Avatar redux

[Schöneboom]

I never saw "Avatar" -- it was one of those times when I opted not to follow the herd. Hearing the plot later, I knew I hadn't missed much. Cameron sure knows how to press our entertainment buttons, and that's a good skill to have.

However the story itself wasn't so hot. Sure we all feel bad about the genocide of native tribal peoples in the New World, but making a fantasy about noble savages defeating the greedy modern guys doesn't actually help, IMO. It's just anesthesia for guilt.

In truth, had the humans studied their own history, they could have crushed those nice blue people even before deploying the Space Marines -- using an engineered virus fatal only to Na'avi. 90% fatalities, for ex. Was that in the movie?

I know, I'm a bad, bad human!

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Schöneboom

I never saw "Avatar" -- it was one of those times when I opted not to follow the herd. Hearing the plot later, I knew I hadn't missed much. Cameron sure knows how to press our entertainment buttons, and that's a good skill to have.

However the story itself wasn't so hot. Sure we all feel bad about the genocide of native tribal peoples in the New World, but making a fantasy about noble savages defeating the greedy modern guys doesn't actually help, IMO. It's just anesthesia for guilt.

In truth, had the humans studied their own history, they could have crushed those nice blue people even before deploying the Space Marines -- using an engineered virus fatal only to Na'avi. 90% fatalities, for ex. Was that in the movie?

I know, I'm a bad, bad human!

Least you're an honest one!

I always refer to Herbert in these cases:

And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.
And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by Rilder

This thread makes me so glad my GF likes horror movies for some reason.

So did my soon to be ex wife! She was also afraid of spiders, but bought any movie with spiders in it!

[Raptor1]

The Martians showed surprising incompetence when it came to waging a total war against an inferior enemy; they failed basic grand strategy, weapon design, reconnaissance and preparation. Indeed, it is of my opinion they only achieved temporary success only due to their superior technology and the element of surprise. On the other hand, humanity has centuries of experience to rely on, so we shouldn't be having so much trouble dealing with a bunch of disorganized savages with inferior technology and obsolete notions of warfare.

Anyway, Avatar wasn't a bad movie, but it was not an especially amazing one either. I always wondered about the ending; by throwing the humans out, didn't the blue people ruin all chances of diplomacy (Which the humans were quite agreeable with before), thereby dooming themselves to a short and bloody war of extermination when the humans returned with a proper military force under competent leadership and, in essence, destroying their chances for collective survival?

[Schöneboom]

Ah, that's for the sequel -- but of course!

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

I always wondered about the ending; by throwing the humans out, didn't the blue people ruin all chances of diplomacy (Which the humans were quite agreeable with before), thereby dooming themselves to a short and bloody war of extermination when the humans returned with a proper military force under competent leadership and, in essence, destroying their chances for collective survival?

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Schöneboom

In truth, had the humans studied their own history, they could have crushed those nice blue people even before deploying the Space Marines -- using an engineered virus fatal only to Na'avi. 90% fatalities, for ex. Was that in the movie?

I know, I'm a bad, bad human!

But bad humans like us are going to be the ones who save the Human race.

Who is to say that 1,000 years from now the Nav'i won't develop space travel and come and do the same to us?

Ever read The Mote in God's Eye? The aliens are a wonderful, peaceful people... but if we ever let them out of their home system they would doom us all...

Originally Posted by Dowly

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

The Martians showed surprising incompetence when it came to waging a total war against an inferior enemy; they failed basic grand strategy, weapon design, reconnaissance and preparation. Indeed, it is of my opinion they only achieved temporary success only due to their superior technology and the element of surprise. On the other hand, humanity has centuries of experience to rely on, so we shouldn't be having so much trouble dealing with a bunch of disorganized savages with inferior technology and obsolete notions of warfare.

They certainly failed on reconnaissance. They got confused by a torpedo ram and underestimated the strength of terrestrial artillery. However, they were quick to change strategy and adopt a more careful approach after they lost the machine at Weybridge, and even then they were able to retrieve the remains and return them to the main pit at Horsell Common where it was probably repaired and returned to service. The only other machine that I'm aware of getting damaged before the Thunder Child attack was one at St Georges Hill but it was only light damage (one of the legs was hit) and after the St Georges Hill gunners had been disposed of the Martian was able to complete repairs to its machine and it returned to service.
It was the fact that the humans were now hiding artillery in forests which brought the Black Smoke into play which was then used at any possible location where artillery might be hidden, and then if the artillery was visible the Heat ray was used.
If it wasn't for the biological side of things, which I agree, was a failure in recon, then the Black smoke would have been air dropped on continental areas and somehow (damned if I know how) they would have gotten the Fighting Machines across the Channel and started moving eastward.
There's a lot of thinking that can be done in regards to the tactics employed in the War of the Worlds, after all, HG Wells himself was a dedicated wargamer, he wrote the book on that too, but I think that the chaos inflicted on the small area of humanity that they managed to conquer, and the fact that the whole events of the book took place in no more than a month should at least give the Martians a bit of a round of applause.

BTW, just found this:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3691/3691-h/3691-h.htm

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Oberon

There's a lot of thinking that can be done in regards to the tactics employed in the War of the Worlds, after all, HG Wells himself was a dedicated wargamer, he wrote the book on that too, but I think that the chaos inflicted on the small area of humanity that they managed to conquer, and the fact that the whole events of the book took place in no more than a month should at least give the Martians a bit of a round of applause.

Applause? Pfft! So what they conquered England in a month? We took out the third largest standing army in the world (on the other side of the planet) in a month taking less than 400 KIA back in 1991, and unlike the Martians we were prepared for biological warfare.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Applause? Pfft! So what they conquered England in a month? We took out the third largest standing army in the world (on the other side of the planet) in a month taking less than 400 KIA back in 1991, and unlike the Martians we were prepared for biological warfare.

Yeah, but you didn't have tripod fighting machines.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Yeah, but you didn't have tripod fighting machines.

You were saying some thing about a Tripod?

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Oberon

They certainly failed on reconnaissance. They got confused by a torpedo ram and underestimated the strength of terrestrial artillery. However, they were quick to change strategy and adopt a more careful approach after they lost the machine at Weybridge, and even then they were able to retrieve the remains and return them to the main pit at Horsell Common where it was probably repaired and returned to service. The only other machine that I'm aware of getting damaged before the Thunder Child attack was one at St Georges Hill but it was only light damage (one of the legs was hit) and after the St Georges Hill gunners had been disposed of the Martian was able to complete repairs to its machine and it returned to service.
It was the fact that the humans were now hiding artillery in forests which brought the Black Smoke into play which was then used at any possible location where artillery might be hidden, and then if the artillery was visible the Heat ray was used.
If it wasn't for the biological side of things, which I agree, was a failure in recon, then the Black smoke would have been air dropped on continental areas and somehow (damned if I know how) they would have gotten the Fighting Machines across the Channel and started moving eastward.
There's a lot of thinking that can be done in regards to the tactics employed in the War of the Worlds, after all, HG Wells himself was a dedicated wargamer, he wrote the book on that too, but I think that the chaos inflicted on the small area of humanity that they managed to conquer, and the fact that the whole events of the book took place in no more than a month should at least give the Martians a bit of a round of applause.

BTW, just found this:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3691/3691-h/3691-h.htm

It's a shame we only see the events from the narrator and his brother's viewpoint, I would very much have liked to know how the invasion turned out in other areas.

For example, the narrator only witnesses attacks on the fighting machines by field guns and hears from his brother about the Thunder Child, a torpedo ram, one of the weakest surface warships in existence at the time. How would they fared against howitzers, seeing as the martians don't really have an indirect fire weapon? Or the guns of a battleship, which might well outrange the Heat-Ray itself?

I think surprise was the main thing that allowed the martians their early victory, had they lacked that, they would have been either destroyed or at least driven to a bloody stalemate. In fact, IIRC it is practically stated by the narrator at the end of the book that because their first attack failed, they have lost the huge advantage that surprise gave them for any subsequent invasion.

Thanks for that link, I've heard a lot about Little Wars, but I always wondered how it compared to modern wargaming systems.

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Applause? Pfft! So what they conquered England in a month? We took out the third largest standing army in the world (on the other side of the planet) in a month taking less than 400 KIA back in 1991, and unlike the Martians we were prepared for biological warfare.

The British army at the time it would have fought the martians was nowhere near being 'large'. I wonder how well the martians would have done against the German army...

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

It's a shame we only see the events from the narrator and his brother's viewpoint, I would very much have liked to know how the invasion turned out in other areas.

For example, the narrator only witnesses attacks on the fighting machines by field guns and hears from his brother about the Thunder Child, a torpedo ram, one of the weakest surface warships in existence at the time. How would they fared against howitzers, seeing as the martians don't really have an indirect fire weapon? Or the guns of a battleship, which might well outrange the Heat-Ray itself?

I think surprise was the main thing that allowed the martians their early victory, had they lacked that, they would have been either destroyed or at least driven to a bloody stalemate. In fact, IIRC it is practically stated by the narrator at the end of the book that because their first attack failed, they have lost the huge advantage that surprise gave them.

Thanks for that link, I've heard a lot about Little Wars, but I always wondered how it compared to modern wargaming systems.



The British army at the time it would have fought the martians was nowhere near being 'large'. I wonder how well the martians would have done against the German army...

IIRC they do stumble across some heavy siege gun emplacements near Richmond or Kingston.

From there we could see the searchlights on Richmond Hill and Kingston Hill going to and fro, and about eleven the windows rattled, and we heard the sound of the huge siege guns that had been put in position there. These continued intermittently for the space of a quarter of an hour, sending chance shots at the invisible Martians at Hampton and Ditton, and then the pale beams of the electric light vanished, and were replaced by a bright red glow.

Although by daylight and with adequate visibility, things may well have been a different matter.
Battleships on the other hand, I think the plan to deal with them was to drop black smoke on them. But it's a bit ambiguous, at the end of the chapter dealing with the Thunder Child:

Something rushed up into the sky out of the greyness--rushed slantingly upward and very swiftly into the luminous clearness above the clouds in the western sky; something flat and broad, and very large, that swept round in a vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly, and vanished again into the grey mystery of the night. And as it flew it rained down darkness upon the land.

Many take the last sentence to mean that the flying machine was capable of dropping black smoke and it did so upon the ships of the fleet. Of course, this is written and taking place sixteen years before the 'Chemists war' brought gas masks into warfare...but I suspect that as the Martian war progressed some boffins would spot the "Inhaler or Lung Protector" of the American Lewis Haslet and push it into production.
As far as I can make out, the Black Smoke is a form of suffocation method, turning into a foam in contact with water, so when breathed in it would then block the lungs and suffocate the inhaler, which means that the 'Lung Protector' would effectively destroy the deadliness of the Black Smoke, thus bringing the war to a standstill as you described. Unless the Martians then came up with another device to move the war forward, and they were remarkably intelligent creatures (composed mostly of brain, and presumably able to utilise this brain more efficiently than we do since there is a hint at telepathy later in the book) then there would be a period of infinite war. The Martians would not give up, although they would probably learn a grudging respect for our intelligence (and rate us a little bit higher than livestock...although we would still be walking blood donaters), they would not run out of resources, as they would be able to utilise the resources they had captured, they would not run out of population, because as they were asexual they could 'bud' at will, and they would not negotiate a peace or ceasefire.
It is an interesting thing to consider though, and I apologise for waffling here, as you may have been able to tell (although I'm not sure...it's not very obvious) I am a rather large fan of the book, I have been since I was ten, and I do so wish that someone would do it justice in television or cinema.

TLAM Strike, but does that tripod walk across trees and crush them like matchsticks and is it 'taller than the tallest steeple'?
Raptor also has a point, I do wonder how the Martians would have fared against the German army of 1898, it was a bit less spread out than the British one was, plus there wouldn't be the security of having water all around your capture point. I guess that's why they went for Britain to begin with, a secure base of operations, easy enough to overcome in a surprise attack and difficult for an aggressor to retake without the right technology.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Oberon

As far as I can make out, the Black Smoke is a form of suffocation method, turning into a foam in contact with water...

Hate to see such a weapon used on a humid day...

TLAM Strike, but does that tripod walk across trees and crush them like matchsticks and is it 'taller than the tallest steeple'?

An M-1 Abrams could easily knock most trees. A Minuteman ICBM about the size of most steeples.

But then War of the Worlds was a product of the time, such things existed only in the Imagination. Today such a invasion is hard to fathom with out it destroying the planet. Oberon have you ever read Footfall? As a War of the Worlds fan I think you would like it, its probably the best most realistic Alien Invasion story ever written.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Hate to see such a weapon used on a humid day...


An M-1 Abrams could easily knock most trees. A Minuteman ICBM about the size of most steeples.

But then War of the Worlds was a product of the time, such things existed only in the Imagination. Today such a invasion is hard to fathom with out it destroying the planet. Oberon have you ever read Footfall? As a War of the Worlds fan I think you would like it, its probably the best most realistic Alien Invasion story ever written.

It's been on the list of novels that I've had a mind to read but I haven't gotten around to yet...with Christmas coming up, if the Library doesn't have it then...

I did rather enjoy the 'Tosev timeline' series of Harry Turtledove, that's an interesting slant on the traditional alien invasion.