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[Aklyon]

Avatar Diplomacy:
"Hey, we want the ore under you. Move plz."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Jake, go be diplomat"
"They aren't going to leave sir"
[Attack hovercraft sound]
[Angry Na'vi sound]
End.

[Loud Whispers]

Avatar Diplomacy:
"Hey, we are colonialist spase Terrans. We require more minerals. Move plz."
"No. We have a tree here. Our tree doesn't like spehs frakking. We will learn your culture and understand your people, but that's it."
"WE GAVE YOU EVERHYTING!! MEDICINE! LANGUAGE! TERRAN THINGS!"
"We are noble savage. We do not care. Go away angry Terrans."
"Jake, go be "diplomat." Get them to move. At the same time size up their military capabilities. The true diplomat."

SCENE 2:
"So Jake, they moving?"
"NOPE."
"So.... Firebombs?"
"Just watch out for the cage traps on the left. They also have tamed war beasts, so yeah. And freaking bows are damn OP, NERF PLZ TOADY."
[TERRANS BEING ANGRY]
[NA'VI BEING BLUE]
[JAKE BEING DERP]
[TREE BEING TREE]
[QUARITCH BEING TERRAN]

[Xantalos]

It would not surprise me if Quaritch later turned out to be the Emperor of Mankind.

[Flying Dice]

Tree god was probably warp-tainted.

[Rose]

Tree god is eldar.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Umm... IIRC, mining the unobtanium also involved ripping the heart out of the plant god and destroying space elven society.  "Negotiations" in this case almost certainly amounted to warning the space elves that if they didn't abandon their home and everything they believed in that they would be destroyed.  Unless I'm missing some core information here, I think space elves were acting in legitimate self-defense.

You are missing something. The unobtanium mass was under Hometree, where the tribe of space elves in the movie live. Plant god lives at a different tree, and also all the trees, but mostly that one. And they wouldn't have to destroy Hometree to get at the unobtanium, they'd just have to mine carefully.

But nope, Jake spends all his time seducing xenos scum instead of trying to make those negotiations.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah. IIRC Unobtanium just happened to be buried under the main tree that the treegod liked. So it was more:

Terrans: Hey, can we mine the rocks under your home/god?
Blue Space Elves: Lolno, buzz off.
Terrans: Come on, we'll give you stuff. And we really need more minerals.
BSE: Nah. You're just destructive, go away.
Quaritch: Jake, go play diplomat and spy on the BSE.
Jake: Okay (Lol I'm really going to try and get it on with one of them while screwing around metaphorically for months).

*several months later*

Quaritch: Jake, are they going to negotiate.
Jake: Uh, I guess not.
[Firebombing treegod]
[Angry space elves]
[Civilization: SPEHSS: Arrow > VTOL gunship]
Jake: Dude, sweet, I get to spend the rest of my life banging a blue space elf, flying, and shit like that.

*several years later, epilogue*

Terran Fleet: So we hear you don't like us.
[Xenocide]

That last bit is the logical conclusion.

[Aklyon]

Tree god is eldar.

Plausible.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Nah, tree god is definitely KHAOS, or perhaps a stranded Tyranid hive mind.

[SalmonGod]

Umm... IIRC, mining the unobtanium also involved ripping the heart out of the plant god and destroying space elven society.  "Negotiations" in this case almost certainly amounted to warning the space elves that if they didn't abandon their home and everything they believed in that they would be destroyed.  Unless I'm missing some core information here, I think space elves were acting in legitimate self-defense.

You are missing something. The unobtanium mass was under Hometree, where the tribe of space elves in the movie live. Plant god lives at a different tree, and also all the trees, but mostly that one. And they wouldn't have to destroy Hometree to get at the unobtanium, they'd just have to mine carefully.

But nope, Jake spends all his time seducing xenos scum instead of trying to make those negotiations.

Aaaannnnddd..... indigenous cultures tend not to understand the wisdom and necessity of tearing out large portions of the earth, and find the very idea spiritually offensive.  It's a sort of thing that really needs to be handled delicately, and can only realistically be carried out without violence between two peoples that have some mutual understanding and respect.  It's likely that the Na'vi didn't understand that the operation could be carried out non-destructively (which real life analogies indicate is highly unlikely anyway), the humans had given them no reason to trust, and I don't recall the movie ever explaining that the operation could be carried out non-destructively.

[Frumple]

Interplanetary transport, genetic engineering capable of creating viable vat grown extra-terrestrial lifeforms and then forming some kind of freakish wireless connection between a human brain and a likely utterly physiologically unalike space smurfelf brain, but not able to figure out non-damaging mineral extraction?

... hell, maybe. Their tech had a lot of weird disconnects and crap. Despite cloning the buggers they apparently couldn't figure out a wild-area dispersal soporific gas or whatever or any dozen of other chemical means of incapacitation and ended up firebombing (and not even fancy space napalm or some shit!) crap. I could see 'em not able to figure out how to dig a better hole.

[SalmonGod]

More likely to just not care.  Look at the real world.  We could do much better, but we don't.  Is that not the aesop?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

-snip-

Hence why everything is Jake's fault for not even trying to negotiate.

Interplanetary transport, genetic engineering capable of creating viable vat grown extra-terrestrial lifeforms and then forming some kind of freakish wireless connection between a human brain and a likely utterly physiologically unalike space smurfelf brain, but not able to figure out non-damaging mineral extraction?

... hell, maybe. Their tech had a lot of weird disconnects and crap. Despite cloning the buggers they apparently couldn't figure out a wild-area dispersal soporific gas or whatever or any dozen of other chemical means of incapacitation and ended up firebombing (and not even fancy space napalm or some shit!) crap. I could see 'em not able to figure out how to dig a better hole.

They are kind of a long way from Earth, unforeseen equipment gaps can't be filled.

[Flying Dice]

It also shows that the terrans weren't unambiguously evil. If they were just straight-up evil, industrialist stereotypes (which it seems like they were supposed to be), they would have just invaded, torn out the tree, and taken the Unobtanium. Actually, they would have done the same thing if they were a player empire in a strategy game. 


But the point was that the blue space elves never had any intention of negotiating (and indeed, didn't really seem to "get" it). What's worse, indifference to the collapse of another civilization (and the tens of millions+ ensuing deaths) or willingness to resort to violence to preserve the safety of your own? Because both sides engaged in the latter during the battles. If the terrans had gotten their way, yeah, the blue space elves would have been displaced and their treegod would have needed to find a new home. Morally wrong. But by being unwilling to even consider negotiating, the blue space elves (possibly) condemned tens or hundreds of millions of sophonts to death. Jake bears the majority of the guilt, though. His job was to try to convey understanding of the seriousness of the situation to the blue space elves, but instead he spent months dicking around and trying to get laid. Assuming that world was the only available source of Unobtanium and no further ships were sent, he just singlehandedly caused the collapse of his entire civilization. At best, he worsened an already serious crisis.

/devil'sadvocacy


But seriously, Jake was a massive, massive moron. Things would probably have gone better if he had never been sent into his (eyeroll) Avatar in the first place.

[Frumple]

They are kind of a long way from Earth, unforeseen equipment gaps can't be filled.

... they were able to call for folks like Jake and had the time and tech to vat-grow the avatars themselves, but couldn't fit in or cook up a couple canisters of sleep gas, just in case? When they were already doing the avatar thing itself for ambassadorial purposes with a known hostile group? That's kinda' exactly what I was talking about with the whole "Incompetent Villain" thing, man.