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The Moon, Pandora, from the film "Avatar"
Topic Started: Dec 20 2009, 02:13 PM (8,074 Views)
Yorick
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I took someone's suggestion and created another topic to speculate on the moon's inhabitants' evolution.

So...speculate!
"I believe, that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...stranger"

-The Dark Knight (2008)
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Kingpin
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Well, bonding is a completely alien concept to us. I don't fully understand what happens when they connect. But I imagine if they share each others reactions to what was happening around them, plus hightend senses (really just the two organisms senses combined), then it could just be the wolf-type alien trying to keep itself alive during all the commotion.
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I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping along behind you, and nobody even looks at you funny.

-Last Olympian, Rick Riordan.

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HELICOPTER. It is a HELICOPTER. You call that thing a 'whirly-bird' one more time, I'll beat you SO bad, your sister's gonna wish she never gave birth to you.

-Nick
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

No, I'm talking about the large alien creature. The one that looked like a tiger? It chased Jake's avatar over a cliff at the beginning of the movie.

Normally, those things rip Na'vi apart. What stopped him from doing it this time?

I realize it may just be scripting that doesn't make sense. But in a real world setting, it sounds to me like the thanator would just run and fight the humans solo. Or pause and eat the Na'vi girl.

Now, I could understand it more if the Na'vi girl jumped on the thanator's back and forcefully bonded with it.

But the thanator just willingly offered itself to the Na'vi girl, almost like it was saying: "I give you permission to bond with me."
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Kingpin
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No, no, I know what animal you meant. It may just be the script. Unless, bear with me on this, the surrounding trees and plants (being connected and all) were sending each other signals that I imagine would sound something like "Something just trampled Steve!" or "Holy crap! Fire!". The plants could've sent out a a defensive signal throughout its sytem, which the thanator had the misfortune of accidentaly connecting to, thus recieving a signal of "Get help" or "Defend the area". Or I could just be rambling.
Quote:
 
I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping along behind you, and nobody even looks at you funny.

-Last Olympian, Rick Riordan.

Quote:
 
HELICOPTER. It is a HELICOPTER. You call that thing a 'whirly-bird' one more time, I'll beat you SO bad, your sister's gonna wish she never gave birth to you.

-Nick
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lamna
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Or perhaps the hexapuma thought that having some extra brain and fire power would be handy so it grabbed the closest morsel
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Oceaniis
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Parasky
Dec 29 2009, 11:18 PM
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Dec 29 2009, 07:23 AM
The animals needed to be connected to trees like the trees of souls, their the only ones that animals can access to Eywa..

Blue is not important to photosynthesis, they "transform" the blue into red, red is the most important, and we're talking about photosynthesis based in chlorophyla, there are photosynthesis that use greens, yellows, "deep red" and UVA.
Not true. The vast majority of plant life was originally red in color. There was red, violet, green, and brown pigment in chlorophyll, and green eventually won out on Earth because the green plants managed to reproduce quicker. Otherwise, all our plants might be red today.
Plants use chlorophyla, that just use red and blue light, the blue light is "transformed" into red on the photosystems.
Red plants are red because of the carotenoids that reflect red light, but still use chlorophyla for photosyntesis.

All the others photosyntetic organisms that use other light colors weren't plants but algae
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lamna
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And is there any reason that a plant could not use one of these colours?
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Oh, I see where you're coming from now Kingpin (and lamna).

The thanator did appear to be at least slightly intelligent.
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Empyreon
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Are you plausible?

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Also, I have a theory to why the Na'vi are blue. As stated before, the oxygen level in the atmoshpere is low. Unoxidozed blood is blue. Seems simple enough.


If that was the case then we'd be just as blue, because of the de-oxygenated blood in our veins. No, I actually heard that the blue skin is a camouflage pigmentation. Whether the plantlife itself is blue (I don't know about anyone else, but I saw plenty of green in the movie), the light of the night is definitely blue in color, whether from light reflected from the big blue parent jovian, or just the fact that blue light dominates at night, having blue skin would help the Na'vi blend in.

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The thanator did appear to be at least slightly intelligent.


By their very nature, predators tend to be more intelligent than their prey. And the thanator that 'allies' with Neytiri was probably just following "Eywa's" orders, IMO. If they had fought off the humans and he and Neytiri were still around each other, he probably would have thought, "Okay, lunchtime."
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food for thought
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Ddraig Goch
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I've managed to aquire myself a copy of Avatar - An Activist Surivival Guide. Those predators that attacked Jake just after the Thanator did are called Viperwolves.

There is this one, really strange beast in this book. It's known as the Slinger, and basically has a detachable head. The head is shaped like an arrow, and the Slinger fires this at prey. The head injects venom, the animal dies, and then the body comes over and both parts of the Slinger feast. However, the head is actually the larval stage of the animal, and the body the adult. Eventually, the head pupates, becomes a body, produces it's own head-offspring, and begins again. Plausible?
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Empyreon
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Are you plausible?

Lucky! I want a copy!

I can't think of why it would be implausible, and it's certainly an interesting idea. At first I thought "How can an animal shoot its head off and survive?" but then you explained that it's actually the offspring. Awesome!
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Ddraig Goch
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Yeah. It's a good book, although the graphics in some of the pictures are a bit dodgy. Oh well.

Also - from the film - the mini-banshee-creatures seen flying over a lake near the start of the film are called Tetrapteron, and the gazelle-like animal that Jake kills whilst training with the Na'vi is a Hexapede (Or, in Na'vi, a Yerik).
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Empyreon
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Are you plausible?

Just ordered me a copy!
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food for thought
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Genesis
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Perhaps the animals and plants there have developed a greater level of intelligence than most Earth animals? Some of them might actually think it is in their best interest to bond with Na'Vi. Heck, they might even have something similar to selflessness. If humans and Na'vi can (occasionally) develop it, why not some of the other life forms?

And you must admit that it is very interesting that bioluminescence could be used as camoflauge in such an environment.
Edited by Genesis, Dec 30 2009, 02:37 PM.
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Ddraig Goch
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Yes. So much bioluminescence must have taken ages to evolve in so many species.

I don't know about selflessness, but they might indeed want to bond for their own interests. Perhaps, if the animals are a lot more intelligent than those on Earth, then they might want to be domesticated by the Na'vi to improve their quality of life.
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lamna
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Hmm, well the Na'vi are supposed to be "more evolved", perhaps that means they are older. In general life on earth has been getting smarter and smarter, so on a earth like world perhaps a Thanator is to a lions what a lion is to a creodont.

Or they were just designed that way when the Na'vi's ancestors rebuilt the world how they wanted it, which also explains the bioluminescence. Glowing is so much cooler than not glowing.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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