IDEA! Avatar 2: Ava-Tarrer

[hongi]

Why should I apologise? Was there some grand wrong that happened to you because I made a mistake about where I learned it?

Why should you apologise? Because you were wrong. And this:

Why thank you, my good fucktard. This may turn out to be worth the effort after all.

Hm, it seems I misremembered where I learned the purpose of Grace's botanical research. The film has her on a research/diplomatic mission with no mention of restoring the earth's biosphere.

I wouldn't wipe my arse with this 'concession'. Show humility. It will take you a long way here and in real life.

Except invade and destroy their territory.

Again, that was after the home tree incident. Pay attention.

This is what happens when you don't watch the movie and make stuff up. Jake and Neytiri were sleeping at the Tree of Voices after some inter-species sex. Bulldozers come in and smash their grove of sacred trees up. These were places where the Na'vi could communicate with their dead. If this doesn't count as invading and destroying Na'vi territory, nothing does. This took place before the RDA destroyed Home Tree.

Because those neurotoxin dipped arrows were clearly only used after the sacred grove got bulldozed, dispite Quaratch's briefing coming before that. What a marvel you are, sir, to have realized that obvious truth.

See, this is what I'm talking about. You were patently wrong to say that the RDA only invaded and destroyed their territory after the attack on Home Tree, anyone who reads our discussion sees that, but you jump to something else, something that's irrelevant instead of acknowledging you were wrong.

What does it matter that the Na'vi attacked the RDA before? And justifiably so, considering the RDA massacred a school full of little kiddies. Does that change the fact that the RDA invaded and destroyed Na'vi territory before they attacked Home Tree? No? Then why mention it?

[Cesario]

Why should I apologise? Was there some grand wrong that happened to you because I made a mistake about where I learned it?

Why should you apologise? Because you were wrong. And this:

Why thank you, my good fucktard. This may turn out to be worth the effort after all.

Hm, it seems I misremembered where I learned the purpose of Grace's botanical research. The film has her on a research/diplomatic mission with no mention of restoring the earth's biosphere.

I wouldn't wipe my arse with this 'concession'. Show humility. It will take you a long way here and in real life.

No it won't.

This is what happens when you don't watch the movie and make stuff up. Jake and Neytiri were sleeping at the Tree of Voices after some inter-species sex. Bulldozers come in and smash their grove of sacred trees up. These were places where the Na'vi could communicate with their dead. If this doesn't count as invading and destroying Na'vi territory, nothing does. This took place before the RDA destroyed Home Tree.

Because those neurotoxin dipped arrows were clearly only used after the sacred grove got bulldozed, dispite Quaratch's briefing coming before that. What a marvel you are, sir, to have realized that obvious truth.

See, this is what I'm talking about. You were patently wrong to say that the RDA only invaded and destroyed their territory after the attack on Home Tree, anyone who reads our discussion sees that, but you jump to something else, something that's irrelevant instead of acknowledging you were wrong.

What does it matter that the Na'vi attacked the RDA before?

Wasn't the entire point of this discussion about how the Na'vi were totally justified in killing all humans because of the horrible things the humans did later in the film?

And justifiably so, considering the RDA massacred a school full of little kiddies.

Those "little kiddies" included our protagonist's love interest, I'll note.

Does that change the fact that the RDA invaded and destroyed Na'vi territory before they attacked Home Tree? No? Then why mention it?

What took place when is important.

Not that I'd expect you to care.

[Shroom Man 777]

So why not leave Quaratch as Selfridge's dragon?

Because the Selfridge character was not as insane as Quarritch's character and Quarritch was willing to push for even more murderization than Selfridge wanted.

Only works if we ignore Eywa as all knowing spirit god. I can do that.

Man. Turns out complicated (mind upload) processes may not work if there are differences and sub-optimal conditions like, the subject being, you know, shot full of bullets and bleeding to death? Interfacing with the brain to conduct transference upload shits might not work optimally when blood loss leads to hypoxia and hypoxemia? Gadzooks!

Again, there's the obvious "it didn't work because the subject was already dying" and you immediately ignore that and jumped into "hurr they haeted Grace racists only love professional keeler Jake Soolly" thing.

It's simple until you look at the odd actions of the RDA that can really only be explained by them not wanting to kill the natives.

And yet they still went on to kill the natives. Because they needed space rocks to save the earth make money.

So why does no one know enough about the Na'vi to make an offer before Jake's infiltration mission?

What if... they already knew enough about the Na'vi, and still the Na'vi prefered to, you know, NOT get the fuck out of their homes and have it bulldozed? They've been there for years.

Can't you get it around your head that some people may not want to leave their homes and some people can't be bought? The Na'vi property value of the Home Tree is tied to the value they place on their true existing nature spirit and their connection to it - which is something Grace brought up "world spanning whatever network" and which was also something Selfridge dismissed and couldn't get.

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Unobtanium

Like I said, it wasn't in the film. Doesn't mean I made it up on my own. Just misremembered where I heard it.

Oh god, that's the one with the RDA scientist "Dr. Lovecraft". How canon is this?

Remind me again which one died for the Na'vi in this film.

Who is saying that Grace wasn't a great person? They still loved her.

"All around" was where my objection came from. Especially when you're trying to downplay the good Grace did.

I was unaware of how it exactly went down, as I didn't see the Murdered Children Edition.

There could be other explanations on why they inducted Jake and not Grace. Grace was a scientist, the head scientist, her position could be analogous to their own head wiseman - or whatever rank it was Neytiri's witch doctor mom occupied in their society. Whereas Jake held no rank and was... well... what was his position in the RDA? It's like, they can't really induct the chieftain of another tribe into their own tribe because she's already got her place, whereas Jake might've been seen as a shmuck still looking for his place.

Contingent on Jake vouching for her.

He helped thaw relations after the Children Massacre by incidentally bumbling into Na'vi-land, being observed by the Na'vi, and then over time the Na'vi ended up changing their minds and chilling off and resuming relations with the scientists.

Studying is a bit inappropriate a term what with her dying for them.

How can they induct her into their club when she was shot and bleeding to death and they were desperately trying to do the whole mind-link ritual?

You spent a great deal of time being pissed at me for analyzing the RDA's value judgements. It seems disingenuous for you to now turn around and say I didn't analyze their moral judgements.

You came off like you were making excuses for them, with the whole quantify just how much of shits they are and the percentage of their moral shittery, while at the same time trying to blow up every example of the Na'vi doing this or that in a try-hard attempt at making them all reprehensible due to some perceived slights you exaggerate out of proportion.

The Na'vi aren't perfect, yeah. But in terms of massacring children, blowing up homes, and not just refusing to firebomb people, the RDA is like the Lance Armstrong of the moral bankruptcy marathon while the Na'vi are lagging somewhere a quarter mile behind them in the department of being shits.

In terms of moral shittery: Blowing up Home Tree >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> them liking Jake and accepting him first before Grace

How is it immoral for them to induct Jake before Grace? Inconsiderate, maybe, since Grace was a great person. But that action of delayed recognition isn't even harming anyone.

Though in light of Quaratch's later rebellion, it's somewhat more questionable whether he could have just not authorized the Home Tree attack.

He didn't even try, in a situation where no one was twisting his arm.

Doesn't change the fact that I want him judged for who he really is.

Well, he's a shitbag. And? We've already established this. At first I thought maybe he's a "shitbag who maybe realized something was wrong when he saw the firebombing" but now he's a "shitbag who thought nothing was wrong, until Quarritch went batshit loco in front of him".

Never denied that he was. I'm just objecting to the mischaracterization of him as being bloodthirsty. Genociding the natives was never his Plan A. And given how impossible the universe made peaceful coexistence, I think it's a miracle that a self-absorbed shit like him kept trying diplomacy for as long as he did.

He was just apathetic and when it came to choose between getting money while killing people, or not getting money but not blowing up entire Home Trees, he made the morally bankrupt shit choice.

Or maybe they weren't authorized to do orbital bombardments on an inhabited planet, and even as off the rails as Quaratch was, he wasn't going to go there.

Courtesy of Space EPA? Space Nuremberg? Sure. Maybe it was in the UN charter for exploring xenoplanets.

He's still a shit. You're just haggling on the percentages of his shittiness, on whether he's a dried out turd, a diarrheatic glop of liquid shit, or a shit with undigested corn-things still inside it, and all that.

That's correct.

A shit is a shit is a shit.

And that's you missing the point again.

He still fits the definition of shit, man. Quarritch might've been the longer, harder turd. But shit is shit and we've got a more accurate HD pictogram of Selfridge Shit thanks to the stool exam. Still shit.

That's how you handled the "unobtainium is worthless space gold" situation, isn't it?

We know it's used for maglevs and shits and is stated as a superconductor.

Your "all they learned from the school is things they can use against humans, rawr evil" is just ridiculous.

What's the alternate interpretation of the Na'vi society? If I'm misinterpreting things, what's the other interpretation?

Well, it's definitely not the "they made Jake friend first, rawr evil" or "all they learned from Grace's school was just things they want to use against humans" interpretation.

Pity nothing needed defending after Home Tree got bombed, isn't it?

Huh? The fuckload of refugees at the Soul Tree?

I don't recall the aghast look. But I'll take your word that it was there.

I remember shots of the RDA control tower with Selfridge and all those operators and radio folks looking just "oh shit" when the Home Tree exploded.

But that's kind of what was implied by that exchange. The Na'vi are impossibly hard to kill. It's a wonder any of the "children" actually died in the machinegunning incident.

Dude, they're not Wolverines. Was Tsu'tey even standing? Cause the way you put it, it's like Tsu'tey standing around and going "woah dude my tendril got cut, I'm a eunuch, might as well off me" while not being inconvenienced by his chestfull of bullets and his backbone's worth of thousand foot freefall.

Doesn't really change this whole "degrees of evil" concept. The Na'vi aren't angels, the RDA aren't demons, and we can assign right and wrong to both sides. Whatever the outcome, both sides are too human for such simplistic labels to do justice to who and what these people are and what situations they were faced with.

The Na'vi's faults are trivial and minute compared to the RDA's, man. The RDA's weren't all killfuck soulshitters, but a whole bunch of them were, and in the end they did heinous things.

Kinda. You think there's an infinite ammount of unobtainium on the planet? You think it's litterally impossible to reproduce artificially? It's inevidable that the RDA will eventually just fuck off on their own if the human race survives that long. Pandora's biosphere is resiliant enough that I have no doubt it'll survive anything short of a deliberate effort to burn it off.

How long will it take them to mine the amount of unobtanium they need? Since when did you become the arch-resilienceologist of the Pandoran biosphere? Did you get a Lancet survey done on Pandoran organisms and asked them on a scale of 1 to 10 how much environmental pillaging they could withstand?

Except, again, the Na'vi weren't given the offer. Jake denied them the right to make that choice. And Selfridge was looking for a carrot. Pity he trusted an important mission like that to Jake, but Eywa choose him. If Eywa is as wise as all that, she clearly intended the RDA to bomb hometree, otherwise she'd have chosen someone competent to bridge the cultural divide.

I thought the Na'vi were given previous offers, which Selfridge listed out like medicine, roads, etc.

Except we see what they do to humans in the film. These are practiced behaviors that they didn't learn overnight from Jake.

Turns out war on aliens who don't have same war conventions will be different on war with other blue peoples who have all sorts of weird nature-spirit conventions like appreciating when the other tribe's chieftain connected to a giant pterodactyl or something.

And that changes the equation, yes. I thought this was obvious enough to not need to be said.

I'm afraid I don't understand the question.

Well, what was the extent of pre-Home Tree human and Na'vi hostilities? Them just trashing some remote bulldozers and vandalizing it with arrows? Body bags of miners being sent back to base every day, and when Jake landed, he'd like walk (haha) past by a truckload full of caskets?

Was it Lovecraft who suggested that the sanity-breaking elements of his cosmic horrors were soely a result of them being unfamiliar, and that if encountered everyday would be simply treated as normal? I've always disliked the idea that people would respond so baddly to something so trivial as a new bit of information about the universe. Mind viruses, I can accept, but people merely being that fragile in their sensibilities? I could never get behind that.

Lovecraft himself was afraid of the ocean. So to him, the sea would be something that would horrify him immensely. That won't apply to someone like Jacques Cousteau though. With the sea as the metaphor for the incomprehensible.

Then they were given that choice, and we offer it to their children when the time comes. Like how the Amish work, but imposed from the outside.

Grace's school could've presented alternatives and human ways.

Oh, so only "natural" supercreatures count, and artificially created superbeings aren't worthy of consideration? Why should anyone give a shit about Eywa if we shouldn't give a shit about the RDA? It's the same principle.

No it's not. There's a huge difference between a macro-organism with a neural network spanning a planet, that can think and act on its accord (and send animal hordes to attack folks), and is basically a blue whale the size of a moon or something. There's a difference between that and a corporation or a fucking rotary club. You're the one talking about the degrees of sameness or difference.

I like to think of the mineral as serving a function in the processing of the planet-brain, without which Eywa would be less intelligent and less interconnected. Thus giving us a reason it's inherently bad to mine here, rather than the shitty reasoning we get in the film itself.

Electrolytes or energy sources for the brain processes.

The shitty reasoning is because the perspective of the happenings isn't even on the "big shot" on Pandora, namely Pandora itself, but just its "tissues". Hopefully the sequels will further delve into the weirdo world-mind-organism.

Why are you bringing them into this?

Because I'm also talking about them?

So the only way is to accept everything at face value and burry your head in the sand when anyone attempts to dig deeper and get at less obvious truths. And this is the way to enlightenment, eh?

You're not digging deeper. You're trying to convolute things to make the Na'vi out into super-horrible people while trying to excuse the RDA's craps.

You seem to have missed all that "why are the RDA trying to negotiate with these people in the first place when nuking them from orbit is both cheaper and safer?" musing.

We all know there are outside considerations on why genocide isn't the first option (Space EPA, etc.). But the RDA still didn't take no for an answer and tried to take things through force and violence.

[madd0ct0r]

the entire point of these discussions was Shroom taking the idea that 'might makes right' and 'tech should win' and applying it to a hypothetical sequel where the Earth is colonised by whatever species created Pandora.

the joke being that all of the arguments put forth by milwankers to justify the RDA would also work to justify us being turned into jelly by the sky whales.
(or the martians in war of the worlds hunting us)

but you don't seem to agree, and prefer to spend the time dancing around quotes and switching topics quickly rather then just write out your assumptions, the evidence and your deductions from them.
the stuff you've put forward so far I'd consider completely eviscerated, and for the last few pages you've been flailing and generating massive, no content posts.

state your arguments clearly, or do you not think they'll stand up on their own?

[Darth Tedious]

Didn't you say you'd read the entire thread? I'm not surprised that you've lied about that. Seems you didn't even read the parts you quoted.

So you're not responding to my points. All it would take is a simple 'I'm sorry, I'm wrong'. It's the bloody internet, you're not going to lose any man-points if you admit you were wrong. You said that the scientists explained what the purpose of their studies were, that is to repair Earth's biosphere. Your words, not mine. They didn't. Is it such a hard thing to admit that you were wrong?

Why should I apologise? Was there some grand wrong that happened to you because I made a mistake about where I learned it?

Where was there anything in that wiki you referenced about trying to take Pandoran plants back to Earth? Or did that stuff come from some other source?

[Cesario]

So why not leave Quaratch as Selfridge's dragon?

Because the Selfridge character was not as insane as Quarritch's character and Quarritch was willing to push for even more murderization than Selfridge wanted.

Which is odd thematically. Since Selfridge was the embodiment of corporate greed in the film.

Only works if we ignore Eywa as all knowing spirit god. I can do that.

Man. Turns out complicated (mind upload) processes may not work if there are differences and sub-optimal conditions like, the subject being, you know, shot full of bullets and bleeding to death? Interfacing with the brain to conduct transference upload shits might not work optimally when blood loss leads to hypoxia and hypoxemia? Gadzooks!

Again, there's the obvious "it didn't work because the subject was already dying" and you immediately ignore that and jumped into "hurr they haeted Grace racists only love professional keeler Jake Soolly" thing.

Like I said, I can ignore Eywa as all knowing spirit god.

It's simple until you look at the odd actions of the RDA that can really only be explained by them not wanting to kill the natives.

And yet they still went on to kill the natives. Because they needed space rocks to save the earth make money.

Why yes they did.

So why does no one know enough about the Na'vi to make an offer before Jake's infiltration mission?

What if... they already knew enough about the Na'vi, and still the Na'vi prefered to, you know, NOT get the fuck out of their homes and have it bulldozed? They've been there for years.

Can't you get it around your head that some people may not want to leave their homes and some people can't be bought? The Na'vi property value of the Home Tree is tied to the value they place on their true existing nature spirit and their connection to it - which is something Grace brought up "world spanning whatever network" and which was also something Selfridge dismissed and couldn't get.

Except for the whole needing nothing bit, that is. It isn't nothing that could compare to their spirit god thing. It's nothing period. They're living an ideal lifestyle that apparently also includes ritual suacide. But no point trying to suggest that might not be necessary, it's their culture and we need to respect every primitive, barbaric aspect of it and not give them the chance to change the parts they might not like.

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Unobtanium

Like I said, it wasn't in the film. Doesn't mean I made it up on my own. Just misremembered where I heard it.

Oh god, that's the one with the RDA scientist "Dr. Lovecraft". How canon is this?

No idea. Just telling you that I didn't make it up.

Remind me again which one died for the Na'vi in this film.

Who is saying that Grace wasn't a great person? They still loved her.

Just not until the chosen one vouched for her. Saving their children wasn't enough, apparently.

"All around" was where my objection came from. Especially when you're trying to downplay the good Grace did.

I was unaware of how it exactly went down, as I didn't see the Murdered Children Edition.

That's why I gave you the quote from the script, since I didn't see that version either.

There could be other explanations on why they inducted Jake and not Grace. Grace was a scientist, the head scientist, her position could be analogous to their own head wiseman - or whatever rank it was Neytiri's witch doctor mom occupied in their society. Whereas Jake held no rank and was... well... what was his position in the RDA? It's like, they can't really induct the chieftain of another tribe into their own tribe because she's already got her place, whereas Jake might've been seen as a shmuck still looking for his place.

Now if only they didn't have this high and mighty speech about filling a cup that's already full, this might have something to it.

Contingent on Jake vouching for her.

He helped thaw relations after the Children Massacre by incidentally bumbling into Na'vi-land, being observed by the Na'vi, and then over time the Na'vi ended up changing their minds and chilling off and resuming relations with the scientists.

Yeah, much more significant than saving their children.

Studying is a bit inappropriate a term what with her dying for them.

How can they induct her into their club when she was shot and bleeding to death and they were desperately trying to do the whole mind-link ritual?

One might think there might've been clues she was on their side before the point of her actually dying.

You spent a great deal of time being pissed at me for analyzing the RDA's value judgements. It seems disingenuous for you to now turn around and say I didn't analyze their moral judgements.

You came off like you were making excuses for them, with the whole quantify just how much of shits they are and the percentage of their moral shittery, while at the same time trying to blow up every example of the Na'vi doing this or that in a try-hard attempt at making them all reprehensible due to some perceived slights you exaggerate out of proportion.

The Na'vi aren't perfect, yeah. But in terms of massacring children, blowing up homes, and not just refusing to firebomb people, the RDA is like the Lance Armstrong of the moral bankruptcy marathon while the Na'vi are lagging somewhere a quarter mile behind them in the department of being shits.

In terms of moral shittery: Blowing up Home Tree >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> them liking Jake and accepting him first before Grace

How is it immoral for them to induct Jake before Grace? Inconsiderate, maybe, since Grace was a great person. But that action of delayed recognition isn't even harming anyone.

It's not the Na'vi's fault their weapons weren't nearly as capable of killing humans as the humans' weapons were of killing Na'vi. The Na'vi were trying their hardest, and it seems poor form not to give them credit for effort.

Though in light of Quaratch's later rebellion, it's somewhat more questionable whether he could have just not authorized the Home Tree attack.

He didn't even try, in a situation where no one was twisting his arm.

Just musing, not actually trying to argue Selfridge wasn't making a character demonstrating choice there.

Doesn't change the fact that I want him judged for who he really is.

Well, he's a shitbag. And? We've already established this. At first I thought maybe he's a "shitbag who maybe realized something was wrong when he saw the firebombing" but now he's a "shitbag who thought nothing was wrong, until Quarritch went batshit loco in front of him".

And like I said, I'm glad you're now judging him as he is.

Never denied that he was. I'm just objecting to the mischaracterization of him as being bloodthirsty. Genociding the natives was never his Plan A. And given how impossible the universe made peaceful coexistence, I think it's a miracle that a self-absorbed shit like him kept trying diplomacy for as long as he did.

He was just apathetic and when it came to choose between getting money while killing people, or not getting money but not blowing up entire Home Trees, he made the morally bankrupt shit choice.

Even so, I think he does deserve credit for trying other options before being forced to make that choice in the first place.

Or maybe they weren't authorized to do orbital bombardments on an inhabited planet, and even as off the rails as Quaratch was, he wasn't going to go there.

Courtesy of Space EPA? Space Nuremberg? Sure. Maybe it was in the UN charter for exploring xenoplanets.

I find it hard to believe it wouldn't be. There was some EU stuff I read about the reason they aren't carrying around laser guns being basically space arms control, so I would guess that the same would apply to orbital bombardment.

He's still a shit. You're just haggling on the percentages of his shittiness, on whether he's a dried out turd, a diarrheatic glop of liquid shit, or a shit with undigested corn-things still inside it, and all that.

That's correct.

A shit is a shit is a shit.

And that's you missing the point again.

He still fits the definition of shit, man. Quarritch might've been the longer, harder turd. But shit is shit and we've got a more accurate HD pictogram of Selfridge Shit thanks to the stool exam. Still shit.

You may not find the analysis of Selfridge interesting, but I do.

That's how you handled the "unobtainium is worthless space gold" situation, isn't it?

We know it's used for maglevs and shits and is stated as a superconductor.

Your "all they learned from the school is things they can use against humans, rawr evil" is just ridiculous.

What else did they learn there?

What's the alternate interpretation of the Na'vi society? If I'm misinterpreting things, what's the other interpretation?

Well, it's definitely not the "they made Jake friend first, rawr evil" or "all they learned from Grace's school was just things they want to use against humans" interpretation.

So you don't have an alternate interpretation. Got it.

Pity nothing needed defending after Home Tree got bombed, isn't it?

Huh? The fuckload of refugees at the Soul Tree?

Who weren't in danger until Jake started gathering his army. Selfridge was just going to start mining the Home Tree site, and Quaratch only went nuts after seeing Jake gather his army. Unpleasant as the thought may be, letting the RDA win would have averted any further attack and cost the Na'vi nothing.

I don't recall the aghast look. But I'll take your word that it was there.

I remember shots of the RDA control tower with Selfridge and all those operators and radio folks looking just "oh shit" when the Home Tree exploded.

Okay.

But that's kind of what was implied by that exchange. The Na'vi are impossibly hard to kill. It's a wonder any of the "children" actually died in the machinegunning incident.

Dude, they're not Wolverines. Was Tsu'tey even standing? Cause the way you put it, it's like Tsu'tey standing around and going "woah dude my tendril got cut, I'm a eunuch, might as well off me" while not being inconvenienced by his chestfull of bullets and his backbone's worth of thousand foot freefall.

Tsu'tey was kinda focused on the tendril castration thing. If he was being particularly bothered by the gunshots, you'd have thought he would have brought that up at some point.

Doesn't really change this whole "degrees of evil" concept. The Na'vi aren't angels, the RDA aren't demons, and we can assign right and wrong to both sides. Whatever the outcome, both sides are too human for such simplistic labels to do justice to who and what these people are and what situations they were faced with.

The Na'vi's faults are trivial and minute compared to the RDA's, man.

But is that a question of moral choices, or a mere difference in ability between the two?

Kinda. You think there's an infinite ammount of unobtainium on the planet? You think it's litterally impossible to reproduce artificially? It's inevidable that the RDA will eventually just fuck off on their own if the human race survives that long. Pandora's biosphere is resiliant enough that I have no doubt it'll survive anything short of a deliberate effort to burn it off.

How long will it take them to mine the amount of unobtanium they need? Since when did you become the arch-resilienceologist of the Pandoran biosphere? Did you get a Lancet survey done on Pandoran organisms and asked them on a scale of 1 to 10 how much environmental pillaging they could withstand?

Just looked at how hard everything on the planet is to kill deliberately and then compared that to the lesser, incidental damage that would be done by the mining. Without orbital bombardment, the planet's biosphere is pretty much indestructible as far as demonstrated human capabilities are concerned. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the Well of Souls was just one of several redundant neurological nodes on the planet. Makes more sense than the RDA just happening to land in spitting distance of the most important site on the planet.

Except, again, the Na'vi weren't given the offer. Jake denied them the right to make that choice. And Selfridge was looking for a carrot. Pity he trusted an important mission like that to Jake, but Eywa choose him. If Eywa is as wise as all that, she clearly intended the RDA to bomb hometree, otherwise she'd have chosen someone competent to bridge the cultural divide.

I thought the Na'vi were given previous offers, which Selfridge listed out like medicine, roads, etc.

Selfridge wanted to make another offer. He gave Jake and company three months to find something, anything that the magical blue space elves might value in even the tiniest bit. Three months that were absolutely wasted, with no sign that any progress was ever going to be made on finding some way to trade with these people.

Except we see what they do to humans in the film. These are practiced behaviors that they didn't learn overnight from Jake.

Turns out war on aliens who don't have same war conventions will be different on war with other blue peoples who have all sorts of weird nature-spirit conventions like appreciating when the other tribe's chieftain connected to a giant pterodactyl or something.

These are practiced behaviors that they didn't learn overnight from Jake.

And that changes the equation, yes. I thought this was obvious enough to not need to be said.

I'm afraid I don't understand the question.

Well, what was the extent of pre-Home Tree human and Na'vi hostilities? Them just trashing some remote bulldozers and vandalizing it with arrows? Body bags of miners being sent back to base every day, and when Jake landed, he'd like walk (haha) past by a truckload full of caskets?

Jake was going to roll past truckloads of caskets. How much of that can be attributed to the Na'vi is an open question, but Quaratch's briefing makes it very clear people are dying horribly and in great numbers on Pandora, with the Na'vi being among the things that you should be worried about killing you.

Was it Lovecraft who suggested that the sanity-breaking elements of his cosmic horrors were soely a result of them being unfamiliar, and that if encountered everyday would be simply treated as normal? I've always disliked the idea that people would respond so baddly to something so trivial as a new bit of information about the universe. Mind viruses, I can accept, but people merely being that fragile in their sensibilities? I could never get behind that.

Lovecraft himself was afraid of the ocean. So to him, the sea would be something that would horrify him immensely. That won't apply to someone like Jacques Cousteau though. With the sea as the metaphor for the incomprehensible.

That explains a lot, actually.

Then they were given that choice, and we offer it to their children when the time comes. Like how the Amish work, but imposed from the outside.

Grace's school could've presented alternatives and human ways.

Yes it could have.

Oh, so only "natural" supercreatures count, and artificially created superbeings aren't worthy of consideration? Why should anyone give a shit about Eywa if we shouldn't give a shit about the RDA? It's the same principle.

No it's not. There's a huge difference between a macro-organism with a neural network spanning a planet, that can think and act on its accord (and send animal hordes to attack folks), and is basically a blue whale the size of a moon or something. There's a difference between that and a corporation or a fucking rotary club. You're the one talking about the degrees of sameness or difference.

There is no difference in kind, just possibly one of scale and degree. Both are networks of other organisms creating inhuman superbeings.

I like to think of the mineral as serving a function in the processing of the planet-brain, without which Eywa would be less intelligent and less interconnected. Thus giving us a reason it's inherently bad to mine here, rather than the shitty reasoning we get in the film itself.

Electrolytes or energy sources for the brain processes.

The shitty reasoning is because the perspective of the happenings isn't even on the "big shot" on Pandora, namely Pandora itself, but just its "tissues". Hopefully the sequels will further delve into the weirdo world-mind-organism.

I guess we'll see.

Why are you bringing them into this?

Because I'm also talking about them?

So long as we're clear on that.

So the only way is to accept everything at face value and burry your head in the sand when anyone attempts to dig deeper and get at less obvious truths. And this is the way to enlightenment, eh?

You're not digging deeper. You're trying to convolute things to make the Na'vi out into super-horrible people while trying to excuse the RDA's craps.

The Na'vi are horrible people. Doesn't mean that the entire species needs to be genocided, or even that their city needed to be blown up, but I dislike their portrayal as so much better than humanity in every possible way, physical, mental, and moral.

You seem to have missed all that "why are the RDA trying to negotiate with these people in the first place when nuking them from orbit is both cheaper and safer?" musing.

We all know there are outside considerations on why genocide isn't the first option (Space EPA, etc.). But the RDA still didn't take no for an answer and tried to take things through force and violence.

I don't consider the Space EPA to be an outside consideration. Posibly because I'm treating humanity as a unit here.

the entire point of these discussions was Shroom taking the idea that 'might makes right' and 'tech should win' and applying it to a hypothetical sequel where the Earth is colonised by whatever species created Pandora.

the joke being that all of the arguments put forth by milwankers to justify the RDA would also work to justify us being turned into jelly by the sky whales.
(or the martians in war of the worlds hunting us)

but you don't seem to agree, and prefer to spend the time dancing around quotes and switching topics quickly rather then just write out your assumptions, the evidence and your deductions from them.
the stuff you've put forward so far I'd consider completely eviscerated, and for the last few pages you've been flailing and generating massive, no content posts.

state your arguments clearly, or do you not think they'll stand up on their own?

So you don't understand my points? The ones you consider completely eviscerated are the ones you don't understand?

So you're not responding to my points. All it would take is a simple 'I'm sorry, I'm wrong'. It's the bloody internet, you're not going to lose any man-points if you admit you were wrong. You said that the scientists explained what the purpose of their studies were, that is to repair Earth's biosphere. Your words, not mine. They didn't. Is it such a hard thing to admit that you were wrong?

Why should I apologise? Was there some grand wrong that happened to you because I made a mistake about where I learned it?

Where was there anything in that wiki you referenced about trying to take Pandoran plants back to Earth? Or did that stuff come from some other source?

So, you're still trying to claim I made this up on my own. I see no reason to continue attempting to treat you like you're arguing in good faith.

[Darth Yoshi]

How many tears would you shed for Hitler, precisely? Oh wait, he's a great hero to your kind, who went and killed all those worthless Jews and Gays who were too despicably weak to defend themselves.

So some schoolyard bullies are the equivalent of a genocidal dictator now?

[Darth Tedious]

Where was there anything in that wiki you referenced about trying to take Pandoran plants back to Earth? Or did that stuff come from some other source?

So, you're still trying to claim I made this up on my own. I see no reason to continue attempting to treat you like you're arguing in good faith.

Prove you didn't make it up. Show your source.

You're not in a position to accuse people of 'not arguing in good faith'- You have been trying a lot of weasel tactics to avoid backing up your claims, from 'refusing to re-watch a shitty movie' to 'O NOES THE SCRIPT IS GONE FROM THE INTERNETS!!1!'.
When I sourced the script for you (you're welcome, btw), you even noted that there was not a fucking word in the film about taking plants back to Earth.
Later, you went and found a wiki that still does not contain anything about taking plants back to Earth, and yet you still refuse to concede the point, claiming:

...I made a mistake about where I learned it?

Where? Where did you LEARN it? Show us a source for this information. Otherwise, yes, everyone will conclude that it has most likely come straight from your arse- which, unless I'm mistaken, is not a canonical source.

[Cesario]

How many tears would you shed for Hitler, precisely? Oh wait, he's a great hero to your kind, who went and killed all those worthless Jews and Gays who were too despicably weak to defend themselves.

So some schoolyard bullies are the equivalent of a genocidal dictator now?

I see analogies are completely lost on you.

Where was there anything in that wiki you referenced about trying to take Pandoran plants back to Earth? Or did that stuff come from some other source?

So, you're still trying to claim I made this up on my own. I see no reason to continue attempting to treat you like you're arguing in good faith.

Prove you didn't make it up. Show your source.

You're not in a position to accuse people of 'not arguing in good faith'- You have been trying a lot of weasel tactics to avoid backing up your claims, from 'refusing to re-watch a shitty movie' to 'O NOES THE SCRIPT IS GONE FROM THE INTERNETS!!1!'.
When I sourced the script for you (you're welcome, btw), you even noted that there was not a fucking word in the film about taking plants back to Earth.
Later, you went and found a wiki that still does not contain anything about taking plants back to Earth, and yet you still refuse to concede the point, claiming:

...I made a mistake about where I learned it?

Where? Where did you LEARN it? Show us a source for this information. Otherwise, yes, everyone will conclude that it has most likely come straight from your arse- which, unless I'm mistaken, is not a canonical source.

You may not have noticed, but with the entire source of this problem being me not remembering where I learned it, figuring out where I learned it is not exactly a simple thing.

I realize that must be an awfully complicated concept for you, but it really can't be made much simpler. My apologies.

Feel free to assume I made it all up in my head. You would do so if I provided a source anyway, since obviously it will have been something I looked up just to appease you now anyway, and I obviously couldn't have been quoting it during the initial argument anyway.

[NecronLord]

The stuff about Unobtanium being a room temperature superconductor is canon. It's discussed in the extended theatrical release as they arrive at the broadcast site in the Halleluiah Mountains.

[Darth Yoshi]

I see analogies are completely lost on you.

hongi called you despicable because you wouldn't give a shit if everyone in your high school died. You responded that no decent person would care about Hitler dying. Ergo, Cesario:Jews, bullies:Hitler. Am I wrong? Explain it to me then, in a way that doesn't make you despicable or a complete fucking moron for thinking that you getting picked on is in any way comparable to being gassed to death or experimented on.

[Cesario]

I see analogies are completely lost on you.

hongi called you despicable because you wouldn't give a shit if everyone in your high school died. You responded that no decent person would care about Hitler dying. Ergo, Cesario:Jews, bullies:Hitler. Am I wrong? Explain it to me then, in a way that doesn't make you despicable or a complete fucking moron for thinking that you getting picked on is in any way comparable to being gassed to death or experimented on.

No.

You've already proven yourself incapable of grasping anything beyond "this is exactly the same in every detail", and I simply can't give you that.

[hongi]

Cesario, if you've pissed off everyone here in just one thread and 240 posts, I'd hate to be a person who knows you in real life. I feel sorry for them.

[DudeGuyMan]

I haven't read the preceeding 457985453 posts in this thread, but I'd just like to point out that while I didn't want Avatar to end with the badguys cackling from atop a pile of Na'vi skulls, I would have been happier if the movie didn't feature them doing idiotic shit like attacking the goodguys with their hypersonic orbit-capable shuttle by flying it toward them at forty miles an hour with a machine gun nest built on top of it.

I'd have been much happier if the goodguys, using their own knowledge and expertise, managed to... I don't know... steal that shuttle and kamikaze it into the airfield as they narrowly leap onto the back of a passing dragon in the nick of time, blowing up all the helicopters. Or something, anything, whatever.

Something that forces the RDA badguys to tromp murderously through the woods in mech-suits and humvees and shit, arrogantly convinced that they don't need air support, bent on exacting bloody revenge upon the blue spacehippies. Whereupon they're defeated by a determined foe that has not only superior knowledge of the terrain but also substantial knowledge of RDA tactics thanks to their human pals. You know, defeated in a non-ridiculous way. A way that doesn't rely upon them flying their aircraft so slowly the goodguys can run around on top of them.

Something better than Space Goddess waking up and going "Okay we got enough helicopter versus dragon dogfights to flesh out the trailer, time for a deus ex machina!" and making the whole goddamn battle meaningless anyway.

[PeZook]

You've already proven yourself incapable of grasping anything beyond "this is exactly the same in every detail", and I simply can't give you that.

It's funny that nitpicking the issue to death is exactly what you do when people use analogies against you, but when you make an analogy, then woe is me, anyone who takes it literally is a moron unworthy of your time!

Nevermind that anybody sane just saw you say the death penalty is just punishment for aggravated assault. People just don't get you!

Now back to the regular show:

Dude, education is going to help them after several generations ; By that time they might ceause to exist as a separate nation, seeing as they'll have to leave their ancestral home and hunting grounds, forever, to live God knows where, possibly being gobbled up by other tribes.

Holy crap their children will know how to write and by the time human numbers grow exponentially and spread they might even discover metallurgy thanks to the preserved knowledge!

Real generous offer, that.

More likely they'll just use the weapons they buy from the RDA and killfuck the tribe next door and steal their land. And it will be all noble and at peace with nature when they do it, right?

Okay, what the hell?

First you say the Na'Vi are despicable for having a violent culture ; Now you're saying they're stupid because not only they won't trade their ancestral lands for education, they won't take human weapons to steal themselves land, either!

Damned if they do, damned if they don't, huh?

Still, I can't help but point out that the Na'vi never actually rejected any offer for Home Tree. Jake never presented an offer for Home Tree. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

If the Na'Vi never were presented with an offer for their land, why the hell did Selfridge list all the things the RDA tried to offer them?

And again I quote:

SELFRIDGE
Look, Sully -- find out what these blue
monkeys want.
(MORE)

52.

SELFRIDGE (cont'd)
We try to give them medicine and
education. Roads! But no -- they like
mud. I wouldn't care except --

Selfridge wanted to find out what to offer them, since his previous offers didn't get anywhere. Jake was supposed to find out what they could possibly want or need so he could issue another offer.

So you admit they did get some offers (roads, education, medicine) and rejected them?

Jake never did that.

He snuck off with Neytiri after his induction ceremony, but you know what? It would've changed nothing.

Imagine the RDA sent some other marine, let's call him Josh Sully. And Josh, five minutes after being inducted into the tribe, laid out the cards: my boss wants you to leave the hometree and never come back, and will offer you whatever you want for it.

What would've happened? Would the Omaticaya cheer, take their medicine (which they rejected once already) and leave?

No. There'd be some outrage, and some Omaticaya would feel offended. Others would feel betrayed. Josh would have to deliver impassioned speeches and explain the wonders of human technology along with Grace. A council might be called, which would argue fiercely about what to do, with some warriors likely demanding war, others more measured response.

Then morning would come and RDA's bulldozers would run over one of their most holy sites and HOLY SHIT the rest of the movie would be fucking unchanged

You expecting Jake to conclude negotiations of a hugely important and sensitive issue in a few hours (since him being inducted into the tribe was the thing that was supposed to let him speak as an equal) is retarded. It would never work in real life, where such issues take years to settle between people of roughly the same civilizational and cultural backgrounds, yet you criticize Jake for not settling this in hours.

No it doesn't. The need doesn't need to be urgent, just inevidable, for my argument to hold up. It apparently wasn't demonstrated to be so in the film, but if you're going to continue arguing against me based on the premise that my original position was true, I'll continue to tear your pathetic attempts to do so appart.

You said yourself that this specific deposit was not critical to the operation, so stop backpedalling. They could've taken their time by mining elsewhere.

They could've mined elsewhere and continued to be murdered by the Na'vi, yes.

They could've mined elsewhere and continued to fight the occasional skirmish, which left the possibility of recrimination in the future, which would've solved the issues for good, unlike bombing the Home Tree which was an escalation into full-scale war.

Wrong. As Selfridge said, what do a few more weeks matter if the answer is going to be the same regardless of how long he waited?

Or maybe perhaps kinda some sort of solution could be reached when you stopped acting like the Capo di Tutti Cappi?

Not familiar with this individual. Why are you comparing him to me? And what would me deviating from his behavior do to change Selfridge's bargaining position?

Fuck you, you know exactly what I mean and who I am talking about.

Except for all the Na'vi his mercs would have to kill in self defense after they started murdering the miners for mining there.

But I guess a million smaller scale murders are much worse than killing a thousand people at one time in your mind?

You really think the skirmishes fought due to mining a different deposit would've killed a million Na'Vi? Is that another one of those things you "misremembered" about the movie?

I think killings continuing unchecked would eventually add up, but you seem to think one attrocity of potentially lower total deaths is worse than a million smaller battles as the mining everywhere but hometree continues for the entirety of the forseeable future.

Look, idiot, you can't possibly kill more warriors in the occasional skirmish than the Omaticaya have, and if you think destroying the Home Tree would've stopped the guerilla war forever, then you have no business trying to predict anything, since you clearly don't know how conflicts work.

But yeah why wait the answer is obvious (Or it will be after we commit yet another atrocity)!

Why wait when his emisary has done precisely jack shit during his entire time there towards the goal of finding out what we can offer these people to get them to stop killing our miners? Because all evidence is that his emisary is going to continue doing precisely jack shit towards that goal.

All evidence shows Jake was initiated into the tribe, which nobody has ever managed to do, and was ready to start negotiations that can be reasonably expected to last for years and still fail.

Jesus christ, now you're blaming Jake for escalating hostilities?!

He did escalate hostilities. What film were you watching?

Holy shit, massing troops for a counterattack after an act of war is escalation now!

I better phone up the Comitte For The Virtuti Militari Cross and tell them to take marshall Rydz-Smigly's award away ; The man needlessly escalated hostilities with Germany by ordering the counterattack at Bzura!

Actually I said that a couple pages before. Feel free to present the evidence this is actually the case with the RDA at any time.

Feel free to provide a post number for your previous admission. Because, quite frankly, you're lying.

Or at least didn't read your own posts well enough to recall what you have and haven't said. You've claimed your qualifiers and maybes are trivial and meaningless before, but let's see if you can put your money where your mouth is and show that you've accepted this basic moral truth anywhere in this entire thread. Maybe you'll prove me wrong.

Selfridge was ready to offer them whatever they wanted. The Na'Vi didn't need or want any of that, so the corporation got frustrated. Now if Earth was actually in the danger of having a mass die-off when unobtainium shipments stopped, they might've been somewhat justified.

I used the qualifier "somewhat" for two reasons:

1) Bombing the Home Tree is still evil and despicable and best avoided

2) Not mining the fucking tree would not have stopped unobtainium shipments, even if I grant you that the rock is necessary to prevent a mass die-off. Other deposits existed.

If mining the Home Tree was certain to save billions, then the RDA would have justification for the attack, but it would still be an act of mass murder. Furthermore, if the only effect of the attack would be to stave off the die-off for a couple decades and it would've happened anyways due to human stupidity and inability to use policies aimed at reducing overpopulation and energy use, the justification fucking evaporates.

One difference between us is that I am capable of admitting when I've been presented evidence that refutes my position, so why not exploit that horrible weakness in my character and present the evidence to force me to show weakness and confess to being wrong again?

Yes. Or rather, you could just be a misserable liar unwilling to admit what was said dispite the posts still being right there and anyone being able to go back and read for themselves to see what the truth is.

So you're saying here you did not admit mining the Home Tree deposit at that particular time was not in fact critical to staving off mass starvation on Earth?

Is that accurate?

Except Jake had no intention of attempting to mend relations. He had no ability to mend relations with or without the bulldozers. He was making zero progress towards the goal of mending relations, and only made any progress on doccumenting trivialities of the Na'vi culture. It was a great boon for anthropology, but did nothing towards his actual job.

And Selfridge correctly realized this.

Yeah, it's not like he gained the Omaticaya's trust over these three months or anything. He should've just opened up with that huge bomb and expected the Omaticaya to just happily start negotiating with the person who is associated with the people who gave them no reason whatsoever to trust them.

Without unobtanium, interstellar commerce on this scale would not be possible. Unobtanium is not only the key to Earth’s energy needs in the 22nd century, but it is the enabler of interstellar travel and the establishment of a truly spacefaring civilization.

So, where is the bit about mass starvation if unobtainium shipments are reduced in volume? Would we have mass starvation on Earth if Nigeria stopped selling its oil on the inernational market? Or would food simply become more expensive and there would be an economic crisis?

Holy shit, economic crisis = justification for mass murder.

Hmm...there was this small kerfluffle in 1939. In Cesarioworld, a country called Thanasia has attacked a country named Pollackistan, and it was completely justified, because:

1) Pollackistanis valued their martial traditions more strongly than their industrial engineers and scientists, so they were clearly ignorant and savage.

2) Pollackistanis had a lot of soldiers, whose only use is to fight wars, so they were every bit as despicable as Thanasians, who were supposed to be the villains of the piece!

3) An economic crisis was looming over Thanasia unless they secured access to Pollackistani (and Stenchian) coal, steel, bauxites, oil and other resources and industry. Since there were more Thanasians than Pollackistanis, and Pollackistanis wouldn't give these resources up (resources which, I have to add, Pollackistan was unable to utilize fully due to their primitive ways!) Thanasians were entirely justified in invading and genociding Pollackistan.

4) Pollackistanis expelled the Thanasian ambassador and would not cede their land in exchange for wonders of Thanasian industry, so they were stupid and morally reprehensible

5) Pollackistanis escalated the conflict despite having no chance against Thanasian Panzers. Instead, they gathered troops for counterattacks and garrisones population centers, and therefore brought everything upon themselves.

6) Pollackistanis continued to resist after their nation was occupied, so they were clearly unreasonable and morally bankrupt.

Now, in the real world there was no Pollackistan and Thanasia, and practically everyone thinks Germany was a bunch of assholes for invading Poland because of the Danzig corridor and a need for resources ; But in Cesarioworld, Thanasia did a regretful but necessary thing for advancement of the greater good.

[Metahive]

Something that forces the RDA badguys to tromp murderously through the woods in mech-suits and humvees and shit, arrogantly convinced that they don't need air support, bent on exacting bloody revenge upon the blue spacehippies. Whereupon they're defeated by a determined foe that has not only superior knowledge of the terrain but also substantial knowledge of RDA tactics thanks to their human pals. You know, defeated in a non-ridiculous way. A way that doesn't rely upon them flying their aircraft so slowly the goodguys can run around on top of them.

Something better than Space Goddess waking up and going "Okay we got enough helicopter versus dragon dogfights to flesh out the trailer, time for a deus ex machina!" and making the whole goddamn battle meaningless anyway.

O my, I don't want to even imagine how much louder the whine of the militards had been if the Na'vi had defeated the mercenaries just on their own without divine intervention. You do know how much hatred the Ewoks are given from the same crowd for more or less doing what you just described, right?

[Junghalli]

I haven't read the preceeding 457985453 posts in this thread, but I'd just like to point out that while I didn't want Avatar to end with the badguys cackling from atop a pile of Na'vi skulls, I would have been happier if the movie didn't feature them doing idiotic shit like attacking the goodguys with their hypersonic orbit-capable shuttle by flying it toward them at forty miles an hour with a machine gun nest built on top of it.

I'd have been much happier if the goodguys, using their own knowledge and expertise, managed to... I don't know... steal that shuttle and kamikaze it into the airfield as they narrowly leap onto the back of a passing dragon in the nick of time, blowing up all the helicopters. Or something, anything, whatever.

Something that forces the RDA badguys to tromp murderously through the woods in mech-suits and humvees and shit, arrogantly convinced that they don't need air support, bent on exacting bloody revenge upon the blue spacehippies. Whereupon they're defeated by a determined foe that has not only superior knowledge of the terrain but also substantial knowledge of RDA tactics thanks to their human pals. You know, defeated in a non-ridiculous way. A way that doesn't rely upon them flying their aircraft so slowly the goodguys can run around on top of them.

Something better than Space Goddess waking up and going "Okay we got enough helicopter versus dragon dogfights to flesh out the trailer, time for a deus ex machina!" and making the whole goddamn battle meaningless anyway.

I agree. I thought the final battle could have been handled a lot better.

Though personally my biggest problem with the movie was for all the spectacle at a conceptual level Pandora felt pretty lazy to me and I saw a lot of wasted potential. A gloriously colored cartoon jungle inhabited by blue closer to the earth tribal people stereotypes, how ultimately unimaginative and dull once you get past the technicolor spectacle, especially when you had a world-spanning intelligent plant in there, my how much more interesting that could have been if it attention was paid to presenting the fascinating alienness of this being and its relationship with the Na'vi instead of "oh, their generic close to the earth tribal people Great Spirit is actually real." Like I said, I would have liked less Dances With Wolves and more Solaris.

[Cesario]

You've already proven yourself incapable of grasping anything beyond "this is exactly the same in every detail", and I simply can't give you that.

It's funny that nitpicking the issue to death is exactly what you do when people use analogies against you, but when you make an analogy, then woe is me, anyone who takes it literally is a moron unworthy of your time!

Nevermind that anybody sane just saw you say the death penalty is just punishment for aggravated assault. People just don't get you!

Fine, you really need it broken down for you on that level, I can do that. I'll even give you pretty numbers that you can try to use against me later. Aren't I generous?

1 - People you would die to save the lives of.
2 - People you would suffer injury or pain to save the lives of, but wouldn't die for.
3 - People you would suffer meaningful financial hardship or lifestyle change to save the lives of, but wouldn't risk injury for.
4 - People you would undertake a difficult task to save the life of, but wouldn't accept a long-term lifestyle change.
5 - People you would undertake a minor task to save the life of, but only if it wouldn't be too disruptive to your day.
6 - People you would preffer live, but not so much you'd go to any effort to keep them alive.
7 - People you would preffer were dead, but not so much you'd go to any effort to bring it about.
8 - People you would undertake a minor task to see dead, but only if it wouldn't be too disruptive to your day.
9 - People you would undertake a difficult task to see dead, but wouldn't accept a long-term lifestyle change.
10 - People you would suffer meaningful financial hardship or lifestyle change to see their lives ended, but you wouldn't risk injury over.
11 - People you would suffer injury or pain to see their lives ended, but you wouldn't die to see it happen.
12 - People you would die to see their lives ended.

Now, I consider most people, by default, to be deserving of number 4. My former classmates are at 7. Close friends are at 2. Oprah is at 9 for reasons I'm not going to get into. Hitler is at 11 or 12 depending on what point in his life the opportunity turns up.

I do hope this helps clarify things for you.

Now back to the regular show:

Dude, education is going to help them after several generations ; By that time they might ceause to exist as a separate nation, seeing as they'll have to leave their ancestral home and hunting grounds, forever, to live God knows where, possibly being gobbled up by other tribes.

Holy crap their children will know how to write and by the time human numbers grow exponentially and spread they might even discover metallurgy thanks to the preserved knowledge!

Real generous offer, that.

More likely they'll just use the weapons they buy from the RDA and killfuck the tribe next door and steal their land. And it will be all noble and at peace with nature when they do it, right?

Okay, what the hell?

First you say the Na'Vi are despicable for having a violent culture ; Now you're saying they're stupid because not only they won't trade their ancestral lands for education, they won't take human weapons to steal themselves land, either!

Damned if they do, damned if they don't, huh?

A person can be both stupid and evil. Isn't that what you want to convince me Selfridge is?

If the Na'Vi never were presented with an offer for their land, why the hell did Selfridge list all the things the RDA tried to offer them?

And again I quote:

SELFRIDGE
Look, Sully -- find out what these blue
monkeys want.
(MORE)

52.

SELFRIDGE (cont'd)
We try to give them medicine and
education. Roads! But no -- they like
mud. I wouldn't care except --

Selfridge wanted to find out what to offer them, since his previous offers didn't get anywhere. Jake was supposed to find out what they could possibly want or need so he could issue another offer.

So you admit they did get some offers (roads, education, medicine) and rejected them?

Not just admit it, but provided you with the quote to demonstrate it.

Jake never did that.

He snuck off with Neytiri after his induction ceremony, but you know what? It would've changed nothing.

Imagine the RDA sent some other marine, let's call him Josh Sully. And Josh, five minutes after being inducted into the tribe, laid out the cards: my boss wants you to leave the hometree and never come back, and will offer you whatever you want for it.

What would've happened? Would the Omaticaya cheer, take their medicine (which they rejected once already) and leave?

No. There'd be some outrage, and some Omaticaya would feel offended. Others would feel betrayed. Josh would have to deliver impassioned speeches and explain the wonders of human technology along with Grace. A council might be called, which would argue fiercely about what to do, with some warriors likely demanding war, others more measured response.

Then morning would come and RDA's bulldozers would run over one of their most holy sites and HOLY SHIT the rest of the movie would be fucking unchanged

You expecting Jake to conclude negotiations of a hugely important and sensitive issue in a few hours (since him being inducted into the tribe was the thing that was supposed to let him speak as an equal) is retarded. It would never work in real life, where such issues take years to settle between people of roughly the same civilizational and cultural backgrounds, yet you criticize Jake for not settling this in hours.

I criticise him for not accomplishing anything in three months. The whole point of what the Na'vi were having him do in those three months was to give him a better understanding of their culture. With that better understanding of their culture, someone who wasn't a dumbass would have had something to give Selfridge to show that progress was being made. Selfridge didn't give them their extra time because Jake had NOTHING to show for his time among the Na'vi. He didn't need to get the Na'vi to agree to anything to change the outcome. He just had to show Selfridge that the Na'vi might be possible to negotiate with.

You said yourself that this specific deposit was not critical to the operation, so stop backpedalling. They could've taken their time by mining elsewhere.

They could've mined elsewhere and continued to be murdered by the Na'vi, yes.

They could've mined elsewhere and continued to fight the occasional skirmish, which left the possibility of recrimination in the future, which would've solved the issues for good, unlike bombing the Home Tree which was an escalation into full-scale war.

Yeah, that bold bit, not sure what you're trying to say would have happened there.

Or maybe perhaps kinda some sort of solution could be reached when you stopped acting like the Capo di Tutti Cappi?

Not familiar with this individual. Why are you comparing him to me? And what would me deviating from his behavior do to change Selfridge's bargaining position?

Fuck you, you know exactly what I mean and who I am talking about.

No, I really don't. This individual is unknown to me.

You really think the skirmishes fought due to mining a different deposit would've killed a million Na'Vi? Is that another one of those things you "misremembered" about the movie?

I think killings continuing unchecked would eventually add up, but you seem to think one attrocity of potentially lower total deaths is worse than a million smaller battles as the mining everywhere but hometree continues for the entirety of the forseeable future.

Look, idiot, you can't possibly kill more warriors in the occasional skirmish than the Omaticaya have,

Sure they could. You just are having trouble with this "long term thinking" concept. Conflicts like this can last generations. More than enough time for new warriors to be born, trained, and killed.

Not to mention that the Home Tree attack obviously didn't kill all the wariors that the Omaticaya had, since there were some alive to form the core of Jake's army.

and if you think destroying the Home Tree would've stopped the guerilla war forever, then you have no business trying to predict anything, since you clearly don't know how conflicts work.

Pity Quaratch's plan was pretty clearly working right up until Jake rallied the troops.

But yeah why wait the answer is obvious (Or it will be after we commit yet another atrocity)!

Why wait when his emisary has done precisely jack shit during his entire time there towards the goal of finding out what we can offer these people to get them to stop killing our miners? Because all evidence is that his emisary is going to continue doing precisely jack shit towards that goal.

All evidence shows Jake was initiated into the tribe, which nobody has ever managed to do, and was ready to start negotiations that can be reasonably expected to last for years and still fail.

If Jake was going to start negotations with absolutely nothing to offer still, why would the Na'vi bother with him anymore than they did with the RDA previously just because he was one of the tribe? Jake had three months to look at their livestyle and find something that they could use. If he'd been able to say one thing they could offer the Na'vi, Selfridge could have weighed that against the time the negotiations might take, but instead, Jake gave him nothing. And Selfridge progressed exactly as he initially told Jake he would.

Jesus christ, now you're blaming Jake for escalating hostilities?!

He did escalate hostilities. What film were you watching?

Holy shit, massing troops for a counterattack after an act of war is escalation now!

It is when the actual leaders were already admitting defeat and planning to move on with their lives.

I better phone up the Comitte For The Virtuti Militari Cross and tell them to take marshall Rydz-Smigly's award away ; The man needlessly escalated hostilities with Germany by ordering the counterattack at Bzura!

Again, I'm not as familiar with your particular specialty in military history as you are. The only name in that mess that I recognized was Germany.

Actually I said that a couple pages before. Feel free to present the evidence this is actually the case with the RDA at any time.

Feel free to provide a post number for your previous admission. Because, quite frankly, you're lying.

Or at least didn't read your own posts well enough to recall what you have and haven't said. You've claimed your qualifiers and maybes are trivial and meaningless before, but let's see if you can put your money where your mouth is and show that you've accepted this basic moral truth anywhere in this entire thread. Maybe you'll prove me wrong.

Selfridge was ready to offer them whatever they wanted. The Na'Vi didn't need or want any of that, so the corporation got frustrated. Now if Earth was actually in the danger of having a mass die-off when unobtainium shipments stopped, they might've been somewhat justified.

I used the qualifier "somewhat" for two reasons:

1) Bombing the Home Tree is still evil and despicable and best avoided

2) Not mining the fucking tree would not have stopped unobtainium shipments, even if I grant you that the rock is necessary to prevent a mass die-off. Other deposits existed.

If mining the Home Tree was certain to save billions, then the RDA would have justification for the attack, but it would still be an act of mass murder.

And how do you feel about just moving the Na'vi without bombing their tree?

Furthermore, if the only effect of the attack would be to stave off the die-off for a couple decades and it would've happened anyways due to human stupidity and inability to use policies aimed at reducing overpopulation and energy use, the justification fucking evaporates.

So all the people who will die now are meaningless if related people are going to die later. Got it. What a moral and compassionate being you are.

Yes. Or rather, you could just be a misserable liar unwilling to admit what was said dispite the posts still being right there and anyone being able to go back and read for themselves to see what the truth is.

So you're saying here you did not admit mining the Home Tree deposit at that particular time was not in fact critical to staving off mass starvation on Earth?

Is that accurate?

Much of what you say about what I've said is inaccurate. This is one example. Particular with your irresponsible use of double-negatives.

Because your own wording makes a simple yes or no meaningless as a response to this pathetic question, I'll repeat myself. The Home Tree Deposit in particular was not a time-critical resource that needed to be tapped to avert mass starvation on earth, and it has never been my position that it was.

Unobtainium in general being critical to staving off mass starvation on earth was a position I held for a good while in this thread before being handed the script, going over it, and finding that some critical evidence in favor of that position came from someplace other than the film.

I hope now that I've broken this down in simple terms for you, you'll be able to start arguing based on what I've actually said.

Except Jake had no intention of attempting to mend relations. He had no ability to mend relations with or without the bulldozers. He was making zero progress towards the goal of mending relations, and only made any progress on doccumenting trivialities of the Na'vi culture. It was a great boon for anthropology, but did nothing towards his actual job.

And Selfridge correctly realized this.

Yeah, it's not like he gained the Omaticaya's trust over these three months or anything. He should've just opened up with that huge bomb and expected the Omaticaya to just happily start negotiating with the person who is associated with the people who gave them no reason whatsoever to trust them.

Jake's job wasn't to gain their trust so that he could become the grand ambasador that they could trust and negotiate with. Jake's job was to gain their trust so that he could figure out what humanity could offer them that they would value so negotiations would be possible, whether with him presenting the offer or not. Jake didn't do that job, and everyone suffered because of that.

Without unobtanium, interstellar commerce on this scale would not be possible. Unobtanium is not only the key to Earth’s energy needs in the 22nd century, but it is the enabler of interstellar travel and the establishment of a truly spacefaring civilization.

So, where is the bit about mass starvation if unobtainium shipments are reduced in volume?

You made it up as a straw-man of my position.

Hmm...there was this small kerfluffle in 1939. In Cesarioworld, a country called Thanasia has attacked a country named Pollackistan, and it was completely justified, because:

1) Pollackistanis valued their martial traditions more strongly than their industrial engineers and scientists, so they were clearly ignorant and savage.

2) Pollackistanis had a lot of soldiers, whose only use is to fight wars, so they were every bit as despicable as Thanasians, who were supposed to be the villains of the piece!

3) An economic crisis was looming over Thanasia unless they secured access to Pollackistani (and Stenchian) coal, steel, bauxites, oil and other resources and industry. Since there were more Thanasians than Pollackistanis, and Pollackistanis wouldn't give these resources up (resources which, I have to add, Pollackistan was unable to utilize fully due to their primitive ways!) Thanasians were entirely justified in invading and genociding Pollackistan.

4) Pollackistanis expelled the Thanasian ambassador and would not cede their land in exchange for wonders of Thanasian industry, so they were stupid and morally reprehensible

5) Pollackistanis escalated the conflict despite having no chance against Thanasian Panzers. Instead, they gathered troops for counterattacks and garrisones population centers, and therefore brought everything upon themselves.

6) Pollackistanis continued to resist after their nation was occupied, so they were clearly unreasonable and morally bankrupt.

Now, in the real world there was no Pollackistan and Thanasia, and practically everyone thinks Germany was a bunch of assholes for invading Poland because of the Danzig corridor and a need for resources ; But in Cesarioworld, Thanasia did a regretful but necessary thing for advancement of the greater good.

So you need to have it explained to you why World War 2 was different from the RDA expedition to Pandora.

One minor difference is that the RDA didn't give a fuck what happened to the Na'vi so long as their resource exploitation continued apace. Germany had this little thing they were doing with the populations of their conquored lands that a lot of people tend to fixate on when they look back on this conflict.

Something that forces the RDA badguys to tromp murderously through the woods in mech-suits and humvees and shit, arrogantly convinced that they don't need air support, bent on exacting bloody revenge upon the blue spacehippies. Whereupon they're defeated by a determined foe that has not only superior knowledge of the terrain but also substantial knowledge of RDA tactics thanks to their human pals. You know, defeated in a non-ridiculous way. A way that doesn't rely upon them flying their aircraft so slowly the goodguys can run around on top of them.

Something better than Space Goddess waking up and going "Okay we got enough helicopter versus dragon dogfights to flesh out the trailer, time for a deus ex machina!" and making the whole goddamn battle meaningless anyway.

O my, I don't want to even imagine how much louder the whine of the militards had been if the Na'vi had defeated the mercenaries just on their own without divine intervention. You do know how much hatred the Ewoks are given from the same crowd for more or less doing what you just described, right?

Divine intervention works fine too, just so long as it doesn't require the bad guys to be holding the idiot ball quite so firmly as they were in Avatar.

[Metahive]

Divine intervention works fine too, just so long as it doesn't require the bad guys to be holding the idiot ball quite so firmly as they were in Avatar.

When did they hold the idiot ball? Quaritch's plot was working up until he encountered something which both he and Selfridge had dismissed as preposterous earlier. That's routinely done by people throughout most major military conflicts here on Earth ("Hitler totally won't attack me this year" - Stalin, June 21st, 1941), so I don't see any reason why to be so upset about that.

Are MiG 21s about to be thrown into the gauntlet again?

[Cesario]

Divine intervention works fine too, just so long as it doesn't require the bad guys to be holding the idiot ball quite so firmly as they were in Avatar.

When did they hold the idiot ball? Quaritch's plot was working up until he encountered something which both he and Selfridge had dismissed as preposterous earlier. That's routinely done by people throughout most major military conflicts here on Earth ("Hitler totally won't attack me this year" - Stalin, June 21st, 1941), so I don't see any reason why to be so upset about that.

Are MiG 21s about to be thrown into the gauntlet again?

Quaratch was loosing people before the divine intervention incident. He was using a ship with orbital capability and having it fly slow enough that it could be escorted by ground troops. Also, he was escorting a bomber with ground troops.

[Crazedwraith]

The weirdest aspect of the battle was the ground troops. Though the movie is quiet on their purpose I assumed they were actually there to do what Quaratch ended up doing; finding Jake's avatar pod and apprehend him.

[Metahive]

Quaratch was loosing people before the divine intervention incident. He was using a ship with orbital capability and having it fly slow enough that it could be escorted by ground troops. Also, he was escorting a bomber with ground troops.

There were already two whole threads on this board about this particular topic. Here's the summary:

1.The shuttle's got no bombing sights, not even shitty WW2 era ones, they have to manually roll the payload out of the rear door FFS
2.Their bomb consists of MacGyvered mining charges hastily slapped together. Real MOABs and Daisy Cutters are not cube-shaped for a reason
3.Their target is quite small and covered by several big rocky formations

ergo, flying faster or higher was not an option. Also, contingency planning, if the bombing run is averted for whatever reason, the scorpions, the dragon and the ground troops are still capable enough to torch the Tree of Souls, just not with an as big kaboom.

So, Quaritch made the best with what he had. Still see no major groping of the Idiot Ball.

[Cesario]

It seems to me that marching ground troops into the place you're planning to bomb is going to cause problems regardless of the particular specifications of your bombs or bomber.

[Metahive]

Ye gods, what makes you think Quarítch would have marched his man all the way to the Tree of Souls and then dropped the bomb? Combined arms tactics involving ground troops and air units attacking the same target work just fine in our time, why should it be so hard for Quaritch to make use of it? You're creating complications and problems out of thin air.

[Cesario]

The only role the ground troops served was to die horribly when the Deus Ex Machina brought all the land animals to their aid. They weren't doing anything to help get the bomber where it needed to be.