guess it's okay for those people in African villages to not fight back and get helplessly slaughtered every time some warlord feels like genocide, at least their bloody, mangled corpses can take comfort in their moral-superiority.

Quarritch blew up their hometree the first time because he got information that they would not leave. Blowing it up killed untold numbers of helpless non-warriors and children. And you expect Jake to convice they to do a Gandhi when they just watched their friends and family helplessly slaughtered by a superior force? And you have the gall to call me an idiot when you're the one who's basically arguing that fighting back, EVEN WHEN PERFECTLY JUSTIFIED, is the only way to retain moral-superiority, never mind how many more die or get mistreated by not fighting back.

So are you saying that it's perfectly okay for a people to continually get mistreated for who the fuck knows how long until enough people feel sorry for them to say stop? I mean, screw all the guys who get killed or tortured waiting, at least we retain moral superiority!

[Shroom Man 777]

Why the hell does he think Gandhi type tactics would work anyway? Maybe FDR should've had a hunger rally to compel Japan to stop conquering the Asia-Pacific.

These guys were minding their own business at home when a bunch of assholes came in with tractors, and a shitload of helicopter gunships, blew their home up and mined more minerals from underneath it. It's a pretty straight forward thing.

Maybe we should all be pedantic assholes and whine about how Star Wars is stupid because the Rebel Alliance didn't have a hunger rally, and instead used weapons with shitty special effects that assholes misconstrue as XYZ cockajoules or some shit. If they just had a pride parade instead of using a photon torpedo that could execute XYZ-g turns inside some shaft to blow up some stupid spherical mass of iron whose diameter is disputed between the minimalistic predacons and the maximals, all our problems would be solved, *I'm a smarmy asshole*?

[Ilya Muromets]

Accidentally pressed send instead of preview:

You need to give them things to regret first. Na'vi were an annoyance, attacking and doing shit to them. So they blew their home.
If the Na'vi start getting there and the mercs are ordered to shoot them down while they don't defend themselves, then the will have something to regret, if they do so at all.
Also, hearing other voices than quarritch's about them will surely help in their decision-making process.

Again, you call me an idiot? Your solution to the problem is to let them just stand there and be killed until the guys shooting them start feeling sorry?!

What, so if some bunch of assholes busts into your home to kill you, you’ll just let them in the hope that they’ll regret it and not shoot your family?

God, I don’t even know why I’m arguing with a complete dumbfuck who actually thinks that’s the only morally superior way to fight back. Don’t resist and let them kill as many as they like until they start feeling remorse! Brilliant!

I mean, who cares about all the poor bastards who get killed. At least the ones left to grieve for them have the comfort of being morally superior.

[Ilya Muromets]

Why the hell does he think Gandhi type tactics would work anyway?

Because, Shroomy, apparently in fighting back you forfeit all moral superiority. And we can't have that. We must just let them keep shooting at us until enough people's hearts break.

I guess if we ever get caught by one of those mercenaries hired by politicians here to kill people who vote for the competition, we will just march off to the ditch and hope we die in a sufficiently sympathetic manner. Maybe we'll give them a bunch of puppy dog pouts to boot, or carry our cute younger nephews and nieces for them to shoot for good measure!

[Shroom Man 777]

Hmm... well, he may be right though.

Too bad the Na'vi coukdn't give an unobtanium nickel about moral superiority, and would rather have their homes and lives than be all morally superior and dead or homeless.

[Ilya Muromets]

Hmm... well, he may be right though.

Too bad the Na'vi coukdn't give an unobtanium nickel about moral superiority, and would rather have their homes and lives than be all morally superior and dead or homeless.

Nah, because his point hinges that they're mostly only morally superior if they don't fight back. Which is stupid because valid self-defense is still a morally-superior stand point.

Morality isn't supposed to be a suicide pact. Only an idiot believes you're morally obligated to not resist when people start killing you and hope they have a change of heart. That would make them superior in only one respect -- it would make them better at dying.

It also pisses me off how casually he can basically say "Oh, sure, a few will die and they'll lose their homes. But, hey, it will surely end up for the best when the guys shooting them get hit by the power of love!" Right, because you can rationally expect people not to want to fight back when they've seen friends and family dead and their home destroyed.

[Sarevok]

The real question that should be asked is how much of Pandora the Navi owns. They have perhaps a few tens of thousands of individuals on the entire planet. The Navi don't need most of the planet to sustain their tiny numbers through hunter gatherer lifestyle. If they don't need it nor can control it how can they Navi claim the whole surface area of Pandora ? They can't really lay claim to the entire planet anymore than claiming ownership of the Alpha Centauri star system.

[evilsoup]

There may be more Navi that we don't see in the film, on different continents etc. And regardless, they certainly have a better claim on it that the RDA.

[Metahive]

The real question that should be asked is how much of Pandora the Navi owns. They have perhaps a few tens of thousands of individuals on the entire planet. The Navi don't need most of the planet to sustain their tiny numbers through hunter gatherer lifestyle. If they don't need it nor can control it how can they Navi claim the whole surface area of Pandora ? They can't really lay claim to the entire planet anymore than claiming ownership of the Alpha Centauri star system.

You could ask the same of any country on Earth. Particularly the bigger ones like Russia, the US and China got lots of empty space within their borders and I doubt they can fully "control" or even "need" every single squarefoot of it. Does that mean it's finders keepers for any interloper that comes along?

EDIT:
Wasn't that also among the arguments people used to dispossess the native Americans of their land? Truly for some among us time stopped at the eve of the 19th century.

[Sarevok]

You could ask the same of any country on Earth. Particularly the bigger ones like Russia, the US and China got lots of empty space within their borders and I doubt they can fully "control" or even "need" every single squarefoot of it. Does that mean it's finders keepers for any interloper that comes along?

Apples and oranges. Russians took and held onto the huge territory they call their own. They have formally declared a border and guard that border zealously.

The Navi have done none of that. They have never declared how much land they own or even how much territory belongs to which tribes. As seen in the official video game tie in the RDA are polite enough to at least fence the area they consider their own. They rarely venture outside or bother anyone save for scientific or diplomatic expedition.

Wasn't that also among the arguments people used to dispossess the native Americans of their land? Truly for some among us time stopped at the eve of the 19th century.

Again wrong comparision. Pandora is frigging big and Navi numbers tiny. There would be asbolutely no reason to displace any Navi tribe from anywhere. This is why the attack on home tree was awful writing - the humans were evil for sake of being evil. They could have mined their unobtainium from anywhere from mountain ranges no Navi ever set foot on to bottom of the ocean floor.

[Shroom Man 777]

How the hell would you know what the Na'vi do and don't declare? For all we know, they do mark their territory by pissing and pooping and rubbing their anus pheromone-glands on the trees and shit, and you're just arbitrarily deciding that the Na'vi tribes don't declare their territories in another Sarevokerritchian feat of pulling more bullshit out of your ass - as if primitive human civilizations never delineate their own territories, (and even if they didn't, as if the Na'vi would also not).

[Metahive]

Looten P. Sarevok-Plunder: "Excuse me, Mr Na'vi, do you have any papers registered with the Bullshit Non-existing Office of Extraterrestral Land Ownership that would prove your legal claims to this planet?"
Na'vi: "Que?"
Looten P. Sarevok-Plunder: "Guess so, meanwhile I have here a paper issued by the Prospecting Interstellar League of Filthy Earth Robbers (PILFER) that empowers me to legally boot you off these grounds. Mindless brutes, do your work"
*MG fire*

Yeah, that's how the West...Pandora was won.

[Molyneux]

You could ask the same of any country on Earth. Particularly the bigger ones like Russia, the US and China got lots of empty space within their borders and I doubt they can fully "control" or even "need" every single squarefoot of it. Does that mean it's finders keepers for any interloper that comes along?

Apples and oranges. Russians took and held onto the huge territory they call their own. They have formally declared a border and guard that border zealously.

The Navi have done none of that. They have never declared how much land they own or even how much territory belongs to which tribes. As seen in the official video game tie in the RDA are polite enough to at least fence the area they consider their own. They rarely venture outside or bother anyone save for scientific or diplomatic expedition.

Wasn't that also among the arguments people used to dispossess the native Americans of their land? Truly for some among us time stopped at the eve of the 19th century.

Again wrong comparision. Pandora is frigging big and Navi numbers tiny. There would be asbolutely no reason to displace any Navi tribe from anywhere. This is why the attack on home tree was awful writing - the humans were evil for sake of being evil. They could have mined their unobtainium from anywhere from mountain ranges no Navi ever set foot on to bottom of the ocean floor.

It's their gorram planet. What gave humans any right to claim any of it at all? This isn't like a country where it's some humans squabbling over pieces of their species' territory - this is a living world with an existing intelligent population. The RDF had no damn right to be there in the first place without Navi consent, any more than Greys would have had a right to harvest resources from Earth back in the middle ages.

[Lord of the Abyss]

There would be asbolutely no reason to displace any Navi tribe from anywhere. This is why the attack on home tree was awful writing - the humans were evil for sake of being evil.

And of course it's totally unrealistic to show people shooting up a bunch of less technologically advanced people just because they can. Humans have never done that, right?

Considering how humans have behaved historically, the RDA was in fact portrayed kindly.

The real question that should be asked is how much of Pandora the Navi owns. They have perhaps a few tens of thousands of individuals on the entire planet. The Navi don't need most of the planet to sustain their tiny numbers through hunter gatherer lifestyle. If they don't need it nor can control it how can they Navi claim the whole surface area of Pandora ? They can't really lay claim to the entire planet anymore than claiming ownership of the Alpha Centauri star system.

Doesn't much matter, since Eywa can claim ownership of the entire planet, given that it's her body. And I suspect that's the position that the Na'vi would take too, that if they aren't using something it belongs to Eywa, not the humans.

[Shroom Man 777]

You have a fair point. Bounce that very same question back to the humans who aren't even from there, and what answer would we get from Private Last Class Piles Sarevokerritch? Probably some bullshit about humans having guns and shit while the Na'vi have spears and shit, pretty much the same answer any might makes right bullshitter would have, and as applicable to any well-armed group that has committed reprehensible acts on vulnerable groups in human history.