The Balance of Life
Interlude 1
Author's Notes:
Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to review and comment of this story. One of the nice things about Fan-Fiction is the interaction between the author and readers. I read and take each review into account as the story progresses.
The earthquake is not something I dreamed up. It is based on the data provided in 'An Activist Survival Guide'. Pandora has many similarities to Earth in its geology, moving tectonic plates being one of them. The tidal forces created by Polyphemus, the gas giant, are one hundred times as strong as Earth's moons total forces. That is why geologists believe that Pandora is made up of many small continents. These continents are constantly moving and colliding with each other. The collisions would be similar to what you experience in bumper-cars at a carnival. When two continents collide, shock waves travel horizontally through their surface mass like a wave through water.
Another major factor in Pandora's geology are the large deposits of Unobtanium in the ground. Unobtanium is a super conductor of electricity and magnetism. Anyone who has studied electro-magnetism understands that energy is constantly shifting states between electrical energy and magnetic energy. In short, the Unobtanium's magnetic property helps bind the land mass together and lessens the effect of shock waves generated by collisions.
Unfortunately for the Omatikaya, the RDA has mined great quantities of Unobtanium, weakening its ability to hold the continent together. Unobtanium is highly crystalized, like glass. Think of your car's windshield and what happens when it gets a nick in its surface. The strength is greatly reduced allowing the glass to shatter easily. This is what has happened to the continent the Omatikaya live on. They have yet to realize just how much things are going to change, but that is for future chapters to revel.
A note on spelling, I have been using as a first source of reference Cameron's script for Avatar. In that script he spells the word for 'the bond' as 'shahaylu'. In 'An Activist Survival Guide' the word is spelled 'Tsahaylu'. In other Web based documents on the Na'vi language I have found it spelled 'Tsaheylu'. As the 'T' is silent all three spellings would be pronounced the same way. I will defer to the spelling in 'An Activist Survival Guide' for all word spellings unless the word is not listed therein.
That being the case 'Omaticaya' will become 'Omatikaya' and 'Olo'eyctan' will become 'Olo'eyktan'.
I will make the appropriate revisions and repost earlier chapters.
If any other spelling inconsistencies arise, please feel free to bring them to my attention.
On another note, everyone seems to be in a big hurry for Neytiri to become pregnant. I'm not sure she shares your desires as this time. We will just have to wait and see what the future brings. Remember, avatars are cloned from human and Na'vi DNA. According to Project880, the reason avatars are 'Insanely Expensive' is that very few combinations actually result in a viable embryo. This fact could have significant and serious consequences for any pregnancies resulting from avatar and Na'vi mating.
I will begin work on Chapter 3 tomorrow. Chapters 1 and 2 barely covered a day in the story's timeline. Eventually this pace will pick up or we will all be long dead by the time the next RDA ISV arrives on Pandora.