Avatar - What would have happened in reality if a Corporation invades your planet

[dugaresa]

Here are the facts:

planet with a hostile environment (air poisonous, etc) and is full of nasty animals and inhabitants
very valuable natural resources
a Earth based corporation has the DNA map for the inhabitants

Based on this information from the movie:

Earth is supposedly devoid of live and no greenery exists (based on comment in movie from male lead)


This is really what would happen:

Earth based corporation would create nasty virus that would wipe out every last inhabitant on the planet and that includes the Navi and the animals.

Why do I say this? If the corporations turned Earth into a parking lot with no trees, do you really think they would give a shit about the life forms on another planet? Doubtful.

[hunter]

1. I think the Pandora planet got the drop on us...

Pandora's virus is going to wipe out humans first.

With all our technology, we don't know shit.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=9205262&mesg_id=9206689

[dugaresa]

2. ? was that in the movie?

the mother earth like spirit on Pandora was going to kill off humans, doubtful based on what i saw.

[hunter]

3. Nah, I'm making stuff up. But the tech of Pandora is obviously superior to our own.

I'll bet those little fungal tendrils infiltrated human databases within a few hours of first contact. Now that the planet can absorb entire human minds fully intact we are totally screwed.

Pandora's planet is going to rescue her sister Earth and turn it green again, and there's not a damned thing humans can do about it....

[dugaresa]

4. well that would make a far better sequel than a blood and guts one

i saw the "Astronauts Wife" this weekend (slow awful movie that could have been better) but if you take that premise that the humans who came back are infected with some sort of good virus that makes them fix the wrongs on planet earth that would be cool.

[CBGLuthier]

5. OMG

It is that bad. I mean come on. What a load of feel good hooie. Something this mind fuckingly stupid will become the highest grossing film of all time?

I weep for our civilization more than our planet.

[dugaresa]

10. i went to the movie with my family and everyone said i was a "downer"

because i said, "great special effects candy, but it isn't realistic"

[proteus_lives]

17. Pretty much what I said and my friends reaction.

I said, "Shiny, pretty wrapping paper covering an empty box."

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. What would have happened in reality if a Corporation invades your planet

Ask the American Indian, the Iraquis, the....

[dugaresa]

8. exactly, hence my post

trading with Native Americans and giving them blankets that had been used by smallpox victims is an old trick and if you go back further in time you have the europeans catapulting dead bodies infected with plague into towns under siege.

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. Like an old girlfriend of mine once so wisely stated, "If we go into space, we won't behave."

And if we smash our beautiful planet, we deserve to have to clean it up.

[WildEyedLiberal]

7. Yeah, I dunno how a plausible sequel isn't going to involve the humans returning with a vengeance

In "reality," the humans would come back with twenty times the manpower and either a) do what you suggested and distribute some Na'vi-specific smallpox blankets or b) carpetbomb the surface into ash and mine what's left.

Obviously no one wants to see THAT movie, so what will happen in the sequel is anyone's guess.

[proteus_lives]

15. Yep.

They would come back and destroy the Na'vi from orbit. No fuss, no muss.

If the mineral was that important or valuable, no way they're staying away.

[hunter]

18. Maybe they've programmed the returning human ship to ram into earth near lightspeed.

And there are hundreds of gravity defying asteroids following it...

Bummer. What do you think really happened to the dinosaurs? Like a shotgun to the face.

I just kept looking at that movie and asking who it was who had the higher technology and the greater resources. The humans came out lacking in every way.

[proteus_lives]

19. Your meme is failing on every thread.

I'm not seeing your point.

Who programmed the ship? The Navi? With what? Sticks and dirt?

What about the ships already on their way there?

"And there are hundreds of gravity defying asteroids following it..."

Sci-Fi fail.

[hunter]

22. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a movie is just a movie.

I can do anything I want with art, especially bad art, even bad art with fantastic computer generated animation about a big blue woman who saves the soul of a paraplegic human soldier.

But anyways, I'll play. Pandora is a planet where they can transfer a human mind intact into another body. The planetary intelligence can almost certainly create and manufacture viruses tailored to specific uses. This intelligence probably infiltrated human databases on first contact by use of those little fungal tendrils. Why would humans suspect a bit of alien mold growing on the man data trunks? The mold grows on everything! The planet, sophisticated beyond our comprehension, now has a complete understanding of human DNA, the human mind, and human culture.

We humans are going to have our hot steaming asses handed to us on a plate with flowers...

Our own 20th century human prejudice is that technology is industrial and made of metal or plastic or silicon or chemicals. But more often technology is something else...

I'm an organic gardener; I don't use insecticides inside the house or out. When our family moved into this house the ants and aphids and snails were a terrible problem. Within a year or two I got the ants under control and we no longer see any ants in the house, although there are plenty outside. The aphids are rare, and the snails are nearly extinct. We've achieved a kind of environmental balance so that outbreaks of insect pests are uncommon and never require the use of insecticides. I'm sure if any termites or cockroaches turned up here the ants and spiders would eat them for breakfast. This is a kind of technology that is essentially invisible to the industrial market.

I'm simply enjoying a game where I imagine the technology of the Na'vi and their planet is mostly invisible to the humans who think of technology as something made in a factory.

[NewJeffCT]

24. Well, it's possible this mineral could be contaminated/destroyed

if they did a massive bombing from orbit or infected the natives with some sort of biological attack.

[dugaresa]

26. i see what you mean but i doubt the mineral would be contaminated

since it is being mined and shipped off the planet. If the mineral's worth was tied to the "harmony" of the biological organisms on the planet it would make it impossible to mine and ship and not lose value.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Is this some people's first introduction to the genre of science fiction?

Geez.

[dugaresa]

11. nah, I remember seeing the first Star Wars films and Darth Vader was a bad ass, he blew up a planet

he didn't give a shit, that was more realistic


;-)

[LostInAnomie]

12. Dead Na'vi can't buy shit.

I think it would be closer to what happened with China. The corporation would come in, find some drug to hook the population on, exploit the hell out of their addiction.

Either that, or they would overwhelm them with corporate speak about team-dynamics, synergy, and thinking outside the box. the Na'vi would be powerless against this.

[dugaresa]

14. that's feasible too, they could create some sort of device that the Na'vi

could hook their tails into that would give them a buzz.

they would all be fighting to get attached to the hoochie coochie machine, I can envision some electronic like hooka.

then they could be enslaved and made to chop down the mother tree in order to get another hookup.

[proteus_lives]

16. To be realistic, there would Na'vi working with the humans.

Just like how some tribes fought and traded with the British, French and Spanish.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

20. If? Why the hell do you think we're in this mess?

[janx]

21. It's a perennial theme,

and it happens.

[LeftyMom]

23. Yeah, but that movie would suck.

[NewJeffCT]

25. But, since everything on Pandora is so tied together in harmony...

It's possible a biological agent that wipes out the Na'vi and the other life forms would also destroy, or at least contaminate, the mineral they want on Pandora.

[pitohui]

27. pretty sure a corporation HAS invaded my planet

in fact more than one

i don't need a movie to tell me about it, i've lived this long w. eyes in my head