Aliens - so what were the Colonial Marines actually prepared for (tactically)?

[Billy-o]

I’m trying to make all this jibe with the message that Ripley finds in MOTHER’s memory banks in the first movie:

"Priority one
Insure return of organism for analysis.
All other considerations secondary.
Crew expendable." 

So somehow W-Y knew there was an alien organism on the planet that could be valuable way before the colony was established. And the “crew expendable” clause suggests they knew the alien might be dangerous. How they could have known any of that isn’t clear to me, but at any rate, W-Y certainly was aware that the problem the marines were walking into was more than just a down transmitter.

[grude]

@Billy-o

I’m trying to make all this jibe with the message that Ripley finds in MOTHER’s memory banks in the first movie:

So somehow W-Y knew there was an alien organism on the planet that could be valuable way before the colony was established. And the “crew expendable” clause suggests they knew the alien might be dangerous. How they could have known any of that isn’t clear to me, but at any rate, W-Y certainly was aware that the problem the marines were walking into was more than just a down transmitter.

This has always bugged me, remember too that Ash was a last second replacement for their usual science officer. It really does seem that in the first Alien movie the WY company knows all about the xenomorphs, and even sends the crew to investigate the signal, hell it seems like that was the whole point since Ash was snuck into the crew at the last moment by WY.

Apparently the terrible Alien vs. Predator movies tried to explain this.

I wonder if Ripley held back some of what she knew, afraid the company would have her killed if she revealed their whole mining operation was just a cover so Ash could recover an alien.

[Miller]

I always assumed that the instructions in Mother’s memory were standing orders in case they stumbled across any alien tech or life forms, and weren’t specific to the thing they found on LV-426.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Billy-o

I’m trying to make all this jibe with the message that Ripley finds in MOTHER’s memory banks in the first movie:

So somehow W-Y knew there was an alien organism on the planet that could be valuable way before the colony was established. And the “crew expendable” clause suggests they knew the alien might be dangerous. How they could have known any of that isn’t clear to me, but at any rate, W-Y certainly was aware that the problem the marines were walking into was more than just a down transmitter.

But 56 years has passed between the two films, long enough for any corporate officer who thought there might be aliens on the planet to have retired, especially if it came out that he diverted the Nostromo to check out a signal of tenuous clarity and the Nostromo subsequently disappeared.

Heck, that person could have been fired and/or died and been forgotten by the time the planet was initially colonized. Much later on, when Ripley is found, the corporation considers the entire matter as something of an embarrassment, to be quietly buried. Burke, though, saw an opportunity…

[grude]

@Miller

I always assumed that the instructions in Mother’s memory were standing orders in case they stumbled across any alien tech or life forms, and weren’t specific to the thing they found on LV-426.

Then why was Ash put in as a replacement science officer at the last minute? And why was his synthetic status hidden from the rest of the crew?

That is awfully coincidental that he just happens to be the one that breaks quarantine procedures, if he wasn’t on a secret mission from the beginning.

Also makes me wonder how much free will the synthetics have, for all we know Ash was like a Terminator on a mission.

[RogueAOV]

I also had, and still do have the technical manual from the movie, it is a awesome read, very well written and informative.

In it there are paragraphs of “scuttlebutt” traded among various soldiers some in relation directly to Aliens or slightly skewed versions of the same but with details confused or entirely false, a very nice touch adding depth to the book. Some of the other stories in it talk of fighting against human enemies and the tactics used against them, so the colonial marines were fully capable and tactically able to take on humans!, not so good at killing machines.

TL;DR i love Aliens! its my fav Vietnam movie!

Regarding the colonial marines being sent, It would make sense that the government would have a substantial presence in patrolling any trouble spots and a company as large as W/Y would likely have military contracts etc that could help get something prioritized if they so wanted. However from the film it appears that quite some time has passed between Ripley losing her license and Burke resuming contact with her. So it is safe to assume that W/Y did not pull strings and Burke is either acting alone when he decided to follow up and get the derelict checked out.

There were 158 colonists at Hadleys Hope and a unknown number of cattle, in which to breed xenos.

The marines that were sent to LV426 was only half the number of a standard compliment, hence two dropships and APC’s.

It is fair to assume that Burke was not in charge of 426 as the base commander would not have referred to him as some suit in a office back home, but by name. Also if Burke had contacted the military he would have likely downplayed any risk and Ripley and himself coming along was just in case as voiced by Gorman on there initial meeting. Gorman looks like he just came out of the academy during this meeting and is obviously not in command of the marines he is later. Hicks commenting on Gorman not eating with them indicates they do not know each other, additionally he does not know them by name. Compered to Apone who clearly has spent considerable time building relationships with the team. As none of the marines act surprised someone has been replaced it is fair to assume commanders are often switched around and the fact there are only half a section would cause them to suspect its a easy mission and to not expect any major trouble.

It is clear from the mission briefing with Ripley that only Hicks and Apone are focused and treating the mission with respect. It is also clear from the breakfast discussion they have no idea why they are there but believe they can take on anything. Hudson’s cockiness is surely down to how capable they are and what they have dealt with previously.

When they locate all the transmitters together they have no reason to suspect anything other than they have holed up there. Also i do not think there is any mention or reference to the aliens nesting in Aliens or the initial release of Alien, So the marines As they logically suspect they will be escorting large numbers of civvies out of the danger zone it is bad tactically but logical to send in the entire team.

No excuse for dumping ammo whatsoever!

Almost all of the marines extra ammo and weapons would have be taken out in the dropship crash, and the following APC explosion. So all of the fancy toys Hudson mentions went up in smoke. If the APC had survived it was still capable of movement despite breaking the transaxle so i imagine they would have driven it as far as they could from the facility and used it to transmit a distress call to the Sulaco and awaited the second dropship.

[AncientHumanoid]

The Corporation is an entity (tax laws), so one or more people retiring only changes details.

Burke was likely rogue and messed things up.

How far back does The Objective go? W-Y is as powerful as a government. Reminds me of Heinlein’s stories.
But, either way is satisfying to me. Absolute proof may have to wait for another movie.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@RogueAOV

Gorman looks like he just came out of the academy during this meeting and is obviously not in command of the marines he is later.

Hey, give him some respect. He’d been on 39 drops [sub]38 of them simulated.[/sub]

[Jophiel]

I figure that not only has 56 years gone by but W-Y is such a huge entity that the people in the “Make LV-426 a livable place” department only have passing knowledge from the “Investigate alien life forms” department. Heck, I’ve worked in companies of fifty people where departments didn’t communicate, much less a half century of time and a bureaucratic corporation of likely hundreds of thousands (if not millions) people. If W-Y still had that information active in their operations, they would have sent research teams out over LV-426 sixteen years ago when they started terraforming it.

[AncientHumanoid]

Either way, we are all only working on assumptions. Mine is as good as yours, sci-fi storywise.

Regardless, this was a better Starship Troopers movie than Starship Troopers was!

[Ranchoth]

I just came in to recommend the Technical Manual—a delightful work, in-depth, very well written, with quite a number of “interviews” and anecdotal snippets from Marines on various subjects, and even (perhaps more importantly) a long series of “transcripts” of W-Y meetings in the aftermath of the movie(s), trying to figure out what the hell had happened—Burke (and a few others) trying to “screw everyone over for a percentage” on his own indeed being the theory they go with. Not that the W-Y people we hear are exactly paragons of virtue themselves, by any means, but they’re not Captain Planet-style talon-mincing eeevil.—and if they can salvage anything from it.

Anyway, a fun and enlightening read, and worth a trip to the library, Amazon, or, ahm, other sources. Especially if you like dry, technical detail.

@grude

I don’t know where this info came from, also that the Arcturians are not aliens, but a colony famous for transsexual prostitutes. Like someone might speak of going to see lady-boys in Thailand.

On this note—I’ve had a theory for awhile (I don’t think I’m the first) that the sexy “Arcturians” mentioned are more or less a reference to the seminal Dan O’Bannon/Moebius comic The Long Tomorrow, published in Heavy Metal in 1976, which provided heavy stylistic inspiration for sci-fi works such as Blade Runner, and even The Empire Strikes Back. (The O’Bannon/Scott connection to the Aliens 'verse is suggestive, and James Cameron has been known to take inspiration from various sci-fi sources as well.)

Anyway, running the risk of spoiling things, there is an Arcturian that shows up—Frost’s appraisal is not inaccurate.

[AncientHumanoid]

@Ranchoth

Anyway, running the risk of spoiling things, there is an Arcturian that shows up—Frost’s appraisal is not inaccurate.

Shows up where? In the Tech manual? In the comic?

Sounds like a fun read, all of them. Too bad there isn’t a video production of some of these things. Even unofficial, non-sanctioned, fan made would be a hoot.

[ExTank]

@Billy-o

I’m trying to make all this jibe with the message that Ripley finds in MOTHER’s memory banks in the first movie:

So somehow W-Y knew there was an alien organism on the planet that could be valuable way before the colony was established. And the “crew expendable” clause suggests they knew the alien might be dangerous. How they could have known any of that isn’t clear to me, but at any rate, W-Y certainly was aware that the problem the marines were walking into was more than just a down transmitter.

This is hand-wavy fan-wank, but I’m guessing that not long after the Nostromo was declared missing/overdue, some Burke-like W-Y people “purged” the Special Order from the W-Y computers, and quietly hoped that the whole mess never came back to bite them in the ass.

IIRC, in the Aliens novelization (been a long time since I read it, so I could be wrong), Ripley did reveal her knowledge of the Special Order during the Board Meeting/Incident Review, which was one more factor in the Board’s declaring her bug-nuts, with paranoid tendencies.

@Miller

I always assumed that the instructions in Mother’s memory were standing orders in case they stumbled across any alien tech or life forms, and weren’t specific to the thing they found on LV-426.

IIRC, the Special Order deliberately diverted the Nostromo with the deliberate intention that they get infected and bring the organism back, whereupon the original authors could say to any reasonable authority (with mock surprise) “Oh, look at what our dumb-ass space truckers came across. This is interesting; too bad about the crew, though.” That was, I think, the original intent behind the Special Order.

Profit! And they didn’t even have to send out an expensive, specially trained and equipped Xeno Survey & Contact Team to get it done!

This is in keeping with the ruthless (Alien, Alien 3), stupid-greedy (Aliens) mentality that we see of W-Y in the first three Alien movies. An argument could be made for tossing Prometheus onto that list, as well.

I seem to recall (but can’t remember the source; maybe one of the later Alien EU novels?) that W-Y had intercepted the Alien Derelict’s distress call, and deciphered it; and that it was pretty explicit about what the Alien Derelict was carrying. So the W-Y Special Order Conspirators knew what they were sending the crew of the Nostromo into, even if W-Y overall did not.

[AncientHumanoid]

@ExTank

This is hand-wavy fan-wank, but I’m guessing that not long after the Nostromo was declared missing/overdue, some Burke-like W-Y people “purged” the Special Order from the W-Y computers, and quietly hoped that the whole mess never came back to bite them in the ass.

IIRC, in the Aliens novelization (been a long time since I read it, so I could be wrong), Ripley did reveal her knowledge of the Special Order during the Board Meeting/Incident Review, which was one more factor in the Board’s declaring her bug-nuts, with paranoid tendencies.

IIRC, the Special Order deliberately diverted the Nostromo with the deliberate intention that they get infected and bring the organism back, whereupon the original authors could say to any reasonable authority (with mock surprise) “Oh, look at what our dumb-ass space truckers came across. This is interesting; too bad about the crew, though.” That was, I think, the original intent behind the Special Order.

Profit! And they didn’t even have to send out an expensive, specially trained and equipped Xeno Survey & Contact Team to get it done!

This is in keeping with the ruthless (Alien, Alien 3), stupid-greedy (Aliens) mentality that we see of W-Y in the first three Alien movies. An argument could be made for tossing Prometheus onto that list, as well.

I seem to recall (but can’t remember the source; maybe one of the later Alien EU novels?) that W-Y had intercepted the Alien Derelict’s distress call, and deciphered it; and that it was pretty explicit about what the Alien Derelict was carrying. So the W-Y Special Order Conspirators knew what they were sending the crew of the Nostromo into, even if W-Y overall did not.

(bolded) YES! Now I remember that being discussed at a con somewhere. So, it’s kind of a hybridized situation with regards to The Company and it’s roll.

Thanks! That was the scenario that made the most sense to me.

[Odesio]

@grude

Then why was Ash put in as a replacement science officer at the last minute? And why was his synthetic status hidden from the rest of the crew?

That is awfully coincidental that he just happens to be the one that breaks quarantine procedures, if he wasn’t on a secret mission from the beginning.

I’m with you. The Company clearly knew about the transmissions from LV-426, and, given that Ripley was able to figure out that it was a warning rather than a distress beacon, they must have been aware that there was something potentially dangerous there. So someone high up within the Company arranged for the Nostromo to go off course, had replaced the science officer with a synthetic, and had programed both it and Mother to make getting any life form back to the Company even at the expense of the lives of the crew the first priority. I don’t think the Company actually knew what they would find on LV-426 or if they’d even find living specimens. But they had high hopes and were willing to gamble with the lives of their employees.

[AncientHumanoid]

Which makes Burke even worse, because he starts out with knowing The Company plans, has no problem with being a part of it, AND is out to get as much of the rewards personally, screw EVERYONE else!

An alternate timeline Burke, one who succeeded on the company/personal mission, would be an awesome lesson in pure selfish evility.

[MOIDALIZE]

Burke manages to keep his scheme under wraps, and gets half a platoon of Colonial Marines to accompany him. But that still requires use of the Sulaco, and a voyage long enough to require the crew be put in stasis. So who owns the Sulaco, W-Y or the CMs? I’d think however large and bureaucratic these organizations might be, they’d be sure to keep close tabs on their starships.

[Chronos]

The Colonial Marines own the Sulaco. The government owns the Colonial Marines. Weyland-Yutani owns the government.

[dasmoocher]

@MOIDALIZE

I’d say they were equipped to handle just about anything.

Mostly…

[Jophiel]

@MOIDALIZE

Burke manages to keep his scheme under wraps, and gets half a platoon of Colonial Marines to accompany him. But that still requires use of the Sulaco, and a voyage long enough to require the crew be put in stasis. So who owns the Sulaco, W-Y or the CMs? I’d think however large and bureaucratic these organizations might be, they’d be sure to keep close tabs on their starships.

The Colonial Marines are owned by the US government for the purpose of protecting US colonies from, well, whatever. Weyland-Yutani co-financed the LV-427 colony, my guess being that the government finds an appropriate rock and companies bid to be responsible for terraforming it. W-Y takes on part of the bill and gets probably gets some sort of exploitation rights to the resources while the government gets to expand their footprint across the galaxy.

Presumably Weyland-Yutani has significant influence on the US government in a “Haliburton times Exxon Mobil times Boeing time Koch Industries” sort of way but the two are supposedly separate entities. Burke needed to get the embryos past the government quarantine, for instance.