EPIC FAIL Master Races

[NecronLord]

I know that they are arrogant, and that everyone would be so in their place. What I'm saying is that the Minbari should have expected some kind of trick from the enemy they were massacring (exactly as the American soldiers should expect from their lesser-equipped enemies. It's a realistic behaviour). I don't say that the various possible precautions could prevent ANY damage, just that they could limit them (when on November 12 2003 Iraqi insurgents bombed the Italian garrison in Nasiriyya, the sentinel that managed to identify the truck bomb before the explosion failed to prevent it, but at least managed to get it to explode outside the barracks, thus limiting the losses).

You're basically saying they should have known it was there despite having no means of knowing it was there.

And that's not just the only example of suicidal arrogance and lack of common sense: the first contact between Earthforce and Minbari saw the Warrior Caste ordering to open the gunports as a sign of peace, an act with such a great misunderstanding potential that Dukat died as he was ordering them closed and (I could be mistaken) seemed quite horrified from such an act being made with someone they meet for the first time and can't possibly expect would know about that custom. And they apparently failed to tell Earth about that custom, if Sinclair, ten years after the war, mistook a warcruiser showing up with open gunports as a threath instead of a sign of peace and respect (thankfully, Neroon had no reason to activate the stealth device, so Babylon 5 could verify the weapons were unarmed, and Delenn had the sense to go and explain that custom).

Now you've got a case that that's stupid. But it's outside the purview of the thread, because a warcruiser can still take on anything any other young race has to offer and hand its ass to it - it's not inferiority, just spectacular ignorance of foreign customs.

[Ahriman238]

lord Martiya wrote:
I know that they are arrogant, and that everyone would be so in their place. What I'm saying is that the Minbari should have expected some kind of trick from the enemy they were massacring (exactly as the American soldiers should expect from their lesser-equipped enemies. It's a realistic behaviour). I don't say that the various possible precautions could prevent ANY damage, just that they could limit them (when on November 12 2003 Iraqi insurgents bombed the Italian garrison in Nasiriyya, the sentinel that managed to identify the truck bomb before the explosion failed to prevent it, but at least managed to get it to explode outside the barracks, thus limiting the losses).

Why? They'd just easily destroyed a moderate-sized Earth task force with no casulties. They pick up a distress signal and turn back briefly to coup de grace the survivors. When they pop out of hyper they see a single, crippled, EarthForce cruiser that tries to run and hide, all completly reasonable behavior. So why should they have feared attack?

Okay, ideally all professional soldiers would be wary of enemy tricks or ambush at all times. But have you ever tried going through just a single day waiting for someone to attack you, checking behind any object large enough to conceal a man or an explosive and dissecting the motives of every human you interact with in any way? Paranoia takes a heavy toll on the mind, so most people, yes even soldiers, will worry only when they're under attack, when the enemy does something suspicious, and when the enemy does something they cannot logically explain given what they know about the enemy. None of these things happened.

Hell, for two years the Minbari had been going back and blasting anything that survived them the first time, not being terribly interested in prisoners. By that point, it was probably routine to them. They had no reasn to suspect anything before the first mine went off, and by then it was too late.

And that's not just the only example of suicidal arrogance and lack of common sense: the first contact between Earthforce and Minbari saw the Warrior Caste ordering to open the gunports as a sign of peace, an act with such a great misunderstanding potential that Dukat died as he was ordering them closed and (I could be mistaken) seemed quite horrified from such an act being made with someone they meet for the first time and can't possibly expect would know about that custom. And they apparently failed to tell Earth about that custom, if Sinclair, ten years after the war, mistook a warcruiser showing up with open gunports as a threath instead of a sign of peace and respect (thankfully, Neroon had no reason to activate the stealth device, so Babylon 5 could verify the weapons were unarmed, and Delenn had the sense to go and explain that custom).

This particular thing happened twice. The first time, it was done by a clueless junior officer and countermanded immediatly once the higher-ups heard of it, which was again too late. The second time it was done by a belligerent and bull-headed saber-rattler, and hostilities were narrowly avoided when Delenn explained the tradition, though you'd think Earthforce officers would be quite familiar with the cultural misunderstanding that started the war.

Two cases of stupid or aggressive individual behavior that are swiftly dealt with by wiser leaders is not an ironclad case for crippling arrogance on behalf of an entire society.

[Darth Lucifer]

Just compiling a list of "Master Races" whose supposed mastery is heavily dependent upon their enemies' extreme stupidity and utterly passive behavior, and who would collapse like the Soviet Union if it fought against a true superpower- the Draka being one famous example. Any other EPIC FAIL Master Races whose mastery is mainly a figment of the imagination of writers acting like internet trolls?

How about the Psychlos from Battlefield Earth? IIRC, they literally depended upon the stupidity of their human slaves, who were superstitious and ignorant. It wasn't until one of them (or more) was hooked up to a Psychlo teaching machine that humanity suddenly grew a pair and fought back.

[Sithking Zero]

Just compiling a list of "Master Races" whose supposed mastery is heavily dependent upon their enemies' extreme stupidity and utterly passive behavior, and who would collapse like the Soviet Union if it fought against a true superpower- the Draka being one famous example. Any other EPIC FAIL Master Races whose mastery is mainly a figment of the imagination of writers acting like internet trolls?

How about the Psychlos from Battlefield Earth? IIRC, they literally depended upon the stupidity of their human slaves, who were superstitious and ignorant. It wasn't until one of them (or more) was hooked up to a Psychlo teaching machine that humanity suddenly grew a pair and fought back.

Nope, they don't count. Here's a clue for a fail master race: they are the best at everything, but don't ever receive their comeuppance. If someone fights back against them, they're viewed as the bad guy. Example: the Na'Vi, from Avatar. Basically, fail Master Races are an author's Mary Sue species.

Better example: the Falcons from the Keisha'ra series. They never get taken to task on what gigantic asses they are, and they do pretty much whatever they want.

[NecronLord]

Nope, they don't count. Here's a clue for a fail master race: they are the best at everything, but don't ever receive their comeuppance. If someone fights back against them, they're viewed as the bad guy. Example: the Na'Vi, from Avatar. Basically, fail Master Races are an author's Mary Sue species.

Has it occurred to you that the corporate goons out to steal their land are bad? It's not because they're a mary sue, it's because their behavior... is bad.

And fights back? Wha? They weren't invading Earth. The film with exactly the same thing but with humans as the victims is say, any version of War of the Worlds.

[Kingmaker]

How about Karen Traviss' Mandalorians? (Yes, easy target, I know)

First, we are expected to believe that Mandalorians can somehow hide themselves from the Force, because... they're cool, I guess? And that Mandalorians are exceptional Jedi/Force User killers, despite the fact that just about any time (outside Traviss' own work) we see them take on Jedi, they get ruined.

Another thing: despite apparently being primarily agrarian civilization (with, iirc, a single undeveloped planet), they are somehow not only super-unstoppable badasses with top-notch weaponry, but also somehow are the only ones able to figure out how to properly forge mithril beskar - a material that, despite its apparently awesome properties, no one has bothered to look for elsewhere or synthesize.

Sure, they have a such a history of mass-murder and violence that the Old Republic kicked their asses back into the stone age, as well as a tendency to employ child soldiers (it builds character!), but don't let that fool you. They are heroes, fighting for the common man, and should be admired - nay, worshiped!

--
To elaborate on what I think the OP meant (or should have meant) by EPIC FAIL Master Races, look at the Draka (as has been done earlier in the thread, to an extent). Even ignoring the combat wankage, every aspect of their success is dependent upon authorial protection/fiat. For some reason, the world sits by and watches as South Africa becomes (somehow) an unstoppable superpower. In contrast, species like the Psychlos or the Saurons or the Darhel are presented as imagining themselves to be awesome so the humans can show them who the real badasses are. Meanwhile, the Middle-Earth Elves, or the Warrior-case Minbari, or the Imperial British might be smug, elitist pricks, but they can put their money where their mouth is (or could at some point in their past).

[Shroom Man 777]

Since when did the Na'vi have any "mastery"? They died in droves even when their enemies were incompetent! Their only superiority was in getting their trees and animals killed until they had their asses saved by an entire planet. All this whining about Avatar probably comes from butthurt shitheads who, like Hydrocephalic Platypus Cuckolding Animals, are probably hyper-patriotic conservative Americans who can't stand filthy blue-people kick the shit out of their GI Joes and fuck over their foreign interests. Imagine, if that was what a James Cameron movie wrought, if it did happen in real life and some guys do kick their stupid American soldiers out of their country and ruin stupid American foreign interests/resource-greed? The amount of butthurt experienced by these assholes would be some kind of grotesque shit-child between a massive hernia and chronic dysentery.

Maybe you can bitch that Pandora, the planet/moon itself, was an epic fail master race. But then again, you'd probably fail at a race too (unless you are a Kenyan), cause you're too fucking fat to run it.

(Maybe fatsos can run faster on dirt runways. But they don't want anyone to see just how disgustingly fat they are... through clear glass canopies. AM I RITE?)

[Simon_Jester]

To elaborate on what I think the OP meant (or should have meant) by EPIC FAIL Master Races, look at the Draka (as has been done earlier in the thread, to an extent). Even ignoring the combat wankage, every aspect of their success is dependent upon authorial protection/fiat. For some reason, the world sits by and watches as South Africa becomes (somehow) an unstoppable superpower. In contrast, species like the Psychlos or the Saurons or the Darhel are presented as imagining themselves to be awesome so the humans can show them who the real badasses are. Meanwhile, the Middle-Earth Elves, or the Warrior-case Minbari, or the Imperial British might be smug, elitist pricks, but they can put their money where their mouth is (or could at some point in their past).

Yeah, that's the distinction I want to draw. On the one hand, you've got people who are presented as powerful in a "tell, don't show" way, who could easily be defeated by any competent opponent with a reasonable amount of resources. On the other, you've got people who really are powerful- even opponents who are clever and relatively well equipped have trouble dealing with them, and it requires unusual heroic cunning or skill to defeat them on their own terms.

The first group can become EPIC FAIL, in the sense that they are such tremendous failures that it undermines their credibility and turns them into a bad joke.

The second group is not EPIC FAIL, because the failure is not 'epic:' to translate from Internet memespeak, the source of their failures is not that they are inherently much weaker or contemptible than they're made out to be.

In other words, the first group are posturing losers, even if authorial fiat gives them free run of their own world. The second group may lose, but are not losers, and do not posture (much): the strength they claim to have is real, not imaginary.

There's a difference between failing because your concept of strategy and tactics is like a caveman's or because your entire empire depended on your enemies never thinking of some obvious trick- like the first group- and failing because your enemy was strong or because you were betrayed or because your armies got overextended, like the second group.

There are also some intermediate cases- where the group is legitimately strong, but are handily overpowered by an enemy who pits their strength against the group's weakness. In one respect they're feeble, but in another they're quite effective on their own terms. An example of this would be a race of genetically engineered supersoldiers who are great at fighting, but not so great at, say, engineering: they wind up losing because their enemies invent better weapons and maintain a stronger industrial base, not because they didn't fight hard enough. Does that make the supersoldiers "EPIC FAIL?"

Maybe. A lot depends on presentation- if the supersoldiers' advantages are portrayed convincingly and their enemies have to struggle to overcome them, it can be good. If the supersoldiers' advantages are quickly neutralized and overwhelmed*, so that by the end of the day you find yourself asking "why were we worried about them again?" then not so much.

So you need to distinguish between competent adversaries who are defeated because their opponents are powerful, weak adversaries who triumph only as long as their opponents are weak, and intermediate adversaries who are powerful in some ways, powerful enough to be a serious threat that demands respect, but not powerful enough to be that hard to defeat once once their opponents break out the big guns.**
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*(Ha! Your supermuscles are no match for our GIANT ROBOTS, oh and we have way more robots than you have men and it's only page 100 of a 500 page novel! Yeah, the suspense is killing me now...)

**Think about the Japanese in World War Two. They were brave, and they had very skilled troops compared to the opposition they faced in the opening months of the war in the Pacific, and they had some surprisingly effective weapons... but once that first six months or so of running wild were over, reality set in. They were outnumbered, they faced superior industrial output and enemies who could surround and isolate them without much trouble; it was only a matter of time before they were overpowered and there was never any real doubt in anyone's mind that they could be overpowered. Compare this to Germany, where for at least the first three years of the war, a lot of people were unsure of who would win even if we in hindsight can trace key factors that made a German defeat almost inevitable.

[Ford Prefect]

This thread is so stupid that it defies metaphor. In part because no metaphor is sufficient in scale, and also because literally every metaphor is too good to waste describing this abortion.

Coordinators
Innovades
Spacenoids or whatever Zeon called themselves

Spacenoid is a generic descriptor for people who live in space in Gundam. Gihren Zabi gives a speech where he calls the Zeon the 'chosen people' and the 'master race', but it's just the rhetoric of a guy who takes being compared to Hitler as a compliment (though amusingly he's not entirely clear on who Hitler is). They're not seriously considered as a 'master race' - not even Newtypes are presented in that way, which is ironic because they're literal superpersons who are much better adapted to the environment of space. Ribbons' crowing about the superiority of Innovades is obviously and deliberately discredited as the series wears on, most notably when Ribbons denies that he is an Innovade. Coordinators get largely the same treatment, though with SEED's wonky writing it sort of zig zags on the why. At the very least Patrick Zala, who holds the opinion that Coordinators are a master race, is denounced as a frothing lunatic ... which he is.

[Darth Hoth]

Nope, they don't count. Here's a clue for a fail master race: they are the best at everything, but don't ever receive their comeuppance. If someone fights back against them, they're viewed as the bad guy. Example: the Na'Vi, from Avatar. Basically, fail Master Races are an author's Mary Sue species.

Has it occurred to you that the corporate goons out to steal their land are bad? It's not because they're a mary sue, it's because their behavior... is bad.

And fights back? Wha? They weren't invading Earth. The film with exactly the same thing but with humans as the victims is say, any version of War of the Worlds.

Except the humans are not out to wipe out the entire Blueface Indian civilisation (such as it is; that could use scare quotes, perhaps) and kill a high percentage of them and breed the rest for food. They just want the soil under one damn tree, and are eventually prepared to cut it down without the locals' approval, to the point of evicting them with riot gas. And even then, they expend quite a huge amount of resources trying to negotiate with them first. In fact, I believe there was no intentional use of lethal force at all prior to Sheikh Sully raising up a huge horde of hostile aliens to attack them.*

Whereas the Martians open up with blowing up random shit from the get-go and never cast the slightest doubt on their genocidal intentions.

One might disagree with the RDA's aims (and even if not, one must agree they were idiots about implementing them), but this analogy is a faulty one.




*(I might be wrong on that last point, though; I only saw the movie once or twice.)

[Sithking Zero]

Nope, they don't count. Here's a clue for a fail master race: they are the best at everything, but don't ever receive their comeuppance. If someone fights back against them, they're viewed as the bad guy. Example: the Na'Vi, from Avatar. Basically, fail Master Races are an author's Mary Sue species.

Has it occurred to you that the corporate goons out to steal their land are bad? It's not because they're a mary sue, it's because their behavior... is bad.

And fights back? Wha? They weren't invading Earth. The film with exactly the same thing but with humans as the victims is say, any version of War of the Worlds.

Except the humans are not out to wipe out the entire Blueface Indian civilisation (such as it is; that could use scare quotes, perhaps) and kill a high percentage of them and breed the rest for food. They just want the soil under one damn tree, and are eventually prepared to cut it down without the locals' approval, to the point of evicting them with riot gas. And even then, they expend quite a huge amount of resources trying to negotiate with them first. In fact, I believe there was no intentional use of lethal force at all prior to Sheikh Sully raising up a huge horde of hostile aliens to attack them.*

Whereas the Martians open up with blowing up random shit from the get-go and never cast the slightest doubt on their genocidal intentions.

One might disagree with the RDA's aims (and even if not, one must agree they were idiots about implementing them), but this analogy is a faulty one.




*(I might be wrong on that last point, though; I only saw the movie once or twice.)

Is it truly faulty? The Na'Vi are shown to have a nearly perfect society with absolutely no drawbacks. Anyone who follows the human way of life is shown to be "Wrong," or "Evil." In fact, Humans already destroyed their home planet in this universe, and are on their way to destroying others. Those gas masks they use on Pandora? Originally designed for use on EARTH, because it's so polluted. Meanwhile, the Na'Vi live in an absolute paradise that is only spoiled by the humans and their machines.

All right, perhaps the analogy is faulty, but can you see what the original message was? that a true "Fail Master Race," is a Mary Sue society. Anyone who disagrees (with the race in question, not my analysis) is evil or stupid, and in a balanced universe, they would have a lot more difficulty.

[Darth Hoth]

Is it truly faulty? The Na'Vi are shown to have a nearly perfect society with absolutely no drawbacks. Anyone who follows the human way of life is shown to be "Wrong," or "Evil." In fact, Humans already destroyed their home planet in this universe, and are on their way to destroying others. Those gas masks they use on Pandora? Originally designed for use on EARTH, because it's so polluted. Meanwhile, the Na'Vi live in an absolute paradise that is only spoiled by the humans and their machines.

All right, perhaps the analogy is faulty, but can you see what the original message was? that a true "Fail Master Race," is a Mary Sue society. Anyone who disagrees (with the race in question, not my analysis) is evil or stupid, and in a balanced universe, they would have a lot more difficulty.

I meant to disagree with NecronLord primarily, not you.

On the Space Indians, I personally find them irritatingly smug and sanctimonious, and they have definite traits of Mary Sue, being portrayed in an overly idealised manner and having magic technobabble that supports their primitivistic-utopian society instead of EVIL! science and technology. But I would not call them a "master race" like the Draka. If I should compare them to anything else in fiction, it would be more something like the Knox in Stargate.

[AniThyng]

"Just the soil under one damn tree"?

If aliens showed up and demanded that we hand over the soil under the any random modern gargantuan skyscraper, or they'll gas it then blow it up, while the fleeing people are still on the street below, we'll accept meekly that we've been shown up by our betters?

[Serafina]

"Just the soil under one damn tree"?

If aliens showed up and demanded that we hand over the soil under the any random modern gargantuan skyscraper, or they'll gas it then blow it up, while the fleeing people are still on the street below, we'll accept meekly that we've been shown up by our betters?

Make that an entire city, then your example is pretty good. I'd be like aliens showing up and declaring that they want to flatten Manhattan.
Except that we modern humans actually understand the value of mining, which the stone-age Navi did not even understand. So i'd be more like aliens showing up and wanting to demolish Manhattan for no reason at all, at least from the perspectice of the Navi.

[Darth Hoth]

"Just the soil under one damn tree"?

If aliens showed up and demanded that we hand over the soil under the any random modern gargantuan skyscraper, or they'll gas it then blow it up, while the fleeing people are still on the street below, we'll accept meekly that we've been shown up by our betters?

One damn tree. I dare anyone to tell me the Home Tree was not a tree.

Still a bit of a difference compared to destroying your planetary civilisation and turning you into food animals, n'est-ce pas?

And, well, I am unabashedly human-supremacist, so I would see no inherent wrong myself in adopting the Imperium of Man policy towards any aliens we might find. But, in the film the RDA by all tokens tried quite hard to negotiate with the Space Indians before they took any drastic steps. Right down to the point of spending billions on making the avatars that provided the name of the film.

[Simon_Jester]

Except the humans are not out to wipe out the entire Blueface Indian civilisation (such as it is; that could use scare quotes, perhaps) and kill a high percentage of them and breed the rest for food. They just want the soil under one damn tree, and are eventually prepared to cut it down without the locals' approval, to the point of evicting them with riot gas. And even then, they expend quite a huge amount of resources trying to negotiate with them first. In fact, I believe there was no intentional use of lethal force at all prior to Sheikh Sully raising up a huge horde of hostile aliens to attack them.*

You're letting... something overrun your memory here.

The sequence of events: Jake goes native, attacks a bulldozer, and then the RDA comes after Home Tree with a fleet of helicopter gunships armed with gas and missile launchers to blow up their big tree village.

Now, I don't know about you, but firing a shitload of missiles at someone's village qualifies as "intentional use of lethal force" to me. Sure, sure, riot gas, "evict" them... yeah, what happens if any of the Na'vi are too old/infirm/young/injured to move away from the tree? They're stuck there getting extra lungfuls of tear gas or whatever- which may well be lethal eventually based on existing gases like this- and even if that doesn't kill them, their home getting shot full of missiles will. Or what if they decide to try and resist having their homes burned down, rather than all running away? Does that mean they're all homicidal savages who are OK to kill suddenly, or does that mean that yes, you went into that situation intending to use lethal force on the Na'vi?

Plus the little detail where you are burning down their homes to build a strip mine. For crying out loud...

Anyway.

Whereas the Martians open up with blowing up random shit from the get-go and never cast the slightest doubt on their genocidal intentions.

One might disagree with the RDA's aims (and even if not, one must agree they were idiots about implementing them), but this analogy is a faulty one.

The moral distinction between Avatar and War of the Worlds is not all that great. In War of the Worlds, no one ever questions humans' right to fight the Martians, even if the Martians have a really good reason for what they do like "our homeworld is dying and we need to colonize a new planet."

Indeed, if you are at all familiar with the context of that work, that was the point: Wells was intentionally taking the example of European colonialism and how it often adopted policies toward 'savage' tribes which boiled down to ethnic cleansing at best and outright genocide at worst. And then he turned it around and asked us how we'd like it if the Martians landed in London and started treating the British the way the British treated the Tasmanians- engaging in routine economic activities to build settlements and extraction industries while casually slaughtering any large masses of natives hanging around while they do it.*

Avatar comes from the same basic inspirational sources: the natives are inferior primitives in the eyes of a bunch of people who came to the natives' land wanting to smash up their homes to make room for a mine. And if the natives make any gestures of resistance to having their homes smashed to make room for a mine, it proves they're 'violent savages' who can legitimately be exterminated in great numbers using all the impedimenta of modern warfare.

The main differences are that there's an ecological parable embedded in it (because this is 2009, not 1899), and that you're given a chance to identify with the alien invaders instead of the primitive natives. Which, alas, a lot of people have taken, showing us just how horribly little we've learned since the 1800s about colonialism, imperialism, and race.
_______________

*If you ever read War of the Worlds, you realize that a Martian version of Darth Hoth could make essentially the same dickheaded argument about the book: "how dare they fight back? We have the right to kill them whenever we please, and doing anything else is a sign of our unusual mercy!"

In both cases it would boil down to supremacism: "we have the right to do whatever we wish to the primitives, without fear of being harmed by them, and that doesn't make us uncivilized or unjust, but when the primitives start doing things to us, they're homicidal savages who need to be taught a lesson, which we will teach to them by killing them all."

[Darth Hoth]

Now, I don't know about you, but firing a shitload of missiles at someone's village qualifies as "intentional use of lethal force" to me. Sure, sure, riot gas, "evict" them... yeah, what happens if any of the Na'vi are too old/infirm/young/injured to move away from the tree? They're stuck there getting extra lungfuls of tear gas or whatever- which may well be lethal eventually based on existing gases like this- and even if that doesn't kill them, their home getting shot full of missiles will. Or what if they decide to try and resist having their homes burned down, rather than all running away? Does that mean they're all homicidal savages who are OK to kill suddenly, or does that mean that yes, you went into that situation intending to use lethal force on the Na'vi?

Meh, I caught a peek at the "Timber!" sequence on YouTube, and as best as I can determine, they started firing the incendiaries somewhat faster than I had from memory. So they might not have had all the time need to evacuate fully.

I suppose it might also have done to send some guys down on the ground to check for stragglers, if they wanted to be really sure. Though that would probably be very dangerous, given the context.

In any case, conceded, I suppose.

The moral distinction between Avatar and War of the Worlds is not all that great. In War of the Worlds, no one ever questions humans' right to fight the Martians, even if the Martians have a really good reason for what they do like "our homeworld is dying and we need to colonize a new planet."

The difference to Avatar is, as I pointed out, that the humans actually did make considerable efforts to work out a compromise. Even if some elements of the RDA (Quaritch et al) were none too keen on it, as a group they were concerned about the Navi.

Whereas, as I said, the Martians went straight to the conquest-genocide-anthropophagy bit and never tried to negotiate or compromise in the slightest.

(Huh, as an aside, that could be a somewhat interesting story, if you think about it - Avatar reversed, with a Wellsian Martian trying to negotiate an alliance/surrender with the humans, in a pastiche of 19th-century "unequal treaties," and actually growing a little fond of us so he/she/it regrets having to murder and cannibalise us a little.)

Indeed, if you are at all familiar with the context of that work, that was the point: Wells was intentionally taking the example of European colonialism and how it often adopted policies toward 'savage' tribes which boiled down to ethnic cleansing at best and outright genocide at worst. And then he turned it around and asked us how we'd like it if the Martians landed in London and started treating the British the way the British treated the Tasmanians- engaging in routine economic activities to build settlements and extraction industries while casually slaughtering any large masses of natives hanging around while they do it.*

Um, yes, I believe that is mentioned in the foreword to just about every modern edition of it, so I would be aware of it even were it not excruciatingly clear from the context.

Avatar comes from the same basic inspirational sources: the natives are inferior primitives in the eyes of a bunch of people who came to the natives' land wanting to smash up their homes to make room for a mine. And if the natives make any gestures of resistance to having their homes smashed to make room for a mine, it proves they're 'violent savages' who can legitimately be exterminated in great numbers using all the impedimenta of modern warfare.

The main differences are that there's an ecological parable embedded in it (because this is 2009, not 1899), and that you're given a chance to identify with the alien invaders instead of the primitive natives. Which, alas, a lot of people have taken, showing us just how horribly little we've learned since the 1800s about colonialism, imperialism, and race.

The good, old days come back a-callin'!

More seriously, though, I personally think most of it is specifically people taking issue with the Luddism and general Mary Sue-ish tendencies of the Navi, rather than identifying with the oppression/persecution/eviction/whatever. And perhaps some backlash against what they perceive as trite and politically correct stereotypes of "White men bad, natives good". Although to be sure, there are some genuine technocratic militarists as well among the RDA fans, if the interwebs are any indication.

Me, I personally think the RDA are too stupid to breathe (not quite as bad as the original Martians, but up there). But if one assumes that Earth is indeed as bad off as the supplementary material has it and depends on the magic metal so bad, they do have some kind of point and good intentions, even if they are utter idiots about how they actually do their work.

*If you ever read War of the Worlds, you realize that a Martian version of Darth Hoth could make essentially the same dickheaded argument about the book: "how dare they fight back? We have the right to kill them whenever we please, and doing anything else is a sign of our unusual mercy!"

In the post you quoted, I made no comment about the moral rightness or wrongness of the RDA. All I did was criticise NecronLord's analogy by pointing out that while, yes, the scenarios have a common thematic ancestor, they were not remotely the same in their particulars. Do you disagree that there is a significant amount of difference between "Let's chase the Indians away, they're sitting on a gold mine and are too stupid to sell it to us or make use of it themselves, even though we offered them thunder sticks and fire water" and "Yay, puny Earthlings! Let's murder all of them and eat the ones we didn't murder alive and grow their children in factory farms!"

[Sarevok]

The Navi had been shooting at the RDA long before they resorted to lethal force though. The ongoing low intensity attacks by Navi are heavily implied at the start of the film. The first time we see RDA bulldozers they are riddled with arrows. During his briefing towards newcomers to Pandora Quartich makes it clear how dangerous Navi are and how despite best of his security personnels efforts not everyone is going survive their stint. Despite stockpiling VTOLs and AMP suits that could steamroll any primitive resistence it is quite clear the RDA never used them before against the Navi. During the assault on Home tree it is quite clear this is the first time the Navi experienced gunships being used.

Up until the moment Quartich snapped and ordered the air strike on home tree the RDA were practically saints. They showed an extreme amount of patience and restraint they showed the Navi. Then they went a whole light year further poured immense sums of money from corporate coffers to create the Avatar programme. If they were really dicks they would not have bothered.

Maybe other people took a different meaning from Avatar (space native americans being pillaged by space europeans or somesuch). But to me Avatar is a story of how two extremists, Jake Sully and Quartich brought people who did not have to fight each other to war.

[Darth Hoth]

Ghetto edit:

Meh, I caught a peek at the "Timber!" sequence on YouTube, and as best as I can determine, they started firing the incendiaries somewhat faster than I had from memory. So they might not have had all the time need to evacuate fully.

Last sentence should read, "So the Navi might not have had all the time they would need to evacuate the Tree fully."

[Shroom Man 777]

The Navi had been shooting at the RDA long before they resorted to lethal force though. The ongoing low intensity attacks by Navi are heavily implied at the start of the film. The first time we see RDA bulldozers they are riddled with arrows.

You mean the unmanned bulldozers? That are plowing their way to Na'vi territory and hunting grounds? Pray tell, what would anyone do when a foreign powers sends armored vehicles rolling through their territory with the stated intention of destroying their homes?

During his briefing towards newcomers to Pandora Quartich makes it clear how dangerous Navi are and how despite best of his security personnels efforts not everyone is going survive their stint.

Was Quarritch talking specifically about the Na'vi, or was he talking about the general wildlife on Pandora which was all sorts of hostile and dangerous?

He said:

"You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day. If there is a Hell, you might wanna go there for some R & R after a tour on Pandora. Out there beyond that fence every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes. We have an indigenous population of humanoids called the Na'vi. They're fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin that will stop your heart in one minute - and they have bones reinforced with naturally occurring carbon fiber. They are very hard to kill. As head of security, it is my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed. Not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need to cultivate a strong, mental aptitude. You got to obey the rules: Pandora rules. "

They are very hard to kill. This implies that they've actually had fatal engagements with the Na'vi before, perhaps. Who shot first? Who knows. But who has armored vehicles on a non-stop path to someone else's home, fully intending to destroy their homes and evict them?

Quarritch also said these strangely prophetic words: "And when you get soft, Pandora will eat you and shit you out dead with zero warning."

Despite stockpiling VTOLs and AMP suits that could steamroll any primitive resistence it is quite clear the RDA never used them before against the Navi. During the assault on Home tree it is quite clear this is the first time the Navi experienced gunships being used.

Up until the moment Quartich snapped and ordered the air strike on home tree the RDA were practically saints. They showed an extreme amount of patience and restraint they showed the Navi. Then they went a whole light year further poured immense sums of money from corporate coffers to create the Avatar programme. If they were really dicks they would not have bothered.

Yeah, they could've been total dicks and, I dunno, like totally ignored the wishes of a sovereign nation and sent their armored vehicles to violate their territory and destroy their food sources (hunting grounds) while making their way to the Na'vi's population centers with explicit intent to depopulate them!

Thank goodness the RDA never did that. Oh wait.

Did you replace the clear glass canopy on your TV screen with an opaque slab of armor?

The RDA wanted to depopulate the Na'vi and destroy their home. Even before the beginning of their movie, their bulldozers were already on the way. Tell me, if a bunch of assholes were going to wreck your home, and they won't stop no matter what you tell them, and their unstoppable bulldozer is on its way (to wreck your home)... wouldn't you throw rocks (or arrows) at those bulldozers?

The RDA were already in the process of destroying the Na'vi's home. Their bulldozers just hadn't gotten there yet!

Maybe other people took a different meaning from Avatar (space native americans being pillaged by space europeans or somesuch). But to me Avatar is a story of how two extremists, Jake Sully and Quartich brought people who did not have to fight each other to war.

The only extremists are the ones who destroyed a peoples' home and moved to try and commit genocide. That you would equivocate a unilateral act of ethnic cleansing, because that is what you call forcibly relocating a people from their land, with acts of legitimate resistance and defense against said ethnic cleansing, and brand both acts as equally extremist just shows that your brain may be a VTOL aircraft.

As Keith Olbermann said: "sticking up for the powerless is not the moral equivalent of sticking up for the powerful"

[Ahriman238]

Why are we even having this fight over again?

Fine. I'll throw my hat in the ring. By the laws of the United States circa 2010, Quaritch and Sefridge were unambigously in the wrong. The US recognizes all reasonable aborigine land claims, particularly if their land is clearly marked such as, say, building a goddamn village over it. So the land is theirs, as is any mineral wealth, and taking other people's property by force or fraud is the precise definition of felony theft. Further, many states within the US recognize deaths that result from the comission of a felony as being equivalent to premeditated murder.

Granted, It is unknown to us if RDA is an american company, if any nation on earth will punish crimes committed on another planet, If the law will even recognize crimes committed against aliens, or if the laws change between now and the future of the films. But I submit to you that contemporary american audiences are expected to recognize what RDA did as blatantly illegal and immoral. Whether their actions would be punished in the world they live in, in RL their actions are already on the grand list of actions and behaviors that society will not tolerate.

As far as diplomacy goes, we never really see any. Sefridge has a throwaway line about how they tried to build roads for the Na'vi, but they weren't interested. The company offered advanced medicine, but they weren't interested. Grace had a school to teach all the Na'vi children how to speak and read English, and this actively offended the Na'vi to the point where she was asked to leave. So at least they tried before, off-screen.

The Avatar program has no real diplomats. The closest thing, Grace, is a xenobiologist/linguist. They also have a few more biologists and a single jarhead. When Sully makes contact with the Omaticaya, he's given three months to find out what they value, but only because that's how long it will take the bulldozers to reach the tree. Sully submerges himself in their culture, completly forgets his deadline, the nfreaks out and trashes the 'dozer.

After that, Quaritch and Sefridge play back a rcording of Sully's half-asleep musing on what they could possibly give the Omaticaya that's worth their ancestral home. They announce this tape as proof that diplomacy has failed, but when Sully and Grace beg, they give him one last chance, half an hour to convince the Omaticaya, since after that the fleet of attack choppers arrives. Note that they don't give him an afternoon to reach a peaceful settlement, or ask what they really want, they just send him with the message of "We are coming, and you have what we want. Run or you are all going to die." Masters of diplomacy there.

To his credit, Quaritch does go out of his way to limit Na'vi casulties. First by using teargas to flush them out of the Tree, though dozens still died. Then again, when the Na'vi start building their army and he tries to cow them with a 'shock and awe' attack, rather than letting them gather in one place and bombing the hell out of it.

Really, as much as the visual effects, I love Avatar for the lack of moustache-twirling villainy. Sefridge is just trying to do right by the shareholders and is in over his head. Quaritch is a bigot and a bit of an asshole, but he's an honest asshole. Quaritch keeps his word, gives his all to protect his men, tries to limit Na'vi casulties where he can, but honors his contract with the company. He is at once respectful and dismissive of the Na'vi.

Complex characterization is fun! I consider Avatar to be a movie withour real villains, just a lot of people doing what's right as they understand it. True, Sefridge and Quaritch are engaged in a felony, and it's clear they don't value the lives of the Na'vi as much as do their own people's, but they're not really evil.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, they're evil in the same sense that most evil men throughout history have been evil- they're not psychotic raving monsters, but they're willing to do terrible things to other people without stopping to think "is it worth it? Should I be doing this?"

As Pratchett put it, "There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do."

But the face of real evil is almost refreshing to see in film compared to the face of cartoon evil, come to think of it- except when it creates massive misaimed fandom for the villains. Like with Avatar... [sighs]

[Sarevok]

You mean the unmanned bulldozers? That are plowing their way to Na'vi territory and hunting grounds? Pray tell, what would anyone do when a foreign powers sends armored vehicles rolling through their territory with the stated intention of destroying their homes?

I don't think the RDA was using bulldozers as weapons. When the bulldozers ran over the sacred place it was a shocking event. It a blatant dick move by Quartich to escalate. Until then the RDA had not been using those heavy vehicles as destructive tools against other people. Before that the dozers were doing purely earth moving tasks.

Regarding territory I think this is a complex issue. Yes it's true that the Navi live on Pandora. But do they own the whole planet ? We live in the solar system. But we do we own the star system ? If say some superadvanced race started mining our moon for HE3 would we have right to protest ?

Anyway if the RDA activity was harming Navi livelihood they would have a point. But I don't think the Navi ever gave a reason. Pandoras eco system is vast and robust and guided by a planetmind. The Navi themselves were unaffected by RDAs small scale operation. If anyone would be upset it would be the planetmind.

They are very hard to kill. This implies that they've actually had fatal engagements with the Na'vi before, perhaps. Who shot first? Who knows.

Yeah. You are right. RDA must have had gunfights with the Navi before. The fact that they had enough biological knowledge on Navi to build avatars implies they had samples...

But the thing is RDA mercenaries were kept on a short leash. Civlian scientists like Grace seem to have lot more power than they did. It was only at the end that Quartich and his men were allowed to actually go out and kill the Navi in an offensive action.

Yeah, they could've been total dicks and, I dunno, like totally ignored the wishes of a sovereign nation and sent their armored vehicles to violate their territory and destroy their food sources (hunting grounds) while making their way to the Na'vi's population centers with explicit intent to depopulate them!

Thank goodness the RDA never did that. Oh wait.

It's a big planet though. And Navi numbers are quite small. Jake gathered what ? 2000 fighting age people including some females ? And he had to travel everywhere from plains to the seas to find that many. I am sure some kind of territorial agreement is possible considering the Navi are not numerous to use most the planets surface.

Did you replace the clear glass canopy on your TV screen with an opaque slab of armor?

I am thinking of purchasing an unused Mig-17 cockpit so I can sit in it while watching TV.

The RDA wanted to depopulate the Na'vi and destroy their home. Even before the beginning of their movie, their bulldozers were already on the way. Tell me, if a bunch of assholes were going to wreck your home, and they won't stop no matter what you tell them, and their unstoppable bulldozer is on its way (to wreck your home)... wouldn't you throw rocks (or arrows) at those bulldozers?

They did not want to depopulate the Navi though. Neither destroy their homes either. They wanted the mineral deposit that sits below hometree. The RDA went through great lengths to find a new home for the Navi. They built those expensive Avatar bodies and shipped them to Pandora just for this. It must have cost a fortune to develop that tech that they would not have spent if they were just greedy.

What the RDA did not understand was that the hometree was far too culturally important for the Navi to be abandoned. Just like certain historial sites are to humans. It was Jakes job to live amongst the Navi and find out about this. And he failed miserbly.

I don't think we can automatically assume RDA had their mind set about getting to Hometree at any cost. They had an entire planet and hometree was just one particular deposit of unobtainium. The RDA already spent tremendous resources building links with the Navi so it does not make sense to nuke that investment.

On the Navi side we did not really see Jake do any attempts to do diplomacy. His entire stay was spent enjoying himself with Neytiri...

The Navi were (rightfully) much more stubborn than RDA. But there was still a small chance they might have agreed to move. Jake did not help there either.

The only extremists are the ones who destroyed a peoples' home and moved to try and commit genocide. That you would equivocate a unilateral act of ethnic cleansing, because that is what you call forcibly relocating a people from their land, with acts of legitimate resistance and defense against said ethnic cleansing, and brand both acts as equally extremist just shows that your brain may be a VTOL aircraft.

Thing is if RDA were extremists they would have gotten rid of the Navi on day 1 of arriving. If their only goal was to kill the Navi and take their land they could have done it much more easily and won.

[NecronLord]

Whereas the Martians open up with blowing up random shit from the get-go and never cast the slightest doubt on their genocidal intentions.

That's an argument? Way to miss the point. People come for your stuff, and are willing to kill you to take it. Yes, the magnitude is greater (war of the worlds is an all-out invasion, for one), but the ethical problem (it does not belong to them and it is certainly immoral for them to kill you to obtain resources that are not theirs) is identical, and the end results (massive casualties until deus ex machina rescue) are also identical.

*(I might be wrong on that last point, though; I only saw the movie once or twice.)

You are indeed directly incorrect on that. Particularly in the case of the extended cut (which got a full theater release, so canon by any definition) which includes the deliberate use of machine guns on a goddamn school (in retaliation for setting a bulldozer on fire). Yep, murdering (it's only execution if there's some sort of trial) children for vandalism, inside a school, in front of more children. Then hosing the school with gunfire for good measure.

EDIT: That is when Mo'at (the chief) declared that humans were not welcome in Ometicaya lands and ordered all of the invaders who intruded to be killed. Before that, they were sending their kids to a fucking human school.

[NecronLord]

Is it truly faulty? The Na'Vi are shown to have a nearly perfect society with absolutely no drawbacks. Anyone who follows the human way of life is shown to be "Wrong," or "Evil." In fact, Humans already destroyed their home planet in this universe, and are on their way to destroying others. Those gas masks they use on Pandora? Originally designed for use on EARTH, because it's so polluted. Meanwhile, the Na'Vi live in an absolute paradise that is only spoiled by the humans and their machines.

As an aside, the same is of course, true of War of the Worlds.

That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility

But no one feels for their need for resources and tries to make excuses.