Corporate Behind the Scenes

Rick thats really really deep, I love the alien story line, but wow, you gave me some gap fillers here, making me wana buy the paperback and see if theres more in the book then the screen has to offer........the only problem I have with some is that, theres never any communication to any other spacecraft in either movie,both the Nostromo and the sulaco, are on there own due to the long ass trip which puts the crews into hypersleep. I wana believe that these movies follow nothing ever done, let it break new ground,and thats what they did.These fans and I love this site to catch up on this really F00Kn cool sci fi story....Thanks to you and your staff......thumbs up!

Chum, No see thats where if there is a science ship tailing the Nostromo and Special Order 937 makes perfect sense otherwise how would the corporation know about the fullblown Xeno prior and order Ash to protect it and making all other considerations secondary; crew expendable. Think about all the "collating" Ash was doing with MUTHUR. Also if there is a science team (vessel or on the ground or both) at Hadley's Hope then that makes a science team or even some androids raiding the derelict for eggs and planting them in the sub flooring of the Sulaco for continuity and we all know the corporation is evil enough to do it. I don't think anyone buys the Queen planting two eggs on the Sulaco as she was empty handed when exiting the elevator to the platform. Everyone figured the company knew but never knew to what extent anyone one person knew. I bet they had full frontal knowledge of what was going on. A lie that big doesn't need to be hidden, because it's to large to be believed. Regards, Rick

Oh and to add to this. They cover up the Nostromo/Xeno by moving the Narciscuss off course causing her to float all the way through the core systems to the other side and by some dumb luck a deep space salvage crew find it. Ripley was a pilot you would think she would know how to set simple coordinates prior to going into hypersleep, right?

Those are some great plot fillers @Rick and it does give more depth to Aliens, but then again that's the problems I have with Alien 3. It's like each time a sequel was made Fox went and tweaked the logic of what had been established in the prior installment. There was no way the Queen could have laid an egg on the Sulaco! And Bishop certainly didn't plant an egg on the Sulaco, so when did this egg get on there?! Ash I think knew from the beginning since he was placed on the Nostromo right as they left Thedus. He just didn't know when they would intercept the signal, but he knew it was coming the moment after they were awaken from hypersleep and Dallas said Muthur had a "for your eyes only" message. The company certainly set up the shake and bake colony in order for them to be infested , but did they actually think they would be able to corral and in turn make use of dozens of xenos?! Maybe, maybe not, and that's one issue I have with Aliens. As it seemed in ALIEN that both Ash and the company felt confident that the xeno was a nearly indestructible organism, what were their contingency plans for dealing with a mini army of xenos?!

GF, Good timing, I was about to crash. Ok, not so much plot fillers but tie-ins. Lets address these. Eggs on the Sulaco for Alien 3. Easy Fix with a side story going back to Aliens(aka Aliens 2.5). You answered your own question. Company set-up Hadleys Hope to get Infested. Now ask and understand why that decision was made. To study the xeno and gather specimens, plain and simple. It's right in your face but its too big to be believed. Definitely not all but a stray that wanders every now n again. So what do they need to study the xeno's a science team and some formidable defenses or better yet be completely invisible to the xenos. I know they had wireless back in the 80's and you know they had cameras everywhere on the colony. Why couldn't they just montior via camera and see exactly what is going on, which would make them invisible but still be present to see whats going on. (Back to Big Brother Days) I agree with you about Ash being the last second replacement. This is a given that the company knew about the signal. But I really feel Ash was updating the company on the fly in order to get Special Order 937 I don't think it was already just sitting there in the system waiting for Ash. There was also some speculation that Ash had interacted with the xeno as well he kept disappearing throughout the movie. Also when they were approaching the derelict why would Ash really need to go back to the console? Jsust some ideas. Regards, Rick

You know, How do we NOT know that the company isn't ran by skinjobs, throughtout the Alien Franchise. It was discussed in A:R that there was an Android rebellion. Bishop tried to get Riplye to come to teh ship to have the Queen removed. That could be another corporate tie in and give some insight to the companies continuous lack of empathy for human kind throughout the franchise. The androids just don't care. Regards, Rick

Hello, I am following this great site/forum (congratulatoins, for me the best information source on Prometheus on the web!) for quite some time now - now I finally registered. First post, yea! Sorry I, am not a native speaker so forgive me when I am writing mistakes here. I belong to the group that is waiting literally since 30 yrs. now to see another decent movie in the Alien Universe, I do not like anything done after Alien 3. My first viewing af Alien changed my life... This thread here is interesting. I like to add another thought that is keeping me thinking since a long time. For me it has always been clear that the company in Alien always knew that the species they wanted to have an example from is extremely dangerous. Why they know about it doesn't matter, probably Prometheus will give some answers. BUT: Why in the world should Weyland decide on sending a crew to the planet that is so unqualified to reach the mission goals? Ok, one could say Ash should have directed the Nostromo back to earth and the crew only served as a little snack for the creature during the long journey. But why not taking some money and employ some merceneries who can really do the job (or at least have bigger chances) ? Even if the entrie crew except Ash (and Jones, of course - a cat always finds a way of surviving) would have been killed - Ash is not really enough to deal with this creature. And he seems to be aware of that. Even if Weland had a need to hide this mission from the public, a more qualified, better equiped and instructed crew could have also be camouflaged as a regular ship/mission. So I like the way of thinking, that the Nostromo wasn't alone out there. Another ship, another crew may have lurked in the dark behind tghe Nostromo to finish the job but Ripley really screwed it up for them. So in the debriefing the Weyland managemenet decided to built a plant on that planet in order to be able to call the military for help in if something goes wrong, which sooner or late be the case... Just thinking... Regards, Aquila

Okay Rick, here goes... Regards another ship following the Nostromo. One simple question, why bother with the Nostromo. Why not just use the crew of that ship to gather a specimen and freeze it for transport back to Earth. IMO Alien - A company executive picks the Nostromo to be used to gather an Alien specimen from LV-426. Company replaces the science officer with the Ash Synthetic at Thedus. Nostromo leaves Thedus whereupon MU-TH-UR is ordered to make a course change. Passing LV-426 MU-TH-UR picks up SJ signal and awakens the crew. Contract Clause means they must investigate. Ash collates with MU-TH-UR and receives special order 937. All of Ash's actions from 'wake up' prove he was carrying out SO 937. Companies intention was to gather and harness the specimen aboard the Nostromo at the expense of the crew, with Ash being the observer/keeper of the creature. But Ripley fought back and screwed up their plans. The company thought the Nostromo would be enough, but didn't count on Ripleys desire for survival. IMO Aliens - Ripley drifts through space (Lambert was the navigator, Ripley was just a Warrant Officer). Hadleys Hope established with the intention of become hosts. Ripley found, and starts to make a stink. They use her info and transmit the co-ordinates to the colony, colony becomes hive of Aliens. Send in a rookie group of marines (lt. Gorman, Hudson etc.) under the pretense of eradication with Ripley as an advisor - Real plan send Ripley under the idea of eradication to her death with a bunch of green marines. Burke tries to extort the company so he is sent there under the pretense of gathering specimens, unaware he has been sent with the worst marines in history (cool characters but not effective in the slightest). Again Ripleys knack for survival undoes their plans. she not only escapes with the droid, a marine and a survivor, the hive is nuked. Ripley 2 - Company - 0 The company thought the hive would deal with Ripley and Co and leave them with a hive to study and examine. But Ripley screwed them again. Regards another ship following the Sulaco and planting the eggs on board. One simple question, why not just take them eggs home to earth to be studied, why waste them on the crew of the sulaco, they could have just nuked the sulaco. How the eggs got there, I don't know, I don't think anyone does (even Walter Hill who came up with the idea, go figure). but another ship doesn't make sense. If you watch Alien 3, and take note of the company emergency rescue sub-story and you realise all they cared about was gathering a specimen by any means necessary, the last thing they would do is waste such specimens. IMO Regards Snorkelbottom

I disagree completely about Bishop...He had to "Remote Pilot" the ship once he got the satelite up and running again and in an unstable envvironment at that, and not fly it himself until the end of that journey. I say he calculated it all pretty damn perfectly !!! Just my take though! I pretty much agree wiht everything else there.

To me the company was much more blind that what we think ... the start of Aliens is a good explaination ... 1) the company dont even belive Ripley ..its repeated many times that was a personal order from burke to send them to retrive the derelict . 2) if they knew they could have sent their men to rescue a specimen ..not the special marines that is SHOWN that are indipendent from a Company rappresentative (burke) 3) only from the end of Aliens the company is aware of everything , that explain the end of alien3 ( and there they arrive with their troops ..not marines ) 4) If the company was really aware that ripley destroyed their plans WHY they did sent back her along the marines in aliens ?? they are masochistic ??? 5) the many errors and beaviour that ash have ...he seems to not know what to do ... its all a surprise for him too 6) many things are merely to start another movie ( the colony on lv426 to make aliens happen .. the eggs aboard to make Alien 3 start ...) 7) why they didnt eliminate ripley then ? they were so ready to destroy a colony , to sacrifice the nostromo crew and they keep alive one that destroyed their plans ? no way So to me the company become really "evil" at the end of Alien 3 ....in aliens is Burke the evil ..the others are dumb .... in Alien there is simply a radio message picked up by the company and they reroute the nostromo there ...putting ash there to be sure that the order 937 is fullfilled ..but BEWARE "crew expandable" dont mean " crew must die" ..its a "just in case .."

Why is it impossible for the queen to have laid the eggs on the sulaco??? Why do we need another ship to explain the two eggs? If the company wanted to kill Ripley, why not run her over with a car and make it look like an accident? Or better still, jail her for gross negligence and destruction of company assets. Ash was not in real time contact with company chiefs, otherwise so could Dallas. No the distances were just too great. And a secret ship just doesn't make sense because it creates redundancy. These are some rich and creative ideas but a little too conspiratorial and far-fetched as plot points, for my liking anyway. Just my opinion folks.

Ok, seems I have a few people to respond to here. Snorky, Alien: I have a really simple answer. Plausible Deniability and Simple Economics. Why waste an expensive ship and an expensive crew when the Nostromo is a dated tugboat with a ragtag group (Per script details). I don't think they were expecting Ripley to self destruct the ship. Her getting stuck in hypersleep for so long could be any number of things, bad navigation, bad course corrections, spacial anomaly, etc. Aliens: I have to disagree with you on the lack of experience. Hicks, Vasquez, her boyfriend, Frost, and Apone had first hand experience with the way Hicks came right out and asked if it was another bug hunt. This is a total give away that the government albeit with a lot of corporate influence was looking for "bugs" or xeno's. Gorman was the only real total noob on the mission. This was part of the corporate plot. Sparky, I'm not arguing him piloting the ship. That we all know he did. What I'm arguing is the 2.5 hours. How do it take an hour to crawl 140 meters? That's only 420 feet. He patched in and aligned the antenna in less than 5 minutes. I don't recall the ship taking 50 minutes to land with a regular pilot and Bishop is an android so I am sure his reflexes are a lot better. Frantz, That is the thing they knew everything it goes back to Plausible Deniability. There is no way you can go in front of the Interstellar Commerce Commission and your Insurance company in Aliens and say yeah we sent them there to get a specimen and we sent an Android in to protect it. Man the ramifications would be endless. Why do you think Burke debriefed her and acted like he was on her side? She even said they threw her to the wolves when Burke and Gorman came to meet her. To answer your question about Ripley. A Bad Penny always returns, misery loves company, blind dumb luck? This seems to be the theme behind Ripley always having the Xeno's in her life. Thus the company always having a bad penny in Ripley because she always pops up and returns. That part is all blind dumb luck but the company knowing what is up is calculating. Starbeast, When the queen stowed away on the drop ship she was empty handed, no eggs nothing. Watch in slow motion that part of the film. She tore herself off the the slug part of her body that was filled with the eggs so she stopped making them at that point so how else did the eggs get there? Like I mentioned to Frantz, I don't think the company wanted to kill her I think they just wanted to shut her up and discredit her. The story of the xeno's is far to "grand" to believe although in the movie its true. Just like the company conspiracy is far to grand to believe but I would be willing to bet that's how it ties together. Now on to what you mention about redundancy. A large company always has redundancy it builds in consistency. Example; I work for a metal stamping company. We have multiple presses, incase one breaks down we have a back up, we have multiple engineers in case one quits we have a back up. Large corporations on something as big as this will always build redundancy into a plan and then execute it and then if they need to modify it they can on the fly. I'm going to steal a line from Contact. Why build one when you can build two for twice the price? Also everyone loves a good conspiracy story. Especially with corporate despotism and government tie ins. Regards, Rick

Aquila, I over looked your post. I apologize. I believe I answered your question in my response to one of the others. I think it is simply Plausible Deniability. Regards, Rick

Rick, Thanks for your reply. Plausible Deniability: agree. Simple Economics: Hm. It's not good economical thinking to use an unqualified crew with questionable success chances for this task. Calculating it properly means to spent a little more for mercenaries as crew (ship being the same cost) as to reduce the chance of failure and the need to finance another attempt. So either the company totally underestimated the challenge of the mission or made it sure to succeed by having another ship behind the Nostromo to finish the task. And then Ripley unexpectedly beat the Xeno. Damn! ;-) Regards, Aquila

I still think the queen could birth eggs without those appendages... But even if we accept the above theory, it still doesn't explain why the colonists (and all company presence for that matter) had been on the planet for 30 years and not disturbed the Derelict. So either the company is just incompetent or they didn't know. As an aside, the planetoid is only 1200 km IIRC across so how they missed the Derelict consistently for 30 years is a plot hole, I mean wouldn't satellites have mapped the entire surface and spotted the Derelict. But that's another thread.

You see the thing is we are all aware of the conspiracy regards the company wanting to get hold of a Xenomorph specimen, its the underlining sub-story to the entire franchise. But the thing is IMO there is a second conspiracy underlining the first... 1. Why send the Nostromo, and not a science R&D vessel. 2. Why set up Hadleys Hope, and not send a science R&D vessel. 3. Why send the Sulaco, and not a science R&D vessel. 4. Why send a science R&D vessel to Fiorina 161. I have always suspected there is another conspiracy regarding LV-426, that somehow, in someway Weyland-Yutani is prohibited from directly acquiring specimens from the derelict using conventional means, thus they resort to shadowy, underhand means. Only once there was a specimen beyond that system did WY send a science R&D vessel. That is the question that needs answering for me, who or what is not allowing WY to directly acquire xenomorph specimens in a controlled fashion, and more importantly why the prohibition.

[quote]That is the question that needs answering for me, who or what is not allowing WY to directly acquire xenomorph specimens in a controlled fashion, and more importantly why the prohibition.[/quote] Exactly, Snorkelbottom - this would answer my question, too! Cheers, Aquila

Aquila, Yeah I economics would be good I think they were expecting the crew to get killed and then they board the Nostromo with merc's and a science team. Then too late ship goes boom. Starbeast, Simple, when the nostromo blew the coordinates blew with it. They knew about the location of the moon, but not where the ship was at, so they sent a colony, then Burke gets the coordinates from Ripleys escape ship. I am sure once self destruct was initiated the Nostromo core was purged to that ship whe nit left and the coordiantes were in it and Burke sent a survey crew to those coordiantes to check it out. Regards, Rick

Snorks, Thats the whole thing. I say there was one the in each of the movies as a hidden side plot. How else could a science team and a droid be at Fiorina in a couple of days when takes a LONG time to get to Hadley's (Z-R) and Fiorina is right next door? Remember 85 said they'd be here there in a few hours and they were getting responses back from network really really fast. Thats part of the reason I say they had an R&D team at LV-426 to monitor the colony and tail the Sulaco back. Regards, Rick

I get you really feel for this idea Rick but I dont buy it... Why tail the Nostromo/Sulaco, why not just remove them from the equation and send the R&D vessel to LV-426, upon Ripley being found, to gather a shed load of eggs. IMO the R&D vessel in alien 3 arrived quickly because they sent an up to date vessel able to get there quickly as opposed to an old tugboat or aging military vessel.