On pandora

[Tìtstewan]

Somehow I think, a Toruk or Palulukan is too special as we could ride them every day like a Pa'li or Ikran...

[Taronyu Leleioae]

Toruk is too expensive to feed.  Think of how many yerik and talioang you'd have to hunt to keep it happy.  Plus it can't exactly "roost" on top of HomeTree.  The ikran wouldn't feel comfortable there.

Randomly, what I'd really like to know...  The Omatikaya value being a mounted ikran hunter.  Which makes sense for travel as well as hunting talioang during the seasonal hunt.  Makes sense. 

But, we see Jake practicing hunting for yerik (along the mountains).  If you were lucky enough to find and kill one, what do you do with the yerik?  I'm not convinced carrying a yerik over your back on top of your ikran is practical or possible...  Then it's a long walk back.  Or is it like using a couple of ropes tied between two ikran, and carrying it like a coconut? 

[Clarke]

Then it's a long walk back.  Or is it like using a couple of ropes tied between two ikran, and carrying it like a coconut?  

They could grip it by the husk.

African or European ikran?  

(Let's not got to Pandora, it is a silly place...)

[Taronyu Leleioae]

Mountain vs Sea/Coastal ikran... 

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Toruk is going to eat what it is is going to eat, regardless if you ride him or not. The ASG suggests that toruk preys a lot on ikran, which it might even be able to eat while flying, with the unlucky ikran in its talons.

Toruk also has 'landing gear' which the ikran do not have. Ikran have to stay in a tree or a cliffside, as they have no legs. Toruk has legs, and can land just about anywhere solid enough to take its weight.

Yerik, according to the ASG, are very common everywhere, and deer/antelope here, exist for a large part to control greenery growth and keep predators fed. You probably don't have to go far from camp to find one for dinner. I imagine that a yerik carcass can easily be transported on a pa'li, especially if it has been dressed out. Carrying a whole intact or dressed-out animal is far easier than carrying its equivalent weight in pieces.

I suspect the ikran are used for transportation more than hunting. In the instance we saw in the film, the talioang are just too big to be transported back whole. They are likely butchered on the spot and big pieces are carried back to camp on pa'li. Enough meat was harvested in that one hunt that much of it had to be preserved by smoking, drying (or some means we don't yet know about). I also suspect that after a hunt like that, their ikran eat rather well.

It is not likely that an ikran could carry a Na'vi rider and a whole yerik carcass at the same time. If ikran are really used to hunt yerik, not all of it is brought back. If yerik are like 'Rrtan deer, one can easily cut off the legs in such a way that much of the muscle used to move the leg comes with the leg. (That is how we butcher a deer-sized animal for the big cats). The skin is left on as a protective 'wrapper'. This is (or should be) quick and easy compared to a full butchering job we would do for our 'retail cuts of meat'. The legs would be somehow tied off to the ikran, and the ikran would get the rest as their food, possibly coming back for it after dropping off the hunter and their meat. Based on their size, an ikran could probably eat a yerik, bones and all. Between the ikran and its Na'vi hunter, little or nothing goes to waste.

If you ride a palulukan (and there is some evidence based on game play that some tribes do regularly ride falulukan), you can hunt larger prey and bring back more meat. The hunting range would probably be similar to a hunter on pa'li.

Clarke writes:

African or European ikran?

HRH nang!

[archaic]

Mmm, yerik drumsticks.

I have wondered if the Na'vi could store food on high parts of the Hallelujah mountains, which may be permanently snow bound due to their altitude.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

The Halleujah mountains, by their very nature, cannot be very high. Magnetic fields vary with the square of distance, so their strength drops off rapidly. Even at the altitude that are at, the magentic field underneath and between them must be fearsome. (THere also needs to be a mechanism ofr regenerating the superconducting currents that create these fields. Even thou electric conduction in a superconductor is lossless, there are other forces at work that will in time degrade the current, and thus the magnetic field strenght.

For freezing conditions, I suspect you either have to go up into real mountains, or to the poles.

[archaic]

I stumbled on this presently, maybe it has unconsciously colored my thinking?


Found here .....

[Clarke]

The Halleujah mountains, by their very nature, cannot be very high. Magnetic fields vary with the square of distance, so their strength drops off rapidly. Even at the altitude that are at, the magentic field underneath and between them must be fearsome. (THere also needs to be a mechanism ofr regenerating the superconducting currents that create these fields. Even thou electric conduction in a superconductor is lossless, there are other forces at work that will in time degrade the current, and thus the magnetic field strenght.

For freezing conditions, I suspect you either have to go up into real mountains, or to the poles.

Unobtanium is allegedly superconducting at room temperature, but that's the least of your problems.Assuming magnetic fields vary with distance-squared (which I'm not sure about - I got the impression once they varied with distance-fourthed) then to create even a tiddly force 100m up, you need tear-the-moon-apart forces at ground level.

[archaic]

Of course it's perfectly possible that there's physical phenomena on Pandora that human scientists can not fully explain. The 'flux' may only be partially magnetic, maybe the magnetics are only a side effect of something else?   

[Clarke]

Extra laws of physics have a habit of sneaking in everywhere and implying things that aren't real.

[archaic]

Any good scientist will tell you that there's a whole universe out there, and we keep on making new discoveries all the time, just imagine what we might discover if we went to another star system, exotic materials, unexpected new phenomina, amazing life forms .....

Watch the documentary, it's called Avatar! 

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

That said, physical laws should work the same way everywhere in the universe, and magnetic fields are pretty fundamental forces as physics go. I doubt there is anything special happening on Pandora. The magnetic fields around the Hallelujah mountains have to be incredibly strong-- strong enough that they likely have all sorts of interesting secondary effects.

[Toruk Makto]

That said, physical laws should work the same way everywhere in the universe, and magnetic fields are pretty fundamental forces as physics go. I doubt there is anything special happening on Pandora. The magnetic fields around the Hallelujah mountains have to be incredibly strong-- strong enough that they likely have all sorts of interesting secondary effects.

I have always believed that our "physical laws" are just structured interpretations of locally observed phenomena. It is not a given that our local plenum is representative of the whole universe and we certainly have a limited means of observation. "We don't know what we don't know", so violations of what we think are immutable "laws" could well be possible.

[archaic]

^^This.^^

[Clarke]

I have always believed that our "physical laws" are just structured interpretations of locally observed phenomena. It is not a given that our local plenum is representative of the whole universe and we certainly have a limited means of observation. "We don't know what we don't know", so violations of what we think are immutable "laws" could well be possible.

Why don't we see the interface between them?   We've pointed telescopes at the far edges of the universe - so if there's two different sets of physics, where's the boundary?

[Toruk Makto]

I have always believed that our "physical laws" are just structured interpretations of locally observed phenomena. It is not a given that our local plenum is representative of the whole universe and we certainly have a limited means of observation. "We don't know what we don't know", so violations of what we think are immutable "laws" could well be possible.

Why don't we see the interface between them?   We've pointed telescopes at the far edges of the universe - so if there's two different sets of physics, where's the boundary?

You are assuming structure where none may exist. The fabled perfect data set doesn't exist, so we make our best guess..

[Clarke]

If there wasn't structure, the universe wouldn't be comprehensible at all.

Pacific Rim 1080p - Numbers do not lie. Politics and poetry and promises, these are lies.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

'May' is the key word here. With millions of telescopic observations, over what we reasobably believe is a vast range of distances, and over all measureable wavelengths, we haven't found anything that even hints that basic laws of physics is being broken. So, ma Marki and Archaic, you could be correct, but the overwhelming body of evidence does not suggest you are on to something.

[Toruk Makto]

If there wasn't structure, the universe wouldn't be comprehensible at all.

Pacific Rim 1080p - Numbers do not lie. Politics and poetry and promises, these are lies.

In this case I refer to a defined and observable gradient. Just because we think we see something doesn't mean we have the whole picture (as it were).