# Origin of "nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 9, 2006, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737 "2006-07-09T15:02:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/61 "2006-07-11T21:08:40Z")
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy] Hudson: Man, this floor’s freezing. Apone: What do you want me to do, fetch your slippers for you? Hudson: Gee, would you sir? I’d like that. [/QUOTE] Apone: Look into my eye. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/62 "2006-07-11T21:20:45Z")
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy] Heck, _Raiders_ wasn’t even [the first movie](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079882/trivia) to use the device. [/QUOTE] Interesting. The story, though, predates Seven by quite a bit. I’d have to look up the publication date, but it got reprinted by Forry in an early Perry Rhodan, and the reprint was prior to 1979. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/63 "2006-07-11T21:23:07Z")
[QUOTE=ExTank] As someone who’s military carreer took a hard left because of untimely events (GW 1), my favorite line from Hudson was: [/QUOTE] Don’t forget the additional “Now I’m gonna buy it on this rock.” Also: Ripley: [lights go out] They cut the power! Hudson: _They_ cut the power?! Whaddya mean they cut the power?! How could they cut the power, man, they’re animals! [extended version, after the robosentry battle] Hudson: Maybe we got 'em demoralized. Vasquez: Shut up! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/64 "2006-07-11T21:30:14Z")
As a minor note, **Stranger on a Train** quoted the scene’s script which varied slightly from the final version. The immediate reaction to Ripley’s suggestion was ultimately: Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. Hudson: Fuckin’ A. Then Burke started to argue, gaining the sympathy of neither the surviving marines nor the audience. A few months back, I was having dinner at a friend’s house and he said something about having to go round up his five year-old son from the basement, where the boy was watching TV. I said _“Forget him, he’s gone!”_ to much amusement. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/65 "2006-07-11T21:31:31Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] And to continue the hijack, since the thread got moved, the amazing thing about that scene is that it was anticipated in a short-short sf story called “Swordsmen of Varnis.” In it, a John Carter like hero is fleeing with a Princess. It is a Barsoom-like planet. They flee into a cave, pursued by soldiers. he pulls out his sword and slays the attackers as they try to get at them until one guard says, basically, this is ridiculous, pulls out his blaster, and blows the guy and the princess to smithereens. The end. An amazing case of independent development of the same idea. [/QUOTE] Not more independent development, but another hijack. The comic 2000AD has two regulars, Sinister and Dexter, gunsharks (hitmen) for hire. They’re sent to Mangapore, a SE Asia conurbation to top someone and along the way they’re, um, waylaid by ninjas. The ninjas are chopping them slowly into submission when one of our heroes happens to take one of them down in mid-kick. He finds a gun in the ninja’s clothing and realises all the ninjas are thus armed. The gunsharks are infuriated at this insult, that someone would try and kill them not with guns as is their trade, but in hand to hand combat. Suitably angered they seize a gun each and proceed to blow the ninja’s all away. One of only two scenes where I really liked them, the rest of the time they were too much like Jackson and Travolta in Pulp Fiction for my liking. ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/66 "2006-07-11T21:36:12Z")
As another poster noted before, the dialogue betwixt the survivors of the alien attack was [a little different in the movie](http://webpages.charter.net/psiekier/media/CN20.WAV) than it appears in the script excerpt that **Stranger on a Train** posted: > [@Aliens](#): > > **Vasquez:** All right, we got seven cannisters of CN-20. I say we roll them in there and nerve-gas the whole fucking nest. > > **Hicks:** It’s worth a try, but we don’t even know if it’s gonna affect 'em. > > **Hudson:** Look, let’s just bug out and call it even, OK? What are we talking about this for?!? > > **Ripley:** I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. > > **Hudson:** Fuckin’ A! > > **Burke:** (stammering) Ho-ho-hold on… hold on one second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it! > > **Ripley:** (scoffs) They can bill me! I don’t recall, even in the extended version of the film… … in which extra footage at the beginning shows Newt’s parents out to collect eggs from the “derelict spacecraft” from _Alien_, presumably on Burke’s orders… … that there’s any resolution to whether they got them all in the end or not. Furthermore… [spoiler]In another deleted scene, Hudson is boasting about the might of the _Sulaco’s_ armament to Ripley. Sure, they have nukes (and knives, and sharp sticks…), but also “independently targeting particle beam phalanxes” capable of frying half a city. Had the return to the _Sulaco_ on board either of its two dropships gone according to plan, there’s little doubt that Hicks would have authorized the utter destruction of both the atmospheric processor where the aliens had built their nest _and_ the derelict; both Ripley and Burke are aware that it is _full_ of eggs! Bishop says the thermonuclear explosion caused by the processor’s meltdown will create “a cloud of vapor the size of Nebraska”, but there’s no indication how far the Hadley’s Hope colony is from the derelict; it _could_ be - if you needed fodder for yet another god-awful sequel featuring washed-up TV actors and/or Hollywood shoplifters - just far enough away that the derelict would survive with the eggs intact![/spoiler] I’d heard that Hudson’s line where he makes fun of Vasquez’s ethnic background (“Somebody said ‘alien’, she though they said ‘illegal alien’…”) was an in-joke amongst the cast because actress Jenette Goldstein had auditioned for a role thinking the movie _was_ about 19th-century immigrants. I’ve heard this story repeated several times, and it supposedly has something to do with Goldstein’s being cast as an Irish immigrant in _Titanic_. Seems fishy to me, but not entirely out of character for director James Cameron. I’d like to have this confirmed by someone who worked on or was in _Aliens_. ---
**Author:** ![BorderFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@BorderFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorderFox)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/67 "2006-07-11T23:52:21Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy] Or to put the saying in context: The space marines have gone deep underground to the Aliens lair led by their gung-ho commander. Ripley had advised simply nuking the entire site, but the commander is sure his squad of big tough marines can handle a few bugs. Ambushed by the xenomorphs, the squad barely gets out alive, with the commander temporarily comatose and the ranking non-com in command. His first decision as acting commander is to repeat Ripley’s suggestion word for word. In other words, it’s an archtype of being smart rather than badass. Sorta like when Indiana Jones pulled out his gun and shot the attacker. [/QUOTE] ‘Not bad…for a human…’ One of my favourite films ever, by far my favourite action and sci-fi movie, and with one of the most quotable scripts. That summary above isn’t quite right though, the ‘Nuke the entire site from orbit’ dialogue all takes place _after_ the Marines get their nasty surprise in the aliens nest. I have to say that the massive potential for the sequels was almost utterly wasted. Some of the Dark Horse comics for example had excellent stories, I would have liked to have seen one where the xenomorphs reach Earth and the consequences of that. The third and fourth films were just so…limited. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/68 "2006-07-12T01:35:09Z")
[QUOTE=Balance] Obviously, the Conventions have undergone some revisions. Or maybe the implication is that an unrestricted android is actually _more_ dangerous than the other weapons? After all, the android could certainly use all those weapons if the combat restrictions were removed. [/QUOTE] True…and, at one point in the manual, there’s one of many one-paragraph “interviews” with a Colonial Marine where he (or she?) mentions that they don’t trust androids, and makes a comment that “they’re all built by Cyberdyne, or something”… So, maybe the _Terminator_ movies exist in that universe, and the Marine was making a reference. Or maybe the Terminator movies _happened_ in that universe, and there’s still some lingering anti-android sentiment, centuries after Skynet’s defeat, which translates into lingering fear about arming androids. Probably not. And it ain’t true canon, anyway. Still, it’s an intriguing thought experiment, eh? ---
**Author:** ![BorderFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@BorderFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorderFox)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/69 "2006-07-12T10:33:13Z")
What is this ‘manual’ of which you speak? I used to buy the old Dark Horse Aliens comics occassionally and the technical drawings etc in those were usually fantastic. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/70 "2006-07-12T10:42:39Z")
[QUOTE=BorderFox] What is this ‘manual’ of which you speak? [/QUOTE] The [Colonial Marines Technical Manual.](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061053430/104-1216846-4812709?v=glance&n=283155) I ran across it at a Barnes & Noble, once. Very cool stuff, it is. The final chapter, presented as a series of excerpts from transcripted Weyland-Yutani staff meetings, has a _very_ SDMB-like feel to it, I gotta say. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/71 "2006-07-12T15:51:59Z")
[QUOTE=psiekier] As another poster noted before, the dialogue betwixt the survivors of the alien attack was [a little different in the movie](http://webpages.charter.net/psiekier/media/CN20.WAV) than it appears in the script excerpt that **Stranger on a Train** posted: [QUOTE=\ ***Aliens**] \*Burke: (stammering) Ho-ho-hold on… hold on one second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it! Ripley: (scoffs) They can bill me! [/QUOTE] [/QUOTE] Right, nothing about “runing a tab.” But you _sure_ it’s not “YOU can bill me!”? My memory was of "you:, but I’ll have to look it up on the DVD when I get home. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/72 "2006-07-12T18:17:02Z")
Ever notice that when Burke cuts into the pipe to go outside and bring down the ship remotely, he’s able to grab the cut piece of steel immediately? Even if he doesn’t feel pain, wouldn’t that probably melt something? He’s just cut this out with a torch. ---
**Author:** ![JCorre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@JCorre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JCorre)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/73 "2006-07-12T18:25:09Z")
[QUOTE=Cardinal] Ever notice that when Burke cuts into the pipe to go outside and bring down the ship remotely, he’s able to grab the cut piece of steel immediately? Even if he doesn’t feel pain, wouldn’t that probably melt something? He’s just cut this out with a torch. [/QUOTE] I’m assuming you mean BISHOP right? Its still a good question. Oh and: Ripley: They cut the power. Hudson: What do you mean “THEY cut the power”? How could they cut the power, man? They’re animals! ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/74 "2006-07-12T19:08:24Z")
[QUOTE=Sailboat] … but you _sure_ it’s not “YOU can bill me!”? My memory was of "you:, but I’ll have to look it up on the DVD when I get home. [/QUOTE] … or you could just listen to the [audio clip](http://webpages.charter.net/psiekier/media/CN20.WAV) I so cleverly embedded in my post. It’s definitely “they,” referring to Weyland-Yutani (“The Company”). ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/75 "2006-07-12T19:26:08Z")
[QUOTE=JCorre] I’m assuming you mean BISHOP right? Its still a good question. [QUOTE] This is the same 'droid that was able to function (relatively) well after being turn in half, right? I get the feeling he can turn his pain sensors off. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![BorderFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@BorderFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorderFox)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/76 "2006-07-12T20:59:42Z")
[QUOTE=Ranchoth] The [Colonial Marines Technical Manual.](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061053430/104-1216846-4812709?v=glance&n=283155) I ran across it at a Barnes & Noble, once. Very cool stuff, it is. The final chapter, presented as a series of excerpts from transcripted Weyland-Yutani staff meetings, has a _very_ SDMB-like feel to it, I gotta say. [/QUOTE] [homer] Oooooohhhhh!!! [/homer] I’ll have to pick that up. Thanks. I think part of what I like so much about the Aliens movie and story-universe is that it seems _real_. It’s dark and gritty with the hardware on displayed looking like more advanced or logical extensions of our own. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/77 "2006-07-13T00:28:33Z")
This thread made me pull out my DVD. One of my all time favorite fun movie. Gorman: Open the lock, I’m coming in. Hudson: I feel safer already. After “Get away from her you BITCH!” Ripley in the forklift and the alien get into one ass-kicking fistfight. ---
**Author:** ![BorderFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@BorderFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorderFox)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/78 "2006-07-13T07:50:53Z")
[QUOTE=Biggirl] This thread made me pull out my DVD. One of my all time favorite fun movie. Gorman: Open the lock, I’m coming in. Hudson: I feel safer already. After “Get away from her you BITCH!” Ripley in the forklift and the alien get into one ass-kicking fistfight. [/QUOTE] Ever notice that that scene is played in in total silence music-wise? Just makes it all the more effective. It’s the same with the final duel scene in ‘Rob Roy’. Sometimes less really is more. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/79 "2006-07-13T14:31:08Z")
I have to say that this is probably one of my favorite lines in the movie, possibly from all movies. Ripley: (scoffs) They can bill me! ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737/80 "2006-07-13T14:54:51Z")
[QUOTE=BorderFox] Ever notice that that scene is played in in total silence music-wise? Just makes it all the more effective. It’s the same with the final duel scene in ‘Rob Roy’. Sometimes less really is more. [/QUOTE] Oh yeah, it makes it all the more creepy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-nuke-it-from-orbit-its-the-only-way-to-be-sure/363737.md?page=5)