December 15, 2010
[title]Avatar re-envisioned [/title]
[ND]This was my very first Avatar-themed dream, coming many, many months after I watched the movie. (I guess I just didn’t find it that inspiring. XD) There were no Na’vi around at all, and the RDA was an exploitive scientific expedition rather than a corporate mining venture. Pandora was much the same though, with the exception that it’s atmosphere was non-toxic, (at least no one was wearing gas masks, so I assume that was the case… XD) and there was more open grassland than what I remembered in the movie. Its wildlife was also largely unchanged, with the notable exception that the Na’vi had been replaced by what looked like a cross between a Thanator and the American Godzilla. (size-wise it was about the same as a Thanator)
The RDA had captured a number of the creatures and were keeping them contained in reinforced enclosures reminiscent of the ones in Jurassic Park, performing experiments on them and studying their physiology. They were particularly interested in one with an abnormally pale white-blue coloration and dark stripes. It seemed to be able to telepathically control certain native species to a limited extent, making them ignore all concept of self-preservation and suicidally assault the compound again and again, trying to breach the enclosures and set them free. Some humans proved vulnerable to its telepathy as well, with the worst cases inevitably sacrificing themselves trying to sabotage the facility from within. Occaisionally, wild ‘Thanazillas’ would attack in large packs, only to be mowed down as well by the RDA’s defenses. The RDA was particularly interested in learning how the albino Thanazilla was able to control creatures over large distances and apply it towards being able to create expendable ‘remote-controlled’ bodies for the researchers to use in the extremely dangerous conditions out in the jungle.
Unsurprisingly, it was dubbed ‘Project Avatar’. Working with the albino proved extremely problematic, not just because of the danger of eventually losing your mind around it, but because no tranquilizer formula seemed to have any effect, even the ones that worked on the other Thanazillas. The RDA was able to work around the problem by hobbling the albino and applying a brutal series of debilitating electrical shocks followed by physically restraining it whenever they needed to work up close with it. Even then, they always sent an armed bodyguard along with them.
The albino’s maintainer was a brute of a man that looked suspiciously like Quaritch and always carried a sledgehammer at his side. He was the one responsible for placing the restraints on the albino while it was stunned, and took a sadistic pride in his ability to ‘put it in its place’ whenever it made an attempt to lash out at him while he was doing it. He often bragged that if you knew how to do it, you could make it drop like a ton of bricks with a single properly-placed hammerblow. Whether that was true or not, the albino’s bruised and bloodied muzzle, limping leg, and numerous wounds bore mute testimony to his cruelty.
Eventually the Avatar project reached its conclusion. Splicing human DNA with that of the Thanazillas, the RDA was able to create… you guessed it- the same blue catpeople hybrids seen in the movie. Yeah, dream logic makes no sense.
The Avatar bodies were put into limited mass-production for the field teams, who operated them via neural helmet rather than the full-body pods seen in the movie. In all other respects the process was the same, with the original body going into a sleeplike state while the user experienced everything the Avatar’s body did as if it was their own.
Soon afterward, a remarkable discovery led to a dramatic shift in the way many (but unfortunately, not nearly enough) of the researchers treated the Thanazillas. To make a long story short, they found out that not only did the Thanazillas communicate by intertwining their queues together, (the head-tendril thingies found on just about all Pandoran wildlife and the Na’vi as well) but that they were also highly intelligent sentient beings, not the dumb animals they had originally took them for. (now that I look back on it, I’m surprised that they didn’t realize it sooner, especially with everything the albino was doing) Using the queues of their Avatars, they were able to communicate directly with the Thanazillas for the very first time.
A schism formed between the researchers, comprised of those that believed they should release the captive Thanazillas and try to make reparations for the harm they had caused them, and those that insisted they had come too far to stop now, or that had formed personal vendettas against the Thanazillas in the wake of their numerous, and often deadly, raids. There were also those that felt trapped, knowing that what they were doing was wrong, but at the same time knowing that no matter what course of action they took, there would be no chance of a peaceful resolution between their peoples and that just to survive, they’d have to continue to push back as aggressively as they could. Too much blood had been spilled, on both sides.
It wasn’t long before things came to a head. A number of researchers tired with fruitless debate conspired with the captive Thanazillas. A coordinated break-out was planned, but when it was put into action, a few Thanazillas turned on their idealistic liberators and tore them to shreds, then set about causing as much carnage as possible on their way out. They were led by the albino, whose hatred and loathing of the humans had become truly fanatical, fueled not only by her own sufferings, but by the loss of her eggs and hatchlings to the monstrous beings that had used them to create the perversions of nature they now commanded by thought.
For most of the freed Thanazillas however, the desire for vengeance was tempered by gratitude to those that freed them, at least enough to refrain from killing them on the spot. Many of them would never forgive the humans for the atrocities they had suffered at their hands, and many would later join the albino in her crusade against them, but for now they worked alongside their liberators in obtaining freedom. There were only a few among them who would ever truly be able to call a human their friend, but they were the ones that would later on prove to be instrumental in forging an uneasy peace between their peoples and breaking the cycle of violence.
Not all of the Thanazillas escaped that night, and not all who did escape survive to make good their freedom. One juvenile darted between widely-spaced buildings, carrying a bearded man on its back who was holding on for dear life while at the same time urgently speaking into a headset situated over his glasses. The juvenile hesitated as it reached a wide stretch of open ground, then burst away from the maze of buildings. It died in mid-step as a searchlight illuminated it and a spray of bullets from three roving vehicles pierced it and its rider. They fell to the ground in a tangled heap. A girl’s voice could be heard from the headset. “Dad? Dad, are you alright? What’s happening out there? Dad?! DAD!!!”
The man struggled to lift his head from the ground, most of his body pinned underneath the juvenile creature. “I love you.” he breathed into the mouthpiece, then was still. The sound of anguished sobs came softly from the headset.
In another area, an Avatar rode atop an adult Thanazilla, queues firmly joined together. They were heading toward an open supply room on the outskirts of the complex where the rider had stashed his real body while it was catatonically operating the Avatar. They reached it without incident and the Thanazilla crouched low and thrust its head through the open double doors. Lying prone on the ground between stacks of crates was the body, still safely in place and wearing the neurohelmet. The Thanazilla carefully snatched it up between its jaws and pulled its head out of the building once more. The rider cautioned his mount to be careful with his real body and to see if there was away it could prevent his limbs and head from dangling about like a ragdoll and getting hurt while they ran. In response the Thanazilla deftly maneuvered the body so that it was positioned securely inside its mouth, then sped off into the night. They were among the ones that made it away safely.
My memory of the dream started getting hazy around this point, and all that I can recall further is that the albino rallied the other wild Thanazillas and led one last massive assault against the humans, but as both sides were squaring off against each other, the few Thanazilla\Human pairs that had formed came between the two sides and stopped the fight from starting. Somehow. XD[/ND]
Enjoy!
I’ve had many lucid dreams where I’ve been to Pandora, I actually did a personal challenge on this about a year ago. I dreamt a continuous plot, each lucid dream about it would continue where the previous one left off. The whole Pandora lucid dream series I had can be found here: LINK (links to another forum)
