Colony Rescue on LV-426

[Ted C]

So if the communication delay is a week, then it will take at least ten days for reinforcements to arrive, assuming that they're dispatched immediately after the squad fails to check in.

On a side note, does a "sleeper" ship even make sense in that context? Are consumables that much of an issue aboard ships in the "Alien" universe? Presumably it didn't take the Marines more than a couple weeks to arrive at LV-426.

Further, FTL must have taken a leap between "Alien" and "Aliens" because in the first film, Lambert estimates it will take ten months to return to Earth from LV-426 (although her calculation is based on the fuel used diverting to LV-426 in the first place, but still...). In any case, cryogenic suspension makes a lot more sense for a trip that long versus a few weeks.

Nostromo was towing a massive ore refinery around, while the Sulaco had just itself, so it's not all that unreasonable for the Sulaco to make the trip much faster. Also, 60+ years have passed, so there certainly was some time for propulsion technology to improve.

As for the sleep capsules, it may be less about consumables than about the energy cost of keeping the entire ship habitable for the entire trip.

[Borgholio]

Yeah Borg, that's an interesting point... but it might not be too smart to have sensor operators that carry no useful weapons on point out in front where they could get shot or eaten by space gribblies.

Wasn't very smart to send a bunch of marines practically unarmed into a hostile situation, wasn't very smart to leave the drop ship unguarded, wasn't very smart to totally ignore the crawlspaces when sealing up the room, etc... I think lack of smartness appears to be a recurring theme in the movie.

[RecklessPrudence]

Or even there might be some kind of funky side-effect of Alien-verse FTL, one that it's cost-prohibitive to shield an entire ship against - so you shield whatever critical functions it would effect, and the sleep chambers. There's got to be some kind of drawback to telling Einstein to go fuck himself, after all.

Might even be another reason, besides "The Prometheus is state-of-the-art, the Nostromo is not," for the Prometheus being new-shiny. Because there was no expense spared on it, they shielded more of the ship, and could have more advanced stuff around. But they couldn't sufficiently shield/guarantee shielding for the whole trip, so the crew slept anyway. The Nostromo on the other hand, was only shielded in the bare minimum, and so had more rugged, less susceptible machinery/electronics for the rest of the ship.

[Borgholio]

So if the communication delay is a week, then it will take at least ten days for reinforcements to arrive, assuming that they're dispatched immediately after the squad fails to check in.

On a side note, does a "sleeper" ship even make sense in that context? Are consumables that much of an issue aboard ships in the "Alien" universe? Presumably it didn't take the Marines more than a couple weeks to arrive at LV-426.

Further, FTL must have taken a leap between "Alien" and "Aliens" because in the first film, Lambert estimates it will take ten months to return to Earth from LV-426 (although her calculation is based on the fuel used diverting to LV-426 in the first place, but still...). In any case, cryogenic suspension makes a lot more sense for a trip that long versus a few weeks.

Well we don't see any of the recreation facilities on the Sulaco, so it's possible it might simply be a bare-bones troop transport. If that's the case, then boredom might be a good reason in itself to not want a bunch of aggressive marines with nothing to do for two weeks. As for the speed, another poster mentioned that the Sulaco was carrying less mass, which is true. But also consider a modern world comparison...superfreighters typically travel much slower than warships. Plus, Nostromo was coming from even farther away than LV-426. So combine slower FTL speed with greater distance, hypersleep makes much more sense as far as consumables go.

Oh and regarding the need to sleep due to some side-effect of the drive, I DID remember reading that somewhere but I don't think it was canon.

[Revy]

Oh and regarding the need to sleep due to some side-effect of the drive, I DID remember reading that somewhere but I don't think it was canon.

The technical manual says that the FTL causes accelerated ageing, and that's one of the main reasons for the sleep capsules. It also has some other bits and pieces:

*Acheron/LV426 had a colony on it for twenty years when Ripley got defrosted.
*Burke sends a request to the colony to check out the co-ordinates of the alien derelict, and three weeks later the colony transmitter goes offline.
*Discussion on if the aliens are immune to IR detection. The characters in question think they were hiding dormant in holes and tunnels, and that the humidity and water vapour in the air messed with the marines' IR gear.
*The little things they removed from the smart guns to stop them from working was the batteries for them.
*They talk about using riot guns firing plastic goop and acid resistant clothing when going up against the aliens in the future, owing to the acid blood thing.
*FTL cruising speed for Sulaco is given as 0.74 light years per sidereal day.
*FTL speed for Nostromo given as 0.42 light years per sidereal day (153 cee), reduced to 0.1/0.12 (40-45 cee) if towing large cargo mass.

Not canon, but I have the manual with me so I thought I'd throw that in.

[Borgholio]

Oh and regarding the need to sleep due to some side-effect of the drive, I DID remember reading that somewhere but I don't think it was canon.

The technical manual says that the FTL causes accelerated ageing, and that's one of the main reasons for the sleep capsules. It also has some other bits and pieces:

*Acheron/LV426 had a colony on it for twenty years when Ripley got defrosted.
*Burke sends a request to the colony to check out the co-ordinates of the alien derelict, and three weeks later the colony transmitter goes offline.
*Discussion on if the aliens are immune to IR detection. The characters in question think they were hiding dormant in holes and tunnels, and that the humidity and water vapour in the air messed with the marines' IR gear.
*The little things they removed from the smart guns to stop them from working was the batteries for them.
*They talk about using riot guns firing plastic goop and acid resistant clothing when going up against the aliens in the future, owing to the acid blood thing.
*FTL cruising speed for Sulaco is given as 0.74 light years per sidereal day.
*FTL speed for Nostromo given as 0.42 light years per sidereal day (153 cee), reduced to 0.1/0.12 (40-45 cee) if towing large cargo mass.

Not canon, but I have the manual with me so I thought I'd throw that in.

Yeah those numbers mesh with the ones on Wikipedia. It also clearly defines the FTL speed as slower than anybody else. Next slowest to respond would be the Earth Alliance, where hyperspeed is anywhere from 3 - 10 lightyears per day.

LV-426 is 39 lightyears away, so the Sulaco would take a month and a half to arrive from Earth...which means the colony infestation must have happened slowly over time. That also kinda explains why they never called for help in the beginning. They probably thought they could handle it, but at some point the Xeno population grew enough that they could attack the colony en-masse which probably disabled the communications at the same time.

[Revy]

The book gives the distance of the star system as 36.7 light years from Earth, but yeah, that's not much less.

[Borgholio]

The book gives the distance of the star system as 36.7 light years from Earth, but yeah, that's not much less.

Not nitpicking, just thinking out loud...probably the book was written before astronomers measured the distance more accurately with more advanced equipment. In either case, yeah only ~3LY difference.

[Revy]

It was published in 1995, so yeah, that makes sense. I got the thing while I was still in Secondary School.

[Galvatron]

That technical manual is wrong. It only took Sulaco three weeks to get to LV-426.

[Revy]

It says that's it's cruising speed. Maybe for a rescue mission they went a bit faster than 'cruise' mode? I'm sure Burke wanted them to get there as fast as possible. The tech manual mentions that he fast-tracked the mission, and it's suspected that he knew they would have to send someone there from the moment he asked the colony to check the derelict. It wouldn't surprise me if he said "Floor it, screw the fuel consumption."

[Borgholio]

Still, 3 weeks is a long time to put up with an active Xeno infestation. I'm certain at this point the colony would have survived had they sent a distress signal immediately upon the first facehugging.

[Revy]

I think it's mentioned that it takes two weeks to send a message back to Earth. Two weeks for Earth to recieve a distress call, three more weeks for aid to arrive ... even if they did call for help, they'd still be screwed. From what I gather, they lost contact with the colony three weeks after they checked out the derelict, and it took three weeks for the Marines to get there. Even if the colonists called for help after the first facehugger, they'd still be looking at ... what? Five weeks before they got help?

[Borgholio]

I think he said two weeks to get a response...so one week for a signal to arrive at Earth. So upon first infection, one week for distress signal and three weeks to arrive...yeah that'd be tough. But considering that the last colonist only got 'sploded minutes after the marines arrived, I think at least a fair number would have been holding out somewhere had the marines arrived a week or two earlier.