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Payndz posted:Ships today can be scuttled if necessary (the Nostromo's destruct system is even labelled 'Scuttle' somewhere). Having a way to do the same thing in a spaceship isn't really a stretch (although blowing it up in a megaton nuclear explosion is slight overkill). No one owns space!
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Nov 12, 2016 04:55
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I need this in my life. What is it from?
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Nov 12, 2016 18:28
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OptimusShr posted:I need this in my life. What is it from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%8Ddenji_Machine_Voltes_V Apparently
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Nov 12, 2016 19:09
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OptimusShr posted:I need this in my life. What is it from? Voltes V, an old giant robot anime. It's not really relevant to anything, aside from having an extremely bitching spaceship with a castle on the top.
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Nov 12, 2016 21:40
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But that makes it relevant to everything!!
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Nov 12, 2016 21:58
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You know do we ever see the interior of the giant refinery the Nostromo is carrying? Like is there even an interior to begin with or is it just a giant automatic dumpster.
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Nov 14, 2016 20:44
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SirDrone posted:You know do we ever see the interior of the giant refinery the Nostromo is carrying? Like is there even an interior to begin with or is it just a giant automatic dumpster.
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Nov 14, 2016 21:00
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They were probably barred from entering by their contract, would count as trespassing. Refinery owner doesn't want some tug crew poking around their trillion dollar station. It's probably all sealed off, not even a way to get from the nostromo to the refinery, like not some handy airlock you can just walk through.
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Nov 14, 2016 21:03
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SirDrone posted:You know do we ever see the interior of the giant refinery the Nostromo is carrying? Like is there even an interior to begin with or is it just a giant automatic dumpster. Don't poke holes how the company is wasting money letting humans this they are actually needed to fly it.
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Nov 14, 2016 21:33
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Tenzarin posted:Don't poke holes how the company is wasting money letting humans this they are actually needed to fly it. I think it's just the opposite. They could probably automate the flying, but it's cheaper to just hire a (mostly) human crew.
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Nov 14, 2016 22:44
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The crew of the Nostromo sacrificing years in space to be the interstellar equivalent of Dude Hired To Hold A Sign is super appropriate for the Alien universe.
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Nov 14, 2016 23:04
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Baronjutter posted:They were probably barred from entering by their contract, would count as trespassing. Refinery owner doesn't want some tug crew poking around their trillion dollar station. It's probably all sealed off, not even a way to get from the nostromo to the refinery, like not some handy airlock you can just walk through. You're right, there isn't - there's a docking clamp on the top of the Nostromo, but it's not an airlock.  For another fun challenge, try to figure out where the motor is in the APC.  Schwarzwald posted:I think it's just the opposite. They could probably automate the flying, but it's cheaper to just hire a (mostly) human crew.
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Nov 14, 2016 23:25
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Xenomrph posted:For another fun challenge, try to figure out where the motor is in the APC.
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Nov 15, 2016 00:28
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Party Boat posted:The crew of the Nostromo sacrificing years in space to be the interstellar equivalent of Dude Hired To Hold A Sign is super appropriate for the Alien universe. Go to sleep for 50 years and do nothing. We got breakfast ready when you wake up along with your check! It can't be because its cheaper, because its cheaper the humans all went crazy and blew up the ship when they found an alien. Its not like they couldn't make robot people!
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Nov 15, 2016 03:05
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Aside from the obvious "because it's a movie and the plot demands it" there's no reason to have humans aboard for 99.9% of what the Nostromo does. There's a reason the first casualties (careers that is, not like that dude in the Tesla) of self driving vehicles are going to be over-the-road truckers. Highways are really easy to navigate for current technology and are already being successfully navigated by computers because the rules are straight forward and there's little to no cross traffic, pedestrians, etc. The only thing a human driver is needed for TODAY is the last few miles once you've exited the highway. Now fast forward 100 years and change the setting to space which is far more vast and empty than the most remote road on earth and it quickly becomes apparent that the only reason to put humans on board is to cast them out of society. Even having an android on board as the sole occupant in case something goes wrong that needs to be addressed by a physical being may not pass a cost/benefit analysis. tl;dr: you could just fly pilot and crew out to the space tug for the first and final bit of the journey and be totally fine. The only reason to put a crew on there full time is because you hate them.
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Nov 15, 2016 03:42
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They don't have hypersleep with the intention that someone would be in it for 57 years. I got the idea that it would normally be months to a year at most (IIRC from the novel or some other more official-ish source?) so ships could have way less in the form of supplies/food and people getting cabin fever. Even in the super advanced for the time ship in Prometheus they had IIRC a two year trip and that was considered way out of line. The Nostromo's refinery is indeed fully automated. Born from how far away everything is from earth and how long the trips take. The crewed ship tugs the refinery around to a few worlds collecting stuff, then while everyone is in hypersleep for the long trip back it does the actual refining and processing.
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Nov 15, 2016 03:44
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Maybe the crew's there to fend off space pirates. Tom
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Nov 15, 2016 09:27
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Payndz posted:Maybe the crew's there to fend off space pirates. With what, harsh language?
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Nov 15, 2016 09:34
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Neo Rasa posted:They don't have hypersleep with the intention that someone would be in it for 57 years. I got the idea that it would normally be months to a year at most (IIRC from the novel or some other more official-ish source?) so ships could have way less in the form of supplies/food and people getting cabin fever. Even in the super advanced for the time ship in Prometheus they had IIRC a two year trip and that was considered way out of line. The Nostromo's refinery is indeed fully automated. Born from how far away everything is from earth and how long the trips take. The crewed ship tugs the refinery around to a few worlds collecting stuff, then while everyone is in hypersleep for the long trip back it does the actual refining and processing. Well Ripley promised her daughter she'd be back for her twelfth (from memory) birthday, so certainly not vast amounts of time. I just saw it as the future version of working on an oil rig or research station for long periods of time away from family. I know that in the novelisation it mentions that humans are literally only there in the event that something out of the ordinary happens while the refinery works it's magic on the haul home. As a teenager I always wondered why Ripley didn't disconnect the Nostromo from the refinery, blow it up and then leave the shuttle by the refinery as she'd be more likely to be found if she was floating alongside a bew billion dollars worth of ore. Of course as a teenager that's what I would have done because I would have been totally cool, logical and forward thinking while being stalked through a ship where all my friends had died horribly and death could be round any corner. Playing Alien Isolation years later proved that I would actually be a total pussy and would have been found by the alien while crying in a locker
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Nov 15, 2016 11:43
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There's nothing in Alien that suggests robots, at least robots that can pass for humans, are ubiquitous in society yet. Ashe could be some expensive prototype that would be impractical as a replacement for the average space trucker. The crew don't act completely blown away when they find out, but it definitely surprises them.
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Nov 15, 2016 16:23
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I always thought the crew knew he was a robot with how everyone is treating him, even Parker. But then again he does seem surprised when he is smashed apart.
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Nov 15, 2016 19:07
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I think parker just hated everyone who was making more than him (except lambert because he wanted to eat that pussy)
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Nov 15, 2016 21:33
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married but discreet posted:I always thought the crew knew he was a robot with how everyone is treating him, even Parker.
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Nov 15, 2016 22:13
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Xenomrph posted:Nah, the crew didn't know. Ash was a late addition to the crew, too - the Nostromo's regular science officer got swapped out just before departing for Earth. Talk about dodging a bullet. You seem like the best person to ask this question: With all the different Alien related media taken into account(games, comics etc.), does the theory that the company knew about the signal in advance and set the Nostromo out there purposely actually hold water? Is there like a comic or something that has ever actually confirmed or definitively disproven that theory?
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Nov 15, 2016 22:23
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Basebf555 posted:You seem like the best person to ask this question: Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Nov 16, 2016 |
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Nov 16, 2016 07:20
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Xenomrph posted:Yeah, the basic idea is that the Company knew there was something out there worth checking out, but didn't know exactly what it was, or where it was. The basic timeline of events is that Company personnel at Thedus (the Nostromo's departure point) detected the signal, partially deciphered it and recognized that it was worth investigating as quickly as possible lest someone else jump on the find first. The Nostromo was departing soon and would be going relatively close, so the W-Y Science Division put Special Order 937 in place in the Mother computer, swapped out the assigned science officer with Ash, and sent the Nostromo in the direction of the signal. Just shy of a year later, the Nostromo reaches LV-426, the crew is woken up, and the movie 'Alien' happens. When the Nostromo doesn't make it to Earth, it's declared missing and whoever had ordered the Nostromo rerouted, put Ash onboard, and implemented Special Order 937 presumably got spooked and kept quiet about the whole thing. The Derelict's beacon gets shut off 15 years later (Alien: Isolation), over time the Nostromo's disappearance becomes a cautionary tale and a spooky urban legend, and since the Company has lost an expensive starship and the signal isn't being broadcast anymore, they opt to cut their losses and not investigate any further. Wait the signal was on for 15 years but the trip back wasn't that long? Shouldn't the company of sent something to check by then? I'm glad none of this backstory is even in the movie because it's awful.
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Nov 16, 2016 10:54
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Tenzarin posted:Wait the signal was on for 15 years but the trip back wasn't that long? Shouldn't the company of sent something to check by then? I'm glad none of this backstory is even in the movie because it's awful. They probably did send someone to check but, not knowing the exact origin of the signal or the Nostromo's point of desctruction, found nothing until the independent salvage crew stumbled across the black box 15 years later, used it to backtrack to LV-426 and there shut the beacon off. Someone at the company probably had a general idea about what they were looking for out there however, as in Isolation they initially just send Amanda & co on the Torrens when alerted that the black box is recovered, but when being alerted to the biohazard aboard Sevastopol while the Torrens is in transit, they immediately buy out the entire station and remotely repurpose the AI to protect the biohazard, with no specific knowledge being transmitted about the nature of it. That's not a casual investment to make. My personal pet theory is that people within the company knew they were looking for some sort of alien organism before the Nostromo set out, and that it could probably be found somewhere in the region. Nostromo might not even be the only ship going through that had an android placed on board at the last minute, and that's why its disappearance was written off as a coincidence that wasn't exhaustively investigated. The bigger question for me is why the Company (or high-ranking people within it) are so intent on acquiring the xeno. I don't buy for a minute that it is just as a bio-weapon (I imagine that it is just the first use that springs to mind to people bringing it up in the movies, but who are otherwise ignorant of the actual plans to acquire the xenos). Considering its biological advantages (extremely rapid growth for example) and supposedly being genetically compatible with humans, I wouldn't be surprised if they want it for study into how to enhance human biology. Slashrat fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Nov 16, 2016 |
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Nov 16, 2016 11:56
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Slashrat posted:The bigger question for me is why the Company (or high-ranking people within it) are so intent on acquiring the xeno. There is evidence of an technologically advanced alien species that we weren't previously aware of. -> Let's go check it out.
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Nov 16, 2016 12:22
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Slashrat posted:They probably did send someone to check but, not knowing the exact origin of the signal or the Nostromo's point of desctruction, found nothing until the independent salvage crew stumbled across the black box 15 years later, used it to backtrack to LV-426 and there shut the beacon off. They want it so they can turn it into a cyborg with sweet dual plasma launchers on each arm complete with laser guided tracking.
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Nov 16, 2016 12:27
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Maybe the Company was somehow able to recover a copy of the signal that the Prometheus picked up coming from that moon they went to, and they've been searching for a similar signal ever since. Like, maybe the Prometheus automatically transmits its entire log back to earth when it senses its about to be destroyed. I know none of these movies really fit together convincingly but its fun to try.
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Nov 16, 2016 15:47
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Xenomrph posted:Yeah, the basic idea is that the Company knew there was something out there worth checking out, but didn't know exactly what it was, or where it was. The basic timeline of events is that Company personnel at Thedus (the Nostromo's departure point) detected the signal, partially deciphered it and recognized that it was worth investigating as quickly as possible lest someone else jump on the find first. The Nostromo was departing soon and would be going relatively close, so the W-Y Science Division put Special Order 937 in place in the Mother computer, swapped out the assigned science officer with Ash, and sent the Nostromo in the direction of the signal. Just shy of a year later, the Nostromo reaches LV-426, the crew is woken up, and the movie 'Alien' happens. When the Nostromo doesn't make it to Earth, it's declared missing and whoever had ordered the Nostromo rerouted, put Ash onboard, and implemented Special Order 937 presumably got spooked and kept quiet about the whole thing. The Derelict's beacon gets shut off 15 years later (Alien: Isolation), over time the Nostromo's disappearance becomes a cautionary tale and a spooky urban legend, and since the Company has lost an expensive starship and the signal isn't being broadcast anymore, they opt to cut their losses and not investigate any further. And this misses the point entirely. In Alien, the signal is presented as a sudden intrusion into the comfortable stasis of the ship, triggering Mother's innate - inbuilt - desire to obtain an alien. Likewise, the inclusion of a robot in the ship is implicitly standard procedure - an easy way for management to keep a tab on the workers. The effect of those retcons is to change the company's evil from something banal and everyday to something exceptional: the product of a conspiracy, an unusual event, the corruption of an otherwise-functional system... In other words, it's an attempt at reconciling the fundamental ideological incompatibility between Alien and Aliens by forcing Scott into the Cameron box. "Burke did it, because he got too greedy!"
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Nov 16, 2016 19:07
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:And this misses the point entirely. But I'll respond to your point anyway because it's an interesting one - first off, nothing I said was a retcon, it's all stuff that can be inferred from the movie itself or other materials available since 1979. Second, it's not made out to be a grand conspiracy, and it's definitely framed as being mundane corporate operations from the characters' perspectives even if such corporate malfeasance was intended to be shocking to the audience (especially ironic when looked at from the framework of today's corporate culture). There's very little difference between Burke's actions and the Company's actions in the first movie - none of the characters are particularly shocked or disbelieving once Burke's treachery is exposed, it's just "the fuckin' Company" doing what it does, even if the common man gets hurt in the process. And Burke wasn't some sort of evil mastermind; he doesn't put his plan into motion because he's a rogue sociopath, he does it because it's what's expected of him in the Company if you want to be successful, and if he doesn't act quickly and stake the claim for himself, then someone else will. That's the "normal" corporate culture at work, and Ripley even has a speech about it in the third movie when the Company comes knocking again. Edit - to be clear, the ancillary "expanded universe" stuff make it pretty evident that there isn't a grand evil corporate conspiracy at work and that it's just mundane, "normal" corporate behavior that no one's surprised by. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Nov 16, 2016 |
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Nov 16, 2016 19:48
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Xenomrph is right.
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Nov 16, 2016 23:59
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:In other words, it's an attempt at reconciling the fundamental ideological incompatibility between Alien and Aliens by forcing Scott into the Cameron box. "Burke did it, because he got too greedy!" I do really like this point, because Ash is loving fascinated with the thing and you can tell that he is doing it for far more than simply company orders or to obtain a shiny new bioweapon. You can easily read elements of evolution into his monologue at the end.
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Nov 17, 2016 00:38
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CelticPredator posted:Xenomrph is right. xenomrph is right in that he quoted a bunch of ancillary details (like the detail from a video game retroactively adding information, which suspiciously sounds like a retcon...) to make it sound official. The more space jargon you use to try and make it fit into some official alien universe mythology is missing the point the movie itself is trying to make. Most of xeno's posts read like "No, actually..." then he pretty much parrots back what you originally said with a sprinkling of expanded universe to make it sound good.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:16
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ruddiger posted:xenomrph is right in that he quoted a bunch of ancillary details (like the detail from a video game retroactively adding information, which suspiciously sounds like a retcon...) to make it sound official. The more space jargon you use to try and make it fit into some official alien universe mythology is missing the point the movie itself is trying to make. You realize that Basebf555 specifically asked me what the expanded universe says, right? If by me adding info you mean the Alien Isolation characters switching off the Derelict's beacon, it's still not a retcon because the beacon detail isn't new. In the script for 'Alien', Dallas switches it off after he climbs on the Space Jockey's corpse. Or if you don't like that one, in James Cameron's notes and drafts for 'Aliens', the Derelict gets damaged by a lava flow between the events of the two movies (and the Derelict is visibly damaged in the one scene you see it) and it damages the beacon. That was his explanation for why the colonists never detected a beacon despite being like 20 miles from it. Take your pick, really.  The level in Isolation where you explore the Derelict is loving fantastic and one of the highlights of the game.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:31
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I'm dealing in specifics. The first image in Alien is of the planet, and a gradually-translated message. Then we get the extended sequence of Mother reacting to the message and 'waking up'. There is nothing before this event. Giving Ash and Mother foreknowledge impacts their characterization. And, in the context of the microcosmic film, Mother is 'the company'.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:44
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I was asking very specifically about all of the various Alien related media like video games and comics, and looking for a very literal answer. Just casual curiosity about what the "canon" has to say about the issue. I was purposely calling on Xeno's knowledge of these things because it takes less effort than doing the research myself. Thank you Xeno for performing a valuable public service.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:55
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I'm dealing in specifics. Would you say it retroactively makes the movie worse?
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Nov 17, 2016 02:31
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Xenomrph posted:You realize that Basebf555 specifically asked me what the expanded universe says, right? You realize your post reads exactly like how I said it does? "Well actually..." and then you go into a bunch of info extracted from sources that are not the movies themselves. I never said you weren't answering baseb's question, I'm just pointing out how "right" your posts usually are.
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Nov 17, 2016 02:33
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