Prometheus, Alien and Aliens

[Galvatron]

Any of you been to the Prometheus web site lately? It appears they added a lot of cool new in-universe marketing content about Weyland Industries' various business ventures, including a very cool page that lets you scroll through explored space to see all the settlements and outposts of the time.

What bugs me is that certain aspects of the site strike me as anachronistic given the specified time setting of Prometheus and what we were led to believe in Alien and Aliens. Am I alone in thinking that terraforming was a relatively NEW business venture that Weyland-Yutani had seriously began exploring only mere decades prior to Aliens (e.g. Ripley's unfamiliarity with "shake and bake" colonies)?

[Terralthra]

Any of you been to the Prometheus web site lately? It appears they added a lot of cool new in-universe marketing content about Weyland Industries' various business ventures, including a very cool page that lets you scroll through explored space to see all the settlements and outposts of the time.

What bugs me is that certain aspects of the site strike me as anachronistic given the specified time setting of Prometheus and what we were led to believe in Alien and Aliens. Am I alone in thinking that terraforming was a relatively NEW business venture that Weyland-Yutani had seriously began exploring only mere decades prior to Aliens (e.g. Ripley's unfamiliarity with "shake and bake" colonies)?

She certainly knows enough about them to know better than the trained military how to read the layout of the colony, identify dangerous areas to fire explosive rounds, and what it means when the reactor does some emergency venting. She's the one that tells the CO about the cooling systems near the nest, and she also clearly knows right away what will happen as soon as Bishop points out the venting from the reactor (iirc, she turns away from the window as soon as she sees it with an expression of "shit" on her face). Doesn't seem like complete unfamiliarity to me.

[Galvatron]

Well, she certainly knows about nuclear reactors, but consider her occupational background as a starship officer.

I'm not suggesting that she wasn't technically savvy, but the way Van Leuwen and Burke talked about terraforming, atmosphere processors, etc. in general led me to believe that such things were developments that came along during the 57 years that Ripley was in hypersleep.

The Prometheus web site would have us believe that the atmosphere processor in Aliens was something that had been around for a long before the events of Alien.

[Terralthra]

Well, doesn't that argument go the other way just as well? She's the third officer for an ore/refinery hauler cargo tug. She'd have no reason to know about terraforming equipment, no matter how old a development it is.

[Galvatron]

She wouldn't have to. The atmosphere processor, according to Burke, was basically just a big fusion reactor. She wouldn't need specialized knowledge of terraforming equipment to see "primary heat exchanger" and "coolant system" on the schematic that they were tracking the marines on.

[Terralthra]

She wouldn't have to. The atmosphere processor, according to Burke, was basically just a big fusion reactor. She wouldn't need specialized knowledge of terraforming equipment to see "primary heat exchanger" and "coolant system" on the schematic that they were tracking the marines on.

I know what you meant. What I was saying was, she was a third officer on a space freighter. Even if terraforming colonies had been around for hundreds of years, there's no particular reason she'd know about them: thus her unfamiliarity with them when Burke mentions them at the beginning. They are, like you said, not her area of expertise. Or she could be quite familiar with the concept and execution of terraforming, but be stunned at the idea of sending families with the initial work force, which might be the new part.

[Darth Wong]

Any of you been to the Prometheus web site lately? It appears they added a lot of cool new in-universe marketing content about Weyland Industries' various business ventures, including a very cool page that lets you scroll through explored space to see all the settlements and outposts of the time.

What bugs me is that certain aspects of the site strike me as anachronistic given the specified time setting of Prometheus and what we were led to believe in Alien and Aliens. Am I alone in thinking that terraforming was a relatively NEW business venture that Weyland-Yutani had seriously began exploring only mere decades prior to Aliens (e.g. Ripley's unfamiliarity with "shake and bake" colonies)?

It might have seemed that way from their manner of speaking, but in terms of logic, it was highly doubtful that this was recent technology. It takes decades to do just one terraforming operation, and the technology seemed to be fairly mature, ie- did not appear to be experimental, or a "pilot project", etc. This suggests that it had been done many times before, which in turn suggests that it was fairly old technology.

[Darth Wong]

She wouldn't have to. The atmosphere processor, according to Burke, was basically just a big fusion reactor. She wouldn't need specialized knowledge of terraforming equipment to see "primary heat exchanger" and "coolant system" on the schematic that they were tracking the marines on.

I know what you meant. What I was saying was, she was a third officer on a space freighter. Even if terraforming colonies had been around for hundreds of years, there's no particular reason she'd know about them: thus her unfamiliarity with them when Burke mentions them at the beginning. They are, like you said, not her area of expertise. Or she could be quite familiar with the concept and execution of terraforming, but be stunned at the idea of sending families with the initial work force, which might be the new part.

Personally, I never interpreted Ripley's agitation as an expression of surprise that they can terraform planets, but rather, an expression of surprise that they were terraforming this particular planet.

Yes, the terraforming operation is described in a rather condescending way if it should be common knowledge, but people do that all the time in real-life, and let's be honest, it's obviously a bit of exposition for the sake of the audience anyway.

[Starglider]

Yes, the terraforming operation is described in a rather condescending way if it should be common knowledge, but people do that all the time in real-life,

In my experience that's the default tone corporate execs take when talking to the 'general public'.

[Block]

She wouldn't have to. The atmosphere processor, according to Burke, was basically just a big fusion reactor. She wouldn't need specialized knowledge of terraforming equipment to see "primary heat exchanger" and "coolant system" on the schematic that they were tracking the marines on.

I know what you meant. What I was saying was, she was a third officer on a space freighter. Even if terraforming colonies had been around for hundreds of years, there's no particular reason she'd know about them: thus her unfamiliarity with them when Burke mentions them at the beginning. They are, like you said, not her area of expertise. Or she could be quite familiar with the concept and execution of terraforming, but be stunned at the idea of sending families with the initial work force, which might be the new part.

Personally, I never interpreted Ripley's agitation as an expression of surprise that they can terraform planets, but rather, an expression of surprise that they were terraforming this particular planet.

Yes, the terraforming operation is described in a rather condescending way if it should be common knowledge, but people do that all the time in real-life, and let's be honest, it's obviously a bit of exposition for the sake of the audience anyway.

Yeah wasn't most of Ripley's reaction to the whole scenario, "You knew these things were down here and you sent unarmed colonists you fucking lunatics?"

[Galvatron]

It might have seemed that way from their manner of speaking, but in terms of logic, it was highly doubtful that this was recent technology. It takes decades to do just one terraforming operation, and the technology seemed to be fairly mature, ie- did not appear to be experimental, or a "pilot project", etc. This suggests that it had been done many times before, which in turn suggests that it was fairly old technology.

Oh, I can agree with that. Van Leuwen's manner of speaking suggested that "shake and bake" colonies were commonplace enough at the time of Aliens, but it also sounded to me like they weren't around 57 years earlier during the time of Alien. That's a lot of intervening time, no?

Here's an excerpt of dialogue from the special edition that a lot of people may not be considering...

Ripley: "What's your interest in all this? Why are you going?"
Burke: "Corporation co-financed that colony along with Colonial Administration. We're getting into a lot of terraforming now and 'building better worlds' and all that."
Ripley: "Yeah, yeah, I saw the commercial."

[Vendetta]

Van Leuwen's manner of speaking suggested that "shake and bake" colonies were commonplace enough at the time of Aliens, but it also sounded to me like they weren't around 57 years earlier during the time of Alien. That's a lot of intervening time, no?

Not if you've got a process that takes "decades" to complete. You don't go to mass production in the space of one product generation.

At most you can say that shake and bake terraforming became commercially viable in the intervening years, but that would generally require relatively mature technology that had been iterated and improved on a few times. (Tablet PCs had been around for about ten years or so before they became commercially viable for mass production, and product generational cycles are pretty short in consumer electronics).

[Batman]

Question-would it take for terraforming to be completed for it to become more widespread? I can definitely see them going 'well our trial runs went down exactly as predicted or better for 30 years, how about we expand?' despite none of the projects being finished yet, especially with Wayland Yutani having a say in it

[Solauren]

Very nice site, I like the planetary map.

[Galvatron]

Here's an interesting little tidbit from their corporate timeline:

Weyland Reverses Global Warming

Using a precursor to the atmospheric processor of his own invention, Peter Weyland is able to generate a localized synthetic atmosphere above the polar ice cap, effectively ending global warming.

February 2, 2016

[Galvatron]

Question-would it take for terraforming to be completed for it to become more widespread? I can definitely see them going 'well our trial runs went down exactly as predicted or better for 30 years, how about we expand?' despite none of the projects being finished yet, especially with Wayland Yutani having a say in it

Well, according to their corporate timeline:

GJ 667Cc

Using the Weyland Atmospheric Processor, the first functional and breathable atmosphere is produced on planet GJ 667Cc clearing the way for further terraforming activities on other planets.

May 28, 2039

[andrewgpaul]

Here's an excerpt of dialogue from the special edition that a lot of people may not be considering...

Ripley: "What's your interest in all this? Why are you going?"
Burke: "Corporation co-financed that colony along with Colonial Administration. We're getting into a lot of terraforming now and 'building better worlds' and all that."
Ripley: "Yeah, yeah, I saw the commercial."

You could read that as W-Y getting into terraforming; it being new to that company, not in general.

Perhaps when the Nostromo set off, it was owned by Yutani Interstellar Mining, Inc. and by the time she was defrosted it had been bought out by or merged with Weyland, who have a history of terraforming and poorly thought-out plans involving gribbly space aliens?

[Galvatron]

You could read that as W-Y getting into terraforming; it being new to that company, not in general.

That's fine, but the Prometheus website would have us believe that atmosphere processors (like the one we saw in Aliens) were products of theirs much earlier than that. That's my entire beef.

Perhaps when the Nostromo set off, it was owned by Yutani Interstellar Mining, Inc. and by the time she was defrosted it had been bought out by or merged with Weyland, who have a history of terraforming and poorly thought-out plans involving gribbly space aliens?

Yutani Corp had already merged with Weyland Industries before the events of Alien (although the company's name was displayed as "Weylan Yutani" at that time time).

[Darth Wong]

"We're getting into a lot of terraforming now" sounds completely different to me than "We have invented this new terraforming technology". Weyland-Yutani obviously had their fingers in a lot of pies in the 21st century; terraforming might have been a technically established but commercially unviable part of their vast empire until some refinement, discovery, or change in economic incentives made it more viable, hence something they would want to expand upon.

[Havok]

Yeah it sounds more like they just diversified into it and put their weight behind it in a way other smaller companies couldn't, I would assume because of the discovery of the aliens and their eventual perceived profitability.

[Galvatron]

I'm fine with that, but their website makes it pretty clear that terraforming is a cornerstone of their empire long before Burke's time:

Terraforming is the second largest sector of Weyland Industries, and continues to earn the greatest profit margin as our most consistently well-performing division.

It even makes the dubious claim that they've managed to colonize planets more than 3,000 light years away, yet for some reason it's supposed to take the Nostromo ten months just to travel 37 light years from Zeta Reticuli to Earth at the time of Alien.

[Havok]

Well, Galvs, what can we tell you? Another sci-fi universe that is internally inconsistent. What are you gonna do?

[Galvatron]

To be fair, it's only the website. Unfortunately, it'll probably get treated like canon and we'll be stuck with things like the Weyland Storm Rifle, the wanktastic precursor to the M-41A pulse rifle.

[Junghalli]

It even makes the dubious claim that they've managed to colonize planets more than 3,000 light years away, yet for some reason it's supposed to take the Nostromo ten months just to travel 37 light years from Zeta Reticuli to Earth at the time of Alien.

I was going to say, I figured human space in the Alien universe would be a lot smaller. Didn't Aliens make reference to hundreds of surveyed worlds? There are estimated to be ~15,000 stars just within 100 light years of Earth, so that would fit with a modest sphere of exploration.

[Galvatron]

Yeah, 300 surveyed worlds and a reference to "Arcturian poontang," but that doesn't tell us much since Arcturus is even closer to us than Z2R is. However, according to Captain Dallas, the Nostromo was halfway to Earth (from Thedus--whatever that is) when it got diverted to LV-426 so that gives us a general idea of at least how far out they've explored by 2122.