It doesn’t have to mean they took all that time to get to these aliens and bring them back. They could have been doing other work, or looking for the shipwreck for decades, or just stumbled upon it while doing other exploration and then hurried straight home.
I don’t think that makes sense. There’s a lot of dialogue that pretty strongly suggests this was a planned 65-year mission. They also have 5 different species of aliens, for that to work they’d have had to stumble upon them all at the same time on the same planet.
It also makes Ripley’s surprise/indignation at Burke’s actions nonsensical - since he’s corporate, this should have been expected from him, if Ripley did grow up on this dystopian Earth.
Well, maybe not. The people we’ve seen so far who aren’t part of the corporate plots all seem to not expect the plots. Most people live lives that aren’t too much different from ours, just with even worse standards of living. In their regular work, most people would never see these kinds of actions. The people in this story are seeing them for the first time, since this is the first time they’re interacting with people high enough in the corporate food chain that they’re the sorts of ruthless bastards who would outright kill people for corporate power and profits.
Look at it: None of the kids knew that being transferred to a new body meant that they’d be products now, not people. The brother didn’t realize that the company guy would just fire him on the spot, and ban him from the island, rather than allow him access to his sister under his terms. The crew of the ship, except for Morrow, seem surprised that the cargo is worth more than all of their lives. As bad as the corporations are, they seem to keep the worst parts of themselves hidden pretty well.
“I never thought Weyland-Yutani would hug my face!” said employee of the Aliens Hugging Faces company.
Well, look at our world. A whole lot of us think that the corporations are pretty awful, maybe even evil, but we still go to work in the morning. We hear stories like Bill Gates plotting to take over the world, and using vaccines to poison people, and think “Well, that’s obvious bullshit.”
Imagine if you went to work tomorrow, and somehow ended up right in the middle of Bill Gate’s Vaccine Plan For World Domination. You’d be a bit surprised, but maybe not completely surprised.
They also grew up in a world that was run by Corporations and Educated by Corporations that taught them that Democracy is bad and didn’t work and Corporate rulership is great. Their baseline is all messed up.
The most important thing is too remember the events of the franchise are supposed to be rare. Every single group we’ve met have a world weary seen it all before attitude and are completely unprepared for a real threat. They are used to going through the motions, 65 year trips means the world has been like this for probably hundreds of years already.
The show is set in 2120, which means the Maginot was launched in 2055. Which means that within 30 years we’re not only will we have easy cryostasis, interstellar travel, FTL, private corporations launching missions, and a space merchant navy? 
Fine, just accept that it’s in a completely alternate universe instead of just being in the future and move on. That even explains the weird schizo tech aesthetic. I like how the Maginot reveals just how outdated the Nostromo was (presumably the Maginot was top of the line when it launched).
The problem is Morrow (who has already been born) was the one who really acted like they were gone 65 years. Malachite needs the state of the world explained to because he never did social studies; it’s exposition for the audience; but why is everyone else already familiar with Prodigy? Is he even from Earth or did they just pick up an apprentice from an extra-solar colony? How did his boss even get in touch with Boy Kavalier in the first place?
Because they were receiving radio messages from Earth the whole time, even if several years after they were sent.
I know in some of the Alien TTRPG materials they strongly imply this is indeed an alternate history that diverges around 1980s.
Alternatively - we’ll have one event that resets the calendar some unknown amount. Have to be an event that doesn’t erase a lot of popular culture, like Peter Pan, though.
Unless it goes the BG route <cue All Along The Watchtower>
Well, the high-quality containment systems are apparently not a W-Y monopoly. I can accept the kid being that stupid, but the system should have never made that possible. And then that idiot…face-hugging was too good for him!
That bit was at least standard in universe stupid. Just throwing Nibs into the general pool after the memory wipe with no prep to her friends is beyond standard dumb.
Not my favorite ep.
I liked it.
I’m still confused why Kirsh isn’t saying anything. Best I can think of is it’s a big experiment to him. Scientific method and all that.
It also seems the kids have emotions. I assume that is part of the breakthrough of this technology. Given what happened in this episode, I would think they would want control of those. That would have also solved the Nibs issue. Dial back her emotions and her responses.
I can accept the first part and agree the system shouldn’t have let it happen. I disagree with the third part. Arthur was being human. Maybe if Slightly gets Arthur to Morrow, Arthur has a chance. This goes back to emotions. If Slightly didn’t have any, could he still be manipulated but in a different way?
I like RPGs and have been playing them for a long time. I loved RPGs of a show or movie because they would have to make up things to make it playable. The books are a great resource to learn about that world.
We are ten years past Back to the Future Part 2. We are 33 years past the Star Trek Eugenics wars and 38 years from First Contact. Do I wish that older franchises weren’t so optimistic about how fast technology would advance? Yes. It’s not a deal breaker for me.
This is awesome!
Thanks for the discussion!
The scientists didn’t want to do the spoilered procedure in the first place. Consider it malicious compliance.
But the result was highly predictable. I believe that Dame Sylvia really does care about the “children” and about the success of the project. Malicious compliance sabotages the trusting relationship she wants them to have with her specifically but of course also to their naive trust that the program is looking out for their best interests.
It is out of character for Dame Sylvia to comply in a way that undercuts those goals, or for her to be that dumb.
Honestly I would have expected the character to have understood that the program cannot lose both her husband and her and have demanded he not be fired. That though I can accept out of conditioning to lack of any power.
Tonight’s scene with Kirsh and Morrow was better than the rest of the series put together. These are the two characters I wish this show was about.
Add in Ms. Eyeball, and I’m with you.