The Omaticayan Flute

[Technowraith]

The forest will eventually recover. It may take generations to do so, but it will. The Omaticaya may have survived. It would be very interesting to see if the Na'vi visit the former site of Hometree and by some miracle are able to find the Flute. That would be a great rallying for the Omaticaya People. We'll have to see what happens when the sequels come out. And yes, it entirely possible that the Flute could have survived intact if it managed to find a niche large enough.

[Kaltxì Palulukan!]

The forest will eventually recover. It may take generations to do so, but it will. The Omaticaya may have survived. It would be very interesting to see if the Na'vi visit the former site of Hometree and by some miracle are able to find the Flute. That would be a great rallying for the Omaticaya People. We'll have to see what happens when the sequels come out. And yes, it entirely possible that the Flute could have survived intact if it managed to find a niche large enough.

Awww... now you've gone and made me think. Hometree (Kelutrel) did fall over (painfully) slowly. The massive branches helped slow a lot of the impact, so it is possible that a lot of artifacts were thrown free before the final sickening thud that shook the ground like a 5.0 earthquake. I am sure other clans will help out, due to the magnitude of this, and the fact that most of them showed up just in time to help mop the mess. Dead things everywhere and all of that "Human technology" pollution probably necessitated a massive pile. And the rock quarry pit sound like a great place to dump the wreckage. This is the first time "invaders" (now the Na'vi need a new word) have come and attacked Pandora (although I fear it may not be the last). There may be a giant 3- to 6-month hammock/loom/pottery/home building Na'vi love-fest in the works. Kinda like Woodstock, only much longer.

[Tìng Eywatikìte'e]

I think that at least something must have survived the fall, at least in part. Along with the mass funeral I think the next movie needs to start with them rooting through the remains of Hometree to find whatever was left. The thought of what they all lost makes me so sad, even the little personal stands they all got to place their items on.

[Txur’Itan]

I think that at least something must have survived the fall, at least in part. Along with the mass funeral I think the next movie needs to start with them rooting through the remains of Hometree to find whatever was left. The thought of what they all lost makes me so sad, even the little personal stands they all got to place their items on.

I definately think that to carry the story forward they need to deal with loss in the sequel, in a very real way.

Loss of friends and family
Loss of Eytukan and Tsu'Tey
Loss of Hometree
If the flute exists out side of the ASG, then a quest to replace it could be pretty cool I think...

[ShadowedSin]

The loss of hometree is tantamount to watching the temple of Solomon burn. They did recover pretty well, but I have a feeling as Txur noted. There will be a heavy cloud over the Na'vi for a while. The other clans might help or go their separate ways. The Omatikaya probably are going to be brittle for a while. You can't just destroy two major sacred areas (Tree of Voices/Hometree) and possibly lose a god given artifact and not see some form of mass depression.

[Tsu'roen]

Hometree was not just some home for them. Grace reveals about the Omatikaya when arguing with Selfridge: "Parker, it's their ancestral home. They've lived there since before human history began. ..." (script p. 81)
So they must have lived there for thousands of years! ... Which brings up the question how old those giant trees can get.

Given the importance of the flute to the Omatikaya, don't you think it may have had a permanent guardian that may have rescued it when things started getting ugly? I mean there was some time between the arrival of the human force and the first shot fired. That we haven't seen the flute doesn't mean it's been destroyed.
Also, while Hometree fell over it didn't totally disintegrate. Actually the the parts that got the most damage were the base and the crown. I think the midsection seemed fairly intact so that they might have been able to recover some of their belongings.

It also looked as if quiet a few clan members were smashed by the falling Hometree while others, like Eytukan were killed or wounded by flying debris.

[ShadowedSin]

Well Tsu'roen, how old redwoods get? Millenia. Something as big as hometree would take thousands upon thousands of years to grow that massive. What they did pretty much is not unlike what Russian Soldiers did some of the age old 10,000 old tribal societies in the Arctic circle.

[Kayrìlien]

...Also, while Hometree fell over it didn't totally disintegrate. Actually the the parts that got the most damage were the base and the crown. I think the midsection seemed fairly intact so that they might have been able to recover some of their belongings...

This may be true, but the magnitude of spiritual and emotional trauma experienced by the Omatikaya upon seeing the destruction of nearly everything they hold dear would likely render them unwilling to venture back the place where it happened. No one should ever have to experience that much loss.

Kayrìlien

[Kaltxì Palulukan!]

... Which brings up the question how old those giant trees can get.

(polite snip)

(Great post--again)

I just did a Google search. 13,000 years old is the current oldest tree known. I am sure we have gleefully butchered older (and younger--but still ancient) trees. Of course it resides in Southern California (stretch--flex--pose) because we are the bestest state--ever. But it's in  . . . Riverside. Really? That's like keeping your diamonds in a trailer park. Oh well, at least it's here.

On a more serious note though: (from "Sequoia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia")
The oldest known Coast Redwood is about 2200 years old; many others in the wild exceed 600 years. That is pretty impressive too. I have seen *many* 300-400 year old oak trees in people's front yards, literally pushing up the sidewalks, and they are 4-5 feet thick ("in diameter") and I always marvel how that tree was a hundred years old when we ("Americans") were still fighting the British over tea. These trees had cities built around them, right down to "well the street has to go here, because there is a tree in the way!" That would never happen today. We are on the path to RDA-ville (and it is a downhill slide).

So my point is that a 400 year old tree on Earth is pretty impressive when you bump into it riding your skateboard in your neighborhood. A 2000 year old tree is massive. And to think that Pandora has trees that are as old, or older than our own "record holder"--but they have not been cut down, really makes a point about the longevity of nature. When there are no natural enemies, things grow and thrive.  Certainly, the gravity on Pandora allows trees to grow taller, but being in the sequoia forests completely surrounded by trees that are 200-350 feet (here on Earth) makes you rethink "progress." We may not have Hometree, but we have some (how did the colonel say it?) "big damn trees."

Oh, and just for the record, here are two reasons Humans should NOT be allowed back on Pandora:

Reason #1 How we treat our giant "hometrees"

Spoiler

http://www.alexander.com.my/blog/wp-content/images/giants/chandelier.jpg

Reason #2 What the inside of a "Human Hometree" would look like. Warning: this is an ACTUAL photograph.

Spoiler

http://www.alamedainfo.com/Interior_of_Eternal_Tree_House_SC879.jpg
We'd make a gift shop to sell overpriced crap to touristas.

Addendum. I was just editing the quote above by changing the color to Navy (easier to see what is and isn't quote) and in my head I automatically pronounced Navy as "Na'vi." I am spending waaay too much time here. I hate myself

[Kaltxì Palulukan!]

This may be true, but the magnitude of spiritual and emotional trauma experienced by the Omatikaya upon seeing the destruction of nearly everything they hold dear would likely render them unwilling to venture back the place where it happened. No one should ever have to experience that much loss.

Kayrìlien

I have to agree with that completely. I can see a few stern rescue workers braving the residual fires, floating ash clouds, and sickening smells of dead (well, dead everything) to see if anything is salvageable and look for survivors. But for the workaday Omaticaya, I think that is a total loss. It's hard for us to imagine the completeness of their world, and how brutally it was torn apart. We could lose a town or a monument (like the grand canyon) and it would suck, but this is like losing an ocean or something.

[Kayrìlien]

http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/5918/hometree.jpg

[Kaltxì Palulukan!]

http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/5918/hometree.jpg

LOL! Yaaay!  (But does it come with a flute? And do the leaves sing?)

[Kayrìlien]

http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/5918/hometree.jpg

LOL! Yaaay!  (But does it come with a flute? And do the leaves sing?)

Oh, how I wish...how I wish.

Kayrìlien

[Tsu'roen]

well, if we define that human history begun with the rise of the first high cultures and actually recording historical events in a writing system then the human history starts in Mesopotamia with the Sumer and the Akkadian Empire  about 5000 to 4000 years ago. (Btw. is it a coincident that one of the music titles for the trailer was "Akkadian Empire" or was that chosen on purpose?).

Hometree must already have been massive 5000 years ago. So I would say that it was at a minimum 7000 years old.

Also a continuous culture over 5000 years without any significant change is something to think about. Mankind had countless empires build and destroyed during that period and political systems or powerhouses changed pretty much with every second or third generation.
Something is very different on Pandora! The conclusion could be that the ecosystem of Pandora (= Eywa) has a strongly regulating and stabilizing factor that practically has frozen a certain status quo.

[kintìomum]

It might be -and I'm moving on thin ice here since I got not that much experience with plant growth- that trees or plants in general on Pandora grow a good bit faster.
Here on Earth plants are limited by: sunlight (for photosynthesis), water (well, transport of everything inside the tree), amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide (to create err... sugar? from photosysnthesis with water) and other nutrients (plants can't live from sunlight and love alone).
On Pandora we have more sunlight since the moon basically has two suns and even if we know nothing about the length of day we still know that really dark nights are rare (ASG, as always) and the second sun "only" being as bright as 200 times our full moon. With more light avaible as an energy source for photosynthesis the next point is water.
Pandora is... moist to say the least. The biggest part of the moon is covered by vegetation, be it grasslands, foggy woods or rainforest-like areas.
Next one is carbon dioxide. For anyone interested in how exactly plants use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight look here.. Now, Pandora has that much carbon dioxide that humans suffocate on it, it's roughly 10 times the Earth value (if I remember correctly we got around 1-2% and Pandora 18%). So this can't really slow down plant growth.
Now, we know (once again this damn lack of information) pretty much nothing about the amount of nutrients in the pandoran soil. But since the Hometree grew in a rainforest like area I dare to hold my head out of the window and state that it works roughly like the rests of our rainforests on Earth with very little waste and a rapid decomposition.

So, add a lower gravity to pull them down and I think it's a pretty good bet to say that plants grow faster on Pandora.
That is if they aren't hammered by Titanotheres, splintered by palulukans hunting marines or mowed down by those tiny little things called Robodozer...

[Toruk Makto]

Is it mentioned anywhere how old a Na'vi can get?  Maybe it isn't just the trees...

[Technowraith]

Is it mentioned anywhere how old a Na'vi can get?  Maybe it isn't just the trees...

The Activist's Guide mentions that Na'vi live about as long as humans.

[kintìomum]

For a human the lower gravity might be helpful in reaching higher ages since there's not as much stress on the body (no, aggressive plants, toxic atmosphere and hungry animals don't count).
But since the Na'vi evolved on Pandora and know no other gravity it shouldn't affect them. I guess for them it's more the lack of "proper" medical treatment (meaning the stuff that allows people to live quite active well after the time nature would normally pull the brake) and aggressive animals that shorten lifes.

[Kaltxì Palulukan!]

(snip) . . .Something is very different on Pandora! The conclusion could be that the ecosystem of Pandora (= Eywa) has a strongly regulating and stabilizing factor that practically has frozen a certain status quo.

I am pulling the line from your signature:

"There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much" ~ Dr. Grace Augustine

Let's say, just for fun (pure speculation here), that there *is* something "very different" on Pandora. Add to that Grace's hint. Why? Well, by now we know that JC and friends have hidden dozens of easter eggs* throughout the movie and the ASG. I curse my lack of knowledge on biology, but I strongly believe I have hear or read over and over that (Terran) nature is full of sedatives. These may come in the form of toxins from slow-moving predators (spiders/snakes) or in plants. But what if something in the soil acted very subtly, very slowly on the psyche. I have no better example, so please forgive me, the effect would be like (Terran) saltpeter (rumored) on the male. Slow loss of sex drive.

So, what if something in the soil made people less aggro? Life on the big P is hellish enough. Every plant has its own defense mechanism, and most of the animals are dangerous (not the least of which, the Na'vi), so there is little chance of anyone growing "sift and weak." But what if that were counterbalanced by a calming effect which lent to the communalization of hundreds of generations, the complete lack of war (not because of lack of women or resources--but lack of being jerks!)?

This is just wild speculation, but with everything else going on in the atmosphere, this seems like it would help explain why the Na'vi are hopeless romantics (did you see Frommer's pick up line" Cor--nnnn!) and their complete lack of vulgarities. Perhaps it's not just Pandora's beauty that tranquilizes.


(*Easter egg hunt on Pandora! Just surviving it would be a prize )

[Tsu'roen]

Something like the "pax" on Miranda?