How Many Humans were at Hell's Gate?

[Советский меч]

Have to agree with HNM here.

[ScottWashburn]

But gosh, every frontier mining town needs its 'house of ill-repute' staffed by some 'soiled doves' Avatar, more than anything else, is a classic western! But you are probably right: there isn't any official brothel and no official prostitutes. But on the other hand, six years is a long time for those big, brawny testosterone-filled mercenaries to control themselves. There are certainly some women at Hell's Gate, but the male-female ratio, at least among the soldiers, is extremely lopsided (from what we see). Every military in history (including the US) has made arrangements to see to the troops' sexual needs. Since there aren't any local women, they are going to have to bring their own.

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by ScottWashburn

But gosh, every frontier mining town needs its 'house of ill-repute' staffed by some 'soiled doves' Avatar, more than anything else, is a classic western! But you are probably right: there isn't any official brothel and no official prostitutes. But on the other hand, six years is a long time for those big, brawny testosterone-filled mercenaries to control themselves. There are certainly some women at Hell's Gate, but the male-female ratio, at least among the soldiers, is extremely lopsided (from what we see). Every military in history (including the US) has made arrangements to see to the troops' sexual needs. Since there aren't any local women, they are going to have to bring their own.

*still amused* And those miners and Marines can't at least be bi (or even *gasp* gay) because...?

[SnowRider]

There is another subtext to the whole question of how many people Hell's Gate can hold. It's an issue Scott touched on in one of his posts and that is the issue of community size.

Larger communities tend to be more stable than smaller ones. The bigger the community the easier it is for people to fit in and blend in with the rest of the crowd.

But, the other subtext that hasn't been addressed (yet) in this thread is one I want to bring up.

It concerns the issue of how stable the people at Hell's Gate are. Think about it like this. The people at Hell's Gate are going to the most hostile place known to the human race. They are a very, very long way away from home, from all their friends, family, and the only world they know. They are now in a place that whose atmosphere would kill them in minutes without exopacks, let alone the dangers to them outside the fence.

But most important, they are a very, very long way away from home. That means the RDA would want to select the most stable people they can find to go to Hell's Gate. You can bet they have very, very rigorous psychological screening procedures and tests to weed out those won't be able to hack it and therefore are not psychologically capable of handling a full tour on Pandora.

This relates to the subject of this thread because if a community gets big enough, it becomes much more likely that someone will slip past the tests and screening, someone whose instability will not manifest itself until they are a part of that community.

So, the RDA would want to balance the benefits of a small, close-knit community with the strengths of a larger, more stable community.

That's a difficult balancing act, to be sure!

Another way to think about what I'm talking about in this post is to realize we have a real-life analog to Hell's Gate, right here, on Earth, in the present day.

It is the collection of bases and research stations in Antarctica. I am not talking about just the American research bases and stations. I am talking also about the bases run by other countries, like the United Kingdom, France, Poland, Russia, Australia, etc.

Some of those bases are staffed (albeit at a much reduced level) through the brutal Antarctic winter and believe me, the people that go down there to spend a winter on the ice have to be stable, mentally, psychologically, and emotionally stable.

Granted, the six months they spend down in Antarctica are long (especially those at the American base located at the South Pole) but nowhere near as long as a six-year tour on Pandora. I am using Antarctica as an example because it's about the closest thing we have to a "Hell's Gate" colony here on Earth.

[Banefull]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Well, the ISV carries around 200 passengers, plus crew.... In effect, we know that the number of survivors is 200 at most

It seems as if a lot more than 200 people survived. I would imagine that most of the scientists wanted to stay but only a very select few scientists were actually allowed to do so.

Throwing a random idea out there about this limited ISV space dilemna:

Most of the ISV's space is devoted to storage for cargo (like unobtanium). On this evacuation flight, most of that space would have been unused. I wonder if was possible to manufacture makeshift cryomods via stereolithography and bring them onto the ISV using the shuttle. We do not see much of what happens immediately after the battle is over but I would imagine that some sort of agreement (terms of surrender) was reached in which the humans had several days or a few weeks to prepare for departure.

[ScottWashburn]

Originally Posted by Banefull

It seems as if a lot more than 200 people survived. I would imagine that most of the scientists wanted to stay but only a very select few scientists were actually allowed to do so.

Throwing a random idea out there about this limited ISV space dilemna:

Most of the ISV's space is devoted to storage for cargo (like unobtanium). On this evacuation flight, most of that space would have been unused. I wonder if was possible to manufacture makeshift cryomods via stereolithography and bring them onto the ISV using the shuttle. We do not see much of what happens immediately after the battle is over but I would imagine that some sort of agreement (terms of surrender) was reached in which the humans had several days or a few weeks to prepare for departure.

I proposed (in one of my fan fictions) that since the unobtainium is so much more valuable than a cryo-module that when the ISVs arrive at Pandora the cryo-mods are stripped out to make more room for cargo on the return trip. All those mods have just been piling up and could now be used for the evacuation. I also propose that there is an orbiting space station around Pandora. (Not canon, I know, but it does make sense) and that any evacuees that couldn't fit on the ISV could be put into cryo on the station until the next ISV arrives. Just a possibility.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Sothis

"A few hundred" scientists seems like waaaay too many, to me. The unobtainium is the RDA's raison d'etre on Pandora, and the science efforts are secondary to that. Considering the expense of transporting the personnel, I don't think there would be a single scientist more than is necessary to support the mining operations (geologists, meteorologists, etc) and to look good for PR back on Earth (research scientists). I'd say 50 scientists max, and perhaps as few as 20.

Also, I don't think there would many people whose sole function is to be an administrative bureaucrat. It's not like a normal earth-based business where you need finance people, accounting people, payroll, HR, marketing people, PR people, etc. Any job description that is not essential to operations would be cut, I'd think, and people multi-task as necessary to take care of the paper-pushing aspects. Corporate governance is probably handled by Selfridge and a few assistants.

A brothel is right out. C'mon, a society that has invented psionic linking has got to have virtual-reality sex by then, right? :-p Anyway, the cost of transporting people is so high that you can't even get a ride back to Earth if you're in the middle of your contract and get a disease that's not treatable on Pandora - you get euthanized instead. You really think they're going to budget seats for prostitutes?

I like your estimates for the attack force, though (thaaaank you for doing a count on the # of helicopters; that's very useful). My only disagreement is that it seems to me a fairly sizable percentage of the final battle attack force were miners. In the deleted Selfridge vs Quaritch scene, you see weapons and equipment being distributed to miners, and you hear Quaritch giving orders to someone to spread the miners around, and of course, we hear Selfridge tantrum-ing that Quaritch isn't allowed to turn the miners into a militia. And given the all-out nature of the attack, I think every miner on base would've been conscripted. So I think the 500 figure you added up would include most of SecOps AND most of the miners. I'd say that it also includes any "dedicated mechanics," as they'd be at least as combat-ready as the miners. And I think everyone participates in equipment maintenance... note Wainfleet performing maintenance on Trudy's Samson.

But now we know that 500 is minimum figure... I'm going to revise my range to 550 - 800 people. I don't think there could've been that many people left behind on the base when Quaritch went off to attack the ToS, considering that Max was able to seize control with just a slash-cutter and 5-7 avatars.

Random other notes: Some of the attack force do survive, as we see troops being extracted (with difficulty) in one of the deleted scenes. We also see wounded people boarding the shuttle. Also, I don't think it's true that all of the scientists stay. In the script version of Jake's voice-over he says "A few chose to stay. Fewer were chosen." Which seems to suggest that not everyone who wanted to stay was allowed... I'd guess that "sanctuary" was only granted to those who were unquestionably allied with the Na'vi and risked everything to seize control of the base. So Max and the avatar-drivers who attacked the control room get to stay, as their lives would be in danger if they couldn't. The other scientists can deny their involvement if they need to... even if they helped Max break into the link room, nobody can prove that. And I don't think Jake would let anyone stay unless he was confident the person couldn't ever betray them.

EDIT: Awesome, HNM, thanks for the image file! It's much better than the one I had.

I'm 99.99% sure the brothel remark was a joke...

Well, if the miners (and possibly some mechnics) participated in the attack (and were all/almost all killed as a result) then 500-800 seems reasonable, although as I mentioned before with the numbers of marines on the ground, I would guess the lower end of that figure. This would also then make sense in terms of the number of survivors all fitting onto the ISV.
For staff like Selfridge, then all it would really need was him and maybe 2-3 others working for him, plus the control room staff as most of the administration would be done on Earth, since I don't really see much of a need for pay etc while they are actually on Pandora) - they would be part of the people who were sent back to Earth, along with maintenance staff and any survivors from the attack (which, as I already mentioned before, are unlikely. Wile a few may well have survived (there are at least two marines getting onto the shuttle, one injured), the vast majority of them would have died)

For the psychological point, that is an excellent point, and makes me think the true number would maybe be around 400 or so. OF course, the people who were employed would probably have been psychologically tested for such things (although that doesn't explain how blatant psychopaths get there, but then again, that's a different issue to stability) and I'm sure there would be at least a couple of employees who had their job as monitoring the staff.

The cryo units would probably be too complex (and slow) to manufacture on Pandora, and a return flight contains an equal (or almost equal) number of people returning if the staff are there for fixed contracts (e.g. 6 years). I would guess that it was only because Quaritch's attack got everyone killed that the remaining staff were able to fit in the ISV for the return trip.

[Eisenbahner]

Originally Posted by Sothis

Among the scientists, I am quite confident that there are no more than 10 avatar-drivers. (There are exactly 10 link-pods in the link room, and exactly 10 bunks in the longhouse.) I'm guessing that for every avatar-driver, there's maybe one or two additional scientists that don't have avatars. So maybe 20 - 40 scientists.

Actually, if one counts the number of active Avatars in the scene 'First Awakening' you will count 13 avatars, including Jake and Norm. All can be seen clearly starting from the time that Jake leaves the chamber until he is confronted by Grace outside of the Avatar Longhouse. One can see the 11th Avatar coming down the stairs of the longhouse, and 12th and 13th Avatars inside moving from right to left - presumably towards the entrance.

[Human No More]

Excellent observation - I never actually counted those

[Sothis]

Originally Posted by Eisenbahner

Actually, if one counts the number of active Avatars in the scene 'First Awakening' you will count 13 avatars, including Jake and Norm. All can be seen clearly starting from the time that Jake leaves the chamber until he is confronted by Grace outside of the Avatar Longhouse. One can see the 11th Avatar coming down the stairs of the longhouse, and 12th and 13th Avatars inside moving from right to left - presumably towards the entrance.

...interesting. I'm going to have to go back and count them now.

[EywaBlessMe]

Originally Posted by Sothis

I am quite confident that there are no more than 10 avatar-drivers.

There are 13. I counted them all.
I add these pix as proof.
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/members...327-avs_1.html
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/members...328-avs_2.html
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/members...329-avs_3.html
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/members...330-avs_4.html
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/members...331-avs_5.html
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/members...332-avs_6.html
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/members...333-avs_7.html

Note, the one in the dorm cabin is hard to see, but a blue shadow is seen walking by, and is several feet taller than the human scientist walking along outside the same window.[EDIT, if you see two in the dorm cabin, add one.]

I wonder why scientists walking outside don't fear attack by stingbats...

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by EywaBlessMe

I wonder why scientists walking outside don't fear attack by stingbats...

I can't see why a lot of wildlife would go near the place, actually - too much noise to set up a home, if you are small enough to do so. And also, see the AMP suit that was around? I'm pretty sure he'd be around to protect them should anything come diving out of the sky, and after a while, you'd get used to it. There are cases of soldiers in war not even bothering to dive to the ground when the siren goes for a mortor attack (although that's part getting used to it, and part being so fatalistic they don't see the point, which the scientists wouldn't have).

And thanks for putting up those pictures! That actually helps in trying to see them all.

(also, your banner! with the Blue Sky Mine quote! I was starting to think I was the only one who connected that song with canon. !)_

[EywaBlessMe]

I'm glad you connected it. Mind you, the song came out nearly two decades ago...
I didn't want to put too big a pic, but with the lettering the mine is difficult to see.

[Sothis]

Oooh... thanks for the screencaps; they're excellent. Definitely a useful reference.

Hmm, this is interesting. The way I got "ten," initially, is that I studied shots of the link room and the longhouse. There are definitely ten link beds and ten bunks, so I'd assumed that there were ten avatars. If there's more, the question is where are the "extra" avatars linking up, and where are they parking them at night? We know the mobile link station has 3 links, so they could be using that. But I don't see any good reason that they wouldn't have enough bunks to accommodate all the avatars, as it doesn't seem like it'd be difficult/expensive to make more. I'll have to think about it.

[Sothis]

Just remembered something else. The man and woman leaning over Jake when he first wakes up in his avatar... are also avatar-drivers, out of link. The man definitely is, because you see him climbing into a link during one of the deleted scenes. I can't remember if you see the woman doing the same, but she shows up a lot in other scenes and seems to act and react like an avatar-driver.

The plot thickens.