Avatar's dark forest - Part 2

The Na'Vi anomaly

In the first part, we determined that perhaps surprisingly, Avatar is one of the most realistic hard-SF films ever produced. As such, seemingly unrealistic elements, that could simply be accepted in other settings, are jarring here and demand an explanation - namely our Space Blue Elves friends the Na'Vi.

The easy answer would be to declare it incoherent, that the author wanted Pocahontas with aliens and threw money at it to paint superficial realism. However, the easy answer is not always the most interesting - and, after all, "the author didn't care" is not what we are interested in here. Instead, let's see what conclusions we can draw from the seemingly impossible Na'Vi presence in a realistic setting.

Facing the Great Filter

In the previous article, we discussed the Fermi paradox and how the presence of an Earth-like ecosystem is restricting the possible solutions. However, Pandora also has a native technological society, and this may be the worst possible news humankind could ever get.

All the previous solutions discussed were based on an assumption: that the Great Filters that made technological life so vanishingly rare (one known space-faring civilisation in the local billion-light-years cube) are behind us, and we are the lucky ones that actually evolved to technological use. However, this implies that there has been, at most, very few technological species in the quintillion stars around us. Our own example show that, in cosmic time, a civilisation goes near-instantly from cutting stone to starships to, presumably, Dyson spheres everywhere. Our own example also tells us that the survival rate of such a species between those stades is at worst one in a few thousands, something we can round at 100% given the odds otherwise used working with Great Filters.

Given that assumption, what are the chances that one randomly chosen star system, say the one that happens to be the closest when we start throwing starships around, has a native technological civilisation? Around one in a quintillion, give or (mostly) take a few zeroes.

Even if it was a trillion times more probable, scientists would still round it to zero without an afterthought.

Do the Na'Vi really count as a technological species? Of course: they have the same technological level than humankind a mere cosmic instant of ten thousand years ago - in fact, parts of humankind are still using those technologies right now. Blink and they may as well be making starships on their own.

The important is not whether they cut stone or plutonium but whether they have the capabilities to build technological tools - and they indeed have the same as us: interpreted language, concepts, good hands and the understanding of making tools to make better tools. From there, Dyson spheres are only a matter of time and avoiding the occasional extinction event.

So the assumption that technological species are rare is ruled out. Those have to be so common, millions must be born in the galaxy right now. Which means that an unknown mechanism is systematically preventing technological civilisations from rising to visible galactic engineering levels. The Great Filter is still before us.

Even worse: if we can understand that it is before us, then at least some others can as well. And if none have escaped it, it means that such knowledge won't help us either. The presence of a nascent technological species right next to us means, literally, that we are doomed to extinction.

Or does it?

Apes and Angels

As we have seen, technological species like ours are, at least at the pre-space level, extremely short-lived. And yet, right at the very moment we emerge, so do the Na'Vi. Even stranger, the Na'Vi are physically closer to humans than any other species to ever evolve on Earth. They are even closer to modern humans than most extinct human species, from whose we still bear DNA.

Which is especially weird when comparing other Pandoran animals with terrestrial ones: beyond superficial resemblance that could be attributed to convergent evolution, there are differences that are absent from the Na'Vi: armor plates on large animals, secondary breathing holes on the chest, multiple pairs of eyes, absence of hair...

And this is no mere outward resemblance: for it to be possible to mix their DNA with human DNA and create the Avatars in the first place, both would have to work on the same principle and be closer than with almost any species from Earth. This proves that convergent evolution is not the explanation here.

Finally, you would expect alien society and language, had they one in the first place, to be radically different from ours. And yet, a Na'Vi tribe could be dropped on some corner of the Earth after a few cosmetic changes and anthropologists wouldn't even notice the difference.

As such, coincidence alone cannot explain the existence of the Na'Vi. They necessarily have a link with humankind, which can be explained by the other particularity of Pandora

The alien behind the alien

The human expedition missed a capital point: the Na'Vi are not the only intelligence to dwell on Pandora. The biggest piece of evidence was also the easiest to overlook: an animist Na'Vi religion worshipping Eywa, a Mother Nature-like divinity linked to all living things. Earth has those, after all, and yet an alien overmind has yet to be discovered here.

However, the evidence missing on Earth is present on Pandora, to be discovered by a former soldier lacking the mental tools or training to realize what he found, or by scientists that fail to communicate their findings (scientist and science communicator are very different jobs) or, for that matter, realize that there is was much bigger picture to look at.

Those are obvious in retrospect. The Na'Vi neural queue, an organ that allows them to connect to many high-level life-forms all around the food chain and seemingly inexplicable by natural evolution. he Trees of Voice that are both part of an immense brain-like network of vast complexity - and the Na'Vi can use their neural queue to connect to it and hear their dead ancestors, whose mind is apparently preserved by said network. The Tree of Souls, described as a vital organ of Eywa and that can even create neural connections to humans directly, who testify directly talking to the overmind.
And, of course, commandeering varied animals in great numbers and in formation to destroy a human formation threatening said vital organ. Note that the human formation is attacked before the actual bombing starts, and less threatening vehicles were previously ignored, showing understanding of both human intent and abilities.
Eywa also repeatedly communicate with the Na'Vi by directing floating motiles, the woodsprites. It is shown to take interest in a specific human Avatar and direct the actions of a Na'Vi individual.

First contact (source)

The obvious conclusion is that the Na'Vi were created by Eywa based on a detailed human template, showing both immense biotechnological prowess and advanced interstellar capabilities. The question is, why?
Now, it is always hazardous to divine intent from actions when lacking so much context, especially when applied to an unknown alien mind. However, we can make informed deductions from basic, universal logic.
First, we can expect Eywa to follow the same drives as any living organisms, or at least any that can survive long enough to evolve to such a degree: survival instinct and at least some drive to expansion and/or reproduction to compensate major accidents that may cause the death of the organism on an individual world. It has also demonstrated knowledge of humans and understanding of their behaviour, showing clear intend to learn about them.
As such, the most probable reason for the Na'Vi existence is to assist Eywa in studying humans.

Puppets and puppeteer (source)

Initially, they may or may not have been created for studying a human-like population in a controlled environment, the way we study rat behaviour by putting them in boxes in a laboratory. However, at the time of the depicted events, they are clearly there to directly interact with humans. We can see it when Eywa deliberately instruct a Na'Vi to interact with an Avatar with divergent behaviour. But the biggest clue is unobtanium.

Too good to be true

Unobtainium (with a 'i') is originally an engineering joke: a material that has all the proprieties needed, but either doesn't exist, is inaccessible or is too expensive. It has since then been adopted by science-fiction fans and critics to describe a material with fantastic properties that, while not forbidden by known science, does not seem to exist so far. This is a good way to take some liberties with known science and engineering while keeping the setting realistic, or at least believable.
Unobtanium (without the 'i'), to be found in vast quantities on Pandora and the reason the massive expenses of interstellar travel can see a return of investment, certainly qualify: a room-temperature superconductor with presumably massive power density, the figure of tens of millions of $ per kg (though inflation may give or take a few zeroes) is believable for present or near-future technology. Supplemental material hints as a grave energy crisis on Earth and unobtanium being used to build fusion reactors, which is indeed one of the obvious applications.

Now, some may say that it is a very stupid name to give to any actual material. Imagine if in Lord of the Rings, the One Ring was called the MacGuffin and Frodo's mithril shirt was the Plot Armor. However, remember in the first part: actual people called a high-technology space vehicle the VentureStar. And apparently, their heirs somehow thought it a good idea to use the same name for an interstellar vehicle. Those people have a history of giving very stupid names to incredible things.

Nevertheless, for it to be called that, and to be of such value, it is obviously incredibly, absurdly rare and impossible or near-impossible to manufacture in the Solar System. And yet, massive quantities of surprisingly pure Unobtanium mineral are to be found on a planet in the nearest star system, that also happens to host an alien overmind awaiting human interaction. Presumably no other nearby star system has such a mineral orgy, otherwise corporate interests would have avoided the headache of natives and go for the biggest profit.
The one thing that can drive humankind to stretch its nascent interstellar capabilities to their limit, but that is only worth so much due to the present conjoncture - specific technologies and industry and a major energy crisis that could have been avoided with better planning - and be presumably useless an instant before (steam machine don't use superconductors) and after (alternatives would be found). Again, this shows precise, up-to-date knowledge of humankind, impressive resources and a willingness to use them for this project.

This is the equivalent of some ancient Mediterranean merchants that would leave baubles on an unknown shore and go back on their boats to observe the natives. Were the natives interested in trade, they would take the baubles and replace them with local goods. The Na'Vi themselves may be the equivalent of repeating the words of the natives, while observing their reactions, in order to start deciphering their language - if it was human-shaped drones with speech generators that were sent instead of the actual merchants.

Shiny bauble (source)

Unfortunately, humans took the baubles, replaced them with beach pebbles lying around, attempted to beat the drones and steal their things, and then got angry and started to throwing rocks around. All the while never realizing that those bizarre metal islands off shore that were't there yesterday had more firepower than a volcano chain.

Killing Star

It is, in fact, even worse: as humankind reach interstellar capabilities, and with explosive technological and industrial progress, it becomes by nature a menace to any neighbour. Take the VentureStar, for example. The only difference between a transport starship and an interstellar relativistic missile (ISRM) is that a transport ship carries giant engines to brake when reaching destination. And an ISRM has enough kinetic energy from its velocity alone to devastate an entire planet. This only gets worse once you start making Dyson spheres, those can be used for example to emit Nicoll-Dyson lasers.

If a nascent spacefaring civilisation shows risks of using such means for violence, the obvious move to protect one's own survival is to destroy them before they can do serious damage. This is the Killing Star scenario.
And humankind has just showed itself to be violent, unreliable, often irrational, aggressive, divided, untrustworthy, cunning, expansionist and with fast-expanding capabilities. Which is, in fact, the worst, most dangerous combination possible.
Even if Eywa had reasons to avoid a first strike, it now has to extinguish the human menace for its own survival.

Note that a human first strike against Eywa, following the same Killing Star reasoning, would be futile. Not only can we expect it to be but one of many worlds hosting such planetary mind, it also has superior interstellar capabilities than humans, and ones that are so far undetectable to human sensors - despite the vast energies required for interstellar, well, anything. So even assuming that Eywa can be destroyed by a surprise human attack before launching its own second strike (and assuming Pandora contains the whole individual), and this is a big if already, there are unknown but presumably vast numbers of other worlds ready to second strike anyway.

A merciless ecological indictment

This, beyond the trompe l’œil Hollywood story, is the actual message of the film. Whether the author intended it so is unknown* but irrelevant: hidden depth, accidental or otherwise, is still depth.

* I would bet against it, but don't mind old cynical me and give him the benefit of the doubt

You can be certain that even without knowing about the presence of an actual alien, many scientists recognized what was going on the first time science probes or teams were sent on Pandora. Native near-human life and unobtainum were obvious enough clues. However, powerful corporate interests and, presumably, corrupt demagogic governments afraid of the energy crisis, controlled by people both incapable of understanding the science or caring about long-term consequences, overruled them.
Those consequences are (literally) calling the wrath of (a) Mother Nature (alien star god) upon humankind, in ways that are difficult to grasp in their details but obvious in the absolute, inevitable catastrophe they will bring. One could even imagine self-deluding populists claiming that whatever bad happens, we will be able to fix it with some techno-industrial solution. Or that if some alien wants war, we'll simply beat them.

Sounds familiar?

So it seems that ultimately, yes, humankind is now doomed to extinction - not by a Great Filter, this time, but its own tragically avoidable folly.
Or is it? As we will see next, even star gods are afraid of the dark...