Excellent point, I didn't think to mention that (despite a WiP fic of mine having one of the plots centered around trying not to doom Earth, oops.) Yeah, public opinion might just be ugly over that. Forget interstellar travel - if the trains and power grid shut down, you've got utter collapse on your hands.

Basically picture the current worldwide economic collapse...but about a thousand times worse. I am using this idea for the FF I am writing(shameless plug, check out Unshackled in the FF section). Really unless JC pulls a major handwave for the sequel I really don't see how the sequels won't end up in a lot of bloodshed. Human nature is to be greedy, and money grubbing. If something messes with our profits we are going to get angry...and get even.

Now on topic of activists on earth. I like to picture them as Eco-terrorists to the extreme, probably to the point of rejecting "technology" to show that they want things to change. I could see them conducting "civil disobedience" with bows and arrows. Okay maybe thats just because I practice archery and would probably be doing that. Soon as the mega-corp show up I am going full on protestor!

Looks at reports about how Wal-mart and "Wal-mart international" are currently the first and third "largest" corporations in the world.

TO WAR!

I like to picture them more like the Underground in Equilibrium. Or maybe even the Resistence in Half Life 2.

Don't have to be greedy to be worried about economic collapse - no jobs, no money, no food on the table, no medicine. Also no ability to pay bills, so at that next killer heatwave, no air con. Or you and your family get evicted. And the people to be hit first would be the poor. Look at Hurricane Katrina - a lot of people literally couldn't afford to get out, because it wasn't pay-day.

The resistance movement, I can see a mix. You'll have the protesters, the 'hearts and minds' advocates, the people who break in destroy property, the people who blow things up while trying not to hurt anyone, and the people who would see deaths as part of how revolutions are. Organization-wise, I can see them grouped in cells with not a lot of contact between each for protection. You'd also probably see a large range in attitude towards the Na'vi, from the Na'viphiles who worship them and want to be them to the people who go 'that's nice for them, but we need to concentrate on Earth' right to the people who regard the the Na'viphiles' attitude towards the Na'vi is creepy and fetishistic and rather full of appropriation. You'd get the people who are hard-core socialists, and the people who, due to the Na'vi, are more open to different ideas of society. So, yeah, I think you'd get a large mix. Maybe more than one movement? It's a huge area to play around in.

Nope.
Not enough bandwidth.

Anyway, even if so (which isn't right for the reasons above), look at history - modern history at that. Read up on the Streisand effect.


The 3bit/hr IS Pandora's 'ansible'. I already said that the scientists aren't limited by time, so they can send it at light speed if necessary - 4.4 years to arrive is a LOT faster than an ISV.

Interstellar commerce, yes. that has nothing to do wth an economy. Stop going Earth needs unobtainium!!1!, it is patently false.

The RDA are in everything. It's a setback, certainly, but you act as if it's the world's fuel source or something, and indeed, as if the RDA are devoid of other profit sources.

You mean the economic depression that ALREADY exists? :facepalm:
Normal people don't profit form unobtainium. The RDA execs do :facepalm:

One thing - if the execs don't profit, they cut jobs (and/or slash hours and/or hire people who cost, for whatever reason, less per hour or per year). It's THAT which hurts everyone else. The unemployment rate would jump, and the share-market would go crazy, which would lead to OTHER companies being in trouble, which in turn would affect the lives of THEIR workers. If the share-market crashes, hello economic depression.

Also, according to the ASG (pages 17-18), unobtanium is used on the maglev trains. Given that other kinds of fuel would be hard to find and/or ridiculously expensive (we're running out of fossil fuel NOW, let alone 140 years in the future with a global-city type Earth, and solar power would be hard thanks to the smog), uh, yeah, I'd say the lack of unobtanium would be a massive problem for transport. And countries can't really run without transport.

Not to mention that you'd have issues with other colonies in the solar system itself (I....can't believe that Hell's Gate is the first colony off Earth, that just makes ZERO sense). Travel between them would go back to being years without unobtanium.

Considering their use (bringing workers across the world so as to avoid hiring more expensive workers locally), the loss of that ability (which would not happen as Unobtainium is not a fuel) would actually improve things from the perspective of anyone who doesn't work for the RDA under a specific area.
Even so, all that would happen was that they would be very limited in further expansion. Where's the problem exactly?

Unobtainium is not fuel. Earth has HUGE amounts of electrical energy available, which is used as the actual energy source.
Again, I would point you to StarDestroyer.Net BBS • View topic - Avatar Military ****ers Read This First .

Again. EVEN IF there were other extrasolar presences, no unobtainium means you can not build more ISVs at the same efficiency of use (not not not at all, either). Unobtainium is not fuel. Is is not the structural material that makes ISV construction possible. It is not oxygen, or water either.
:facepalm:

Never said it was a fuel. Said it was used in the maglev trains. Which is stated in the ASG. You need superconductors for the maglev trains to work. Not only transporting people, but also goods, and supplies.

I tend to think that those things are important. Bad things happen when the transport of food is disrupted.

What were you referring to then? :hmm:

Yes, and if the supply is cut off, then they can't expand further, but they do not spontaneously stop working. That isn't a problem, particularly when they aren't used for food. Food is grown over the majority of the oceans, which everyone but the very richest people eat.