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[Realmfighter]

I believe a sequel is being filmed, so we'll see what happens.

IRL however, the sheer cost of getting to Pandora with any reasonable amount of military equipment makes it prohibitively expensive to invade, plus there's the whole stigma that goes with genocide.

Unobtanium is worth 20 million per kilo.

That would net you a lot of investors, and supporters in the government/media.

[dragnar]

Also, this movie suddenly reminded me of an ancient PC-RPG called "Albion" about weird alien-elf-cats and psychic trees.  Anyone else ever play it?

Actually yeah, never got very far (the laptop I was playing on broke) but it was a very good game.

the simplest way for the humans to take over the planet without a bunch of equipment: dig down til they hit magma then flood the world.

[Neruz]

IRL however, the sheer cost of getting to Pandora with any reasonable amount of military equipment makes it prohibitively expensive to invade...

You really don't know how science fiction works do you?  "Reasonable amount" of anything is whatever is cost effective to carry.  That they brought a whole army with them proves that, within the logic of Avatar's humanity, interplanetary travel is pretty cheap.

Also, this movie suddenly reminded me of an ancient PC-RPG called "Albion" about weird alien-elf-cats and psychic trees.  Anyone else ever play it?

You're assuming they brought the army and didn't make it on the spot. Considering that Avatar did mostly conform to the bounds of reason it seems more likely to me that they made most of that equipment on site.

Unobtanium is worth 20 million per kilo.

That would net you a lot of investors, and supporters in the government/media.

Money is nice, but you need energy, not money. We don't know what kind of power generation techniques were available in the Avatar universe, certainly enough to go intersteller, but we have no way of knowing just how easy that is, considering The Company were the only ones on Pandora, it seems likely that it's really expensive, Unobtainium selling for 20 million a kilo is probably the only thing that made the trip feasible.

[Realmfighter]

Money is nice, but you need energy, not money. We don't know what kind of power generation techniques were available in the Avatar universe, certainly enough to go intersteller, but we have no way of knowing just how easy that is, considering The Company were the only ones on Pandora, it seems likely that it's really expensive, Unobtainium selling for 20 million a kilo is probably the only thing that made the trip feasible.

They have gone to Pandora at least twice (the original explorers/soldiers and miners and then jakes' ship).

I think that they would be able to go again.

[Neruz]

Money is nice, but you need energy, not money. We don't know what kind of power generation techniques were available in the Avatar universe, certainly enough to go intersteller, but we have no way of knowing just how easy that is, considering The Company were the only ones on Pandora, it seems likely that it's really expensive, Unobtainium selling for 20 million a kilo is probably the only thing that made the trip feasible.

They have gone to Pandora at least twice (the original explorers/soldiers and miners and then jakes' ship).

I think that they would be able to go again.

Of course they can go, the question is not whether they can go or not, but how much mass they can carry.

[Realmfighter]

Of course they can go, the question is not whether they can go or not, but how much mass they can carry.

How did we go from debating weather or not they could come back, to there carrying capacity?

Anyway, i think that they would have enough to bring a few heavy duty bomber with actual bombs.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Why the hell would we depend on viruses? Hell, our viruses can't infect most life on our own planet. We would send over germs, fungi and bacteria that would eat them alive.

But you were the one that said "virus bomb". And the common cold is a virus, so really it shouldn't have worked in War of the Worlds.

"Virus bomb" is an exterminatus technique from warhammer 40k, wherein specially engineered virii are dropped onto a planet, infecting all organic life in minutes, and turning them into hydrocarbon factories, until you end up with a planet covered in dead sacs of goo spraying lighter fluid into the air, at which point an incendiary is dropped turning the planet into one big fuel-air bomb.


It doesn't matter how much they could fit on a single ship. If they could make the journey multiple times, it stands to reason they could send multiple ships at once, and nuke everything from orbit.

[Neruz]

Why the hell would we depend on viruses? Hell, our viruses can't infect most life on our own planet. We would send over germs, fungi and bacteria that would eat them alive.

But you were the one that said "virus bomb". And the common cold is a virus, so really it shouldn't have worked in War of the Worlds.

"Virus bomb" is an exterminatus technique from warhammer 40k, wherein specially engineered virii are dropped onto a planet, infecting all organic life in minutes, and turning them into hydrocarbon factories, until you end up with a planet covered in dead sacs of goo spraying lighter fluid into the air, at which point an incendiary is dropped turning the planet into one big fuel-air bomb.


It doesn't matter how much they could fit on a single ship. If they could make the journey multiple times, it stands to reason they could send multiple ships at once, and nuke everything from orbit.

So it costs exactly the same amount of money to send one ship that it does to send multiple ships, loaded down with extremely high mass payloads to boot, which will not in any way make back their cost in actual aquisition of the ore.


I'm starting to wonder here; are you just deliberately being obtuse, or do you literally not have a basic understanding of physics, politics and economics?

How did we go from debating weather or not they could come back, to there carrying capacity?

That's what i was debating the entire time; my point was that the reason why there were no heavy-duty war machines on Pandora was due to the mass restriction when travelling in space.

Anyway, i think that they would have enough to bring a few heavy duty bomber with actual bombs.

Maybe, but such machines are a pretty heavy cost, especially since they won't make any money once the conflict is over. Furthermore taking heavy military equipment to Pandora would have raised all sorts of eyebrows back home, a bit of a fistfight with the natives is one thing, and expected, but full out war is something else entirely and would most certainly be frowned upon. Finally, in an environment like Pandora, against geurilla forces like the Na'vi, bombers are pretty useless anyway (America found that out in Vietnam, and then found it out again in Afghanistan, and then again in Iraq, they're slow learners.)

The General's entire concept that taking out the tree of souls would stop the entire Na'vi race cold is rediculous. It would merely enrage them; i'm sure there are other trees of souls, indeed we know that there was an entire grove of similar trees. The destruction of that one tree would have merely enraged the Na'vi further and resulted in larger and more powerful geurilla forces. The Genius Loci that is Pandora itself also decided it didn't much like the idea of the 'Sky People' blowing up the tree, and responded accordingly, had they actually blown up the tree Pandora probably would have beaten the shit out of them in retaliation.


Face it, when you're up against an entire planet, you lose. (We're not in the 40K universe, so no planet killers. Sorry guys.)



Seriously, half the arguments i see being put forth here are using technology of which there is no evidence in the movie. I could solve everyone's problems with an infinite energy machine from [INSERT SCI-FI BOOK HERE], but the Avatar world doesn't have those, so the bloody point is moot.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

:|

We already have planet killers. Drop a freighter (or whatever the hell they were sending workers and equipment on in the first place) worth of nukes on it and what the radiation and fire doesn't kill, the resulting nuclear winter would. Then just move in more miners and mine a barren, frozen rock. It might lower their returns a little, but nothing like not being able to mine in the first place would. Of course, that's not the point of the movie. The point is "WAR BAD, FURRY GOOD!", and that's just horrible. >:O

[Neruz]

:|

We already have planet killers. Drop a freighter (or whatever the hell they were sending workers and equipment on in the first place) worth of nukes on it and what the radiation and fire doesn't kill, the resulting nuclear winter would. Then just move in more miners and mine a barren, frozen rock. It might lower their returns a little, but nothing like not being able to mine in the first place would. Of course, that's not the point of the movie. The point is "WAR BAD, FURRY GOOD!", and that's just horrible. >:O

...

What?


Yes, an irradiated wasteland is much easier to mine for usable resources. And it's great PR, an entire planet wiped out for some rocks? Wow, share prices will skyrocket!



Seriously, right now you're making Hitler sound sane.

[JoshuaFH]

I haven't seen the movie, but if the human's entire goal was to get at the rocks, couldn't they have, you know, traded or bargained for them? Or was that not possible?

[Neruz]

I haven't seen the movie, but if the human's entire goal was to get at the rocks, couldn't they have, you know, traded or bargained for them? Or was that not possible?

They tried that. That's what the entire Avatar project was for; to see if there was a diplomatic solution. The 'Sky People' didn't have anything the Na'vi wanted, and the Na'vi were unimpressed with the way the Humans kept killing stuff.

[DJ]

You take heavy duty military equipment *because* it's expensive. You can't conduct such a costly operation without a large margin of safety. How do you think the investors would feel about complete loss of their investment?

Also, you all underestimate the power of spin doctors, especially when it's a conflict that's light years away from Earth and the victims aren't even human. People back at Earth might be upset for two or three days if the truth leaks out (and that's a big if), but very soon they'll forget about it because there's always more serious problems at home. Besides, the corporation's shares can't plummet, because it has exclusive rights on off-world resources. When you're holding such a monopoly, people can dislike you as much as they want, they still have to buy from you.

[Neruz]

Who said they had exclusive rights on off-world resources?


The entire reason why the Avatar program even existed was to try and find a peaceful solution; The Company was willing to go to war if they absolutely had to, but they would rather not do so, as it would look bad for them.

You'r seriously overestimating the power of spin doctors, just look at what the media did to Iraq.

You take heavy duty military equipment *because* it's expensive.

Heavy duty equipment like what exactly? Name me some heavy duty military equiment that is worth the cost of taking it to Pandora (which we can assume is quite high) in that kind of environment, against geurilla forces.

You can't conduct such a costly operation without a large margin of safety.

Consider Pandora's environment, i'm not sure 'large margin of safety' is possible at all. Especially with the entire goddamn planet out to get you.


You all seem to be forgetting that the Na'vi lost, the forces The Company had on-site were sufficient to defeat the Na'vi. They lost, bad. It was the planet that won.

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

Huh, looking at the pandorapedia, one of unobtanium's usages is antimatter reactors. Would this suggest that they have antimatter weaponry?