The RDA can't do physics

[Helicoradian]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Acording to this page, the world energy consumption in 2003 was 20,261TWh, and so the power of that year was 20261e12/1 year = 2.313 TW. The ratio between these is 50.3. IOW, the RDA require the power of 50 modern Earths to fuel an ISV. I presume that JC does not mean to imply that the RDA rule (a large chunk of) the world of 2154?

That really is an immense amount of energy required, but I think the most important question is not how the RDA can find a reasonable way to fuel the ISV Venture Star.

But instead...















If you were to place the ISV on a treadmill, would it still reach near relativistic speeds?

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

No, and I have the maths to prove it.

For about the 15th time, the fact that is isn't realistic with current-day technology does not make it impossible. If there is enough power, it is possible.

...Also, you do a lot of modern-day comparisons yourself later on.

As analogies (e.g. the one about your ridiculous laser fantasy), and not as direct economic comparisons.

"It does things wrong" != hating it. It's a very nice film indeed, but it could be better.

By that logic, you should hate dr who, because it doesn't explain anything. You're just another hipster who can't admit that it was a good film simply because people liked it, it did well, and it may potentially gain scifi the real credibility it had been lacking for decades.

Doing it for profit is the bit that RDA can't do, as I'll explain later.

As I have explained before, they can - you talk about 20m dollars, but we have no idea how much that is is any historical currency context.

The "science" of Who is a case of Remember, it's a show, I should really just relax, to quote MST3K.

...and that's bad. I originally said this about SW, but it applies to Dr Who too, in that I called it "scifi for people who would be insulted if you said they liked scifi".

"From a theorectical standpoint..."

Your 'theoretical standpoint' is 100% WRONG.

Again, go watch the actual film, and stop watching that crappy flash on Newgrounds.

Historically, completely unrecognisable things tended to generate fear.

EXACTLY. You're digging yourself deeper into a hole here.

Calm down, I did not understand you meant the manufacturing process. And the answer is 140 years of Moore's Law.

Moore's law has a physical limit. Silicon has a physical limit. There is a size, even if you use a non-silicon material, at which the voltage will leak across the transistor when it is closed. You can NOT work around that limit with transistor-based circuits.

To use an appropriate meme, automate ALL the things! And have one of the few humans be the authority! You don't ship someone there specifically to lead, that'd be a tremoundous waste! ...And before you ask about how you automate stuff before Hell's Gate is constructed, you do it from the Venture Star.

You're developing new things expressly for a single use, and yet you're the one complaining about cost. You're abandoning all pretence of trying to handle this peacefully and without causing damage. You're adding huge complexity, and ignoring the fact that a single human without a base and support can NOT survive on Pandora.

Robots do everything you've just listed faster, more accurately, and more controllably than humans. This is simply because they've been built to that specific purpose. They do not have any of the failing of humans, either, such as impulses, emotions, or ability to panic.

they have their own problems, not least being their lack of controllability, lack of accountability, lack of proper autonomy, requirement for control, and only having the ability to react to known and exactly programmed situations.

That'd be pretty surprising, since we've nearly developed them in 2011. See a couple of paragraphs down about this.

A chemical laser, which needs an entire passenger airliner for support and fuel, and needs large amounts of hazmat fuel, producing even more with each firing.

I do not understand why you are mentally incapable of understanding this, but they can not have or use advanced military hardware. They are not a military, it is not an invasion. the marines are using standard off the shelf equipment because all they are meant to be doing is providing basic security, not fighting a war.

Which is what the "laser" bit is for. Also, let's keep the physics terms straight: the energy required is relatively constant and possibly quite large, but the power is small because you only have to maintain the ion corridor for a millisecond to get the current through it.

The ionisation still takes a LOT of energy, and a short time, higher energy discharge is MUCH harder to engineer a battery to provide.

Electromagnetism-based weapons, then. They're the same for the relavent property of being affected by EMPs.

They are entirely different.

I'm lost now. Are electromagnetic weapons just developed then, have been developed for some time, or were never in mainstream use? (In which case, what were EMP weapons for?)

Again, try reading the background before coming to troll here.

It says that EMP based weapons are common enough to be available to terrorists, eliminating the dependence on UAVs. It says that projectile weapons are used on Earth, but the type include gauss gun -type weapons as well as standard bullets. There is no mention of your precious lasers.

No, the point is that we have 100 years of manufacturing technology over the Wright Brothers.

Yes, that IS the point. Aeroplanes have been around for ~100 years, and that does not mean that the most highly advanced ones are available to everyone, even if a moderately skilled person could build one that outperforms the earliest ones.
The same goes for lasers. They will not be available to everyone as some kind of ridiculous spess mehren weapon just because they have been around for a certain period of time.

The fact that a given design has been around many decades most likely means that people with astronomical energy budgets could build it.

WHICH PART OF THE CONTRACT DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?

The rights to mine unobtainium are dependent on conditions, including not using excessive weapons - they can only use what they actually need for basic security.

I fail to understand what you are talking about. Either, the EMP goes off inside the aircraft, which ideally destroys everything in it, and nothing else, or it goes off outside, and does not affect the aircraft. Faraday cages work both ways.

You can not enclose an aeroplane in a faraday cage, because it requires external connections. The same goes for a vehicle to a more limited degree. There is a reason only buildings have them.

...in the context of operations on Pandora.

That's quite a change of position... to the exact opposite, in fact.

...And less effective, I am led to believe. Apparently, an angtsik is bulletproof against small-calibre kinetic weapons. Energy weapons have no such problem.

Yet Hell's Gate already has sufficient weaponry. So, all the difference is is that it doesn't allow for a mobile invasion force.

What are the mechs for, then?

To protect humans by making them more survivable when outside, as well as heavy moving/lifting as required.
You know, what they were designed for on Earth.

Why not skip humans and go with Avatars? That's what they're for, after all.

Avatars need humans to be there.
Oh, and yes. Humans are biological organisms, who they can communicate with and learn from.

We don't see any of Selfridge's bosses apart from Quaritch in the film.

WTF?
Again, watch the actual film. Quaritch works for Selfridge, Selfridge is just a spineless idiot. Also, he does mention others that are not on Pandora, but I understand that that wasn't in wikipedia's plot summary so you probably never heard of that.

...In this context I know one exists, I want to find out what it is.

The problem is knowing nothing about its structure, you would essentially be guessing as to composition and physical structure.

A probe's data will do for that, though. I'm assuming we have data from the probe, otherwise we wouldn't know about unobtanium.

So you believe that unobtainium was doscovered straight away?
Considering the fact that it's far underground and not evident form orbit, that makes zero sense.
Actually, Pandora was discovered conventionally and seen to support plantlife, before an unmanned expedition discovered the magnetic properties, while it determined the existence of unobtainium, there is zero evidence of any sample-return or even detailed analysis, as opposed to simply detecting its presence from the surface.
Source: Survival guide.

What do you mean by "ideal" materials? Because there's the classic Unobtanium, which is a material of a non-existent tensile strength, resistance, density, whatever, but we can't say anything else about that, other than it has the property we need, because it can't exist. Obviously, this plan involves calculating the properties of substances that can exist, probably by working upwards from atomic arrangements.

Exactly. An ideal material has whatever characteristics are required for the theoretical application.

I was pointing out that you believe that knowing something's characteristics will magically make it synthesisable - I asked that, in that case, why has not an ideal nuclear fuel, an ideal structural metal, or an ideal plastic been synthesised? People know what their physical characteristics are, yet that in itself is not enough to determine if one could exist or is producible.

You'll have to elaborate. Fusion is a well-understood process, and it doesn't produce nearly enough energy.

Well, the upper limit known is stars. Based on that, there is essentially no hard limit.
You've flip flopped between 'not enough energy' and 'energy is infinite'.

[Human No More]

We also just dumped a huge amount of heat into the soil, what with the fairly large explosion the impact produced. Anyway, this is an engineering problem the RDA can face when they decide this is a good idea. AFAIK, we don't have the time or knowledge to go into it here.

You're right, it's an engineering problem, which clearly either proved impractical, or a lower priority.

Which is why you don't try and turn it towards Mars, War of the Worlds style. You just shift it in the gravity well so that it ends up on a collision course with Mars, which takes far, far less energy.

Depending on the course, also decades to centuries

It may still be physically impossible, but neither of us have the engineering ability to know that, so I'm giving the benefit of the doubt.

...then why bring it up?

This applies to all materials and to all structures. (Except when you get into mega-engineering, but you're not about to tell me that Hometree is made of carbon nanotubes. )

Again, a column of a given thickness and structural strength. Hometree is a LOT smaller than human structures, which use much smaller structural cross sections.

What is it going to be based on, if not the Meisner effect as generated by Pandora's magnetic field?

It is the Meissner effect, which is different to the normal repulsion between two simple dipole magnets, as I already said.

...This should also be impossible. The core should be pretty isotropic in all directions.

Earth's varies by as much as 2-3x the strength over different areas.

We could discuss only the film, rather than the expanded canon, but I don't think that's what you mean.

I mean that you mistake consistency for possibility in the current day. I would bet Dr Who is consistent, despite not following real physics. Star Trek is consistent despite following something between realistic and implausible physics, but it always woks the same actual way.
Nothing in Avatar contradicts itself, if we take all data about the state of things from the film itself and not from 2011. You've been continually complaining about how it is 'not consistent' without even understanding the definition.

Consistent:
(logic) Of a set of statements, such that no contradiction logically follows from them.

Plausible:
Seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible: a plausible excuse.

Things that are not plausible beforehand have happened throughout human history as understanding has improved, but hat does not make the reality inconsistent.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Acording to this page, the world energy consumption in 2003 was 20,261TWh, and so the power of that year was 20261e12/1 year = 2.313 TW. The ratio between these is 50.3. IOW, the RDA require the power of 50 modern Earths to fuel an ISV. I presume that JC does not mean to imply that the RDA rule (a large chunk of) the world of 2154?

Now, I'm disinclined to believe that the RDA actually have access to this, because the expanded canon tells us that Earth's current major power source is fusion reactions.

Actually, it only says that fusion provides for a majority of Earth's power. It does not describe the source of the antimatter for the ISVs.
Trust me, you can't argue canon with me

These are nowhere near powerful enough to provide the requsite power, as I'll now demonstrate. ATM, there are 441 fission reactors in the world, providing 379GW of power. This gives a rough ratio of 859 MW per reactor. Fusion as a process is roughly 5 times as efficient (per mass of reactant) as nuclear fission is. Let's give the future the benefit of the doubt and say each reactor is 10 times as efficient as fission ones, so each produces 859*10 MW = 8590MW each. So, a simple division tells us that the RDA requires 116,000,000/8590 = 13,505 reactors. (Ignoring the fact that modern reactors take thousands of staff as well...)

Not only does fusion require lower staffing levels due to its safety, but it's far more scalable. The majority of fission reactors today are ancient and should have been decommissioned 10-20 years ago.
A fusion reactor explicitly allows a higher capacity without the danger of producing a critical mass when not operating. The only known upper limit would be the largest known star - clearly, that is impractical on Earth, but it does not suffer the same limitation as fission.

I hope you can understand why I don't like this idea. Although a Dyson solar collector would stop it being such an impracticality, this isn't mentioned in the background material AFAIK, and so, IMO, assuming it's there is handwaving. (which is, apparently, unrealistic. )

There's no mention, but there's no denial of one. All there is is a mention of how poer is produced on Earth, which is said to produce more energy than people can use.

Construct Hell's Gate either automatically or by remote control from the Venture Star.

Remember that robots will weigh just as much.

From there, construct most of your equipement on-site

Already done.

If the microchips controlling the robots cannot be manufactured to any degree, then load a large amount of them onto the Venture Star. (i.e. 5000 or so)

Already done.

The Avatar program is essentially a sunk cost; whether it goes ahead depends on how valuable the RDA consider PR to be, and it produces no profit.

1. Wrong. you seem to believe unobtainium is the only profit source just because sefridge said that, but that doesn't make it true. there is a lot of genetic research, for example in using plants that absorb metals form the soil in cleaning up contaminated areas on Earth.
2. If you actually watched the film, you'd know that that is entirely the point, because being seen not to be harming the Na'vi does help their image, even if many people do realise what's really going on. Using robots everywhere would totally destroy that perception and then some.

The defense should be done with energy weapons, most likely electrolasers and masers. This is because the primary running cost of any weapon is the ammunition, which in the case of energy weapons is nearly free, and requires no specialised machinary or specific resources.

Wrong.
Lasers do not exist in a useful form (weapons on Earth are gauss-type). The RDA can not use those because they do not require advanced military hardware. This is not an invasion, and they are not supposed to be causing any damage.
They're being limited by governments and organisations like the UN here, in that a species of sentient beings deserve equal rights, even if unobtainium is useful. That means the RDA are not going to have advanced military hardware for some kind of invasion like you wanted to see (in which case, there is plenty of fiction for you, don't try and use false logic to rationalise Avatar into something you wanted with spess mehrens killing everything).

Additionally, some types of energy weapon are capable of bypassing the natural armour of Pandora's fauna. Physical armour has no bearing on the effectiveness of a maser, and only very little impact on the effectiveness of an electrolaser.

Again, there's no need to do so, because they aren't going for mass slaughter. What they have is enough for their actual needs that they are supposed to be using it for.

The energy you need to power all of this is provided by fusing water, which can presumably be found in abundance. (There is mention of the Eastern Sea.)

Actually, it uses He-3 from Polyphemus.

The materials are provided by mining, as well as recycling everything you can get your hands on. Solar panelling on the Venture Star may also be used to begin with, but fusion will be more reliable and efficient. Since Hell's Gate will be smaller than even an Earth town, power becomes functionally unlimited, so long as instaneous energy output is not too high. This will be more than enough to support the humans living there.

The presence of energy for hell's gate doesn't mean they will have ridiculous military lazor weapons that aren't even mentioned on Earth.

Oh, just as a closing note, look at my numbers in the first paragraph or so carefully. I worked on the basis of the ISV weighing 5 tons. The actual Project Valkyrie specification that the Venture Star is based on gives a mass of roughly 100 tons. The numbers above are a gross underestimation and yet IMO, they are still impossibly large.

Again, nobody has ever stated where the actual energy for the ISV comes from.

[Carborundum]

Originally Posted by Human No More

You can not enclose an aeroplane in a faraday cage, because it requires external connections. The same goes for a vehicle to a more limited degree. There is a reason only buildings have them.

A Faraday cage does not need to be grounded, if that's what you mean. Cars and airplanes are both excellent Faraday cages.

However, neither would protect against a powerful EMP discharge, as the windows are far larger than the wavelength of the resulting radiation.

The windows could be shielded of course, but I'm unsure whether or not this is standard practice in aircraft (today, not to mention 150 years into the future).

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Carborundum

A Faraday cage does not need to be grounded, if that's what you mean. Cars and airplanes are both excellent Faraday cages.

However, neither would protect against a powerful EMP discharge, as the windows are far larger than the wavelength of the resulting radiation.

The windows could be shielded of course, but I'm unsure whether or not this is standard practice in aircraft (today, not to mention 150 years into the future).

Surely it would become standard procedure as soon as EMP weapons enter the fray?

[Carborundum]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Surely it would become standard procedure as soon as EMP weapons enter the fray?

For aircraft intended for military applications, most likely yes.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Human No More

For about the 15th time, the fact that is isn't realistic with current-day technology does not make it impossible. If there is enough power, it is possible.

Engines hundreds of times more powerful than VASIMIR have fuel ratios to get up to 0.5c around about 10^26 or so. That's not possible to construct.

By that logic, you should hate dr who, because it doesn't explain anything. You're just another hipster who can't admit that it was a good film simply because people liked it, it dis well, and it may potentially gain scifi the real credibility it had been lacking for decades.

(I admitted it was a good film right there in the previous post. )

As I have explained before, they can - you talk about 20m dollars, but we have no idea how much that is is any historical currency context.

Unobtanium has to be worth non-neglible fractions of Earth for that to be true.

...and that's bad. I originally said this about SW, but it applies to Dr Who too, in that I called it "scifi for people who would be insulted if you said they liked scifi".

Not all sci-fi has to be hard sci-fi.

Your 'theoretical standpoint' is 100% WRONG.
Again, go watch the actual film, and stop watching that crappy flash on Newgrounds.

It's a network cable, with or without any spiritual signifigance.

EXACTLY. You're digging yourself deeper into a hole here.

And it won't make a difference whether or not the things the Na'vi meet are human or humanoid robots. It's not as though they can tell the difference.

Moore's law has a physical limit. Silicon has a physical limit. There is a size, even if you use a non-silicon material, at which the voltage will leak across the transistor when it is closed. You can NOT work around that limit with transistor-based circuits.

Then use non-transistor cirucits. I know that's not technically Moore's Law, but it's still the same march of technology. If the RDA have access to computronium, there are far more useful things they could be doing than mining unobtanium.

You're developing new things expressly for a single use, and yet you're the one complaining about cost.

R&D is cheaper in this case. Or didn't you notice the astronomical energy involved?

You're abandoning all pretence of trying to handle this peacefully and without causing damage.

Robot = war machine since when?

You're adding huge complexity, and ignoring the fact that a single human without a base and support can NOT survive on Pandora.

I mentioned this already.

they have their own problems, not least being their lack of controllability, lack of accountability, lack of proper autonomy, requirement for control, and only having the ability to react to known and exactly programmed situations.

Are the mining robots remote-controlled or not? (Ideally, they wouldn't be, they'd be directed by AI.) Because that entire list can't be true at the same time.

A chemical laser, which needs an entire passenger airliner for support and fuel, and needs large amounts of hazmat fuel, producing even more with each firing.

Solid-state lasers? Or is that what you mean?

I do not understand why you are mentally incapable of understanding this, but they can not have or use advanced military hardware. They are not a military, it is not an invasion. the marines are using standard off the shelf equipment because all they are meant to be doing is providing basic security, not fighting a war.

Dual-rotor gunships armed with what appear to be either incinderiary or anti-tank missiles are "basic security?"

The ionisation still takes a LOT of energy, and a short time, higher energy discharge is MUCH harder to engineer a battery to provide.

And yet we have petawatt lasers in the lab.

They are entirely different.

"...for the relavent property of being affected by EMPs."

It says that EMP based weapons are common enough to be available to terrorists, eliminating the dependence on UAVs. It says that projectile weapons are used on Earth, but the type include gauss gun -type weapons as well as standard bullets. There is no mention of your precious lasers.

There are various problems here:
1) EMPs are easy to defend agianst if you know they're coming. Not only are Faraday cages cheap, the actual circuits can be shielded against the blast.
2) Non-nuclear EMP generators would require the very supercapacitors laser weaponry would also require. Building the latter would almost be a case of plug-and-play. [/slight exaggeation]
3) Handheld gauss weapons are impractical. Recoil much?

Yes, that IS the point. Aeroplanes have been around for ~100 years, and that does not mean that the most highly advanced ones are available to everyone, even if a moderately skilled person could build one that outperforms the earliest ones.

Who said anything about highly advanced? I was expecting them to be practically invented in 2050 or so and improved from there. Building a given device with 100 years manufactured start over the original designers is probably not difficult.

The same goes for lasers. They will not be available to everyone as some kind of ridiculous spess mehren weapon just because they have been around for a certain period of time.

But they're being around for a long time suggests that constructin them would be quite easy.

The rights to mine unobtainium are dependent on conditions, including not using excessive weapons - they can only use what they actually need for basic security.

There's... 10, 12 gunships hovering around when Hometree is destroyed, all but one of which is firing some high explosive rocket? That's "basic security?"

You can not enclose an aeroplane in a faraday cage, because it requires external connections.

Not in-flight it doesn't. A faraday cage isn't necessarily one static piece.

That's quite a change of position... to the exact opposite, in fact.

Earth has woefully inadequete energy for what they're trying to do; Pandora has functionally infinite energy for what they're trying to do. What's the problem?

Yet Hell's Gate already has sufficient weaponry.

A few thousand iron-age tech warriors managed to overrun it! That's not "sufficient."

To protect humans by making them more survivable when outside, as well as heavy moving/lifting as required.
You know, what they were designed for on Earth.

Yet there's enough of them to constitute a ground attack force. That shouldn't be necessary.

Avatars need humans to be there.
Oh, and yes. Humans are biological organisms, who they can communicate with and learn from.

I mean, why do the Na'vi ever contact humans and not Avatars? It's the Avatars' job to do that. (The most efficient way of interacting with the Na'vi is another topic entirely, though.)

Again, watch the actual film. Quaritch works for Selfridge, Selfridge is just a spineless idiot.

On paper, yes, I'd agree.

Also, he does mention others that are not on Pandora, but I understand that that wasn't in wikipedia's plot summary so you probably never heard of that.

"We don't see any of Selfridge's bosses..."

The problem is knowing nothing about its structure, you would essentially be guessing as to composition and physical structure.

Current research is basically doing that anyway, and we're getting somewhere. Albiet slowly.

I was pointing out that you believe that knowing something's characteristics will magically make it synthesisable - I asked that, in that case, why has not an ideal nuclear fuel, an ideal structural metal, or an ideal plastic been synthesised?

Knowing something's characteristics means that you cna build a model of its actual structure. Once you've got that, and it works, then it's snythesisable.

Well, the upper limit known is stars. Based on that, there is essentially no hard limit.

The limit of fusion is that size yes, but the limit of magnetic confinement is quite a lot lower. Probably 1-10 million times lower.

Originally Posted by Human No More

You're right, it's an engineering problem, which clearly either proved impractical, or a lower priority.

That must be for a reason other than expense, considering the energies involved.

Depending on the course, also decades to centuries

Maybe two decades, if you make a delibrately bad decision.

...then why bring it up?

Because you mentioned that all of Pandora's fauna/flora were physically possible, and I'd argue that Hometree is not unelss it's made out of some magic carbonfibre clone.

Again, a column of a given thickness and structural strength. Hometree is a LOT smaller than human structures, which use much smaller structural cross sections.

And Hometree is not built out of stainless steel. Also, Hometree is leaning sideways. Sheer force is not your friend.

[Clarke]

It is the Meissner effect, which is different to the normal repulsion between two simple dipole magnets, as I already said.

Yes, but they still drop off at 1/r^3, which means that no magnetic field in the universe could support the mountains.

Earth's varies by as much as 2-3x the strength over different areas.

That's not hard when the difference is so tiny.

I mean that you mistake consistency for possibility in the current day. I would bet Dr Who is consistent, despite not following real physics.

And you'd be wrong. Almsot the entirity of Series Fnarg was poking fun at the complete lack of consistency. At one point, the universe never exists, for instance, and it's the Doctor's job to make it... have existed.

Star Trek is consistent despite following something between realistic and implausible physics, but it always woks the same actual way.

However, the important thing is that the important bits of ST do not rely on actual science, and so it's impossible for the writers to get it wrong. (That particular episode of Voyager involving "cracks in the event horizon" is disliked for mostly that reason, AFAIK.)

Nothing in Avatar contradicts itself...

This is, on its face, true, but compare it to looking at a stage backdrop. From the audience, the set looks believable, but then the director starts offering backstage passes, (read: background material) and when we actually start poking at it, we find that the backdrop is just that: a paper-thin facade to tell a story in front of.

You've been continually complaining about how it is 'not consistent' without even understanding the definition.

I can do formal logic, thank you very much.

Things that are not plausible beforehand have happened throughout human history as understanding has improved, but hat does not make the reality inconsistent.

Which is why I'm continually saying that plausible and consist are not related. Avatar is perfectly plausible (which is perhaps a failure if you want cutting-edge sci-fi) but not actually consistent with the sign it has which reads, "Like reality unless noted."

Originally Posted by Human No More

Actually, it only says that fusion provides for a majority of Earth's power. It does not describe the source of the antimatter for the ISVs.
Trust me, you can't argue canon with me

Where else would it come from? Nuclear fusion is the second most energetic reaction in all of conventional particle physics.

A fusion reactor explicitly allows a higher capacity without the danger of producing a critical mass when not operating. The only known upper limit would be the largest known star - clearly, that is impractical on Earth, but it does not suffer the same limitation as fission.

You'll notice that the fusion reactor template in my plan above is 2-3 times as powerful as DEMO's projections. It needs to be 4-5 times more powerful again for the RDA to require less than 1,000 reactors.

There's no mention, but there's no denial of one. All there is is a mention of how poer is produced on Earth, which is said to produce more energy than people can use.

So, wat, we've solved biology? Particle physics? We've done all the data processing we could possibly need?

Remember that robots will weigh just as much.

O RLY?
...Seriously how on earth coudl you know that?

1. Wrong. you seem to believe unobtainium is the only profit source just because sefridge said that, but that doesn't make it true. there is a lot of genetic research, for example in using plants that absorb metals form the soil in cleaning up contaminated areas on Earth.

Why do you need any of that? You've cracked genetics. (I infer this based on the Avatars being a mix of human and Na'vi DNA, which doesn't make sense unless we've basically made organic chemistry our pet.)

2. If you actually watched the film, you'd know that that is entirely the point, because being seen not to be harming the Na'vi does help their image, even if many people do realise what's really going on. Using robots everywhere would totally destroy that perception and then some.

Again, what's with robot == war machine?

Lasers do not exist in a useful form (weapons on Earth are gauss-type). The RDA can not use those because they do not require advanced military hardware. This is not an invasion, and they are not supposed to be causing any damage.

...So you use a weapon that can also be used to stun?

They're being limited by governments and organisations like the UN here, in that a species of sentient beings deserve equal rights, even if unobtainium is useful. That means the RDA are not going to have advanced military hardware for some kind of invasion like you wanted to see (in which case, there is plenty of fiction for you, don't try and use false logic to rationalise Avatar into something you wanted with spess mehrens killing everything).

So Quaritch gets court-martialled, or...? Because that wasn't even hinted at in the film.

Again, there's no need to do so, because they aren't going for mass slaughter. What they have is enough for their actual needs that they are supposed to be using it for.

You don't want enough; you want the most effective solution.

Actually, it uses He-3 from Polyphemus.

Fusing water would probably be easier.

The presence of energy for hell's gate doesn't mean they will have ridiculous military lazor weapons that aren't even mentioned on Earth.

It makes using them more economical, though.

Again, nobody has ever stated where the actual energy for the ISV comes from.

Earth has too much power to actually use -> it comes from Earth seems a reasonable inference, IMO.

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by Human No More

You're just another hipster who can't admit that it was a good film simply because people liked it

HNM? Not everyone dislikes the movie because they are 'hipsters' (whatever the hell they are). Some people have very, very, VERY good reasons for disliking the movie.

Unless you want to call someone like, say, Debbie Reese, a Native American woman who is tribally enrolled, a hipster for her review and dislike of Avatar.

And again - people can ultimately like the movie, but have deep problems with it. This doesn't make them 'hipster' (again, whatever the hell THAT is). There is a wonderful essay on livejournal that describes this: what's love got to do with it: my thoughts on *fail (the author is Indian).

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Ashen Key

HNM? Not everyone dislikes the movie because they are 'hipsters' (whatever the hell they are). Some people have very, very, VERY good reasons for disliking the movie.

A definition of a hipster varies, but the idea is someone who dislikes anything popular without any other reason, or else only pretends to 'ironically' like it if they are not capable of completely feigning dislike. There are also various stereotypes around things they like do do, but they aren't relevant to making a comparison when someone dislikes something due to popularity. You'd probably know it as It's popular now it sucks.

Originally Posted by Time, via Wikipedia

"Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're the people who wear t-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you've never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care."

Originally Posted by Ashen Key

Unless you want to call someone like, say, Debbie Reese, a Native American woman who is tribally enrolled, a hipster for her review and dislike of Avatar.

If I was discussing that, I would call her out on all of that, and point out all her flaws in her reasoning. It does not matter who she is (especially since the film is not about her) and I would do the same to anyone's flawed reasoning.

Spoiler: If you insist... 

> "arrows in tires(sic)"
This is supposed to be an idea of the entire film? Wow. Ever consider the context?

>vague complaining about necklace
She's someone who has had more contact with them than any other human alive, and has a right to.

>vague complaining about the school
...and this matters HOW exactly?

>vague complaining about Selfridge
He's the negative character, who is proved completely wrong. Oh, I'm so sorry that he wasn't there so the film had no plot at all...

>vague complaint about Pandora
Ever look at who even SAID that line? I doubt it.

>vague complaining about queue/tail
Oh, yeah because lots of humans have tails. Also, no, you do not have a monopoly on a hairstyle that is not only ancient, but practical without losing the evolutionary signal of good health that is good condition hair.

>vague complaining about music
Pathetic.

>"they're (na'vi) watching us"
Ah, WTF? So now, anyone believing themselves to be watched is an insult to this person? I haven't been this pissed off at a person in weeks.

>vague complaining about horses
Horses are not native American. Seems she didn't do any historical research at all, not that I would expect any different, when someone makes up their mind they are going to hate something.

>complaint about vocalisation
Again, not exclusive to any people.

Quite simply, it doesn't matter who someone is, it doesn't give them an exemption from logical thinking. The fact she even tried to work in a reference to Inglorious Basterds practically makes this entire discussion of her post redundant. She's not a hipster, just another individual with too much self-importance and a persecution complex (in addition to no understanding of tropes, and some kind of belief that anything with a vague resemblance to something must be that very thing). A hipster is someone who dislikes it because it did well.


I by no means said that everyone who dislikes it is a hipster. Indeed, some people can even say "I didn't like it because I like space marines shooting things, not films where they get defeated" and while I may thoroughly dislike that person's taste, that's a reason not to like it.
They might say "I don't like scifi" and I'd think them a pretentious idiot, but clearly, that rules out them liking it, and that's their taste.
Not liking a film simply because it did well (not to be confused with finding it overrated) is not a comparable reason. Making a thread claiming that its premise is impossible but going on to only say that it isn't likely with current Earth is blatant trolling. Disliking a film for not explaining every single aspect in perfect detail while providing necessary explanation where needed, but loving a TV series that doesn't explain anything at all is being hugely logically inconsistent.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Engines hundreds of times more powerful than VASIMIR have fuel ratios to get up to 0.5c around about 10^26 or so. That's not possible to construct.

Again, you misunderstand 'possible' as 'economical'.

Unobtanium has to be worth non-neglible fractions of Earth for that to be true.

YEt again, only if energy generation follows the current day cost paradigm. there is no reason for it to, even with fusion.

Not all sci-fi has to be hard sci-fi.

Hence the distinction between soft scifi and space opera. If something could work with all references to space/science removed (e.g. SW), it is not scifi.

It's a network cable

Exactly - and hence, no, it is not used for reproductive reasons.

And it won't make a difference whether or not the things the Na'vi meet are human or humanoid robots. It's not as though they can tell the difference.

Right, now you're really pissing me off.
THE NA'VI ARE NOT STUPID. They understand far more than people like you would like to believe.
Humans are a sentient, biological species. At first they don't understand where humans are from, but that easily changes, and humans are VERY like the Na'vi. One of your fantasy robots would not be.

Then use non-transistor cirucits. I know that's not technically Moore's Law, but it's still the same march of technology. If the RDA have access to computronium, there are far more useful things they could be doing than mining unobtanium.

Great if you have them... considering the fact that all non-mechanical computers since the last thermionic valve designs have been transistors, and there is still no sign of a replacement.
Also... you're trying to justify why unobtainium should not be found... by inventing a different fictional material?

R&D is cheaper in this case. Or didn't you notice the astronomical energy involved?

You're still working on assumptions about availability.

Robot = war machine since when?

People tend to react badly to nonhumanoid beings of unknown origin, especially when noncommunicative and potentially hostile.

I mentioned this already.

I rebutted it already.

Are the mining robots remote-controlled or not? (Ideally, they wouldn't be, they'd be directed by AI.) Because that entire list can't be true at the same time.

It's your 'spess mehrens kill everything' fantasy, not mine. You tell me.
you're right, the list is general problems - ones that are true with either approach and significant enough to prevent their use.
Do you honestly believe the way seen is the most efficient possible way? It isn't. It's the best way they are allowed to do without causing massive damage to sentient beings, not to mention treaties about the militarisation of space.

Solid-state lasers? Or is that what you mean?

Technically it's a COIL, and the only one anywhere near usability in any form.

Dual-rotor gunships armed with what appear to be either incinderiary or anti-tank missiles are "basic security?"

Well, numbers certainly seem excessive, as do some of the missiles (the Dragon itself is vastly excessive, but that's beside the point), but the Scorpions themselves aren't actually advanced (in terms of spec, they're perhaps a generation beyond modern day). The rotor design is completely beside the point, and actually far more suited to Pandora than a single and tail one would be.

And yet we have petawatt lasers in the lab.

when did the lab performance of anything end up representational of real performance?

AGAIN: Some kind of energy weapon MAY exist on Earth, likely similar to Firefly in that they would be effective but unreliable, rare and expensive. None are mentioned anywhere in the background, and even IF they existed, advanced military hardware is not going to be required here.

again,

Originally Posted by Human No More

Do you honestly believe the way seen is the most efficient possible way? It isn't. It's the best way they are allowed to do without causing massive damage to sentient beings, not to mention treaties about the militarisation of space.

"...for the relavent property of being affected by EMPs."

Forgive me for not seeing how that property is 'relavent(sic)' - EMP weapons are only mentioned in fluff as a point on how some older hardware is back in mainstream use.

1) EMPs are easy to defend agianst if you know they're coming. Not only are Faraday cages cheap, the actual circuits can be shielded against the blast.
2) Non-nuclear EMP generators would require the very supercapacitors laser weaponry would also require. Building the latter would almost be a case of plug-and-play. [/slight exaggeation]
3) Handheld gauss weapons are impractical. Recoil much?

1. A faraday cage is not practical for such, especially if you want windows (unless you expect the weapon to very courteously use extremely long wavelengths).
2. Yet again: Lasers are not impossible per se, only never mentioned, presumed impractical, and, at any rate, advanced military hardware.
3. WRONG. One of the points of one is that recoil is comparable to or slightly smaller than a firearm of comparable size. You're thinking of a railgun.

Who said anything about highly advanced? I was expecting them to be practically invented in 2050 or so and improved from there. Building a given device with 100 years manufactured start over the original designers is probably not difficult.

Yes, but not to specs of the pinnacle of its development, hence my point. One in 2050 could well be a white elephant, or a gimmick.

But they're being around for a long time suggests that constructin them would be quite easy.

Yes, but would those automatically be better than the firearm that resulted from nearly 900 years of development? Likely not.

There's... 10, 12 gunships hovering around when Hometree is destroyed, all but one of which is firing some high explosive rocket? That's "basic security?"

Ammunition is from onsite, as is the actual capacity to build the helicopters (only requiring specific parts. Certainly, it's excessive - that's Selfridge and Quaritch's fault while trying to be aggressive with what they are capable of using, and not an indictment of the equipment that were allowed to use.

Not in-flight it doesn't. A faraday cage isn't necessarily one static piece.

Considering the intended purpose of the weapon, actually, it would need to be, or otherwise, it's redundant (the intention isn't to destroy, but to knock out systems).

Earth has woefully inadequete energy for what they're trying to do; Pandora has functionally infinite energy for what they're trying to do. What's the problem?

A few thousand iron-age tech warriors managed to overrun it! That's not "sufficient."

Because they were not supposed to be antagonising the Na'vi, just providing internal security and stopping the odd animal from charging in, or some stingbats deciding to nest on the buildings.
You'd know this, if you'd watched the film at all.

Yet there's enough of them to constitute a ground attack force. That shouldn't be necessary.

There are twelve of them!! (13 with Quaritch's)
That really is not that many.

I mean, why do the Na'vi ever contact humans and not Avatars? It's the Avatars' job to do that. (The most efficient way of interacting with the Na'vi is another topic entirely, though.)

Human contact predates the avatar program.

On paper, yes, I'd agree.

...then why the previous post about Quaritch?
Selfridge's being a spineless idiot doesn't change the actual position.

"We don't see any of Selfridge's bosses..."

We still hear their attitude.

Current research is basically doing that anyway, and we're getting somewhere. Albiet slowly.

As slowly as random chance, by any chance?

Knowing something's characteristics means that you cna build a model of its actual structure. Once you've got that, and it works, then it's snythesisable.

Assuming a structure can be found.

The limit of fusion is that size yes, but the limit of magnetic confinement is quite a lot lower. Probably 1-10 million times lower.

...and with superconducting magnets?

That must be for a reason other than expense, considering the energies involved.

Perhaps all the attendant problems of living on Mars anyway, especially when it would still take a long time to become self-sufficient.

Because you mentioned that all of Pandora's fauna/flora were physically possible, and I'd argue that Hometree is not unelss it's made out of some magic carbonfibre clone.

Again, you're sounding like you've never watched the film.

And Hometree is not built out of stainless steel. Also, Hometree is leaning sideways. Sheer force is not your friend.

Humans could still build such a structure, and do much better in terms of structural cross-section and size for that. That is the point.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Yes, but they still drop off at 1/r^3, which means that no magnetic field in the universe could support the mountains.

Only if you're going by the repulsion of two dipoles.
The presence of a field (hundreds of km for Earth) is enough otherwise.

That's not hard when the difference is so tiny.

It still makes the mountains supportable in some areas over others.

However, the important thing is that the important bits of ST do not rely on actual science, and so it's impossible for the writers to get it wrong. (That particular episode of Voyager involving "cracks in the event horizon" is disliked for mostly that reason, AFAIK.)

Well, some episodes... it's best to forget (and yes, a disproportionate number are VOY/DS9)
Even if the physics doesn't work, it's consistent in that.
Indeed, it doesn't show its age as much as its contemporaries (remember the TNG episode where Fermat's Last Theorem was still unsolved?).

This is, on its face, true, but compare it to looking at a stage backdrop. From the audience, the set looks believable, but then the director starts offering backstage passes, (read: background material) and when we actually start poking at it, we find that the backdrop is just that: a paper-thin facade to tell a story in front of.

It's thin in terms of unexpected development from the present day, but that goes for any fiction set in the future. History HAS, and always will be, unexpected.

I can do formal logic, thank you very much.

This thread seems otherwise.

Which is why I'm continually saying that plausible and consist are not related. Avatar is perfectly plausible (which is perhaps a failure if you want cutting-edge sci-fi) but not actually consistent with the sign it has which reads, "Like reality unless noted."

Unless noted. All that is noted is that Earth has more energy available (and, if you really want to be picky, that energy weapons are not mentioned in background even on Earth, in favour of coilgun-type weapons).

Where else would it come from? Nuclear fusion is the second most energetic reaction in all of conventional particle physics.

I would personally suspect it likely does, especially with 143 years of refinement in fusion. However, we don't need to assume so or not so. All that is given to make it "Like reality unless noted." as you just said is that fusion allows for abundant energy on Earth itself. We can draw whichever conclusion we like from that.

You'll notice that the fusion reactor template in my plan above is 2-3 times as powerful as DEMO's projections. It needs to be 4-5 times more powerful again for the RDA to require less than 1,000 reactors.

"The world's first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall in Sellafield, England was opened in 1956 with an initial capacity of 50 MW (later 200 MW)."
Compare to an average modern single reactor of ~1.3GW. Remember the above was the first commercial one, not the first success.

So, wat, we've solved biology? Particle physics? We've done all the data processing we could possibly need?

Since everything can't be done at once, clearly not everything has been done, but not being able to use additional capacity is a different issue. The world has that very problem at night in the present day, hence the existence of storage schemes and cheaper energy rates for night use.

Why do you need any of that? You've cracked genetics. (I infer this based on the Avatars being a mix of human and Na'vi DNA, which doesn't make sense unless we've basically made organic chemistry our pet.)

That makes it possible, not instantly happening (especially since any large-scale contracting is as much political as anything else, not to mention introducing alien flora to Earth - I'm sure even you can see how there may be some opposition or things to consider there, despite the potential).

Again, what's with robot == war machine?

Again, people tend to react badly to nonhumanoid beings of unknown origin, especially when noncommunicative and potentially hostile.

...So you use a weapon that can also be used to stun?

You're not supposed to be using it on the sentient beings at all.
Anyway, as in the post you directly quoted, lasers are not shown anywhere.

So Quaritch gets court-martialled, or...? Because that wasn't even hinted at in the film.

Potentially, yes.

You don't want enough; you want the most effective solution.

If this is one of your 'spess mehrens invade and kill everyone' fantasies then yes. This isn't.
Overkill is not a good option.

It makes using them more economical, though.

If they existed (uncertain, but not mentioned), and could be used there (far clearer).

Earth has too much power to actually use -> it comes from Earth seems a reasonable inference, IMO.

I mean which solar system-based source. Stop being pedantic.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Human No More

> "arrows in tires(sic)"
This is supposed to be an idea of the entire film? Wow. Ever consider the context?

Yes, she did. She specifically brings up the context: the cliche image it invokes.

>vague complaining about the school
...and this matters HOW exactly?

Stereotype invocation again. Go read "White Man's Burden." Or just look up the concept up.

>vague complaining about Selfridge
He's the negative character, who is proved completely wrong. Oh, I'm so sorry that he wasn't there so the film had no plot at all...

Selfridge is so thin as to be an archetype, and one that has been trodden almost to death in other works.

>vague complaint about Pandora
Ever look at who even SAID that line? I doubt it.

It's not an exact quote, but she does have the point that "dangerous frontier" is customarily how the West is portrayed in Westerns.

Oh, yeah because lots of humans have tails. Also, no, you do not have a monopoly on a hairstyle that is not only ancient, but practical without losing the evolutionary signal of good health that is good condition hair.

The actual details aren't relavent; the point is that JC is condensing stereotypes out of basically all the "mystic" images he can lay his hands on.

>vague complaining about music
Pathetic.

What, complaining that the music fits Earth stereotypes almost perfectly is pathetic? I think it's quite valid.

>"they're (na'vi) watching us"
Ah, WTF? So now, anyone believing themselves to be watched is an insult to this person? I haven't been this pissed off at a person in weeks.

You've missed the point entirely. Gratitiuous use of cliches is the point.

Horses are not native American. Seems she didn't do any historical research at all, not that I would expect any different, when someone makes up their mind they are going to hate something.

...Considering it's a note she sent to herself as she was watching the film, it's not as though there was time for historical research.

>complaint about vocalisation
Again, not exclusive to any people.

Contributes to the stereotypes, though.

Quite simply, it doesn't matter who someone is, it doesn't give them an exemption from logical thinking.

I get the impression that something has gone wrong, coherency wise, when TvTropes has a category of Headscratcher pages for this particular work.

The fact she even tried to work in a reference to Inglorious Basterds practically makes this entire discussion of her post redundant.

IB has a similar theme to what she's complaining about, therefore she's forcing it?

I by no means said that everyone who dislikes it is a hipster. Indeed, some people can even say "I didn't like it because I like space marines shooting things, not films where they get defeated" and while I may thoroughly dislike that person's taste, that's a reason not to like it.

Would you like a light? Because that's a pretty impressive stawman you built up.

Disliking a film for not explaining every single aspect in perfect detail while providing necessary explanation where needed, but loving a TV series that doesn't explain anything at all is being hugely logically inconsistent.

So tone doesn't make a difference?

(Inicndentally, this is in a seperate post because it's not actually related to the mechanics of the Avatar 'verse. Regularly scheduled arguments will resume shortly)

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Again, you misunderstand 'possible' as 'economical'.

It is not posisble to do with any conceivable engineering. It is not economical to do, ever.

YEt again, only if energy generation follows the current day cost paradigm. there is no reason for it to, even with fusion.

I don't understand. The energy required appears to be a large fraction of wha's generated on Earth, therefore Unobtanium has to be similarly valuable.

Hence the distinction between soft scifi and space opera.

But soft sci-fi is a category all on its own. The category you set your work up in changes the audience's expectations.

Exactly - and hence, no, it is not used for reproductive reasons.

It could be, though, which is what the original point was.

THE NA'VI ARE NOT STUPID.

Being unable to see through a charade by a species that they not only have never encountered before, but have nothing to compare to doesn't exactly make them stupid. Without our explanation, (which may not be believed) the Na'vi should have no idea who or what we are, or what we are capable of.

Humans are a sentient, biological species.

They're still alien and immensely different from the Na'vi. Also, they may not recognise the concept of non-biological machinery without our explanation.

Great if you have them... considering the fact that all non-mechanical computers since the last thermionic valve designs have been transistors, and there is still no sign of a replacement.
Also... you're trying to justify why unobtainium should not be found... by inventing a different fictional material?

Well, yes, and the electronic computer itself is half as long as the timespan you're trying to predict. Having no advances would be unbelievable. (Computronium was offered as an alternative in case you objected by saying the RDA reached the epitome of computational power.)

You're still working on assumptions about availability.

So the power of 50 Earths will be as cheap as chips then?

People tend to react badly to nonhumanoid beings of unknown origin, especially when noncommunicative and potentially hostile.

So in those respects, the difference between a robot and human is...? Also, surely it would have been incredibly risky, in case the first human they talk to is a scared Marine.

It's your 'spess mehrens kill everything' fantasy

...I did, if you read the post.

It's the best way they are allowed to do without causing massive damage to sentient beings, not to mention treaties about the militarisation of space.

As I said, robots != war machines. And how is something like accountbility a problem if the robot is remote-controlled? It's the responsiblity of whoever's controlling the robot.

Technically it's a COIL, and the only one anywhere near usability in any form.

We've had the laser for two decades less than we've had the computer. If we're going to assume that energy productivity goes up by umpteen orders of magnitude, we can equally assume similar growth in other technologies.

...but the Scorpions themselves aren't actually advanced (in terms of spec, they're perhaps a generation beyond modern day).

So you're saying that excessive force is forbidden by the contracts and thus not allowed... despite the fact that the RDA use excessive force? It also doesn't matter how advaned, relatiely, the Scorpians are compared to "modern" tech; they're clearly war machines, far more so than any mining robot would be.

when did the lab performance of anything end up representational of real performance?

When there's ~140 years of technoological development?

AGAIN: Some kind of energy weapon MAY exist on Earth...

Despite how unlikely this is, fine.

EMP weapons are only mentioned in fluff as a point on how some older hardware is back in mainstream use.

Because the original point was about how EMP weapons are ineffective in actual combat?

1. A faraday cage is not practical for such

Did you notice the discussion a few posts ago? Mesh across the windows would work perfectly.

2. Yet again: Lasers are not impossible per se

More so than the Scorpions?

One of the points of one is that recoil is comparable to or slightly smaller than a firearm of comparable size.

So what's the point of them?

One in 2050 could well be a white elephant, or a gimmick.

And be fairly scary in the context of Iron age and no-technology.

Yes, but would those automatically be better than the firearm that resulted from nearly 900 years of development? Likely not.

There's a limit to what you can achieve with a chemical firearm.

(Certainly, it's excessive - that's Selfridge and Quaritch's fault while trying to be aggressive with what they are capable of using, and not an indictment of the equipment that were allowed to use.

The Scorpian is newer than a laser weapon would be. (Since we're working on them now) This is problematic if you're trying to argue that advanced technology is forbidden.

Considering the intended purpose of the weapon, actually, it would need to be, or otherwise, it's redundant (the intention isn't to destroy, but to knock out systems).

I mean that the cage can be made out of interlocking pieces that electrically connect.

...just providing internal security and stopping the odd animal from charging in, or some stingbats deciding to nest on the buildings.
You'd know this, if you'd watched the film at all.

I remember that there is very little explanation is given about why the armed forces are there, apart from to mine unobanium. Would you mind providing some quotes?

That really is not that many.

It certainly looks like more from what I remember of the film.

Human contact predates the avatar program.

Then interact with them as humans as little as possible.

...then why the previous post about Quaritch?

Because, in practice, Quaritch is actually superior to Selfridge?

We still hear their attitude.

Thhe only attitude I remember was that slaughtering the natives for being inconvinient would be bad PR.

As slowly as random chance, by any chance?

I don't know; how long would that be?

Assuming a structure can be found.

That's not hard, since we know it exists.

...and with superconducting magnets?

That's with superconducting magnets.

Humans could still build such a structure, and do much better in terms of structural cross-section and size for that. That is the point.

So because humans can do it, with computer modelling, chemical and material engineering, and forward planning skill, it's plausible for random evolution to do it?

Originally Posted by Human No More

Only if you're going by the repulsion of two dipoles.

The Meisner effect relies on magnetic pressure, which depends on B-field strength, whhich drops off with r^-3.

Indeed, it doesn't show its age as much as its contemporaries

FLT was a writing goof that the writers couldn't have hoped to avoided, whereas the handwave of "this is real science, honest" is relatively easy to get right.

It's thin in terms of unexpected development from the present day, but that goes for any fiction set in the future. History HAS, and always will be, unexpected.

It'd be completely unreasonable to expect the writers to get it right, but it's entirley reasonable IMO for them not to do 201X IN SPACE.

This thread seems otherwise.

The ad homenims aren't helping, certainly.

All that is noted is that Earth has more energy available

Even that one note should have a whole lot of knock-on effects that would almost completely revolutionize society.

All that is given to make it "Like reality unless noted." as you just said is that fusion allows for abundant energy on Earth itself.

Ther are no power sources external from Earth in reality. Ergo, it comes from Earth?

Compare to an average modern single reactor of ~1.3GW.

I did the same calculation above and got 800MW.

Since everything can't be done at once...

...Can't it? You can order CPUs by the thousand if you really need something done.

That makes it possible, not instantly happening (especially since any large-scale contracting is as much political as anything else, not to mention introducing alien flora to Earth - I'm sure even you can see how there may be some opposition or things to consider there, despite the potential).

No, I mean you don't need to touch Pandoran biology except for ideas/algorithms. You can build anything you like, presumably, you only need to know what you want to build. (this should be quite easy.)

Again, people tend to react badly to nonhumanoid beings of unknown origin, especially when noncommunicative and potentially hostile.

I think the difference between humanoid robots and actual humans would be comparatively smaller than the "Arrgh, aliens!" reaction.

You're not supposed to be using it on the sentient beings at all.

You have weapons in case you need to use them, and so when you need to use them, you want to be able to get the effect you need.

Potentially, yes.

So the complete lack of mention of this is because...?

Overkill is not a good option.

I'll let the soldiers know you skimped out on their safety, then.

I mean which solar system-based source. Stop being pedantic.

...Earth's power? I don't know what you mean.