How would you handle the situation on LV-426 from Aliens?

[PREDATOR490]

Sending in the power loader as a combat tool should have everyone on board being dubious of your behaviour. That said, telling them you are bringing one in case any major structural damage needs to be moved might be more plausible. Going up against aliens in that thing is suicide.
It is way too bulky and loud to clomp around tight corridors with agile aliens that can get at the exposed person inside.

The entire scenario falls apart really quickly with fore knowledge provided you remember the key details.
1. The place is / can go up in a nuclear bang
2. The aliens are obviously real and Ripley should be taken seriously.

Waking up as Gorman should pretty much screw the mission from the start. Noone knows how they are trained or much about how to act as Gorman to play act as him. I thought Burke specifically got Gorman because he wanted someone that would be better for his own agenda. I would expect them to relieve you of command pretty quickly if you start acting weird. Regardless, the aliens become a non-issue with the proper consideration.

Do not leave the Drop ship unattended or vulnerable - Do that and the Aliens are 100% fucked against aerial / space superiority
Do not march the marines under-armed into a confined dark nest of Aliens. - With the proper ammo and weapons the aliens are 100% poorly matched
Pick a better area to fortify or at least do a better job of fortifying it - Without the ambush bonus the aliens are 100% fucked at getting into claw range

I suppose one element could be sending the Dropship to do a flyby recon of the alien ship. You can easily pass it off as trying to verify Ripley's story and scouting the area for survivors. Not to mention it keeps the Dropship busy and airborne so aliens should not be able to get near it.
If you find the big alien ship then Ripley's story is confirmed, do the investigation to find out Burke's bullshit then soundly lock him up. If you want to go into the darker side, set him up to have his own accident by chest buster.

As soon as Newt is secured and the colonists are established to be killed - take the earliest chance to gas or nuke the place until every xeno is dead. It was mentioned the marines had some kind of gas / nerve agents which could be used to flush out the xenos rather than going into the hive to get them. On open terrain with an armed APC and dropship support the Xenos will get mauled rather quickly. I do not see Burke having much of a position to stand on at attempting to flush them out leading to mass Xeno slaughter as they are charging at the marines.

If you do not care about handing over a Xeno to the corp then justifying it to Burke as the soldiers being worthless compared to taking the queen and / or easier to contain eggs should shut them up quickly enough. Alternatively, Ripley and Newt should be ample scape goats to blame an accident that kills Burke / nukes the area.

[Grumman]

If you're going to get relieved of command, I wonder whether an alternate strategy could work, which is to make it count. Draw sidearm, shoot Burke in the head, surrender sidearm.

[biostem]

If you're going to get relieved of command, I wonder whether an alternate strategy could work, which is to make it count. Draw sidearm, shoot Burke in the head, surrender sidearm.

The whole "relieved of command" stipulation has more to do with you trying to skip steps or jump ahead too much in this scenario. Given just how many bad commands Gorman gave without being relieved of command, you should be safe...

[Borgholio]

I don't think you'd be relieved of command for being a bit paranoid (as far as the troops are concerned). In fact, they should appreciate a CO that gives them extra firepower and listens to their feedback.

[biostem]

There's also that point when they first enter the colony, where the find an acid-burned hole in the floor - I wonder if it'd be worthwhile to try and find the body that created it, (though I suppose it could have just been wounded and got away).

[Borgholio]

I dunno that was a lot of acid...it's probably still down there unless the other bugs brought it back with them. The colonists were not completely defenseless and they DID have explosives. There should be bug corpses around somewhere....

[biostem]

I dunno that was a lot of acid...it's probably still down there unless the other bugs brought it back with them. The colonists were not completely defenseless and they DID have explosives. There should be bug corpses around somewhere....

Good point. Regardless, once they find the facehuggers in the lab, there should be zero doubts about Ripley's credibility, and any extra precautions I call for should be accepted without hesitation.

[Sidewinder]

I had my own ideas in this thread. In my opinion, Burke should've been more forthcoming with the marines, both to make the marines trust him, and to prepare them for what they were about to face. He should've bribed a higher-ranking officer, e.g., a colonel, who'd tell Gorman IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS the marines' mission was to acquire a xenomorph for study; that should help prevent the marines from panicking upon encountering the aliens, firing blindly and causing God knows what kind of collateral damage to the colony, or deciding to nuke the site from orbit.

As others noted, I would first have the marines set up a fortified camp OUTSIDE the infested colony, with clear fields of fire on all sides; this camp will be guarded. When Ripley informs me (Gorman) stray shots may make the reactor blow, I'll have the marines WITHDRAW from the damn place, and THEN have them exchange their armor-piercing weapons for shotguns and flamers, while explaining IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS why Vasquez and Drake can't fire their smart guns inside the atmosphere processing station.

[NecronLord]

With these kind of things I always assume that we have the knowledge of the character required to pass, so that you're not called out the moment someone asks 'where did you study' and we go 'west point' and they all stare and say 'that was closed a century ago.' So I presume we know enough codes & jargon to pass.

I like the suggestion of asking Ripley to check the communications right away on arrival, and the suggestion to protect the dropship by getting it to do a flyby of the alien crash site. I might even have it take a flyby of the alien crash site before we even land, that should put everyone in the right frame of mind.

Once we get the logs we put Burke under close arrest.

Rescue Newt, obviously.

When we trace the ID tags, I will simply point out 'our ammunition will damage the reactor' - that's officer thinking, no one ever fragged an officer for being too smart and cautious with their lives - we can begin to shut down the power in the atmosphere plant.

I ask Apone for his opinion on whether we can fight the creatures Ripley described with Ripley to consult. I ask bishop if there's any risk at all that they won't show up on Infra-red there. If, between my science officer, civilian advisor and sergeant they think a rescue mission is possible with the resources we have, the , then we mount a rescue, I'd like to rescue 'kill me' colonist, but I'm not sure that's possible.

Assuming they think it's too chancy, we move out of the colony buildings to a position with high ground and clear fields of fire (and no sub-surface tunnels) where we can use our APC and the drop ship to support us, wait for the aliens to come. We then mow them down.

If at any point we are overwhelmed obviously we can retreat into the air, and we have the option to reconsider.

[Borgholio]

One thing that always got me about the locator tags : Hudson says they can't tell if they're alive or not, just where they are (within 20km). Surely though, you could see if they're moving. If you looked close enough and saw that none of them were moving, and many of them appeared suspended several feet off the ground...would that not raise suspicions a bit?

[Simon_Jester]

If the sensors can spot people out to a radius of twenty kilometers, they may not be precise enough to tell the difference between a person on the ground and a person several feet above the ground. At least, not until you get close.

Also, people do spend a lot of time sitting still or not moving, including during crisis situations, so having the sensors automatically flag everyone who isn't moving would waste a lot of energy and create a lot of false alarms (dead, or just sleeping?)

[Borgholio]

If the sensors can spot people out to a radius of twenty kilometers, they may not be precise enough to tell the difference between a person on the ground and a person several feet above the ground. At least, not until you get close.

Well the scanner is sensitive enough to pick out individual people if you zoom in. This is the best screencap I can find at the moment but there is actually a closer view in the film.

Also, people do spend a lot of time sitting still or not moving, including during crisis situations, so having the sensors automatically flag everyone who isn't moving would waste a lot of energy and create a lot of false alarms (dead, or just sleeping?)

Well a simple glance could see if they're moving or not. Plus the side-view from the film (IIRC) can zoom in enough to see individual levels of the Processor...and it should have been visible that some of these people were not moving and suspended several feet off the ground.

[Simon_Jester]

OK, that's fair.

When I watched the movie I was rather distracted and it was a long time ago, so I guess I missed some things.

[Tribble]

Hmmm, is it ever stated why were the colonists overwhelmed in the first place? The Nostromo crew was at a severe disadvantage when fighting the original Xenomorph:

They couldn't use firearms as the Xenomorph's acid would quickly eat through the Nostromo's hull.
The Nostromo's internal sensors damaged and rendered inoperable during the landing, and Dallas chose not to fix them before taking off.
The ship's computer refused to help them, and only revealed the true nature of the mission when given a direct override by Ripley.
Perhaps most importantly, Ash was working against the crew the whole time.

It's kind of hard to see how a single face-hugger would doom the entire colony, unless it had some help.

[Borgholio]

It's explained in back-story outside the movie...novelizations and comics and such. Basically after Newt's dad got some face-loving, a team of colonists went to investigate and came back with some friends too. So it was more than just one, it was as many as a half dozen at once. Then they just started picking off the colonists. They had some firearms and explosives but nothing like the Colonial Marines had...so it was really just a battle of attrition and the Aliens won. I have to agree though that from what they show in the movie (even the deleted scenes) they should not have been overwhelmed. They should have sent off a distress call as soon as they realized they couldn't contain it or kill it. Then it's just a simple matter of grouping everyone together in a defensible area and wait for rescue.

The only thing that makes sense is that they DID send a distress call and Weyland Yutani ignored it so there would be lots of stuff to study when they finally did send in the marines. But that would have still taken a long time for the colony to be overwhelmed and I doubt the communications for the colony were tied to ONLY communicate with WY facilities. Someone else must have been able to receive their calls for help.

[Tribble]

EDIT: So after the first face-hugger attack, the colonists send another team to the derelict... that promptly gets attacked by face huggers. Seeing as the first team broguht the guy back, you'd think the second team would have been warned. Jeez, they are much stupider than I thought.

Even a handful a face-huggers shouldn't have made that much of a difference though. Did the colonists ever hear of quarantine? Putting them into stasis if you don't know what to do with ? Scanning the people to see what the face-hugger was doing to them? Or how about immediately capturing the chestburstesr, if for some bizarre reason the former things weren't done? Although the Nostromo crew did make some mistakes (notably Captain Dallas's refusal to repair the sensors) all of these things would have been done were it not for Ash's interference.

[FaxModem1]

In the film's special edition, the colony's administrator notes that it takes two weeks for messages to go back and forth. They also regularly send out survey teams to random sectors by corporate order, with the reasoning being, 'don't ask'. It was found out later on that it was Burke specified the sector that the space jockey's ship was in from Ripley's report, where Newt's family found the ship.

A key factor might be travel time. The Sulaco's crew went into cryo, after all, so maybe they arrived fast, but it took them three months or whatever to reach them. To counter this, though, Hicks said it would take 17 days before there would be reinforcements. But I'm willing to believe that Weyland-Yutani sat on their hands until contact with stopped so that there wouldn't be any witnesses.

[Tribble]

True, but one would think the colonists should have been able to handle the situation themselves, even if there were a handful of Face-huggers involved. The Nostromo Xenomorph largely succeeded due to circumstances beyond its control, like Dallas's mistakes and Ash's betrayal. Were there any known traitors in the group, or were the colonists just really stupid?

[Borgholio]

As with the Marines getting slaughtered in the nest, having a single (or even several) xenos wiping out a whole colony that quickly can only be the result of epic incompetence.

As far as how long it would take for rescue, the key phrase by Hicks is that it would take 17 days. That implies that after being declared overdue, a ship with reinforcements would arrive in a tad over two weeks. So if the colonists sent out a distress signal immediately, it should not have taken much longer than that for help to arrive. A squad of colonial marines would have made short work of the infestation before it got off the ground. Again, the only way this could not have happened is if Weyland Yutani somehow had a monopoly on all communications from the colony, or if they were too stupid to try and contact anyone else for help.

[FaxModem1]

Here's a possible reason, the first facehugger was carrying the queen, who does seem somewhat intelligent. It hatches, somehow escapes from the colonists, and releases little facehuggers all over the colony. Either that or Hadley's Hope was about to celebrate Easter, and needed a bunch of eggs for the kid's Easter egg hunt.

[Khaat]

In the extended version Aliens, Newt's dad is the first hit by a facehugger. I don't think any other trips would have been made out there to the derelict alien craft, suggesting the first chestburster matured and hunted for a bit before settling in to metamorph/hormone storm into a queen in the absence of one, and lay eggs. If I were genengineering a sterilization weapon, it would do that. I could be wrong: the colonists may have trucked out there and collected more eggs.

Now it's possible, with the other extended scene "You know why I don't ask them? It'll take two weeks for them to get back to me with 'Don't ask!'!", the colony administrator was a bit of a cowboy and figured it was controllable until it wasn't. He couldn't call 911, he could only call headquarters (more specifically, probably a team in a "division of WY colonial development" and Burke intercepted.)

"All we know is there has been no contact with the colony and a xenomorph may be involved."

The extended Alien suggested that cocooned folks could actually be turned into eggs, but with the queen in Aliens, I guess that's really off the table.
A mayday on military comms may be able to get help in 17 days, but a colony is a private venture, subject to corporate bureaucracy (where we already know that Burke, Carter J. had compartmentalized LV-426.)
Non-canon stuff (the Colonial Marines Technical Manual) also has other human forces in play in space: it could be played as an invasion/sabotage of the colony, so not a priority.
Hudson's line about it being a "bug hunt" has been discussed elsewhere for years, ranging from "snipe hunt", to "technical problem", to "other human forces problem", up to "mythical alien life problem".

[biostem]

In the extended version Aliens, Newt's dad is the first hit by a facehugger. I don't think any other trips would have been made out there to the derelict alien craft, suggesting the first chestburster matured and hunted for a bit before settling in to metamorph/hormone storm into a queen in the absence of one, and lay eggs. If I were genengineering a sterilization weapon, it would do that. I could be wrong: the colonists may have trucked out there and collected more eggs.

Now it's possible, with the other extended scene "You know why I don't ask them? It'll take two weeks for them to get back to me with 'Don't ask!'!", the colony administrator was a bit of a cowboy and figured it was controllable until it wasn't. He couldn't call 911, he could only call headquarters (more specifically, probably a team in a "division of WY colonial development" and Burke intercepted.)

"All we know is there has been no contact with the colony and a xenomorph may be involved."

The extended Alien suggested that cocooned folks could actually be turned into eggs, but with the queen in Aliens, I guess that's really off the table.
A mayday on military comms may be able to get help in 17 days, but a colony is a private venture, subject to corporate bureaucracy (where we already know that Burke, Carter J. had compartmentalized LV-426.)
Non-canon stuff (the Colonial Marines Technical Manual) also has other human forces in play in space: it could be played as an invasion/sabotage of the colony, so not a priority.
Hudson's line about it being a "bug hunt" has been discussed elsewhere for years, ranging from "snipe hunt", to "technical problem", to "other human forces problem", up to "mythical alien life problem".

There was that line of dialogue about "Arcturians" - now, whether they're some offshoot of humanity or otherwise, it seems that alien species of some form or another are not completely unheard of, (just not in the acid-for-blood, face-hugging variety).

[Khaat]

Additional: Cameron may have been slipping in an homage to Heinlein's Starship Troopers, who fought "the bugs" (arachnoids), as well as "the skinnies" (allies of "the bugs"). More racist in tone in Starship Troopers than Aliens, but there it is.

[Tribble]

In the extended version Aliens, Newt's dad is the first hit by a facehugger. I don't think any other trips would have been made out there to the derelict alien craft, suggesting the first chestburster matured and hunted for a bit before settling in to metamorph/hormone storm into a queen in the absence of one, and lay eggs. If I were genengineering a sterilization weapon, it would do that. I could be wrong: the colonists may have trucked out there and collected more eggs.

Now it's possible, with the other extended scene "You know why I don't ask them? It'll take two weeks for them to get back to me with 'Don't ask!'!", the colony administrator was a bit of a cowboy and figured it was controllable until it wasn't. He couldn't call 911, he could only call headquarters (more specifically, probably a team in a "division of WY colonial development" and Burke intercepted.)

"All we know is there has been no contact with the colony and a xenomorph may be involved."

The extended Alien suggested that cocooned folks could actually be turned into eggs, but with the queen in Aliens, I guess that's really off the table.
A mayday on military comms may be able to get help in 17 days, but a colony is a private venture, subject to corporate bureaucracy (where we already know that Burke, Carter J. had compartmentalized LV-426.)
Non-canon stuff (the Colonial Marines Technical Manual) also has other human forces in play in space: it could be played as an invasion/sabotage of the colony, so not a priority.
Hudson's line about it being a "bug hunt" has been discussed elsewhere for years, ranging from "snipe hunt", to "technical problem", to "other human forces problem", up to "mythical alien life problem".

Perhaps, but that doesn't explain why:

The colonists apparently ignored quarantine protocols. Not only did they bring the person/people in, they apparently never sealed off the Med chamber (even though it was clear in the film that it could be sealed, given that Burke trapped Ripley and Newt with the face-huggers.

The colonists apparently never scanned anyone to see what the facehugger was doing to the poor bastard. You'd think the medical staff would want to know about little things like that. Ash was able to identify the chestburster right away, he just never did anything or tell anyone due to his orders. Even if the face-hugger had fallen off and the guy had come to before they made it back, he should have been thoroughly scanned the moment he came back.

Or perhaps they did know about the chestbursters, but didn't take action until it was too late. Though that seems rather silly since at the very least they would know that the bigger the creature got, the more difficult it would be to remove (especially due to the acid blood). And that it was growing rapidly and could not exit the body via an orifice, which meant that it would have to break its way out. And that it appeared to be growing sharp teeth. One would think it would be better to risk an operation right away than wait and see what happens. Or put him into a stasis tube if necessary (if one was available).

In any event, unless someone was actively sabotaging their efforts like Ash was the gross incompetence of the medical/scientific staff is remarkable.

Here's a possible reason, the first facehugger was carrying the queen, who does seem somewhat intelligent. It hatches, somehow escapes from the colonists, and releases little facehuggers all over the colony. Either that or Hadley's Hope was about to celebrate Easter, and needed a bunch of eggs for the kid's Easter egg hunt.

It's hard to say for sure, but from what we know about the Alien Queen apparently it needs to be near adult size before it can start laying eggs. Plus, once it makes its egg sack it doesn't appear to be mobile. And all the while it should have been hunted; after all it started its lifecycle by killing someone. One would think that a T-Rex-sized Alien going around laying eggs everywhere would attract some kind of attention. On the other hand, if it went directly to the Atmospheric Processor without being detected (somehow) it's possible it could remain hidden. But that comes with its own problems - the only way to infect more people would be to lay eggs, have the eggs hatch into facehuggers, have the face-huggers attach to someone (assuming the colonists aren't on the lookout for more and that they can avoid detection), then hope the colonists are stupid enough to let the chestburster hatch and escape.

Of course, we could have a lemming scenario: The Queen escapes and goes into the Atmospheric Processor without being detected (somehow). Nobody knows what it is, so while they know not to go back to the ship and are looking for the chestburster, it's able to remain hidden, reach full size, and lay eggs. Eventually Joe the maintenance guy goes to do some repairs, and gets captured and impregnated. When he doesn't report in, the next crew go in to see what happens, and they get captured and impregnated, and so on. The Xenomorphs hatch and start kidnapping/killing people without being detected (somehow). At some point you'd think the colonists would put two-and-two together, but mind you this is the same group which let the facehuggers in and let the chestbursters develop and escape, so I suppose I shouldn't put it past them to let the situation spiral out of control. Of course, if the situation got desperate enough you'd think the colonists would have blown up the Atmospheric processor, even if it potentially meant their own deaths.

Unfortunately, the level of stupidity required for any of these scenarios to work would mean that it's just as likely this was all due to the Hadley's Hope Easter Egg Hunt

[Khaat]

In any event, unless someone was actively sabotaging their efforts like Ash was the gross incompetence of the medical/scientific staff is remarkable.

There's nothing saying they didn't. There's a theme in Aliens: Greed is Bad.

"I have a mom-and-pop on the line. He wants to know if his claim is good."
[The exchange in the extended, where Newt's dad is trying to confirm they're going to be rich, even though the Company sent them out to the coordinates.] This exchange also addresses the monolithic nature of the Company and the attitude the "little people" have about their place in it.

A little self-interest at the wrong time, or even belief that the Company could save their ass for a percentage could lead folks to make dumb choices. Consider Burke: he actually went to LV-426!

The speed of the spread of xenos is a separate issue: there are ways it could come to pass, but most involve the first chestburster doing some hunting (like in Alien) before settling in to lay.