# "Alien" nitpick: How did it get so big?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 23, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267 "2005-01-23T17:32:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/81 "2005-01-31T18:43:11Z")
> [@mazinger\_z](#):
>
> 1. On the planet Acheron, what is that giant humanoid thing? I believe some call it the pilot.
It is an alien pilot of an alien spaceship. It was impregnated by a facehugger and died when the chestburster did its thing.
> [@](#):
>
> 1. How did the crew of the Nostromo know that it was a warning beacon?
Through the magic of movies. Ripley somehow managed to decipher an alien language enough to notice that it “looked like a warning”. This is completely impossible.
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### Author:  [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/82 "2005-01-31T20:36:38Z")
> [@Priceguy](#):
>
> Through the magic of movies. Ripley somehow managed to decipher an alien language enough to notice that it “looked like a warning”. This is completely impossible.
To be picky, the computer Mother deciphered it, not Ripley.
Ripley: Ash, that transmission - Mother’s deciphered part of it. It doesn’t look like an S.O.S.
Ash: What is it, then?
Ripley: Well, I, it looks like a warning. I’m gonna go out after them.
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### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/83 "2005-01-31T21:15:29Z")
> [@lno](#):
>
> To be picky, the computer Mother deciphered it, not Ripley.
>
> Ripley: Ash, that transmission - Mother’s deciphered part of it. It doesn’t look like an S.O.S.
> Ash: What is it, then?
> Ripley: Well, I, it looks like a warning. I’m gonna go out after them.
I do find it interesting that they don’t put the tranmission through mother until the exploration team has left. They could have just as easily started running it through mother when they woke up and they would have known it was a warning before they left.
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### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/84 "2005-01-31T21:17:43Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#):
>
> Your kidding right? You never heard of [this movie](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370263/)?
No. I have never heard of such a movie. I once had a nightmare about a really shitty AVP movie being made, but thank god, it was only a nightmare.
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/85 "2005-01-31T21:29:29Z")
> [@HPL](#):
>
> I do find it interesting that they don’t put the tranmission through mother until the exploration team has left. They could have just as easily started running it through mother when they woke up and they would have known it was a warning before they left.
Are you sure they didn’t? I’ve always thought that Mother started deciphering it the moment she picked it up, but couldn’t make something of it until just before Ripley told Ash about it.
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### Author:  [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2005, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/86 "2005-01-31T21:38:04Z")
> [@Priceguy](#):
>
> Are you sure they didn’t? I’ve always thought that Mother started deciphering it the moment she picked it up, but couldn’t make something of it until just before Ripley told Ash about it.
In fact, the message is received and partially deciphered while the crew is still in hybernation. It is Mother who wakes the crew early because the initial indication is that the signal is a distress call. The reason they land on the planet is to render assistance. It is not until the expedition is at the alien ship that Mother deciphers more of the message, which is then indicated to be a warning. By then, the explorers are already in the alien ship.
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### Author:  [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/87 "2005-01-31T21:52:56Z")
> [@Rufus Xavier](#):
>
> In fact, the message is received and partially deciphered while the crew is still in hybernation. It is Mother who wakes the crew early because the initial indication is that the signal is a distress call. The reason they land on the planet is to render assistance. It is not until the expedition is at the alien ship that Mother deciphers more of the message, which is then indicated to be a warning. By then, the explorers are already in the alien ship.
Well, Ash and the Company knew that the beacon wasn’t a SOS from the start. Remember when Ripley found Special Order 937:
> [@](#):
>
> Nostromo rerouted to new co-ordinates. Investigate life form. Gather specimen. Priority One. Insure return of organism for analysis. All other considerations secondary. Crew expendable.
Ash was originally working on “deciphering” the beacon with Mother’s assistance, and Ripley then took over, at which point she realized the nature of the transmission. Likely had she not taken a hand in it, Ash would have not bothered to let anyone know of Mother’s findings.
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### Author:  [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2005, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/88 "2005-01-31T22:20:46Z")
> [@lno](#):
>
> Well, Ash and the Company knew that the beacon wasn’t a SOS from the start. Remember when Ripley found Special Order 937:Ash was originally working on “deciphering” the beacon with Mother’s assistance, and Ripley then took over, at which point she realized the nature of the transmission. Likely had she not taken a hand in it, Ash would have not bothered to let anyone know of Mother’s findings.
I agree that Ash’s only concern was the retrieval of the alien life form. Mother’s role in the whole affair, however, is somewhat unclear. Certainly Dallas was not in on the conspiracy, and when the crew is awoken, it is Dallas who is told by Mother that the ship must land on the surface of a planet from whence a distress signal is emanating and render assistance.
I wonder, then, to what extent the computer known as Mother was complicit in the conspiracy. If Mother was programmed by the company to tell the Captain that the signal was a distress call, how and why could it then later reveal to Ripley that it was a warning?
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2005, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/89 "2005-02-01T02:50:13Z")
Thanks to AVP we now know that the Predators have something to do with the evolution, if not design, of the Aliens. It does indeed seem as though Humans were an essential part of the original equation. At least, as far as the Predator/Alien co-op.
As for the camophlage, the Aliens look to be about gun metal in color. With a little grease and grime, it would be very easy to blend in with unpainted, well used metals.
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### Author:  [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/90 "2005-02-01T04:59:02Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#):
>
> Thanks to AVP we now know that the Predators have something to do with the evolution, if not design, of the Aliens. It does indeed seem as though Humans were an essential part of the original equation. At least, as far as the Predator/Alien co-op.
Thanks to AVP we don’t know shite. Think of it as the Highlander 2 of the series.
If the predators have anything to do with the aliens it’ll take a better writer than Paul effing Anderson to reveal it.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/91 "2005-02-01T05:41:57Z")
> [@Askance](#):
>
> Well yes, I mean what did the race of Aliens use for food before humans came along? Did they just eat every living thing on their planet then go into egg-bound hibernation waiting for passing spaceships?
My guess is, one Alien burst out of the Pilot’s chest, ate all organic materials within reach, laid a clutch of eggs, then starved to death. The eggs then waited – possibly for centuries – for the arrival of another ship bearing suitable incubation-hosts.
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### Author:  [@WilhelmGefallen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WilhelmGefallen)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2005, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/92 "2005-02-01T06:42:06Z")
> [@lno](#):
>
> The thing to keep in mind here is that LV-426 isn’t “their planet”. In _Alien_, only eggs are seen, and those are in a cargo room of a crashed spaceship, which leads to the assumption that the spaceship was delivering eggs from one unknown location to another unknown location and an outbreak occured, which caused the crash onto LV-426. No need for the aliens to eat anything, as only eggs in stasis existed.
>
> The “alien homeworld”, if one exists, has never been seen or discussed in the movies.
Or to quote Ripley in Aliens;
Ripley: Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away? I already said that they weren’t indigenous, they were in a derelict space craft.
* * *
Wasnt it already decided in the comics that they are most likely Engineered by “The Pilots” or Predators?
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2005, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/93 "2005-02-01T07:57:46Z")
> [@lno](#):
>
> Well, Ash and the Company knew that the beacon wasn’t a SOS from the start. Remember when Ripley found Special Order 937:
It’s not at all sure that they knew it wasn’t an SOS. They just knew it was a signal from alien life, and therefore issued Special Order 937.
> [@Rufus Xavier](#):
>
> I agree that Ash’s only concern was the retrieval of the alien life form. Mother’s role in the whole affair, however, is somewhat unclear. Certainly Dallas was not in on the conspiracy, and when the crew is awoken, it is Dallas who is told by Mother that the ship must land on the surface of a planet from whence a distress signal is emanating and render assistance.
>
> I wonder, then, to what extent the computer known as Mother was complicit in the conspiracy. If Mother was programmed by the company to tell the Captain that the signal was a distress call, how and why could it then later reveal to Ripley that it was a warning?
Mother probably wasn’t “in” on it, if you can even say that about a computer. Otherwise, why would she reveal Special Order 937 or give Ripley access to her after Dallas’s death?
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### Author:  [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-nitpick-how-did-it-get-so-big/286267/94 "2005-02-01T14:47:19Z")
> [@Priceguy](#):
>
> It’s not at all sure that they knew it wasn’t an SOS. They just knew it was a signal from alien life, and therefore issued Special Order 937.
Good point.
> [@](#):
>
> Mother probably wasn’t “in” on it, if you can even say that about a computer. Otherwise, why would she reveal Special Order 937 or give Ripley access to her after Dallas’s death?
Ripley was the ranking officer after Dallas’ death (or when he was off the ship - remember her refusing to let Kane aboard due to quarantine rules) and she used an emergency command override to bypass Mother’s “unable to clarify” response to her initial question about SO 937.
What seems the most likely to me is that the Company picked up the transmission, deciphered it, and sent Ash and the Nostromo out on a route that would result in Mother picking up the transmission and waking up the crew to investigate. At the time, Ash was fully aware of the situation and Mother’s capabilities, and so he took the responsibilities of decoding the transmission (and tried to deter Ripley from investigating) so he could suppress Mother’s findings.
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