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self_made_human  Grippy socks, grippy box  22hr ago (open.substack.com)   597 thread views

Avatar's Dirty Secret: Nature Is Just Fancy Infrastructure

open.substack.com

What if Avatar isn't actually about environmentalism vs. technology, but about recognizing superintelligent infrastructure when you see it? A deep dive into why Pandora's "natural" ecosystem looks suspiciously like a planetary-scale AI preserve, complete with biological USB-C ports, room-temperature superconductors growing wild, and a species of "noble savages" who are actually post-singularity retirees cosplaying as hunter-gatherers.

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I would be more interested in watching the Vernor Vinge version of Avatar, where it's heavily implied they're a downgraded planet that used to be in a higher zone. As it is, I only watched the first movie.

Is this a thing? Where can I find more?

I'm 99% sure you're asking "is the Vernor Vinge version of Avatar a thing", and my answer is a useless "no"; at least I'm not finding any hint of it on fan fiction sites.

But on the 1% chance you're unfamiliar with Vinge and asking "is this sort of science fiction universe you're talking about a thing", I feel like I have to speak up to tell you to go get a copy of A Fire Upon The Deep now. The way he weaves primitive and high technology together into one coherent and fascinating story puts Dances With Smurfs to shame.

Don't worry I've read plenty of Vinge. Was looking for more of a Vingian take on Avatar.

As good place to ask as any. When in A Fire Upon The Deep nobody in-unverse could understand the purpose of a broadcast sent by the Blight involving humans, which led to the false speculation about our unique susceptibility, was it to poison the well against similar, but in that case true, accusations against another species?

I don't think there was anything explicitly in the text to that effect, but it's at least a really good fan theory. It was only good luck that it didn't work, arguably: if Blueshell actually had been subverted, Ravna's genocide-survival-intensified insistence to the contrary could have killed them all and lost the Countermeasure to the Blight.

The other likely reason to turn everyone against humanity would be the possibility that the human-stolen Countermeasure might get revealed and/or destroyed as collateral damage in the ensuing pograms. The Blight would prefer to find, seize, and analyze it, not destroy it outright, but at that time in the story the Blight had very little idea where it had been taken, and so might have decided to take a gamble with wider variance but less extreme risk.

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