2.15.23 Aliens and the Burden of my Species

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Recently I got to see Avatar: The Way of Water. Minor spoilers ahead.

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I'll be one of the first to admit that I am a bit sensitive, especially when it comes to needless violence and excessive human death in action movies. As I touched on last week, there is something about indiscriminate killing that strikes a bit of a nerve. Both the original Avatar and its sequel are films which portray most of their hyper-militarized ultra-capitalist human characters as resemblant of comic book villains, with their abhorrent greed and comedic arrogance. And for some reason, especially in The Way of Water, it is quite fun to watch them die at the hands of the alien Na'vi.

But wait, let me explain!

If you're unfamiliar with the Avatar franchise, I'll breifly summarize all the parts relevant to this post: The Na'vi are a race of aliens indigenous to the moon of Pandora, a tropical world teeming with alien life. Unfortunately for them, Pandora has been claimed by mankind, who seek to exploit the planet for its ultra-rare natural resources, and eventually colonize it. Obviously the expansionist humans come into conflict with the Na'vi, who are very in touch with the environment of Pandora and would very much not like to see it exploited.

The science of the future allows for artificial Na'vi bodies to be grown and paired with human consciousnesses, thus the Avatar program. The first film follows Jake Sully as he lives among the Na'vi, falls in love with a native woman named Ney'tiri, and eventually leads a resistance against the occupying humans. The second film picks up years later, Jake has been happily living among the Na'vi as one of them, starting a family with Ney'tiri and becoming the leader of their tribe. Inevitably, the humans return to Pandora with a vengance, now intending the use the planet for colonization (as Earth has become unsustainable). Jake fights them off again, blah blah blah, you get the picture.

As I was watching The Way of Water, I naturally was rooting for the protagonists, that being Jake's titular family and the rest of the Na'vi. I was enjoying watching their retaliation against the human operatives, corporate drones driven by the ravenous pursuit of substance, watching them die at the hands of the Na'vi (or by means of their own equiptment). But why do I applaud the deaths of members of my own species? If I were a part of this conflict, as a human being, what side would I actually take?

The Na'vi have a right to their world, that is obvious, and that is why we empathize with them. The humans are portrayed as this antagonistic force, and that is exactly what they are. They pollute, the overhunt, they exploit the land, torch forests. The human military enters Avatar 2 eager and excited to wreak mechanized havoc on the indigenous populations of Pandora, bullets and missiles against knives and arrows.

However, I feel that the situation presented in Avatar is not as black and white as it appears on the surface. In the second film, it is mentioned that the Earth is dying. And that is when it hit me- the colonization of Pandora might be humanity's last-ditch effort for assured survival. If that is the case, perhaps these human soldiers see their deployment on Pandora as a fight to save their species. Dispelling the Na'vi means that their children may have a chance to survive, lest they starve to death, or suffocate, or succumb to whatever other horrors come with Earth no longer being a sustainable home.

Regardless of if they think the fight against the Na'vi is right or wrong, do they not have a moral obligation to fight for the future of their species? What duty do I have to my species, living in the real-world, in the present day? Say that I was one of the last humans alive- is it my responsibility to reproduce? To at least attempt to ensure the continual survival of my species?

Obviously, Avatar is a work of fiction, and the more I think about it, the more holes I find in its set up. In the far-future, if Earth eventually becomes unsistainable, a spacefaring, technologically advanced humanity would have other prospects besides the interstellar voyage to Pandora. Why not attempt to colonize Mars, or the Moon? Their conditions are not suitable for life, but neither are Pandora's. Prolonged exposure to Pandora's atmosphere is lethal to humans, it is home to a lush alien biosphere that could be at risk of contamination (or put Earth at risk of backwards contamination), not to mention the native population of intelligent aliens that call it home. It becomes clear that Avatar was never written to assume so much moral and philosophical depth. It is spectacle. It is fun. It is fan service for an American audience shaped by Hollywood and the Iraq War. Besides, realistically, any talk of displacing the indigenous Na'vi would be met with massive social upheaval back on Earth.

Right?

It has been said before that our stories of aliens invading from the stars, and their treatment of us, speaks volumes to how we interpret the actions of our own species. Throughout history, instances of first contact between societies and civilizations have proven to be most often messy. They carry with them the possibility of epidemic, exploitation, slavery, conquest, and subjugation. They expose the darkest parts of the human psyche. As much as we may try to deny this fact, we are by nature a tribal species. Communities grow stronger when there is an "other" to unite them. Germany in the face of Jews, America in the face of communists, the football team in the face of the video game club... We see now, just in the internet's infancy, some of its many corners have become dwellings of xenophibia, radicalism, organized hatred, and places of chilling respite for lonely individuals to bask together in their rage at a world that has failed them. The waters will only keep rising.

For a fictional example of unity born from hatred and fear, look towards Alan Moore's Watchmen: when faced with an alien threat, the US and USSR put aside their differences and the world unites, or in the case of Starship Troopers, they've developed an ultra-nationalist patriotic zeal, echoing the fascist regimes of days past, and days yet to come. We are a tribal species, struggling to adapt in an age of interconnectedness. I loathe ideations regarding the future of the internet, and am disgusted by its flirtations with totalitarianism in the 21st century, but the box has already been opened, and it seems things will only get worse before they get better.

What a world to exist within. I wonder if, some day in the far future, we do encounter a more primitive alien civilization, what first-contact might be like. Not only how will it affect them, but what will it do to us? And how much have we actually learned from our own history, and the fate of a society after encountering one different than itself.