Avatar (film): antigravity and unobtanium

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The discussion centers on the relationship between anti-gravity effects and unobtanium in the Avatar universe, questioning whether the floating mountains are unrelated to the valuable mineral. It clarifies that unobtanium's worth lies in its properties as a room temperature superconductor, essential for advanced technology, while the anti-gravity phenomenon is seen as a separate, valueless occurrence. Participants debate the internal consistency of the plot, suggesting that if unobtanium were abundant in the floating mountains, the conflict over mining would be unnecessary. The conversation also touches on broader themes of suspension of disbelief in storytelling and the nature of plot holes. Ultimately, the dialogue reflects on how inconsistencies can affect audience engagement with the narrative.
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I thought I had discovered a giant plot hole in Avatar universe, but apparently it's based on a faulty notion.

So, the anti-gravity effect that lifts whole mountains into the sky is unrelated to the unobtanium deposits?

Apparently the value of unobtanium is in its property as a room temperature superconductor, which enables their superluminal drive technology. Unobtanium is found in large deposits underground, which is why they want to mine the ground. OK.

So, these mountains - which contain a naturally-occurring anti-gravity phenomenon, free for the taking* - are both unrelated to unobtanium and valueless to a space industry?

* literally free-for-the-taking. With nothing but a jack hammer and a chainsaw, you could get the antigravity rocks to just float up right into the hold of your cargo vessel.
 
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I think the magnetic Fields repelled the unobtanium, and mine was more expensive due to the electromagnetic flux
 
DaveC426913 said:
is unrelated to the unobtanium deposits?
I have never seen Avatar but I have seen "The core," I thought that is where Unobtainium was from.
 
DaveC426913 said:
room temperature superconductor ... anti-gravity phenomenon
I think somebody there seen some superconductor-related levitation experiments, and added it to the plot without much thinking.
So, I guess the idea was that to display the value of the superconductor material below those levitating islands had some magnetic properties assigned.

Bad news for any (iron-based) mining equipment with remanent magnetic properties, though o0)

Ps.: seen worse :doh:
 
sbrothy said:
I think it boils down to willing suspension of disbelief.

Fridge Logic (TVTropes)
Films always do, but thats not the point.
The point is: is this a plot hole?
A major one - because if my supposition were true, the story would never have happened.

Plot holes are not about whether a story is externally consistent with "real life" ; they are about whether the story is internally consistent with itself.

The distinction, by example:

Suspension of disbelief:
Story: 'I am the story and in Act One I establish that "red is green" and "faster-than light travel exists".'
Audience: "OK. In Act One you showed us that red is green and FTL is possible. I accept this."

This is internally consistent, even if it is not externally consistent.

Plot hole:
Story: 'I am the story and in Act One I establish that "red is green" and "faster-than light travel exists".'
Audience: "OK. You show us this In Act One, but then in Act Three, our hero stops at a traffic light and so survives a crash - but your story already established that the light is green, not red."

This is internally inconsistent.

By the story's own rules (which we accepted, because of suspension of disbelief) the story doesn't work. The driver should have blown through the light and died.

In Avatar, if they established that the floating mountains are full of unobtanium, then the whole "we have to go to war with the locals because we have to mine the ground under their village" goes out the window; they could have just mined the floating mountains with a jack hammer and a cargo ship hovering overhead with its belly doors open to catch rising ore (which would be self-refining, since the unobtaniim would rise and the cast offs would fall).
 
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Yeah, but it's like if you're an ornithologist you notice that the birds chirping in the movie aren't native to where the scene takes place. If you're a gun expert you know the particular gun the protagonist uses doesn't come with that size of magazine. If you know about computers.... and so on......

I know that's not the same as a plot hole but once you start noticing these things it kinda never stops.

Is it in Star Wars (or possibly Star Trek, I'm not a fan of either) where a hyperjump does something fatal to an enemy spaceship and all the fans immediately ask why that tactic wasn't used in the previous films...
 
Although the spaceship in Avatar is, ironically, one of the most realistically designed (within the universe with the unobtanium). The ISV Venture Star is it?
 
sbrothy said:
Is it in Star Wars (or possibly Star Trek, I'm not a fan of either) where a hyperjump does something fatal to an enemy spaceship and all the fans immediately ask why that tactic wasn't used in the previous films...
Yup. There are well-established Laws in the science fiction community that define this.

"Any sufficiently efficient means of propulsion is also a weapon of mass destruction." - Larry Niven

And its effectiveness as a weapon is proportional to its effectiveness as a means of propulsion.

"Any new technology introduced in a science fiction story must be accounted for in any future set in the same universe — either it remains in use, or there must be a good in-universe reason why it was abandoned or disappeared." - Charlie Stross

In the Star Trek reboot, they used a transporter to transport from Earth to the Klingon Homeworld, an outrageous escalation that has the potential to change the very nature of space travel in the franchise's future.
 
  • #10
What a coincidence. I just linked to Stross' blog in this thread:

gmax137

Thread 'Interesting Documentary on the Dounreay Breeder Reactor'

I didn't know much about this plant, intersting documentary.



About halfway through, I realized the narrator is Balin from The Hobbit movies. (Ken Stott)
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He's one of my favorite authors.

EDIT: But yeah, sounds like a direct quote from Atomic Rockets. :smile:

EDIT2: Incidentally, he's struggling with deteriorating eyesight. Apparently he needs surgery.
 
  • #11
I've never heard of him. And I've read a fair bit of science fiction.

What do you recommend as his top must-read?
 
  • #12
The Laundry Files. Without Question. It's been driven too far by now but the first 5 books are written in the styles of known spy-authors a *D*eighton and Ian Fleming amongst others. (It's kind of a mix between Men in Black and Lovecraft's Cthulhu, literally.)


This one is free:

https://torpublishinggroup.com/equoid-a-laundry-novella/?isbn=9781466855472&format=ebook

EDIT: Here I think:

https://z-library.sk/book/3733232/607bee/equoid.html?dsource=recommend




The Eschaton series (only 2 books I think which starts with "Iron Sunrise" I think) are also amongst my favs....
 
  • #14
sbrothy said:
The Laundry Files.
Cool. I've been in a dry spell sci-fi and have been trying to expand my authors and genres.

Have read some of Lovecraft's required reading. My tiny little mind was blown by China Mieville's Kraken (Weird/Urban Fantasy) as well as Un Lun Dun and RailSea.

Where is the best place to start with the Laundry Files? At the beginning?
 
  • #15
Sure. The Atrocity Archives.

EDIT: But seriously. That Swarm story is a fast read and both deep and, as I said, dark.
 
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  • #17
Oh you mean audio?

EDIT: I'm very visual myself. It's worth looking up though. It's one of my all-time favorites.
 
  • #18
"I find myself awakened again," Swarm said dreamily. "I am pleased to see that there is no
major emergency to concern me. Instead it is a threat that has become almost routine." It
hesitated delicately. Mirny's body moved slightly in midair; her breathing was inhumanly regular.
The eyes opened and closed. "Another young race."
"What are you?"
"I am the Swarm. That is, I am one of its castes. I am a tool, an adaptation; my specialty is
intelligence. I am not often needed. It is good to be needed again."
"Have you been here all along? Why didn't you greet us? We'd have dealt with you. We meant
no harm."
The wet mouth on the end of the plug made laughing sounds. "Like yourself, I enjoy irony," it
said. "It is a pretty trap you have found yourself in, Captain-Doctor. You meant to make the
Swarm work for you and your race. You meant to breed us and study us and use us. It is an
excellent plan, but one we hit upon long before your race evolved."
Stung by panic, Afriel's mind raced frantically. "You're an intelligent being," he said. "There's
no reason to do us any harm. Let us talk together. We can help you."
"Yes," Swarm agreed. "You will be helpful. Your companion's memories tell me that this is
one of those uncomfortable periods when galactic intelligence is rife. Intelligence is a great
bother. It makes all kinds of trouble for us."
"What do you mean?"
"You are a young race and lay great stock by your own cleverness," Swarm said. "As usual,
you fail to see that intelligence is not a survival trait."
Afriel wiped sweat from his face. "We've done well," he said. "We came to you, and
peacefully. You didn't come to us."
"I refer to exactly that," Swarm said urbanely. "This urge to expand, to explore, to develop, is
just what will make you extinct. You naively suppose that you can continue to feed your curiosity
indefinitely. It is an old story, pursued by countless races before you. Within a thousand years --
perhaps a little longer... your species will vanish."

I love this point.

Although, it spoken by an intelligent adaption, so it makes no sense.
 
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  • #19
sbrothy said:
Sure. The Atrocity Archives.
Emboughtened. Thanks.
 
  • #20
sbrothy said:
Oh you mean audio?

EDIT: I'm very visual myself. It's worth looking up though. It's one of my all-time favorites.
No. eReader.

Can't stand audio.

I knew by the time I was was five years old that I was a visual learner not an audio learner. Story time in Kindergarten bored me to tears; I lasted about ten seconds listening to the teacher before I retreated into my own thoughts.
 
  • #21
sbrothy said:
I love this point.

Although, it spoken by an intelligent adaption, so it makes no sense.
Indeed. We humans have yet to demonstate that intelligence is a survial trait. A few tens or hundreds of thousands of years is insignificant when looking at the dinosaur's reign in the hundreds of millions.

But I disagree with your take that it makes no sense (spoken as it was by an intelligence).

We pour vast biological resources into intelligence as our singular, long-term survival strategy. All eggs in one basket, as it were, and always the same basket, forever. The Swarm only does so as a tool to address a specific threat, and then it will be reabsorbed as no longer useful.
 
  • #22
DaveC426913 said:
[...]
But I disagree with your take that it makes no sense (spoken as it was by an intelligence).
[...]
Oh I agree that intelligence is not a survival trait as such. What I meant was it's a little hypocritical that it's being said by a being, specializing in intelligence, newly spawned to deal with a problem best solved by, yeah, intelligence.

EDIT: But again you put it succinctly:

The Swarm only does so as a tool to address a specific threat, and then it will be reabsorbed as no longer useful.
 
  • #23
Also I love the idea that what we will meet out there is a genetic variation of ourselves which will perceive us as a threat and fight us mercilessly as a de facto immune system. We probably won't even see the actual aliens.

EDIT: Also, the aliens will of course see to it that their version of “humans” exactly matches our techlevel, so there will be nothing to learn.
 
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  • #24
I know this “discussion” was really over but it suddenly struck me that a possible example of employing intelligence as a survival tactic could be the “”sneaky” elephant seal males when they “outsmart” the “beachmaster”.

(Sorry for the unscientific link but our discussion and this subforum isn’t of the hardcore science variety anyway, is it? :smile: )

EDIT: And then again we humans bombing ourselves into nuclear oblivion would be an example of the opposite.
 
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  • #25
DaveC426913 said:
Cool. I've been in a dry spell sci-fi and have been trying to expand my authors and genres.
have you read Alastair Reynolds? Dark space opera with no FTL
 

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