alternatehistory.com

What do you think would've happened if the 2009 movie 'Avatar' ended with the infamous fan-written monologue attributed to Colonel Quaritch and he would've survived?

Would more people side with the humans in the movie, or would the director be accused of racism and colonialism?

We cannot match the strength of wolves. We cannot hear a grasshopper in flight five meters away in a jungle. We cannot walk on branches without slipping and falling. We cannot interface with animals to make them tolerate us. We do not have neural links to a planetary deity to receive instructions on how to thrive in a hostile environment.

Make no mistake, we are frail in body, but not mind or soul. We are not weak because we fight in armor. We are not cowardly because we strike our enemies from afar. We are not evil because we harness the power of destruction. It is merely equalization. We are somewhere in the middle of all the life on our planet, and every one of them has and is trying to kill us.

See this hammer? This is a tool, a weapon, and a means. With this hammer, we battled the world's greatest terrors and won. With this hammer, we built villages, towns, cities, metropolises, civilizations. With this hammer, we harnessed fire, steel, and lightning to do our bidding. We constructed machines, vehicles, and titans of iron to tame the wilderness. We fought our way into our place in the world. We did all this to forge a safer place for our children. If there is a better way, we did not receive any messages.

Do not talk to me of your 'moral integrity'. I have seen rage, jealousy, religious indignation, lust, apathy, and failure to forgive amongst you. There is nothing wrong with our nature that you do not have.

In the end? You are no better, Na'vi.

And that is your weakness. Not only are you blind and deaf to the voice of the world, you rejoice in your ignorance. You actually believe your handicap is something to be proud of, instead of something to be pitied.

Spare us your pity, alien. You gush about your connection with nature, your primal wisdom, but what has it brought you?

Where are your marvels of engineering? Your voyages of discovery? Your great insight into the nature of the universe? Even at our basest, when we dressed as you do, dwelt as you do, hunted as you do, lived as you do, we did more than merely survive. We built wonders. We made great journeys. We forged epics. You have not.

You speak so proudly of the plugs dangling from your skulls, little realizing that they are but strings and you puppets. What little you have accomplished you attribute to the wisdom of your goddess, who is nothing but the voices of your dead echoing for all eternity. She moors you to the past, serving as a leash that keeps you as little better than apes, sad parodies of civilization that lack that special spark to become something more.

We have come to your world in search of resources. Whether your actions drive us back or we take what we want and move on, the outcome is the same. We will depart from your wretched planet, leaving you behind. And in a thousand years, you will not have changed from this contact with another world. You will remain in your trees, hunting your prey, communing with your goddess, until your sun burns out and your world dies.

And above your tomb, the stars will belong to us.

The xenos can never comprehend where the strength of Man lies. We are strong because we endure. On our homeworld we possessed more endurance than any other species, bar none. On our world we did not live in an idyllic jungle like you. We braved the burning deserts, freezing wastes, and choking heights were you cannot live on your own world. We endured the scourges of disease and parasites that you have never known, and even though they sapped our strength we endured. For two hundred thousand years we have waged war on ourselves. Our brothers visited cruelties beyond your imagining upon us and we endured. In time we grew strong and covered our world in our machines. Now the air is all but unbreathable and still we endure. We are creating a world where we alone are fit to survive. Our world and civilization become harsher with each passing day, and so help me I am deathly proud of that fact. But our true endurance, the endurance that makes us so strong is that of our will. We will rise to meet any challenge, crush any enemy. Even when the stars themselves go dark we will endure. Where is my proof, you ask. You see it before you, we who stand on your world are that proof. We came here across the void on a journey where a single miscalculation guarantees death, where touching one grain of sand would destroy our ship, and yet we are here. We came here to a world where we cannot breath and every living thing seems to wish us dead. We came with nothing and were weakened by the travel itself, but we have built a city and endured. We have met every challenge that your world has offered us and endured it all. We will endure you. A strong species is breed through hardship. The strongest species is breed through hardships of its own making.
Top