RDA (Avatar)

The Resources Development Administration or RDA (abbrev.) is a fictional paramilitary organization. It was created in James Cameron's Avatar. It is depicted as an exploitative, power hungry and heavily militarized corporation whose main aim is to mine Unobtanium from Pandora.

RDA

Type	Military-Mining Corporation
Legal status	Active
Purpose	Colonization of Pandora
Headquarters	Earth
Location	Pandora
Services	Military Takeover
Key people	Parker Selfridge,Miles Quaritch

Fictional Analysis

The Resources Development Administration, or RDA, is the largest single non-governmental organization in human space. Its power is such that it outmatches most of Earth governments in wealth, political influence, and military capability. The RDA has monopoly rights to all products shipped, derived, or developed from Pandora and any other off-Earth location. These rights were granted to the RDA in perpetuity by the Interplanetary Commerce Administration (ICA), with the stipulation that they abide by a treaty that prohibits weapons of mass destruction and limits military power in space.

Depicted origin

The RDA is the oldest and largest of the quasi-governmental administrative entities (QGAEs), but its origins are far more modest. The entity that would become the RDA was little more than a Silicon Valley startup in the early 21st century, when its founders borrowed money from friends and family to begin the company. After a few decades, the company had the capital and stature to propose the construction of a world-spanning rapid transit system that would allow entire population groups to conveniently commute thousands of miles to perform work where it was needed, without infringing on the cultural values of host populations. The success of the venture led to the current global network of maglev trains that required the superconductor material known as unobtanium for their continued operation.

Real World Analysis

Google Books. Global Entertainment Media: Between Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Globalization says, "Avatar represents the colonial self (the RDA) and the colonized other (the Na'vi) through the lens of Orientalist stereotypes (Said 1979). In Avatar, the colonial self is portrayed as active, technological, modern, forward-looking, and rational, while the colonized other is depicted as passive, naturalistic, traditional, backwards, and spiritual."

Avatar and Philosophy: Learning to See says, "Avatar's Resources Development Administration (RDA) corporation offers a picture of what British Petroleum (BP) or Halliburton might be like if they could operate on an interplanetary scale... If the actions of the RDA and its private military force bring to mind examples of American imperialism and environmental exploitation, perhaps it's because our own world is poisoned by similarly perverse values. The RDA's attempt to wipe out an indigenous population to clear a path to natural resources looks a lot like our genocide of Native Americans, as well as like our ongoing decimation of the rain forest. At times, the RDA's attempt to suppress the Na'vi insurgents evokes the jungle war in Vietnam."

The Post-2000 Film Western: Contexts, Transnationality, Hybridity says, "Within the structural framework, the RDA, which represents the mining and resource development needs of Earth, can be metaphorically read as a futuristic Department of the Interior, which within the United States' political structure oversees federal land management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)... On Pandora, the military and the scientific Avatar Project fall directly under the purview of the RDA... their mission also includes acting as liaisons with the Na'vi, educating them and convincing them to accept the RDA's mining operation. The military ensures the success of the operation; its placement in the story reminds us that when the BIA was first created in 1824 it was housed in the War Department."

RDA military vehicles

RDA's main assaul vehicles include-

• Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson
• Scorpion Gunship
• Dragon Assault Ship
• Valkyrie
• Infantry AMP suit