Avatar emergency abort

[Raptor]

Does the Avatar system have some kind of emergency abort? One way to interrupt a link is by hitting the big red button. If that's the case, why didn't Grace order that Jake's link be cut after his first accident with the thanator? Does that not constitute as an emergency situation? Grace herself said that Jake "won't last till morning." If that's the case, why doesn't she hit that big red abort button?

[Ashen Key]

She hits the 'emergency abort', Jake comes out of his Avatar body....and he can no longer make the body run, fight, or get itself to safety. She hits an abort button, and she's lost the Avatar for sure.

And also, it's considered highly dangerous to interrupt a link in progress - witness all the scientists freaking out whenever this happens in canon.

[Raptor]

I think in the Project 880 script, it was mentioned that dying in an Avatar can also be highly dangerous. Is it less so than aborting a link?

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by AC130StandingBy

I think in the Project 880 script, it was mentioned that dying in an Avatar can also be highly dangerous. Is it less so than aborting a link?

Not sure, but Grace has to balance that against Jake losing his mind anyway through the loss of the link, and also losing the Avatar. I can see her resolving to just wait and see when Jake comes out, and not trying to force her hand because she doesn't know what's going on.

[tm20]

you can probably know how they are doing by monitoring brain activity, so once jake had escape the thanator he would have calmed down and that would have shown through the brain activity, when he was fighting the viperwolves it would have increased etc. so by those observations you can make predictions and just hope that they are still surviving

[Fkeu'itan]

Originally Posted by tm20

you can probably know how they are doing by monitoring brain activity, so once jake had escape the thanator he would have calmed down and that would have shown through the brain activity, when he was fighting the viperwolves it would have increased etc. so by those observations you can make predictions and just hope that they are still surviving

Good point... And as he was largely in a stressful state for probably a lot of that night (Hey, wouldn't you be if you got lost in an unknown world, on your first night? Not to mention all the viperwolf fighting, nearly falling off a branch to his death, meeting Tsu'tey, trying to adapt to a new way of life, etc. etc.) so brain activity would be very high, I think it's also reasonable to suggest that cutting the link during period of very high activity could be very dangerous for those involved...

Also, not forgetting that indeed, Avatars don't come cheap.

[Human No More]

Definitely - losing the avatar would be VERY bad, especially since Jake is useless to the scientists without one even before he meets the Na'vi. the danger is understandable considering that the driver's nervous system is in effect being proxied to another body - there could certainly be a risk involved.

[mikkowilson]

I'd assume the "Shutdown Button" would perform some sort of "rapid disconnect" procedure to make it physically safe for the Driver (and the Avatar also by causing no damage from the link).

When Quartich aborts Jake's link; Jake seems unphased by the actual abort procedure and wakes up fighting "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GOD-DAMNED MIND?".

We see multiple aborts in the movie, with seemingly no consequences from the abort itself.

I believe the "danger" of the abort is the immediate (and unwarned) loss of control of the Avatar. I believe the ASG* refers to this scenario specifically in the dangers of the Avatar being in a risky situation at the time of the abort. - Like being chased by a Palulukan, or halfway up Iknimaya, or (even realizing this possibility makes me cringe) during Tsaheylu.

Arguably those dangers play out to a degree when Quaritch aborts Jake's link; as he is unable to complete the negotiations to what may have been a more amenable resolution.

I see the "Link Abort" being synonymous with an ejection seat. It's there to save the Driver at the expense of the Avatar. For example if the Driver in the link is under direct threat because the link room is on fire, or there's an atmospheric breach, etc...

- Mikko

*I'm aware of the questions of accuracy of parts of the ASG; however I believe the concepts and ideas explained within to be sound.

[GhostTiger]

I agree it's all about saving the avatar and hoping Jake can get it somewhere safe for the night, or at least survive awake until morning when they can make a return to find it.

Although I do wonder about that same evening when they're hovering over Jake getting him to wake up, why is his response so sluggish? If his avatar is not in danger and safely in hometree, why is he having such trouble coming out of link? Because he's a new driver or just too much adrenaline? The other times he comes out of link easily, even when the abort button is used.

[mikkowilson]

That's about how I react when it's been a *really* long day (I'm 18-hours non-stop into a unplanned extended day at work as I type this, actually) if someone wakes me when I've just *finally* got to sleep.

I think Jake was just hoping (assuming?) to sleep and rest when he went to sleep as his Avatar. I'd assume he simply forgot that going to sleep as his Avatar simply meant he still had to wake up and go to sleep "for real".

"Wake up, it's time for bed!"

- Mikko

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by GhostTiger

Although I do wonder about that same evening when they're hovering over Jake getting him to wake up, why is his response so sluggish? If his avatar is not in danger and safely in hometree, why is he having such trouble coming out of link? Because he's a new driver or just too much adrenaline? The other times he comes out of link easily, even when the abort button is used.

Look at it this way - they left at 0900 that morning, and so it was probably within a couple hours of that when Jake had his run-in with the thanator. Neytiri doesn't find him until after the sun has completely set. Assuming that Pandora has a similar rotation to Earth (say between 23 and 25 hours), and that Hell's Gate is set around the equator, that is a LOT of hours to be running away from things, constantly tense in a strange environment when you only have a knife and no back up, and then with the Omaticaya, that has to be stressful as well. He's probably exceedingly drained, and his human body might have had some kind of reaction to all the stress and tension levels that his brain is inducing, too. So, no wonder he's groggy.

[Human No More]

Possibly - although Jake was certainly expecting it, and could have been prepared that way.
In the background, it says that the link chambers have to be calibrated to the user to avoid neurological damage, so I'd say there is possibly still some risk evident in terminating the link suddenly, particularly with the way manually terminating it is initiated by relaxing, almost going to sleep. That doesn't mean that the sudden loss of control isn't also dangerous though.
Remember that even a safety mechanism can still be dangerous in itself. It may well be there for that as one of the reasons, but that doesn't mean it's risk free (just weighing up possible negative effects against near-certain death).

As for Jake coming out of the link, he was probably very tired (mentally, but not physically when he is back in his human body (unless some physical sensation of tiredness remained as well for a while), but also quite possibly due to lack of experience - he has only been linked once before for relatively short time at that point.

[Palulukanä_Txani]

It also could be that while using the abort button one or two times won't have much of an effect on the driver, using it repeatedly could cause serious brain damage later on. Perhaps the Avatar program makes it a rule to not use the abort button at all, simply because they don't want this to happen. Avatar drivers are already at a highter risk for brain damage because they are continuously sending their minds back and forth. If this sending happened suddenly too many times--as in, they didn't get the chance to fall asleep and let the mind shut down properly--they could potentially end up going mentally insane.

We don't know anything about most of the other Avatar drivers, especially those who were there before Jake. What if someone had gone crazy before Jake's arrival, due to the constant mental movement?

I would imagine having someone push the abort button on you would be like someone punching you in the diaphram...you know, that feeling when you can't breathe in or out for a few moments...only in your mind.

[Banefull]

To put it simply: I doubt that anyone had even attempted an emergency link abort before.

The consequences may have been unknown beforehand.

[Raptor]

But if they won't resort to an abort even when the situation got quite out of control, then I feel that the link system is the result of poor engineering practice. I mean, how can you leave someone "stranded" in the link like that? I can't believe they didn't consider or test it thoroughly. Having a fail-safe is an important part of any engineered system.