Avatar [SPOILERS]

[Nickswitz]

How Avatar was written...

Yeah, but it was a pretty impressive rendition of Pocahontas...

[Sionnach Glic]

Well you have to admit, it's not like there isn't room for more movies. The story hasn't ended; the humans are beaten but they're still out there, the mineral is still there, they still want it. You just know that if this was reality then sooner or later they would come back and try again.

Oh, I agree. The problem is doing that without making the story suck.

Realisticaly the humans would come back. And they'd come back with bigger and more guns and well aware of all the dangers that the flora and fauna pose. How the Na'vi are going to defeat a second wave without the humans coming off as being monumentally retarded is going to be a difficult question to answer.

[Coalition]

Realisticaly the humans would come back. And they'd come back with bigger and more guns and well aware of all the dangers that the flora and fauna pose. How the Na'vi are going to defeat a second wave without the humans coming off as being monumentally retarded is going to be a difficult question to answer.

Probably by going to the human base, and seeing what they can make with the onsite machine shops and other industrial technology.

I mean, they just had a massive lesson (and body count) of what happens when they try to fight humans with guns. Some of the warriors are going to be looking at the human guns, and thinking to modify them for Na'Vi dimensions. Even if they don't change the ammo sizes, they can carry more ammo, and make the gun have more options. Assuming 12 ships, and a 6.75 year trip time each way, means they have a little over a year to get ready. How many guns, RPGs, and other weapons can be built in that year?

Of course the other part of the body count is that the Na'Vi at Hometree need more warriors. Some will be from other tribes, leading to cultural exchange with other tribes, bringing in new ideas that can be worked with (Thanatars with weapons platforms on top). The other part is that Neytiri will recognize that they need new warriors. Jake has established himself as a warrior, so Neytiri might be hinting that Jake should 'do his part' for the tribe.

[Reliant121]

Jake Sully, and the scientists, would have at least a limited idea how to use the base's technology. If they can work out how to use that reproduction thing, they could manufacture weaponry.

[Graham Kennedy]

Well you have to admit, it's not like there isn't room for more movies. The story hasn't ended; the humans are beaten but they're still out there, the mineral is still there, they still want it. You just know that if this was reality then sooner or later they would come back and try again.

Oh, I agree. The problem is doing that without making the story suck.

Realisticaly the humans would come back. And they'd come back with bigger and more guns and well aware of all the dangers that the flora and fauna pose. How the Na'vi are going to defeat a second wave without the humans coming off as being monumentally retarded is going to be a difficult question to answer.

Personally, I wouldn't have them defeat the second wave. I'd have the humans come back and stomp them, and the "win" would consist of some of the Na'vi getting away with their lives, just barely.

Think "Empire Strikes Back". That's the basic tone I'd go for.

[Sionnach Glic]

That'd be the best way of doing it, I agree. Though I have my doubts they'd go for anything but a happy ending.

How many guns, RPGs, and other weapons can be built in that year?

How many guns could a primitive society with no metalurgy skills, industrial base or the required resources having to effectively design completely new weapons capable of piercing armour from scratch while being mostly ignorant of how such devices work make within a year?

I'm guessing zero.

[Graham Kennedy]

Reading up on that movie website, most of the heavy gear isn't shipped from Earth; they shipped some kind of robotic factory unit, and it produces all the heavy hardware - one reason they don't have much in the way of heavy military gear is that the company didn't want to divert manufacturing capacity from producing bulldozers to producing artillery and tanks.

Now if the Na'vi captured that intact... they've got months, maybe years, to use it. And the only thing they need to use it for is to produce weapons.

Question is, can ex-Marine guy operate the factory?

Incidentally, thinking about this gets me thinking about the timeline. Ships arrive every six months, if I recall correctly, having taken about six years to get there. So at any given time there must be twelve ships on the way there and twelve on the way back.

So, the ship that's currently there is full of refugees. There's another twelve coming, BUT, none of them are carrying anything more than routine supplies. And Earth doesn't even know there's a problem, and won't for a minimum of four and a half years, so they'll be sending another nine ships, again loaded up with nothing more than routine supplies and personnel.

That's no less than 21 interstellar round trips they've paid for, all of which are going to arrive and have to turn around and go straight back again. All of which are going to net precisely zero profit for the company.

So at 4.5 years on, Earth finds out there's a problem and mounts a military mission to Pandora. That takes another six years to get there. Meaning it arrives more than a decade after the Na'vi rebellion. And it's going to be an absolute minimum of six years after that before any shipment of unobtanium makes it back to Earth, probably more.

Upshot being, no matter what happens next, the company is going to take a MAJOR hit to their balance sheet, the Na'vi are going to have a decade plus to prepare defenses, and Earth won't have any unobtanium for the next fifteen or twenty years, minimum.

All interesting things to chew over.

[Reliant121]

Given the expenditure the RDA would have lost, is it possible they would have gone bust? or a board of directors found the mission to be too costly, and the abandon it?

[Graham Kennedy]

Given the expenditure the RDA would have lost, is it possible they would have gone bust? or a board of directors found the mission to be too costly, and the abandon it?

Hard to say. It's entirely possible that the company could go bust from this. But there'll still be a demand for the stuff, and some other company might just buy up the assets and take over... but it would have to be a company that thought in the long term, one willing to sink billions and not see a return for twenty years or so.

One possibility is that the government would step in a do a bail-out, nationalise the company. And if that happens, expect the next mission to be real soldiers, not mercs.

Which would tie handily into the idea of the Na'vi losing the next round, I guess.

Heh, this story is writing itself!

[Sionnach Glic]

Reading up on that movie website, most of the heavy gear isn't shipped from Earth; they shipped some kind of robotic factory unit, and it produces all the heavy hardware - one reason they don't have much in the way of heavy military gear is that the company didn't want to divert manufacturing capacity from producing bulldozers to producing artillery and tanks.

Now if the Na'vi captured that intact... they've got months, maybe years, to use it. And the only thing they need to use it for is to produce weapons.

Question is, can ex-Marine guy operate the factory?

That would certainly be one hell of a useful asset for the Na'vi if they could take it intact. Of course, there's a lot of problems with it still.

1) First is the problem of running it. I doubt Kendall could figure out how to run a factory making LAVs if you were to put him in one. I have my doubts that the ex-Marine guy would realy know anything about how it all works. At best he might be able to find the On/Off switch and start the assembly lines up again, but that brings up more problems.

2) You need stuff to make other stuff. The Na'vi are going to need both raw materials and fuel to run the plant. Neither of which I imagine being easily available for such a low-tech society. They'd need to create mines completely from scratch. And good luck finding whatever fuel the generator runs on.

3) They've simply no chance of maintaining the factory. One broken screw and everything comes to a halt.

4) Even if they do get it working (by no means a certainty), what do they get? Tanks, weapons and armour. All designed for use by a race half their size. Not a great help. The tanks and armour would be unusable, and I doubt the weapons would be much use either. They'd need to not only design new gear from scratch, but also figure out how to get the factory to start producing it.

5) All the controls and monitors are designed for use by people half the Na'vi's size. Good luck trying to get the machines to do anything without a lot of patience.

Quite simply, I doubt they'd be able to properly use such a facility. It'd certainly be an asset, but one I doubt would be of any real use. Even with a decade to fiddle around with it, I simply can't imagine them being able to properly utilise it.

Upshot being, no matter what happens next, the company is going to take a MAJOR hit to their balance sheet, the Na'vi are going to have a decade plus to prepare defenses, and Earth won't have any unobtanium for the next fifteen or twenty years, minimum.

I find it hard to call that an upshot. If Earth is facing an unobtanium shortage, and there's a big planet full of it populated by troublesome natives, what do you think's going to happen? Earth'll send the company back with an attendant military force to protect them. If the Na'vi started causing trouble again, I can see them being culled very quickly.

If the Na'vi's actions really did make them a thorn in Earth's side, they've signed their own death warrant. Their best hope would be that Earth is actually in the middle of an unobtanium surplus, as the government would probably just ignore the loss of the Pandora mines and leave the Na'vi alone.

[Graham Kennedy]

I find it hard to call that an upshot. If Earth is facing an unobtanium shortage, and there's a big planet full of it populated by troublesome natives, what do you think's going to happen? Earth'll send the company back with an attendant military force to protect them. If the Na'vi started causing trouble again, I can see them being culled very quickly.

But if they are faced with 15-20 years without no matter what they do, then it may be better to just stop using unobtanium. Earth did without it before it was discovered, after all; if necessary they can again. It's a matter of whether the cost of converting back to whatever they used before is greater than the cost of struggling on for 20 years and then (maybe) having it again.

Imagine it was oil we're talking about. If the oil supply suddenly ceased tomorrow for the next 15 years, then we would pretty much HAVE to convert to other technology right away. It's not a matter of how badly we want oil, there would be no other choice but to do without it. And would the government mount a massively expensive military invasion on the basis that 20 years down the line we would all convert back to oil all over again?

Of course the whole debate is somewhat academic. If there's a second movie then the humans WILL be coming back, and that's all there is to it.

If the Na'vi's actions really did make them a thorn in Earth's side, they've signed their own death warrant. Their best hope would be that Earth is actually in the middle of an unobtanium surplus, as the government would probably just ignore the loss of the Pandora mines and leave the Na'vi alone.

It seems impossible to me that it would be worth that much if they had some big glut of the stuff back home, or indeed any other source of supply.

[Tyyr]

Personally, I wouldn't have them defeat the second wave. I'd have the humans come back and stomp them, and the "win" would consist of some of the Na'vi getting away with their lives, just barely.

Think "Empire Strikes Back". That's the basic tone I'd go for.

That's what I was going to say. You don't have to let the Nav'i win. Heck, have them lose, badly. It'd be one way to sort itself out from the Pocahontas criticism.

[Graham Kennedy]

Of course one way to go would be to fill the next two movies with new characters who serve no real purpose but to spout endless clever-sounding but ultimately meaningless philosophical inanities at the hero.

But then who'd ruin a huge movie franchise like that....?

[Aaron]

Theres nothing saying they can't come back and mine somewhere the natives aren't. Though that would make for a pretty boring film.

[Tyyr]

Theres nothing saying they can't come back and mine somewhere the natives aren't. Though that would make for a pretty boring film.

Going back to the old case of no one really getting how big a planet is?