Avatar: The Way of Water

[Valdemar]

Quaritch is clearly inside a room with an Earth atmosphere.

I see you Blazil,
If you look carefully at this shot, you will notice a couple of things that indicate that Quaritch is not in the same room as the humans breathing the air that humans breath:

Firstly, the isolation room that Quartich is in has a curved window for structural integrity reasons. One of the illusionary consequences of this is that the human people you see to the left of the picture are a reflection off the curved window, and are not in the same room as Quartich, as it appears in this 2D picture. To confirm this; in the bottom right hand corner of the picture you will see the human head of a person on the human atmospheric side of the glass partition.

Secondly you will notice that Quaritch is wearing a gas mask. Logic indicates that he would not be wearing this if he was able to breath the atmosphere of Pandora and that of Earth. In this case the mask would be for when he's in Earth's atmosphere.

That's my thoughts for now,
Eywa ngahu

 

[Blazil]

Valdemar, I don't get the feeling we are looking at the same picture?

This administrative guy with the shirt and tie is clearly in the same room as Quaritch and is not a reflection. Also, having a window inside a room doesn't automatically mean the other side has to have a different atmosphere. Also, what makes you think the mask needs to be continuously used for Na'vi/Avatars in an Earth atmosphere?

 

[Blazil]

Thoughts?

1. It was indeed established in supplemental materials that there is Faster Than Light (FTL) communication that is pretty much instantaneous
2. It was also established in supplemental materials that the ISV Venture Star travels at a 0.7x the speed of light, but that there is also an acceleration and deceleration period. Looking at the numbers the travel time from Earth to Pandora should take at least 6 years if not closer to 7 years.
3. I previously called into question the 10 years gap as being logically too short, primarily basing this on the age of Jake and Neytiri's children, see this thread: https://tree-of-souls.net/threads/t...ginal-movie-navi-maturation.6120/#post-190889
4. Getting stuff ready on Earth and travelling to Pandora is one thing, but how exactly does one establish a base like that on Pandora from nothing? It takes time to set up buildings like the ones shown in the trailer (whether they are pre-fab or not). That is something I'd like to see explained

 

[Wind12]

I think it is closer to 13 years after, Neteyam looks older than 10, also the High Ground comic( original sequel idea) is set 10 years after A1 and seems to be the story of the RDA returning, but JC (commenting somewhere else) said he didn't want to make another war movie so the sequels were pushed a few years later.

 

[Valdemar]

Valdemar, I don't get the feeling we are looking at the same picture?

This administrative guy with the shirt and tie is clearly in the same room as Quaritch and is not a reflection. Also, having a window inside a room doesn't automatically mean the other side has to have a different atmosphere. Also, what makes you think the mask needs to be continuously used for Na'vi/Avatars in an Earth atmosphere?

I see you Blazil,
Yes this is the same picture that we are referring to. Like mirages and morganas this is a good illusion that makes one think that the humans are in the same room as Quaritch; yet they are not. All known logic to date about the ability of Avatars to breath Earth's atmosphere points to the fact that they don't; which supports the theory that Quaritch and the humans in the picture are not in the same room together, breathing the same air.

I believe that if the Avatars/Na'vi are inside an Earth's atmosphere, then they will need to have a breathing apparatus with Pandorian air, and vice versa for humans. Hence if avatars are able to breath both Earth's and Pandoras atmosphere, then there would be no need to have a breathing apparatus at all.

However there is another explanation why Quaritch has a breathing apparatus around his neck. The breathing apparatus is a carry over from the initial avatar, medical resuscitation procedure.

If you cannot agree with fact that the humans and avatar in the picture under discussion are in different rooms, then just wait until December to find out the answer.

 

[Blazil]

All known logic to date about the ability of Avatars to breath Earth's atmosphere points to the fact that they don't; which supports the theory that Quaritch and the humans in the picture are not in the same room together, breathing the same air.

It was never shown anywhere that Avatars or Na'vi cannot breathe Earth's atmosphere. I don't know to which logic or evidence you refer to?
I find it baseless to conclude based on that alone that the picture must be some kind of illusion involving reflections where Quaritch's Avatar and the humans cannot be in the same room.

I believe that if the Avatars/Na'vi are inside an Earth's atmosphere, then they will need to have a breathing apparatus with Pandorian air, and vice versa for humans. Hence if avatars are able to breath both Earth's and Pandoras atmosphere, then there would be no need to have a breathing apparatus at all.

The big assumption there is that atmospheres are as simple as black and white: you say either they can breathe it, or the they can't. I say chemical compositions can have a wide range of effects. I have seen 2 pictures now (one with Quaritch, one with Kiri) that shows an Avatar or Na'vi inside a human structure with breathing apparatus that is not in use, with humans in the same room without breathing apparatus. That is some reasonable evidence that points to that an Avatar or Na'vi *could* need it but doesn't need it at the moment. In other words there are likely some delayed effects involved, like getting light-headed, etc, requiring them to breathe through the mask at intervals, like once every minute or once every 5 minutes.

Pandora's atmosphere is basically Earth's plus a large amount of carbon dioxide, xenon, methane and hydrogen sulfide. To humans, some of those are immediately poisonous. However, lack of a certain gas isn't immediately poisonous. It can cause suffocation, assuming one of those gasses is used in Avatar or Na'vi metabolism. However, it was also confirmed in supplemental materials that Avatars and Na'vi utilize an iron oxygen-transporting compound similar to hemoglobin, meaning they breathe primarily oxygen. Any other gas would be secondary.

If you cannot agree with fact that the humans and avatar in the picture under discussion are in different rooms, then just wait until December to find out the answer.

We'll just have to see which one of us is right then
Don't get me wrong; I like a good discussion. But if we go and theorize, it should be based on some tangible evidence from an Avatar source.

 

[Valdemar]

It was never shown anywhere that Avatars or Na'vi cannot breathe Earth's atmosphere. I don't know to which logic or evidence you refer to?
I find it baseless to conclude based on that alone that the picture must be some kind of illusion involving reflections where Quaritch's Avatar and the humans cannot be in the same room.

I see you Blazil,
In Avatar, when Jake's Avatar first comes alive, we see a scene where the humans are wearing exopacks that allows them to breathing Earth's atmosphere, and Jake is breathing Pandora's atmosphere, not Earth's atmosphere.

Back to the picture in question again; on the right, bottom side of the picture we clearly see the head of a human on the outside of a glass like screen, and in the middle of the screen we see Quaritch's Avatar located behind the glass like screen.

This raises the obvious question: Why go to the trouble of having a screen like this in the middle of a medical facility where Avatars are brought to life? I believe the answer is that the glass like screen is there to divide the room into one area with Earth's atmosphere for humans, and one room with Pandora's atmosphere for Avatars. Based on what we already know so far, any assumption to the contrary is highly improbable.

That's my thoughts for now,
Eywa ngahu

 

[Blazil]

In Avatar, when Jake's Avatar first comes alive, we see a scene where the humans are wearing exopacks that allows them to breathing Earth's atmosphere, and Jake is breathing Pandora's atmosphere, not Earth's atmosphere.

It makes perfect sense to have the Avatars breathe native Pandoran atmosphere since they were just 'born' and like a newborn baby, will have to adjust to that. Also, it makes sense to minimize risks on multi-million dollar assets when they are still being adjusted and tested. That scene provides no evidence to say that an Avatar or Na'vi could not breathe an Earth atmosphere for at least a limited time.

This raises the obvious question: Why go to the trouble of having a screen like this in the middle of a medical facility where Avatars are brought to life?

On what evidence are you concluding this is a medical facility in the picture? It looks more like a control center with a viewing area to me. I don't think having a window inside a building automatically means there must be a different atmosphere on the other side. It kind of looks like a small version of NASA's mission control center in Houston to me. The area where the human soldier is who's head is shown could be the link center. A hologram of a brain is shown in the other room after all. Maybe Quaritch is overseeing his men first linking up to their Avatars in this scene?

Based on what we already know so far, any assumption to the contrary is highly improbable.

In general we are dealing with fiction here. Nevertheless, the first movie best defines the rules of the universe Avatar is set in. For the most part, that universe's rules and logic are the same as in our real one. So that is where my argumentation is coming from. Rules of real life apply unless otherwise stated by Avatar canon. Otherwise we will simply descend into wild mass guessing.

 

[Wind12]

I don't think the humans on Quaritch's side are reflections, 1. They are too solid, 2. One of them seems to be looking at the same thing Quaritch is in the same direction, 3. The holographic brain is behind Quaritch's arm and has a human focused on it, and 4. Quaritch does have that small mask which suggests he is not in pure Pandoran air.

 

[berryrabbit]

According to Empire, it has been confirmed that Tonowari is Ronal's mate and the father of all three of her children. It is not known if Aonung or Tsireya is the oldest or if they are twins.

 

[berryrabbit]

Here is a new Jake/Neytiri music video to Michael Bolton's "Steel Bars." In a way, Jake and Neytiri were each other's prisoner since the day they found each other.

 

[Valdemar]

It was indeed established in supplemental materials that there is Faster Than Light (FTL) communication that is pretty much instantaneous

I see you Blazil,
This is described in the Book "AVATAR - An Activist Survival Guide", however I suspect that the idea of superluminal communication will be dropped as it is too unbelievable as it is not supported by any known science. Instead I believe that because the time frame between the two Avatar movies has been extended out to at least 12-13 years, the idea for faster than light communication will be lost; as everything that we can see in Avatar 2 can happen in real time communication, at the speed of light.

Getting stuff ready on Earth and travelling to Pandora is one thing, but how exactly does one establish a base like that on Pandora from nothing? It takes time to set up buildings like the ones shown in the trailer (whether they are pre-fab or not). That is something I'd like to see explained

The Venture Star is the name of the space ship that we see in Avatar 1. It is one of 10 such vessels built by RDA (refer p.149 of AVATAR - An Activist Survival Guide). It takes the Venture Star 5 years , 9 months and 22 days, say 6 Earth years per one way trip; after allowing for the off loading of cargo and loading on Unobtanium, and refuelling for the trip home. Assuming that all star ships are devoted to this venture, this means that a supply ship like the Venture Star is arriving at Pandora every 6/(10/2) = 1.2 years.

After the debacle of events depicted in Avatar 1, I suspect that a new base of operations (Bridgehead?) was quickly planned for. Consequently within the 13 years between Avatar 1 and Avatar 2, at least 11 star ships will arrive at Pandora (NB: Grace/Kiri is reported to be a teenager); which represents plenty of time for new equipment and manpower to arrive and establish a another mining base on Pandora.

As we can see in the trailer for Avatar 2, it appears that the new RDA mining venture has something to do with the oceans of Pandora. I suspect that it will involve dredging for unobtanium.

Due to the remoteness and access difficulty of this new venture, RDA will probably think that this will be a safer venture than a land base operation. I suspect that the story arc of Avatar 2 will show how wrong this sense of security is to RDA. Based on past performance on land mining operations, I also suspect that RDA will start to dredge the sea floor of the oceans without any environmental impact considerations at all. This will initiate/trigger a new conflict...

That's my thoughts for now,
Eywa ngahu

 

[Valdemar]

I see you Tree of Soul Peoples,
I would like to take this opportunity to speculate about some of the things that might be seen in up and coming Avatar movie sequels. Blazil has already speculated that Avatars will have the ability to breath both Pandoran and Earth type atmospheres. Speculation of this nature is always been a fun thing to for a Nerd like me. Hence my speculations for the following sequels are as follows:

Speculation 1:
It is possible that if a peaceful outcome is reached between the Na'vi and Earth peoples by the end of Avatar 5 that Eywa, being the master geneticist that She is, will genetically manipulate a new recombinant gene pool from Humans and Na'vi to go out and search for the origins Eywa within the galaxy. This will allow the series to continue on in a serial story arc for television...

Speculation 2:
Hidden within their genetic make up, the Na'vi have the ability to change colour so as to camouflage themselves like cephalopods, e.g. octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. This will give them an obvious tactical advantage in any conflict.

Speculation 3:
The Na'vi's head queue's will enable them to jack into any piece of mechanical hardware that has a computer, and control said computer by pure thought alone, e.g. a starship.

Speculation 4:
In order to survive indefinitely, Eywa needs to grow a new host entity every now and then. Once this has been accomplished, she will transfer her conscious self from her old entity into her new entity, with all her memories in tact. This is probably done with the assistance of the "Seed Bearer" in a future episode...

Speculation 5:
Due to similar appearances, Humans and Na'vi have a similar origin. I have plans to discuss more about this in another post about the politics of Avatar.

That's my thoughts for now,
Eywa ngahu

 

[Blazil]

Blazil has already speculated that Avatars will have the ability to breath both Pandoran and Earth type atmospheres.

I was commenting on 2 pictures shared in this thread that have elements that point to the above being a reasonable possibility. Although it is not solid evidence, to say that all of that is speculation... I simply do not agree with that.

Your 5 speculation points, now that is some real speculation with hardly any base. As interesting as that might be, I do think that it would be better to make a separate thread for that, and keep using this one for discussions related to actual canon materials that are popping up.

 

[Valdemar]

Your 5 speculation points, now that is some real speculation with hardly any base. As interesting as that might be, I do think that it would be better to make a separate thread for that, and keep using this one for discussions related to actual canon materials that are popping up.

I see you Blazil
Anything goes in science fiction. Whether you look at the here and now, or you look at the broader picture to see how the story is likely to unfold into the future; it is all relevant. Along the way you may get some things right, you will definitely get some things wrong; never the less you pleasantly dream on. That is the fun of it. Never let go of this concept...
That's my thoughts for now,
Eywa ngahu

 

[Valdemar]

You may recall that every time the Na'vi went to sleep in their hammocks they "jacked in" via their neural network to the home tree. By extension, this allowed Eywa to download their dreams and daily experiences and store them in perpetuity. Consequently Kiri could be any new born Na'vi, after the death of Grace. As Kiri grew up , Grace's characteristic traits were slowly transmitted back to her from Eywa via the same neural connection. However I understand that Kiri's face markings match those of Grace's avatar, which potentially means that Kiri has some genetic material in her from Grace. This would mean that Eywa has probably obtained this material from Grace post mortem and used this to somehow create a clone of Grace in utero. If this was true, this would make Eywa a master genetic manipulator with the ability to tailer make a living organism for any environment, which is highly evident on Pandora.

I see you Tree of Souls people,
It is possible that Kiri is a clone of Grace's Avatar, born in the Avatar rebirthing centre back at Hell's Gate. Her live self was then re-established by Eywa, as was Jake...?

That's my thoughts for now,
Eywa ngahu

 

[Wind12]

Teens always go through that phase... 😋

 

[Blazil]

I saw that picture already a couple of days ago indeed. Quite obviously, Neteyam appears to be experiencing some disappointment or setback.
Interestingly, he has 4 fingers as opposed to Lo'ak's 5 fingers. That throws my old theory on 4/5 finger patrilineal / matrilineal inheritance right out the window.
Also, it looks like he is already an ikran makto, judging by his eye protection gear.

I am getting vibes that in this story Neteyam will have to deal with living in the shadow of his younger brother who appears to be destined for greater things (Tulkun, and so on)

 

[Wind12]

I saw that picture already a couple of days ago indeed. Quite obviously, Neteyam appears to be experiencing some disappointment or setback.
Interestingly, he has 4 fingers as opposed to Lo'ak's 5 fingers. That throws my old theory on 4/5 finger patrilineal / matrilineal inheritance right out the window.
Also, it looks like he is already an ikran makto, judging by his eye protection gear.

I am getting vibes that in this story Neteyam will have to deal with living in the shadow of his younger brother who appears to be destined for greater things (Tulkun, and so on)

Sounds like possibly a bit of an Entu and Ralu dynamic (Toruk: The First Flight) going on which in a way would be like a neat Easter egg for those who have seen the Cirque performance.

 

[Valdemar]

I see you Tree of Souls People,
It has been suggested that the Na'vi can somehow breath Earth's atmosphere and survive. At first this appears to be unlikely due to normal naturally selected and inherited physiological constraints. In the natural world, all living organisms have adapted to survive the atmospheric conditions that exist on the planet, be it Earth or Pandora. In the natural world there are however always exceptions to the rule in the evolutionary stakes that allows species to survive in different environments.

Both Earth and Pandora have a Nitrogen and Oxygen predominant atmosphere, which is necessary for all aerobic dependant biology like the Na'vi. However on Pandora the concentration of Carbon Dioxide is around 18 %, where as on Earth it is <<1%. Humans will die once the Carbon Dioxide concentration exceeds 10%, and have increasing impaired function as the concentration increases from <<1% to 10%. In addition to this, the air pressure on Pandora is 10% less than that on Earth

For humans, moving from one type of atmospheric condition to another type atmospheric condition on Earth can have serious life threatening consequences if done too quickly or if there are underlying cardiovascular problems. For example, people suffer from altitude sickness, or reverse altitude sickness if they change altitude too quickly. Alternatively they can suffer from the bends if they rise to the surface too quickly when scuba diving at depth. Being of similar physiological appearance to humans, all these conditions would most likely apply to the Na'vi as well.

The Na'vi however appear to have evolved so that they can accommodate the high carbon dioxide atmospheric conditions of Pandora. They however appear to be in a constant state of Hypoxia, where there is little oxygen being carried in the blood stream. A typical symptom of Hypoxia in humans is blue coloured skin. Perhaps the Na'vi have evolved from a low oxygen, anoxic environment. However there is another explanation as why the Navi may have blue skin/blood.

There is one creature on Earth that has blue blood and that is the Octopus. The blue coloured copper based chemistry of the Octopi's blood allows it to carry more oxygen through the cardiovascular system than the normal iron based chemistry of red blood. As a consequence of this, the blue blood allows the Octopi to live in extremes of temperature, oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations.

I have already hypothesized that the Na'vi have an unrealized ability to change their skin colour like an Octopus for camouflage purposes. When you look closely at their skin they have a spotted coloured skin like an octopus. Like an octopus, these could be neurons, just like that found in the brain.

If the Na'vi do have Octopus type blood and cardiovascular type system (NB: Octopus have 3 hearts), then it may be possible for the Na'vi to live in Earth's atmosphere, however they would probably need to undergo a gradual acclimatization period to do this.

That's my thoughts for now,
Eywa ngahu