ALIENS Question

Han Solo and Chewie fixed the Falcon on their own.

And they were faster than light.

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The ship was automated. It needed no crew.

The Sulaco was a fully automated ship. When the small crew of Marines were there, they would work on it. when they were off, it ran by itself.

but the main reason there was such a small crew was because the Colonial Marines were sent on what everyone thought was going to be stupid "Bug Hunt." something not worth spending millions of the military budget on. something they could easily handle on a remote planet that no one but the corporation really gave a crap about.

I'm sure if there was some sort of interplanetary war, we would have seen many more marines on each ship.

anyway, that's my take on it.

Mother.

Based on what was established in the other films, there was invariably some sort of 'Mother' or 'Father' on board to keep things running. It is even shown in the beginning of Alien 3 that the ship was able to automatically sound warnings, take measures, and jetison life boats without crew intervention.

As far as the "faster-than-light" assertion, I'm not sure if that's the case. If the ship were faster than light, why would they need to go into hypersleep? FTL travel wouldn't require that, and the crew could use that time to prepare and train for the mission. Faster than most, but not faster than light.

'Faster than light' doesn't mean instantaneous. If you travel at twice the speed of light it'll still take you two years to get to the nearest star. The movies don't address this directly, but their ships would have to travel faster than light. Space is really big, and most stars are really far apart.

The real reason there was no one other than the marines and one robot on board was so Our Heroes could be stranded. If the Sulaco had a crew of hundreds it would be a different movie.

I think The Company knew what they were going to find. By having a smal crew, it's easier to keep your findings secret.

With a crew in hypersleep, you are able to save a lot of resources. You carry less oxygen and food and can power down most of the ship's systems during the trip.

Another thing to love about Aliens. No fucking redshirts.

Everyone had a name, not every character had the same amount of "face-time" obviously, but there was no fat and nothing extraneous. We cared about every character in that film. I still weep for Wiersbowski and Frost and... that other guy... and that one chick.

Hmmm... can't remember their names...

Anyway, my point is that Aliens is still an awesome movie... or something.

Boooo!!


But seriously, the first Alien movie showed the ship's computer running things most of the time, and in the timespan between the films the Sulaco being a fully automated warship is not a big assumption to make.

The ship maybe, but a mission? A military adventure with absolutely no support personnel or backup? Not even a bunch of artificial persons?

It's not something that ruins the movie for me, I'd never even given the matter a smudge of thought before this thread comes along. But it seems weird to me to put all your eggs in one basket the way the Colonial Marines do. What if the first dropship had crashed?

I guess after 17 days another one would've been sent. But at the start of the film Burke was making it clear to Ripley that it likely wasn't a big problem - the loss of contact could just have been a downed transmitter. They didn't take her report seriously, underestimated any threat, and only sent one platoon to check out the situation. Classic military blunder.

Indeed.

It did crash and they bought the other one down on the remote. It seems there was a transmitter on the APC for situations like that.

If the ship was really automated, it should be able detect trouble and respond without the humans giving it instructions. I mean, the dropship and the APC were destroyed, yet the ship did nothing. It had to assume that it was beyond chance that both vehicles were destroyed by accident and that help should be summoned right away, something that a human crew would do.

Also, how long were the marines supposed to be on LV-426? They were carrying no provisions aside from weapons, ammo and armor. Shouldn't there be some kind of resupply plan? The drop ship would have to return to the mothership to get things leaving the unit "stranded" for the time being and exposed to danger.

And even if the company didn't really care about the mission, they did have a warship and a squad of marines at stake here. They flipped out when Ripley lost a cargo transport (albeit WITH cargo), but I'm assuming the mothership has a pretty significant dollar value associated with it as well so they should've more careful with it.

Also, Burke seemed pretty certain about the alien as it was him who got the authorization for a multi million dollar mission to go investigate a "possible downed transmitter" and then recruit an alien "expert" to go along. This sounds like the actions of a man who knows what's out there and intends to bring it back. Otherwise, someone as "important" as him wouldn't go along on the mission himself and would just send some flunkies. I think he read the secret files that the company had on their company founder Weyland's death in Anarctica and knew of the aliens. I think he also read Gary Busey's research and knew even more of the predator and he intended to get one to tip the scales in favor of the humans and himself.

yeah, I'm bored.

The Marines had a transmitter in the APC, in order to guide the second dropship to the surface. The problem being that the first dropship fell off the sky and on the APC.

Concerning the Company, the Nostromo was its property, that's why they flipped over its destruction. Not to mention that finding a scapegoat in Ripley made a coverup easier. If the sulaco was destroyed they wouldn't care that much. It's government property. Not to mention that if there was a large crew, it would be difficult to keep the existence of the aliens a secret or successfully smuggle specimens back to Earth.

WHA WHA WHAT?!?! You just linked AVP and to ALIENS?

Please don't do that again. We're trying to forget that abomination.

I think the drop ship and the APC likely had food packs stored away in lockers somewhere.


That's an important point: Burke had as much to do with the failure of the mission as anyone. He talked down any danger of the mission in order to get his hands on the Aliens, because a smaller force of marines meant a greater chance of getting some of them infected. Obviously he greatly underestimated just how dangerous these things were.

If I remember correctly...and I could very well be wrong, here...there's a throw away line towards the begining of Alien that mentions them dropping out of something like hyperdrive (not the term used, if the line even exists), when they're talking about waking up early, and off course.

Or it may have been in the preview, which isn't exactly a good source.

Or I could be talking out of my ass. It's 3am and I have insomnia

I figure that Bishop could fix any problems of a technical nature, particularly if the systems are all automated.
He was a robot, dont you know.

Agreed. Bishop could even make repairs outside the ship without having to don a spacesuit.

It's all economic. The company that's sending them on the mission is a ruthless, near-facist corporation that wouldn't think twice about sending them off, getting them killed, and then sending in another group with more reinforcements.

Think of the company like our army. We sent in a number of troops to Iraq that were insufficient to get the job done. Every indication had been made that we would need more, and yet we sent them anyway.

Multiply that craziness to sci-fi levels, and you've got your answer. The company just wants information and a sample. They don't care who dies.

Agreed. Not to mention the fact that the Nostromo only had one lifeboat built for 3 people.

That's not what I meant. I meant, what if it crashed with the entire crew on board on the way down?

No, the only way putting 10 or whatever it was on board the Sulaco makes sense is cinematically.