Post by Jai'byrd on Apr 16, 2011 11:35:33 GMT -5
The Humans
Basic Info:
The Human Colonists that arrived on Pandora were in reality refugees from wars and the illness that destroyed their homes and families. Having nothing left to lose, they arrived with a desperation and sadness that the Na'vi had never seen before in their race. At first they kept to themselves, repairing the Hell's Gate fortress into something more suitable for regular people to live in than just mercenaries and scientists which took about five years.
The Humans that came are from every walk of life and have many different skills. They quickly organized themselves using a town-meeting type legislative style for their chosen form of government. Town meetings can be called at any time and everyone votes to make decisions for the group - although these meetings are held regularly once a month. They also organized a militia among themselves to help defend the new colony from outside threats, but it is not anywhere near as powerful as the mercenary group that had been there 150 years ago.
Depending on the person, everyone rotates certain jobs, one month they must work in the arboretum where they grow and farm food, another month they work on the militia force to help keep the colony secure, another they must work helping the doctors, another helping the engineers, etc. This way everyone has a hand in maintaining the basic needs of the colony. Plus, for every three to four days worked, they get two days off (these 'shifts' didn't get started until after they got the colony properly situated, which took around 5 years to do). Doctors, Engineers and other true professionals in their areas are somewhat exempt from this as they need to help direct the people working for them. However they are expected to take shifts doing the other jobs, but if an emergency arises where they are needed the schedules are flexible enough to allow this and this is also true for their days off as they are still 'on call'.
Over time, the colonists of course developed relationships between each other and families forming and babies being born were the inevitable result. Due to Pandora's low gravity environment, the colonists noticed after a while that their children were growing slightly taller than they. Thus, given enough generations, Humans may become far taller than they ever could on their original planet of Earth (however this hasn't happened yet, this is just a projection their scientists have made).
The Avatar program was re-initialized as the colonists found it was easier to interact with Pandora's environment and the Na'vi through this method as newer technology has made creating and growing Avatar bodies easier. However, this is only a means to an end in that colonist scientists are working on a way of using recombinant DNA technology to genetically alter the Humans themselves so they can breath the Pandoran atmosphere without an Avatar or re-breather units (again, this hasn't happened yet, but they are working on it).
Most of the colonists have an Avatar, but not all (pregnant women are not allowed to use theirs due to concerns for the baby back in the Human body). If the colonists use their Avatars, they usually head out of the colony in groups of four to six and don't venture from the group much, and if they do they always have an assigned partner to wander off with (this is either to help with scientists' experiments or trade with the few Na'vi that will trade for things they couldn't get otherwise by themselves). Mostly they use their Avatars to farm Pandoran plants and food, and to help with the maintenance of the colony from the outside.
The 'Illness':
Also known as X7Y9, this invasive disease continues to baffle Human scientists. The virus can infect someone at any age, but often remains dormant until its host reaches a certain age (around 30-ish) and then comes back to 'life' and spreads throughout the victim's body. The first symptoms are often tremors in the hands, arms and legs and loss of feeling in the fingers and toes. From there the symptoms escalate from lesions forming on the skin, to bleeding from the ears and nose. The virus will spread to the vital organs causing sever pain as those organs basically liquidate as the victim dies. Cloning organs and replacing the diseased organs via transplants can prolong a victim's life, but only for so long. When symptoms first start, the victim is usually quarantined to prevent the spread (which is still misunderstood as to how it spreads, scientists think via air, but filtering the air doesn't seem to work) and currently in the colony they have special quarantine area for those infected where they can be with each other. Doctors and friends and family are allowed to visit, but only in special bio-suits (which there are few of).
The population that came to Pandora was originally thought to be disease-free as all were tested before boarding the ship to evacuate Earth. Despite stringent precautions, the virus found someway to come with the colonists. Scientists hope that maybe something on Pandora might lead to a cure and are doing the best they can before the virus turns into a pandemic in the colony.