# Aliens - so what were the Colonial Marines actually prepared for (tactically)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [January 29, 2015, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260 "2015-01-29T19:36:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/81 "2015-02-02T20:42:05Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > The value of the dollar (if it’s even the United States dollar they’re discussing; several other countries’ currencies have the same name: [Dollar - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar)) could easily have gone in the other direction, all those years from now. I’m sure it can somehow be fanwanked away but the reality is that listening to them say it makes me laugh which probably isn’t the desired reaction. I think they would have better served to go with something more vague (simply saying it’s very expensive). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/82 "2015-02-02T21:13:45Z")
Probably; or use a fictional currency along the lines of the Federation credit. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/83 "2015-02-02T21:32:29Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > I don’t know if W-Y was any smarter or better informed then the marines or they would have sent people there to collect specimens instead of starting a colony. We do know that by the time W-Y [showed up at the end of Alien3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlr-4PECivg), they brought some Japanese guys in weird plastic suits and Marines or private security personal in what looks like head to toe protective armor. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/84 "2015-02-02T21:51:57Z")
Regarding the currency issue: I don’t have any problem with the idea that dollars have been revalued, or that we may even be talking about [NewName] dollars that have never been related to a real-world currency. As for the starships’ value: I don’t really see a problem with a currency where you’d be working in decimal amounts for everyday purchases. In the US, we’re already talking about moving to dimes as the smallest unit of currency, and even then a dime would be worth less than pennies were at certain times in history. (Hence the use of half-pennies and mills). With a presumably digital currency, it might be that most people rarely deal in whole dollars. But as another point on the starship: In the other thread (the one on the first movie), it was already commented on how run-down that starship is. The 42 million figure may be the “blue-book value” for a 50-year old starship with a million light years on it, that’s 10 years overdue for a major overhaul. A new starship could easily be worth hundreds of millions or even billions. And… just because I love to fan-wank Aliens (ew… that sounds bad phrased that way)… Once you can start mining materials in space, it’s likely that raw materials become vastly cheaper than they are in our modern Earth economy. Imagine what would happen to the price of a car if steel went to 1/10th of its current value. In a way, this is suggested by the LV-426 colony construction. There’s an awful lot of metal there compared to how we build things on Earth today. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/85 "2015-02-02T22:08:28Z")
Someday Kilo- or Mega-Dollars will be replaced with New Dollars, and then the New part will be dropped. Not a huge deal. In retrospect, reading this thread, Burke reminds me of the stupid businessman who tried to make a deal in Nakatomi Towers (Die Hard). No real understanding of the consequences, only thinking money. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/86 "2015-02-03T15:06:02Z")
This is so nuts - I mean, listen, listen to what you’re saying. It’s paranoid delusion. How - it’s really sad. It’s pathtic. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2015, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/87 "2015-02-03T15:15:51Z")
LA LA LA LA! I am not listening to Jeffrey! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/88 "2015-02-03T18:26:45Z")
You are so badass. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/89 "2015-02-04T00:41:39Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > And… just because I love to fan-wank Aliens (ew… that sounds bad phrased that way)… Once you can start mining materials in space, it’s likely that raw materials become vastly cheaper than they are in our modern Earth economy. Imagine what would happen to the price of a car if steel went to 1/10th of its current value. In a way, this is suggested by the LV-426 colony construction. There’s an awful lot of metal there compared to how we build things on Earth today. That’s the thing. Trying to do an economic analysis on an M-Class starship or atmosphere processing plant decades into the future is like Benjamin Franklin trying to calculate the value of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier in 1776 dollars. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/90 "2015-02-04T02:17:49Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > That’s the thing. Trying to do an economic analysis on an M-Class starship or atmosphere processing plant decades into the future is like Benjamin Franklin trying to calculate the value of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier in 1776 dollars. Of course, if he DID, he would probably guess some princely sum like “a million dollars” which would seem obscene in 1776 dollars and laughable in ours. $42 million has the opposite problem. It’s laughably low by any modern estimation and while you can handwave explanations (future kilo-dollars!) at it, it still sounds ridiculous. To me, anyway. Going the Benjamin Franklin route and calling it a hundred trillion dollars would have made more sense. It’s a very minor flaw\* but still manages to give me a laugh when I hear it. \*If something takes me out of the film every time, I’m going to call it a flaw. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/91 "2015-02-04T10:03:26Z")
I like the Blue Book explanation. In real life, today, cars and airplanes and ships and all the rest get absurd devaluations after a couple decades have passed. That ship could easily have a Blue Book of 5% of it’s original cost. The other factor here is the relative commonality of the class. In real life, cargo ships are not worth much to begin with. Maybe a cargo starship isn’t worth much, either. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/92 "2018-09-20T14:40:06Z")
Bumped. The actress who played Newt recalls the shoot: [Thirty Years Later, Newt Remembers Filming Aliens | WIRED](https://www.wired.com/2016/07/aliens-newt-comic-con/) ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/93 "2018-09-20T15:09:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Her favorite scene to shoot? The one in which Newt, stuck chest-high in water, is snatched up by a towering alien—a terrifying sequence, and one that gave most other 10-year-olds nightmares for years to come. But for Henn, it was mostly a chance to goof around. “The first assistant director had actually had someone stay there overnight, to make sure the water stayed warm,” she said. “But it was actually too warm for me, so I would sit up on bars on the side, and the alien and I would stay up there, kicking our feet in the water.” Man, I wish someone had taken a photo of that. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/94 "2018-09-20T21:47:27Z")
For me, there are two flaws that take me out. One is the already mentioned “getting the Marines killed in the reactor” scene. Most of the posters here seem to take that as Gorman being an idiot, but I look it as Cameron’s bad writing. He needed to get the cast numbers down drastically. To reduce the number of Marines. So he slaughtered them, the same way the automatic guns reduced the number of xenomorphs. Quickly and efficiently (from a storytelling standpoint). The second is, if it was so all fired important to not fire guns under the reactor, why did nothing happen when the Marines went against orders and fired their guns under the reactor? Combine the two, and it looks like poor writing. If the Marines had used their guns “legally”, and still got their asses kicked, would anything have changed in the story? no. Gorman could still panic and not call a pullback. The way it is, it’s as glaring as $42M (adjusted). PS and damn, don’t they teach perimeter control? The drop ship lands in a hot zone, and leaves the door open? It should never have landed at all, just orbited the landing zone. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/95 "2018-09-20T22:20:22Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > The second is, if it was so all fired important to not fire guns under the reactor, why did nothing happen when the Marines went against orders and fired their guns under the reactor? Wasn’t the whole bit with the colony going to explode due to the firefight rupturing the cooling pipes under the reactor (as they feared would happen)? Marines go in, shoot some stuff, get out and then an hour or two later Bishop is pointing to the venting reactor gas and saying “Welp, we’re all going to die now…” Edit: Actually, Bishop also says that the dropship crash caused too much damage for them to shut down the reactor. So either the firefight contributed to the issues by rupturing the cooling pipes or you can assume that since only two Marines had wepaons they were firing, they just didn’t hit anything vital. Or they did but it’s compounded by the dropship crash. Anyway, it’s not an issue for me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/96 "2018-09-20T23:51:22Z")
Oh, as for culpability, I assume that the Corporation didn’t know anything, but were still to blame. They deliberately cultivated a corporate culture of Burkes: If you find something that will profit us, share it and get rewarded, and who cares what happens to anyone else. But don’t tell us anything until you have money in hand, because what we don’t know, we can’t get indicted for. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/97 "2018-09-21T12:29:37Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > They are sort of like a shadowy Halliburton meets General Dynamics meets Microsoft of space travel. Using a Purina logo. How the hell Scott and O’Bannon got away with that, I’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/98 "2018-09-21T19:00:31Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Using a Purina logo. How the hell Scott and O’Bannon got away with that, I’ll never know. Huh? [![](http://www.vectorsland.com/imgd/l40467-purina-logo-49686.png) ](http://www.vectorsland.com/imgd/l40467-purina-logo-49686.png) [https://thenostromofilesblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/weyland-yutani-logo-by-synthetic-dreamer1.png](https://thenostromofilesblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/weyland-yutani-logo-by-synthetic-dreamer1.png) [http://wildhatstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/weyland-vector.jpg](http://wildhatstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/weyland-vector.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/99 "2018-09-21T19:12:42Z")
The Purina logo shows up as [one of](https://typesetinthefuture.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/alien_0_03_38_full.jpg) [Ron Cobb’s icons](https://typesetinthefuture.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/alien_semiotic_01_full.jpg); the winged W-Y logo which appears on [beer cans](http://www.thepropgallery.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/f9b1b3b86a055a9d42aacc5a91a21a11/a/a/aasbbase.jpg) and other props in the movies is different. ---
**Author:** ![gregorio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@gregorio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gregorio)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260/100 "2018-09-21T19:15:17Z")
Maybe the “hazard warning” pictograph shown here? > **[Alien’s ‘Standard Semiotic’, Pictograms and Icons](https://crewsproject.wordpress.com/2017/05/12/aliens-standard-semiotic-pictograms-and-icons/)** > > For one reason or another, we’ve had a bit of a fantasy writing systems theme lately in our blogging. Not so long ago I wrote something about the various invented writing systems of the Legend of Z… Ninjad! because **DPRK** ’s google fu is stronger and faster than mine. But hey, you might want to read mine for the article. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aliens-so-what-were-the-colonial-marines-actually-prepared-for-tactically/711260.md?page=6)