IDEA! Avatar 2: Ava-Tarrer

[Metahive]

Other than shooting armed Na'vi warbands down in droves of course. Warbands that Quaritch earlier characterized as a potential threat to the human stronghold on Pandora if allowed to grow in numbers unchecked. O yeah and the whole contingency planning thing I mentioned earlier and you ignored.

[Cesario]

Quaratch was going for a symbolic strike on the Well of Souls to break the Na'vi's will to fight. Engaging their ground forces was throwing away his people's lives for something that would be made irrelevant by his successful bombing run. That's the idiot ball, right there.

[Crazedwraith]

Ahem. What do you think of my 'there to find Jake Sully' idea?

Plus, there always just the simple concept of a 'show of force'

[Junghalli]

Personally I think I might have been less bothered by the tacticulusus and strategery in that battle than by how ridiculous the whole "space shuttle with guys with guns leaning out vaguely evoking VIETNAM" aesthetic looked.

[Cesario]

Ahem. What do you think of my 'there to find Jake Sully' idea?

Plus, there always just the simple concept of a 'show of force'

Wasn't Jake known to be with the Na'vi airforce?

[Ahriman238]

Ahem. What do you think of my 'there to find Jake Sully' idea?

Plus, there always just the simple concept of a 'show of force'

Wasn't Jake known to be with the Na'vi airforce?

Yes, once they actually attacked, Quartch figures out fairly quickly that Jake is riding the big orange one. Before the Na'vi attack, there was no particular reason to believe he'd be up there, or that the whole Na'vi army would be waiting to ambush them.

Besides, the mobile lab wasn't with the airforce, all it would take is one man getting that far to eliminate the avatars.

[Simon_Jester]

Quaratch was going for a symbolic strike on the Well of Souls to break the Na'vi's will to fight. Engaging their ground forces was throwing away his people's lives for something that would be made irrelevant by his successful bombing run. That's the idiot ball, right there.

What if the bombing attack didn't work for some reason? Wouldn't Quarritch, or anyone with a brain, want a backup plan such as "riddle the Na'vi with machine gun bullets on the ground?"

[Cesario]

If the Well of Souls attack didn't work, the smart plan is to adopt a siege mentality and regroup back at the defensible home base. Even without the Gaia's Vengence Deus Ex Machina, Pandora's terrain and Fauna are a problem under the best of circumstances, and Quaratch knew this. You don't want to have to worry about more than one enemy at the same time.

Those troops were out there because we can't show off our awesome viperwolf attack scene if Quaratch's forces were all in the air. Simple as that.

[Ahriman238]

If the Well of Souls attack didn't work, the smart plan is to adopt a siege mentality and regroup back at the defensible home base. Even without the Gaia's Vengence Deus Ex Machina, Pandora's terrain and Fauna are a problem under the best of circumstances, and Quaratch knew this. You don't want to have to worry about more than one enemy at the same time.

Those troops were out there because we can't show off our awesome viperwolf attack scene if Quaratch's forces were all in the air. Simple as that.

I doubt it. Quartch flat out said that once the Na'vi had massed their full army they would overrun the base. (That's a fact.) Hence the preemptive strike. As for the all the men on the ground, they may or may not make an effective backup if the air assault fails, but they aren't doing him any good sitting in base or inside the aircraft. Chalk it up to him trying to do SOMETHING useful with the men, even if it's just to keep anyone from escaping his awesome bombing run.

Though, I also think they may have been looking for the mobile lab, the Avatars are the greatest threat at that point.

[Xess]

Just something I want to add in to the Cesario/Shroom fest. In the Children Massacre edition Jake does off Tsu'Tey after he falls but Tsu'tey never had his head tentacle cut off. He's found lying on the ground alive, but heavily injured and dying of his wounds.

[Cesario]

Just something I want to add in to the Cesario/Shroom fest. In the Children Massacre edition Jake does off Tsu'Tey after he falls but Tsu'tey never had his head tentacle cut off. He's found lying on the ground alive, but heavily injured and dying of his wounds.

Hm, that's interesting.

[Xess]

Just something I want to add in to the Cesario/Shroom fest. In the Children Massacre edition Jake does off Tsu'Tey after he falls but Tsu'tey never had his head tentacle cut off. He's found lying on the ground alive, but heavily injured and dying of his wounds.

Hm, that's interesting.

Tsu'Tey still asks for the mercy killing as he knows he's dying. The only difference from the script I can remember is the whole "never mate with a woman" thing since he was never "castrated".

[Oni Koneko Damien]

ITT we learn that cesario is an emotional criminal who considers murder to be a perfectly fine retribution for aggravated assault.

Yeah, murder. He doesn't even give himself the crutch of, say, killing them in self-defense in his fantasies. He has openly stated that he is perfectly fine with having them lined up against the wall and riddled with bullets, a situation that requires that they are no longer a threat to his well-being. Now while he's demonstrated a high-school mentality on several issues, both with his murder-fantasies and inability to heal and move beyond the bullying he's received, and his belief that apparently high-school-drama level 'Eywa likes Sully more than Grace!' is a greater sin than firebombing a city, I'm guessing he's not actually in high school since he refers to his bullying problems and high-school in general in the past tense.

With that in mind: I'm curious as to where the people who've bullied him are in life right now? Perhaps some went on to face jail time for other crimes, perhaps some cleaned up their act and now have families of their own to care for. The scary thing is that cesario, apparently having never grown mentally beyond that time, doesn't give a shit. So the guy who assaulted him a number of years ago now has a wife and two kids who he loves and who love him? Too fucking bad, he hurt me, so put him against the wall!</armchair psychologist>

Back on topic, with regards to the OP idea and the hilarity regarding Ryan Thunder's 'Industrialization is Godly!' schtick, it got me thinking of a similar scenario that would also satisfy his own... fetish?

The Quake games, namely Quake 2 and Quake 4. Thoroughly average games, but I love their art style and the concept of the Strogg (in a horror sense, at least). Now according to the milwankers *and* Ryan, if they hold a consistent philosophy, the Strogg are perfectly justified in invading humanity and converting everyone into biomechanical horrors. In the games it's pointed out that they are technologically superior (plenty of dialogue in Quake 4 is about how their propulsion, shielding, weapons and armor are all at least two generations in advance of humanity), militarily superior (the majority of the war, it's implied, involves the Strogg kicking humanity's ass all over the inhabited cosmos, up to invading and occupying Earth for a while), with greater medical advancement (humans can't replicate or undo the Stroggification process), vastly greater industrial capacity (Stroggos is an industrial fetishist's wet dream, and it's implied this happens to any planet they take), much greater social cohesion and support (there is no known rebellion among the ranks of Strogg, nor any known starvation or misuse of resources outside military unpredictability), plus they address the transhumanist concerns (they're bio-mechanical terrors all connected to a central network).

In all possible ways, the Strogg are far superior to humanity. It can even be argued they don't feel pain, so objectively speaking, they are a happier, more advanced, more intelligent, more industrial, more self-fulfilled society than humanity... and thus, they are the good guys, right?

[Metahive]

"Siege mentality"? Are you for real? Not only have we Quaritch flat out saying that if the Na'vi amass enough troops they can just waltz into the base, there's also the fact that they still have to mine their precious blood diamonds which they obviously can't if they huddle all together inside their fortress. Even if they just take heavily escorted trips from and to the nearest mining site, that site is by now 200 km away, 200 km on which plenty of traps and ambushes can be laid, depleting the already undermanned and underequipped RDA forces further and further, not to even speak of the additional cost escorting those convoys will take. What did Selfridge say? The only thing less liked by the peeps at home than bad PR is a bad bottom line.

Take also into account that a possible relief force called in from Earth will take years to arrive and you have three good reason why playing hedgehog was absolutely not an option for the RDA on Pandora. Several years without blood diamond shipments = heads will roll, first of all Selfridge's and Quaritch's.

[PeZook]

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.

Repeating what you said, only using more words doesn't make you any less of a morally bankrupt bastard, you know. You still wouldn't mind if your high school class was murdered by someone. If that someone turned out to be the state, then you're advocating the death penalty for aggravated assault.

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

Yes, we know that in Cesarioworld having warriors means they want to conquer and murder their neighbors.

Perhaps you could entertain another notion: perhaps they value manly feats of valor and skill because those skills are useful for hunting, which provides them with food?

You know, like all the native american tribes the Na'Vi are obviously based on?

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.

So...if they could receive and reject RDA's offers before, it means they did talk to humans, despite the tensions and quite possibly some low-level violent incidents.

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.

Actually Jake did do enough research to conclude there was nothing the humans could give that the Omaticaya would want. The videolog saying that was used by Quarritch to shut down diplomacy and revert to the default, ie. mass murder.

And here we come to the basics. As you admit yourself, the Home Tree deposit was not a time-critical resource.

So the only justification for the attack that you can possibly come up with is the claim that destroying the tree would prevent further attacks against RDA miners and equipment: something that has never worked, ever, in the entire history of human race. But in Cesarioworld, if people are shell-shocked and praying less than a day after someone firebombed their biggest city, it means they will never, ever pick up arms again.

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

It means that the possibility of diplomacy would still be open, and had the RDA found its brain and not been a bunch of greedy fucks, they could've possibly come to some sort of mining agreement about other deposits.

You know, like sensible, respectful people. As long as you don't start firebombing population centers (or making unacceptable demands without the possibility of compromise), relations can still be mended, and Jake's experience and newfound status as an Omaticaya could help IMMENSELY with that,since he could deliver information on how the Na'Vi usually deal with violent incidents between each other.

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

Capo di Tutti Cappi is the stereotypical head of an Italian Mafia family.

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.

So why do you think destroying the Home Tree would prevent a conflict that lasts for generations, even if Jake's avatar got killed and thus stopped being a factor?

The Omaticaya would either pick up arms again and fight a guerilla war, or scatter to the four winds and bring news of human atrocities to other tribes. So when in twenty years you need to encorach on some other clan's territorry, they'll be even less welcoming than the Omaticaya were after the school massacre.

Or...altenarively, some other charismatic brave will rally the clans anyways, and give the RDA the full scale war they so obviously want.

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.

Yes, Selfridge progressed to tear the tree down and murder hundreds, possibly thousands of people because the Omaticaya dared to not want what he could offer. That makes him restrained and reasonable how?

The RDA's behavior is like the old joke about a guy who prevented rape once.

How?

He convinced her!

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

Cesarioworld's Pollackistanis were already at the breaking point before they were rallied for a counteroffensive by some upstart officer. Thus, they needlessly escalated the conflict with Thanasia and therefore all the blood is on that officer's hands!

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.

I was mocking your attitude that counterattacks against an enemy who comitted an act of war are somehow an escalation. The particulars don't really matter.

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

It would be great if it could be done without violence and destroying them as a nation.

It would also be great if I one could eat cake and not get fat.

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.

Ah, so utilitarian comparisons are only meaningful when they support your argument?

Here's a breakdown for you: if X billion of people will die off now, vs. a similar number of people dying in twenty years PLUS thousands of Na'Vi PLUS destruction of a unique ecosystem and many alien cultures...it is preferable to have the die-off now.

IF humans just needed some more time to institute conservation policies AND they absolutely needed the unobtainium to buy them time for these policies to work AND they absolutely couldn't afford the shipments to be reduced in volume...then they have justification to assault the tree.

Now all you have to do is prove the last two assumptions are true in the context of the movie, and you are golden.

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.

Well, I had doubts, so I asked for clarification. Thanks for providing it!

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.

So, no mass starvation if unobtainium shipments are reduced (due to not mining the largest deposit in 200 kilometres). Therefore, mass murder is not necessary, since it won't save billions (but might trigger an immune response from the planetary hive mind that will reduce the shipments all the way down to zero via trampling by armored rhinomonsters)

Therefore the RDA didn't need to forcibly evict the Omaticaya, and thusly they are murderous fucks. See? Simple.

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.

[/quote]

But Thanasia did not justify their invasion by saying they'd genocide Pollackistanis, they said they did it because the Pollackistanis were repulsive and primitive, had soldiers for fighting wars, would not cede their territorry in exchange for Thanasian offers, and they needed Pollackistani resources to stave off an economic collapse!

Therefore they were not really bad guys, right? At least until they got to the genocide part?

But remember, the Pollackistanis wouldn't surrender and kept fighting a vicious guerilla war, so clearly the only reasonable way to stop them from murdering innocent Thanasians was to kill them all.

[Cesario]

ITT we learn that cesario is an emotional criminal who considers murder to be a perfectly fine retribution for aggravated assault.

I have no shame about being a thought-criminal.

Yeah, murder. He doesn't even give himself the crutch of, say, killing them in self-defense in his fantasies. He has openly stated that he is perfectly fine with having them lined up against the wall and riddled with bullets, a situation that requires that they are no longer a threat to his well-being. Now while he's demonstrated a high-school mentality on several issues, both with his murder-fantasies and inability to heal and move beyond the bullying he's received, and his belief that apparently high-school-drama level 'Eywa likes Sully more than Grace!' is a greater sin than firebombing a city, I'm guessing he's not actually in high school since he refers to his bullying problems and high-school in general in the past tense.

My, with this level of attention to detail and insight, you would have almost believed you'd actually read my posts. Almost.

With that in mind: I'm curious as to where the people who've bullied him are in life right now? Perhaps some went on to face jail time for other crimes, perhaps some cleaned up their act and now have families of their own to care for. The scary thing is that cesario, apparently having never grown mentally beyond that time, doesn't give a shit. So the guy who assaulted him a number of years ago now has a wife and two kids who he loves and who love him? Too fucking bad, he hurt me, so put him against the wall!</armchair psychologist>

Pretty much. No apologies for that.

Back on topic, with regards to the OP idea and the hilarity regarding Ryan Thunder's 'Industrialization is Godly!' schtick, it got me thinking of a similar scenario that would also satisfy his own... fetish?

The Quake games, namely Quake 2 and Quake 4. Thoroughly average games, but I love their art style and the concept of the Strogg (in a horror sense, at least). Now according to the milwankers *and* Ryan, if they hold a consistent philosophy, the Strogg are perfectly justified in invading humanity and converting everyone into biomechanical horrors. In the games it's pointed out that they are technologically superior (plenty of dialogue in Quake 4 is about how their propulsion, shielding, weapons and armor are all at least two generations in advance of humanity), militarily superior (the majority of the war, it's implied, involves the Strogg kicking humanity's ass all over the inhabited cosmos, up to invading and occupying Earth for a while), with greater medical advancement (humans can't replicate or undo the Stroggification process), vastly greater industrial capacity (Stroggos is an industrial fetishist's wet dream, and it's implied this happens to any planet they take), much greater social cohesion and support (there is no known rebellion among the ranks of Strogg, nor any known starvation or misuse of resources outside military unpredictability), plus they address the transhumanist concerns (they're bio-mechanical terrors all connected to a central network).

In all possible ways, the Strogg are far superior to humanity. It can even be argued they don't feel pain, so objectively speaking, they are a happier, more advanced, more intelligent, more industrial, more self-fulfilled society than humanity... and thus, they are the good guys, right?

Could be argued? It could be argued, so you jump from that to claiming that something that "could be argued" thus must be objective truth. What a marvel of intelectual honesty and forethought you are.

"Siege mentality"? Are you for real? Not only have we Quaritch flat out saying that if the Na'vi amass enough troops they can just waltz into the base, there's also the fact that they still have to mine their precious blood diamonds which they obviously can't if they huddle all together inside their fortress. Even if they just take heavily escorted trips from and to the nearest mining site, that site is by now 200 km away, 200 km on which plenty of traps and ambushes can be laid, depleting the already undermanned and underequipped RDA forces further and further, not to even speak of the additional cost escorting those convoys will take. What did Selfridge say? The only thing less liked by the peeps at home than bad PR is a bad bottom line.

Take also into account that a possible relief force called in from Earth will take years to arrive and you have three good reason why playing hedgehog was absolutely not an option for the RDA on Pandora. Several years without blood diamond shipments = heads will roll, first of all Selfridge's and Quaritch's.

Except Quaratch was already on the chopping block for his coup by that point. If his mission to break the Na'vi's will to fight by bitch slapping their goddess failed, mopping up the civilians they had sitting on the ground would have done nothing but inflaming the Na'vi further. At that point, it would have been time for a fighting withdrawal, as his goal here isn't the same as Selfridge's. Quaratch's goal was the security of the humans under his protection.

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.

Repeating what you said, only using more words doesn't make you any less of a morally bankrupt bastard, you know. You still wouldn't mind if your high school class was murdered by someone. If that someone turned out to be the state, then you're advocating the death penalty for aggravated assault.

No, advocating for that sort of thing comes in at number 8. This is why I gave you those numbers.

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

Yes, we know that in Cesarioworld having warriors means they want to conquer and murder their neighbors.

Perhaps you could entertain another notion: perhaps they value manly feats of valor and skill because those skills are useful for hunting, which provides them with food?

You know, like all the native american tribes the Na'Vi are obviously based on?

The native american tribes did murder eachother over land and hunting rights. They were every bit as human as their european invaders.

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.

So...if they could receive and reject RDA's offers before, it means they did talk to humans, despite the tensions and quite possibly some low-level violent incidents.

Allow me to quote an entertaining video game:

Two weeks ago, I said, "Hey, Lu, stick this up your ass!" and I gave him finger. Otherwise, I haven't talked to him in twenty-five years.

There's only so much communication necessary for a rejection.

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.

Actually Jake did do enough research to conclude there was nothing the humans could give that the Omaticaya would want.

Or, more accurately, Jake was a dumbass and assumed that, when someone competent in his place would have found something to give Selfridge.

The videolog saying that was used by Quarritch to shut down diplomacy and revert to the default, ie. mass murder.

If that was the default, why were there Na'vi there when Jake arrived?

And here we come to the basics. As you admit yourself, the Home Tree deposit was not a time-critical resource.

So the only justification for the attack that you can possibly come up with is the claim that destroying the tree would prevent further attacks against RDA miners and equipment: something that has never worked, ever, in the entire history of human race. But in Cesarioworld, if people are shell-shocked and praying less than a day after someone firebombed their biggest city, it means they will never, ever pick up arms again.

Isn't it sad for your case that Quaratch's plan was working until idiot Jake decided to rally them to a hopeless battle that required litteral divine intervention for them to win.

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

It means that the possibility of diplomacy would still be open, and had the RDA found its brain and not been a bunch of greedy fucks, they could've possibly come to some sort of mining agreement about other deposits.

How, when there's nothing the Na'vi want, exactly?

You know, like sensible, respectful people. As long as you don't start firebombing population centers (or making unacceptable demands without the possibility of compromise), relations can still be mended, and Jake's experience and newfound status as an Omaticaya could help IMMENSELY with that,since he could deliver information on how the Na'Vi usually deal with violent incidents between each other.

Ah, but according to you, these magical blue space elves don't have violent incidents between eachother. They're all so perfect they're using warrior to mean athelete instead of its transparently obvious meaning.

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

Capo di Tutti Cappi is the stereotypical head of an Italian Mafia family.

Thank you.

Now, how would my change of behavior alter Selfridge's negotiating position?

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.

So why do you think destroying the Home Tree would prevent a conflict that lasts for generations, even if Jake's avatar got killed and thus stopped being a factor?

The Omaticaya would either pick up arms again and fight a guerilla war, or scatter to the four winds and bring news of human atrocities to other tribes. So when in twenty years you need to encorach on some other clan's territorry, they'll be even less welcoming than the Omaticaya were after the school massacre.

Or...altenarively, some other charismatic brave will rally the clans anyways, and give the RDA the full scale war they so obviously want.

Yes, they obviously wanted that. What with Selfridge explicitly saying he doesn't want that, Quaratch needing to perform a coup in order to be able to make a pre-emptive assault on a force that's actively massing to murder every human on the planet, and all the effort spent using the narrow window of divine intervention to try to find out how to negotiate with these people. Obviously those are the acts of people who want a full scale war.

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.

Yes, Selfridge progressed to tear the tree down and murder hundreds, possibly thousands of people because the Omaticaya dared to not want what he could offer. That makes him restrained and reasonable how?

The RDA's behavior is like the old joke about a guy who prevented rape once.

How?

He convinced her!

You consider that a horribly despicable practice, don't you?

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

Cesarioworld's Pollackistanis were already at the breaking point before they were rallied for a counteroffensive by some upstart officer. Thus, they needlessly escalated the conflict with Thanasia and therefore all the blood is on that officer's hands!

You know, if I'm going to get a world named after me, you should really give me more detailed information on its history.

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.

I was mocking your attitude that counterattacks against an enemy who comitted an act of war are somehow an escalation. The particulars don't really matter.

Of course the particulars don't matter. Especially when I've spent my time arguing about the particulars of the situation with the Na'vi.

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

It would be great if it could be done without violence and destroying them as a nation.

It would also be great if I one could eat cake and not get fat.

Who said anything about without violence and destroying them as a nation? I'm just asking how about everything except not bombing them. Rest of the outcome is still as intended.

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.

Ah, so utilitarian comparisons are only meaningful when they support your argument?

Here's a breakdown for you: if X billion of people will die off now, vs. a similar number of people dying in twenty years PLUS thousands of Na'Vi PLUS destruction of a unique ecosystem and many alien cultures...it is preferable to have the die-off now.

IF humans just needed some more time to institute conservation policies AND they absolutely needed the unobtainium to buy them time for these policies to work AND they absolutely couldn't afford the shipments to be reduced in volume...then they have justification to assault the tree.

Now all you have to do is prove the last two assumptions are true in the context of the movie, and you are golden.

Just the last two? You're conceeding the third one, or did you just lose track of how many assumptions you were putting there?

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.

Well, I had doubts, so I asked for clarification. Thanks for providing it!

Difference between us, I actually own what I say. Not afraid of my own words.

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.

So, no mass starvation if unobtainium shipments are reduced (due to not mining the largest deposit in 200 kilometres). Therefore, mass murder is not necessary, since it won't save billions (but might trigger an immune response from the planetary hive mind that will reduce the shipments all the way down to zero via trampling by armored rhinomonsters)

Therefore the RDA didn't need to forcibly evict the Omaticaya, and thusly they are murderous fucks. See? Simple.

I love how you bring in information they didn't know at the time to justify your assertion that they made an immoral choice rather than an ignorant one.

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.

But Thanasia did not justify their invasion by saying they'd genocide Pollackistanis, they said they did it because the Pollackistanis were repulsive and primitive, had soldiers for fighting wars, would not cede their territorry in exchange for Thanasian offers, and they needed Pollackistani resources to stave off an economic collapse!

Therefore they were not really bad guys, right? At least until they got to the genocide part?

But remember, the Pollackistanis wouldn't surrender and kept fighting a vicious guerilla war, so clearly the only reasonable way to stop them from murdering innocent Thanasians was to kill them all.

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.

No point coming up with different words with which to repeat myself for the slower members of the audience.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

So the entire point of the thread continues to sail far over your head. That and there's a certain, hilarious irony to the fact that you misspelled intellectual. I'm tempted to just refer to you as 'freshman twerp' from now on.

So anyways, I'm actually curious to hear Ryan and Stargliders' take on my idea: Would the Strogg from the Quake series be perfectly justified in taking over humanity and converting them all into bio-mechanical terrors? They're intellectually, militarily, technologically and industrially superior. They have a higher standard of living (Hurt? Hungry? Stroyent will solve all your ills!), are much more internally efficient (they convert their own dead into more stroyent and harvest the inorganic bits for spare parts), and help people achieve transhumanism through their Stroggification process and hooking them up to the Tetranode system.

Come to think of it, the Borg sorta fit the same criteria.

[Cesario]

So the entire point of the thread continues to sail far over your head.

Twisted revenge fantasies? No, I get the point. Just don't consider it particularly interesting.

That and there's a certain, hilarious irony to the fact that you misspelled intellectual. I'm tempted to just refer to you as 'freshman twerp' from now on.

Yes, that is the sort of high school bullshit I would expect from you.

[Metahive]

Except Quaratch was already on the chopping block for his coup by that point. If his mission to break the Na'vi's will to fight by bitch slapping their goddess failed, mopping up the civilians they had sitting on the ground would have done nothing but inflaming the Na'vi further. At that point, it would have been time for a fighting withdrawal, as his goal here isn't the same as Selfridge's. Quaratch's goal was the security of the humans under his protection.

Quaritch is a mercenary on the payroll of the RDA, their goals are therefore his too. Or do you think he had any other reason to get assigned to a hellish planet five years of travel away if not for the surely generous monetary compensation? If the mining operation goes down and the RDA loses its one and only source of income just because it turns out Quaritch shied away from securing it then he'll lose more than just his head. Security yes, but that includes job security too.

Nope, retreating into the fortress and waiting for an airlift out was no option and you're still ignoring that he was legitimately afraid of the Na'vi amassing enough troops in the immediate future to simply overrun the compound. A valid reason to send out troops and nip the blob in the bud while it's still of manageable size. No idiot ball here, except for the one you have grasped tightly.

[Ryan Thunder]

So anyways, I'm actually curious to hear Ryan and Stargliders' take on my idea: Would the Strogg from the Quake series be perfectly justified in taking over humanity and converting them all into bio-mechanical terrors?

[...]

Come to think of it, the Borg sorta fit the same criteria.

ITT Oni discovers that my position isn't 'might makes right' or 'industrialize at gunpoint' because either of those would be pretty retarded positions to hold. But feel free to keep tilting at those windmills, dude, you're doing such a good job.

[Cesario]

Except Quaratch was already on the chopping block for his coup by that point. If his mission to break the Na'vi's will to fight by bitch slapping their goddess failed, mopping up the civilians they had sitting on the ground would have done nothing but inflaming the Na'vi further. At that point, it would have been time for a fighting withdrawal, as his goal here isn't the same as Selfridge's. Quaratch's goal was the security of the humans under his protection.

Quaritch is a mercenary on the payroll of the RDA, their goals are therefore his too. Or do you think he had any other reason to get assigned to a hellish planet five years of travel away if not for the surely generous monetary compensation? If the mining operation goes down and the RDA loses its one and only source of income just because it turns out Quaritch shied away from securing it then he'll lose more than just his head. Security yes, but that includes job security too.

Nope, retreating into the fortress and waiting for an airlift out was no option and you're still ignoring that he was legitimately afraid of the Na'vi amassing enough troops in the immediate future to simply overrun the compound. A valid reason to send out troops and nip the blob in the bud while it's still of manageable size. No idiot ball here, except for the one you have grasped tightly.

So it's your opinion that he considered them at a managable size, and went for the symbolic target instead of wiping them out anyway? Why thank you.

[DudeGuyMan]

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.

Haha, yeah, the fact that the bomb is really inaccurate means that you can't go over forty miles an hour while on your way out to drop it.

Or send the helicopters in first to suppress the worst of the resistance before dropping the bomb.

Or just forget the whole idiotic shuttle bomb idea and just blow up the magic tree with the helicopters.

Or forget the fucking magic tree and just blow up the Na'vi that are going to overrun your base. Oh no thousands and thousands of foot infantry are massing over the course of the next week to attack us. All we have is a week's warning, satellite observation, and a fleet of attack aircraft, whatever will we do? I know, go off on a hairbrained scheme to blow up their sacred tree with a shuttle full of mining explosives. Derp.

No no, they totally did the best and most logical thing with what they had available. Not that the goodguys were any smarter, but at least they had fewer options.

Fucking fanboy asscovering, Jesus. I kinda wish they had blown up the magic tree successfully, only to have the Na'vi get super pissed off and overrun them anyway, as would not be unreasonable to expect.

[PeZook]

Fucking fanboy asscovering, Jesus. I kinda wish they had blown up the magic tree successfully, only to have the Na'vi get super pissed off and overrun them anyway, as would not be unreasonable to expect.

But DudeGuyMang, don't you know they would just pray and stay shell-shocked forever, just like all the other people who suffered atrocities?

Because shock and awe totally works!

[Metahive]

So it's your opinion that he considered them at a managable size, and went for the symbolic target instead of wiping them out anyway? Why thank you.

He went for the symbolic target primarily because he believed it would scare them off from attacking them in the foreseeable future (justifiedly or unjustifiedly, one of the scientists agreed that was the likely outcome however). Wiping out the warbands already present AND getting to chance of killing their new grand commander-in-chief was a beneficial side effect. See, attacking a high value target like that forced the Na'vi to confront his mercenaries head-on and on his terms instead of doing something sneaky like attacking the Hellsgate complex when its relatively undefended. In a guerilla war Quaritch would likely lose simply due to being outnumbered and under-equipped and fighting on foreign terrain on his opponent's terms.

Haha, yeah, the fact that the bomb is really inaccurate means that you can't go over forty miles an hour while on your way out to drop it.

Yes it does, your incredulity notwithstanding.

Or send the helicopters in first to suppress the worst of the resistance before dropping the bomb.

Scattering his limited forces to scour the floating rocks for hidden defenders would have been an awesomely bad idea for Quaritch and a gift to the Na'vi who could have picked off the Scorpions one by one with local numerical superiority.

Or just forget the whole idiotic shuttle bomb idea and just blow up the magic tree with the helicopters.

Yeah yeah, and the Empire should have built a bazillion Star Destroyers instead of the Death Stars but only the latter gave them the power to do really awe-inspiring things like scattering planets into the solar winds. Morale and ways to crush it are kind of important factors in warfare.

Isn't that why the nuclear bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have so many ardent defenders?

Or forget the fucking magic tree and just blow up the Na'vi that are going to overrun your base. Oh no thousands and thousands of foot infantry are massing over the course of the next week to attack us. All we have is a week's warning, satellite observation, and a fleet of attack aircraft, whatever will we do? I know, go off on a hairbrained scheme to blow up their sacred tree with a shuttle full of mining explosives. Derp.

Limited manpower and limited war material. Quaritch had only very little means for protracted warfare at hand and no way of approaching the Na'vi in greater numbers without early detection, especially not in the flux vortex which hampered his recon but not theirs. How's he going to force a confrontation on his terms when the Na'vi have the option of simply scattering into the jungle whenever a swarm of AMPs or Scorpions comes near? He'll only waste precious fuel (again, LIMITED QUANTITIES of fuel being the key word here) by doing so.

No no, they totally did the best and most logical thing with what they had available. Not that the goodguys were any smarter, but at least they had fewer options.

Bla bla bla, empty blather, moving on.

Fucking fanboy asscovering, Jesus. I kinda wish they had blown up the magic tree successfully, only to have the Na'vi get super pissed off and overrun them anyway, as would not be unreasonable to expect.

You have seen how completely paralyzed they were after hometree was cut down, right? They only recovered quickly because Jake rallied them via his Last Shadow stunt. If Quaritch had managed to destroy the Tree of Souls via big kaboom AND kill their new legendary war leader AND massacre the gathered braves in droves they'd likely been devastated and unable to offer much resistance in the foreseeable future and yes again, that was affirmed by one of the scientists. It would have at the very least given Quaritch time to build up his forces and mine Unobtanium relatively unopposed for a while.

[hongi]

So anyways, I'm actually curious to hear Ryan and Stargliders' take on my idea: Would the Strogg from the Quake series be perfectly justified in taking over humanity and converting them all into bio-mechanical terrors?

[...]

Come to think of it, the Borg sorta fit the same criteria.

ITT Oni discovers that my position isn't 'might makes right' or 'industrialize at gunpoint' because either of those would be pretty retarded positions to hold. But feel free to keep tilting at those windmills, dude, you're doing such a good job.

What is wrong with the Borg or the Strogg?