Stormtroopers vs Aliens

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

In the "Aliens" movie, the only survivor was Ripley. Now, what if we had Stormtroopers instead of Colonial Marines?

Premise:
- Stormtroopers only (no Dark Troopers, no Battle Droids, no Sith Lord, etc)
- The Stormies are in the same numbers as Marines in aliens
- All standard infantry weapons allowed (E-Web Repeating Blasters, Golan Arms FC-1 Flechette Launchers, etc)
- No heavy vehicles

[Mr. B]

Stormies slaughter the aliens but take bad losses. The acid eats through their armor. The remaining stormies take off in a shuttle before the plant blows.

[Stravo]

Stormies have some problems, but they won't make the same glaring errors that the Marines made. Set up an E-Web at each of those junctions and I doubt a single alien is getting through.

Now if Newt tumbles down into that airshaft, the Stormies will just look at ecah other and shrug, BDZ the whole planet and call it a day.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Sorry, forgot to mention that orbital bombardment is not allowed, let alone BDZ (just like in my previous thread "Imperial ground forces vs Bugs from Starship Troopers"). The settings are just like in the Aliens movie (same mission, same personell number, etc).

Besides, where's the fun in that? Well, maybe if the Empire is about to perform Xenomorph genocide....

[Master of Ossus]

I would think that the Imperial forces would be able to do better than the colonial marines in Aliens, in that they would not take nearly as many casualties per alien as the marines did. I also think that their armor would be able to stand up to the aliens' slashing attacks/tails/biting, but the acid should be able to defeat it. On the other hand, if the blasters cauterized the wounds they inflicted significantly, it might not be an issue. I don't think that would be the case, however. The stormtroopers would also have significant advantages over the marines in communications and in actually finding targets. The sensors built into their helmets and their holographic displays would easily allow them to locate and fire at targets that the marines had no chance of seeing until it was too late. Their suits provide them with excellent protection, and stormtroopers are extremely well disciplined.

[Crown]

I can't remember the movie correctly but the sensor equiptment in the Stormtrooper's head gear should be able to negate any suprise sneak up by the aliens... Am I on the right track with this, or am I thinking of the helmet of the Bounty Hunters!

[Akm72]

ALIENS;
USCM weapons have no problem killing aliens, ammunition capacities are high by 20th century standards. Additional weapons like the 30mm grenade launchers on their pulse-rifles, portable flame-units and robot sentry guns provide a highly useful additional capacity to their primary weapons.
Armour provides some protection from the alien blood, though is not all-encompassing, so provides little protection from alien direct attacks. Also the Smartgun operators dodn't wear much armour, making them particularly vulnerable.
Integrated helmet IR monocles proved to be useless in the hot conditions within the alien nest, and the voice and video links degraded in quality under those conditions.

STAR WARS;
Stormtrooper blasters would undoubtadly be able to kill aliens with little difficulty, and ammunition appears to last longer than even the high-capacity USCM weapons. The Stormtroopers do have support weapons, though they don't have flame units and robot sentry-guns like the USCM. Instead they have tripod-mounted repeating blasters and large light repeating blasters, and though grenade launchers exist in the EU, we've not seem them in the cannon films.
Stormtroopers armour is all-encompassing, making a direct attack more difficult for the Aliens than against the USMC, though their physical strength would still allow them to defeat the Stormtroopers close in. Also acid blood is less leathal to the Stormtroopers than to the USMC, as very little will go through the joints, and the more advanced materials available to the SW universe should provide more resistance to the acid.
Integrated helmet sensors 'might' help, but while I'm sure it would reduce/eliminate the inherent disadvantage of wearing an all-encompassing helmet, it's not clear that the sensors would really give the Stormtroopers an advantage here over the USCM.

EVENTS;
The Stormtroopers would have to search the Colony just like the USCM did, and would eventually locate the Colonists PDT signals in the atmosphere processor in the same way (though using an astromech droid rather than a trooper to access the computer). Hopefully they wouldn't shoot Newt during this stage.
As the access the lower levels of the atmosphere processor, the civilian consultants, Newt and the senior officer stay on board the armoured speeder.
No Imperial officer would be stupid enough to order them to give up their weapons, though he would order them to be carefull what they shoot at.
When they find the living colonist just before she 'gives birth' to an alien, they will have to kill the chest burster with blaster fire as they lack a flame unit.
It is at this point that the aliens wake up.
If we assume that the initial Alien attack happen in the same way;
1/ Alien grabs Dietrich pulling her up to the ceiling, while she accidently flames the nearby Frost. In the case of a Stormtrooper, he would be just as vulnerable to this attack and would suffer the same fate as Dietrich. Like Dietrich he may well accidently fire his blaster killing one of the other Stormtroopers.
2/ Frost when flamed falls over the railing to his doom, again a Stormtrooper just shot by a blaster would die and might well fall over the railing, no change here, two down for the Stormies.
3/ Frost leaves a bag of burning ammunition behind, which Crowe tries to rescue, getting killed in the resulting detonation. As there is no burning ammo for the Stormtroopers, the Stormtrooper standing in for Crowe survives.
4/ Wierzbowski is killed by an alien off screen, we don't see how it happens, but we'll assume that the Stormtrooper would die similarly.
5/ Apone is distracted trying to talk to Gorman over the sound of the gun fire, and the static of the bad connection. While doing this he is grabbed. In the case of the Stormtroopers, their helmets will undoubtadly filter out the battlefield sounds when they're communicating with high command, making the Stormtrooper Squad-leader's task much easier than Apones. As such the Stormtrooper stand-in is much more likly to survive than Apone.
6/ Drake is the last to die in the Atmosphere processor, in this case he is guarding the squads rear, and is caught in the explosion of acid from a dieing alien. In the case of the Stormtrooper, injury is still likly, but the all-encompassing armour gives him a much higher chance of survival, as long as he can reach the Speeder and pull his damaged armour off.

So assuming that the surviving Stormtroopers all manage to reach the Speeder, they should manage to reduce their casualties to 3 with 6 surviving Stormtroopers (some injured). This compares to the USCM, who had 6 casualties, and 3 survivors (one injured) at this stage.

The Speeder, not having any wheels to crush the alien, should not suffer the same acid damage as the USCM APC, and would still be functional after they left the base. As such they could drive to the Assault shuttle, rather than calling it to them as the Marines had to do. Even if the alien has killed the shuttle crew, they should have little difficulty in killing one alien. As such the second stage of the conflict is less likly to happen to the Stormtroopers as they will probably still have their Speeder and Shuttle available.

However for the sake of the argument, you could still assume the same thing happens and the Stormtroopers speeder and shuttle are destroyed in a crash forcing them to retreat to the Colony control centre. But I don't have time right now

[Antediluvian]

Since Imperial sensors seem more advanced than the Colonial Marines, couldn't they simply scan the whole colony and notice the colonists (and Xenomorphs) in the reactor building and call for reinforcements? Or at least proceed even more cautiously?

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Not to change the subject or anything, but I was thinking of writing a fanfic about something similar to this, except it involves the feds too.

Basic plot:
Ship with fast hyperdrive (maybe a Corvette) being chased through hyperspace by ISD, crew pushes hyperdrive way past safety limits to get away, and breaks the unit, forcing them into ridiculously high speeds that catapult them into the Trek galaxy before they can transfer power to the backup, which kicks in and brings them momentarily out of hyperspace near DS9, of course the backup drive is immediatley fried before the out of control main drive comes back online and forces them back into hyperdrive, seeing that they were pointed toward a planet in a nearby system, the chief engineer takes a blaster to the main drive just before impact. The problem is, of course, that this whole episode has basically fried every system on the ship, which, caught in the bleak planet's gravity, spirals helplessly toward a crash landing that kills most of the crew, the only survivors being a dozen stormtroopers, as the choking smoke from the crash quickly kills any non-armored crewers.

So now the survivors are stuck on an inhospitable ghost colony with limited air supply, limited supplies, no way off the planet, and no way to send a signal from their ship. Their salvation (they think) lies in the colony itself, which they soon discover to be swarming with Aliens. Meanwhile, DS9 has dispatched a ship to investigate the strange ship that appeared and promptly vanished, heading toward a Federation colony that hasn't been heard from in days. When the ship gets there, it sees the crash, scans the wreakage, and prepares to leave. Desperate and trapped, the marooned stormies fire at the Feds with an E-Web to get their attention. Not familiar with pathetic Fed technology, they fire full powered shots which penetrate the shields and bring down the ship, stranding the feddies as well, but leaving a ship which has working communications. I haven't really worked through past this point, and this is just bare bones stuff, without the all-important character development, but I'd like to know if anyone would want to see something like this.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Nice idea, Arthur. But I guess we'll have another question: What will happen when the Feds (Red-Shirt Ensigns) face the Aliens? I think both sides (Stormies and Ensign) eventually will have to join forces together against those Aliens (because the Stormies are marooned, with limited supply, right?), and it will make an interesting plot.

PS: If you need characters pls email me (iceheart@asean-mail.com). I'm developing my own SW EU right now, but haven't written any fanfic yet. So I guess my characters are kinda unemployed" right now

[NecronLord]

The real question is, what will the stormies do when they reach the alien queen? and her hundreds of eggs?

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Akm72: Oops, I think I missed your post on the first time, but IMHO, yours is the most robust analysis on this thread. Nice thought, btw.

NecronLord: Bringing few eggs to the labs so the scientist can develop them to genetically-enhanced warriors?

[Akm72]

The real question is, what will the stormies do when they reach the alien queen? and her hundreds of eggs?

I think that, if left on their own, the Stormtroopers would destroy the eggs in the interests of self preservation. But an Imperial officer might well be interested in aquiring a couple to study, especially if nudged in that direction by a company representative, and the Stormtroopers would be quite happy to obey any orders of that sort. However, it's not really clear how valuable they'd be to a civilisation that already has numerous weapons of mass destruction, and for which the real military problem is how to bypass powerful planetary shields, not how to exterminate the population once those shields are down.

[Master of Ossus]

The real question is, what will the stormies do when they reach the alien queen? and her hundreds of eggs?

I think that, if left on their own, the Stormtroopers would destroy the eggs in the interests of self preservation. But an Imperial officer might well be interested in aquiring a couple to study, especially if nudged in that direction by a company representative, and the Stormtroopers would be quite happy to obey any orders of that sort. However, it's not really clear how valuable they'd be to a civilisation that already has numerous weapons of mass destruction, and for which the real military problem is how to bypass powerful planetary shields, not how to exterminate the population once those shields are down.

I think it would be cool to send an alien queen against the rancor. The queen would win, but it would be an awesome spectacle.

[Akm72]

I think it would be cool to send an alien queen against the rancor. The queen would win, but it would be an awesome spectacle.

That'd be damn cool, as long as I wasn't in the same room!
Though what would probably happen is; The Rancor would rip the Queens head off and stuff it in it's mouth in one quick move, then die in agony as the acid bites deep

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Nice idea, Arthur. But I guess we'll have another question: What will happen when the Feds (Red-Shirt Ensigns) face the Aliens? I think both sides (Stormies and Ensign) eventually will have to join forces together against those Aliens (because the Stormies are marooned, with limited supply, right?), and it will make an interesting plot.

That's what I was thinking. Maybe they join forces and make their way to the downed feddie ship, only to find it infested with xenomorphs.

PS: If you need characters pls email me (iceheart@asean-mail.com). I'm developing my own SW EU right now, but haven't written any fanfic yet. So I guess my characters are kinda unemployed" right now

Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't feel comfortable using characters not of my own design. Besides, wouldn't want to rob you of them

[Akm72]

Second phase of Aliens with Stormtroopers;

One additional problem with the scenario is that the empire doesn't send out large warships with only 15 people on board, all of whom are intended to deploy on the surface. The orbiting warship would have a large crew who would be able to send the second shuttle down immediately. If the Stormtroopers' ship is only large enough for a complement of 15 it would be a shuttle and small enough to land directly on the surface. In order for this to work, we have to assume that the shuttle they came in traveled directly through hyperspace without a supporting mothership, and the second shuttle has to come, with it's own crew, from another star system less than an hour away by hyperspace. So the colony transmitter has to be a hyperspace transceiver.

The USMC Marines reached the Control center with 4 x Pulse Rifles (with 50 rounds each) and 4 x Sentry Guns (+ a few grenades and stuff). This is enough for 1 Pulse Rifle for each of the 3 marines and 1 for Ripley - Gorman also had his pistol.

For the Stormtroopers I'll provide 1 x standard Stormtrooper blaster each, and 1 extra one for Ripley, and give the Imperial Officer a lightweight
officers blaster pistol. The other characters present are Burke (the Company Representative) who will try to acquire an Alien if possible, Newt the sole surviving colonist, and instead of the android Bishop, I'll provide a SW protocol droid and an astromech droid, that between them provide a similar level of capability (ie the astromech can't communitcate of his own). Instead of the 4 sentry guns, I'll provide 2 x tripod-mounted heavy repeating blasters (with portable power packs).

In the case of the Marines Gorman was unconscious for almost until the final battle, the same will be the case with the Imperial Officer. The only
other injury amongst the Marines was Hudson, who had an injured arm, but was still able to fight. In the case of the Stormtroopers, I'll assume
that we have 2 lightly injured (the ones standing in for Hudson and Apone) and 1 more seriously (standing in for Drake).

Their first task will be to analyse the situation, in the same way the USMC did, and conclude they have to secure the command center and wait for
rescue. Like the USCM team they will want to secure the maintenance corridor first, with a fall-back position at an important choke point. Unlike
the USCM they can't rely on Sentry guns at these positions with no risk to themselves. Instead they must set up the 2 repeating blasters and man them with 2 men (out of only 5 Stormtroopers capable of fighting). This causes a problem as in order for the Stormtroopers manning the repeating
blasters to fall back, the accessways (that were welded up by the USCM) must be left open by the Stormtroopers.

In the film the Aliens attacked the Sentry guns and only succeeded in getting into the Colony because the Sentry guns ran out of ammunition. It is likly that with the heavy repeating blaster, the ammunition would last much longer (as we've never seen a Star Wars gun needing to be reloaded
during a battle). It is likly that the Aliens would fail to get past even the first repeating blaster for that reason.

While the aliens are licking their wounds;
the protocol droid announces that the atmosphere processor is going to blow up, and is sent out to access the remote communications dish and call another assault shuttle (no remote piloting skills are necessary in the case as the second shuttle has it's own crew).
Burke tries to get Ripley and Newt impregnated by the facehuggers in medical. The Stormtroopers rescue them in the same way the Marines did.
Then everyone confronts Burke (including the now recovered Imperial Officer) in the command center.

It this point the power is cut by the Aliens.

The Stormtroopers manning the repeating blasters report that they can't see any sign of the aliens, and would most likly be called back to the command center at this point. Unlike the Marines our Stormtroopers have no handy portable motion trackers, but they do have an astromech droid to access computers, which is equipped with a short-range sensor dish. While that sensor dish is probably going to be better than the USCM motion trackers, without the protocol droid to translate, the astromech droid may have some difficulty in communicating the location of the aliens to the Stormtroopers. This is largely equivalent to the difficulty the Marines had in accurately locating the aliens above the ceiling panels. The result is the same, and the Stormtroopers only becoming aware of the direction of the attack a couple of seconds before it occurs.

During the distraction of the combat Burke escapes out the back way, and locks the door behind him (to come face to face with an alien). The Stormtroopers retreat towards the door behind a hail of blaster fire.
In the film Hudson takes too long retreating and is pulled below the floor, a Stormtrooper would have no greater success in surviving that attack, so now we are down to 4 combat capable Stormtroopers and 1 partially injured one, one Imperial officer, 1 astromech droid, Ripley and Newt.

To get through the locked door a blaster would easily take out the lock in a couple of shots (somewhat quicker than the portable welders the Marines had to use), allowing the Stormtroopers to withdraw to the small chamber leading to the next room where the next door has also been locked by Burke.

In fact the speed with which they can get through the doors would probably change the next section, as there would be no delay allowing Newt to suggest they go via the air-ducts. One of the troopers would simply blast open the second door and proceed through the main corridors to the landing pad. But we have no way of predicting what losses they would take on this route, so we'll have to assume that they do go via the airducts as in the film.

The next Marines to die in the film were Vasquez and Gorman;
While bringing up the rear Vasquez had dropped behind and then run out of
ammunition forcing her to swap to a pistol. Vasquez emptied her pistol into the head of the next alien to jump on her from a vertical duct, but is
injured by it's acid blood. Gorman then turns up and kills both of them and several aliens with a grenade.

For the Stormtroopers, it is likly that the rearguard would fall behind in the same way - but given the ammo capacity of a blaster is larger than for a pulse rifle it is unlikly it would run out at this point. But the Stormtrooper would still have to kill the alien that falls on him from the vertical shaft. This should be achievable as his Stormtrooper armour makes it more difficult for the alien to get a quick kill, making the Stormtrooper's task easier than Vasquezes. However the resulting acid spray would probably be larger as the trooper is using a powerful blaster instead of a small pistol. Due to the size of the acid spray, the trooper would probably still be immobilized despite his armour.
The next question is, would anyone go back for him? Gorman went back due mainly to his feelings of guilt over his mistakes during the fight in the atmosphere processor. The Imperial Officer would have no such feelings, but we'll assume he goes back anyway as he feels responsible for his men (see; behaviour of Capt. Needa). The Imperial Officer reaches his downed Stormtrooper, who is still able to fight with his fully-armed and operational assault blaster (all his injuries are too one of his legs).
Unlike Gorman and Vasquez whose only effective remaining weapons were grenades, the Imperial Officer and the injured Stormtrooper have a reasonable chance of holding off the aliens in the airducts. Each time they kill one the airduct is partially blocked, slowing down the the aliens behind, and improving their chances. This does not mean they manage to get out, but it does mean they can buy enough time for the main group to get to the landing pad.

Without Gormans grenade, Newt is not blown down the shaft by the blast wave, so the entire end sequence with the rescue of Newt and the alien queen does not happen. The survivors get to the landing pad without further loses and escape 15 of minutes (or whatever) before the processor blows up.

Survivors;
Ripley
Newt
Protocol Droid
Astromech Droid (it wouldn't be able to go down the airduct of course, but the aliens would probably not be interesting in it and it could just go straight to the landing pad)
4 x Stormtroopers (at least one of which is injured)
Possibly a further injured Stormtrooper is helped to the landing pad by the Imperial Officer, just before the shuttle is ready to take off.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Arthur_Tuxedo:

Errr....there's something seriously wrong with the basic plot.

"Ship with fast hyperdrive (maybe a Corvette) being chased through hyperspace by ISD, crew pushes hyperdrive way past safety limits to get away, and breaks the unit, forcing them into ridiculously high speeds that catapult them into the Trek galaxy"

Okay...the Corvette goes into our galaxy. Nothing wrong with that.

"the only survivors being a dozen stormtroopers, as the choking smoke from the crash quickly kills any non-armored crewers."

Since when does the Rebellion have Stormtroopers?! You said the Corvette, I assume a Rebel Corvette, goes into hyperspace into our galaxy. Why would there be Stormtroopers on a Rebel Corvette? You have to replace the Stormtroopers with Rebel fleet troopers to make it work, but they don't have armor like Stormtroopers and would die in the crash. You'd have to adjust your story for the situation to fit.

[Master of Ossus]

The Rebel troops would have no chance against a queen alien, but the stormies might.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Errr....there's something seriously wrong with the basic plot.

"Ship with fast hyperdrive (maybe a Corvette) being chased through hyperspace by ISD, crew pushes hyperdrive way past safety limits to get away, and breaks the unit, forcing them into ridiculously high speeds that catapult them into the Trek galaxy"

Okay...the Corvette goes into our galaxy. Nothing wrong with that.

"the only survivors being a dozen stormtroopers, as the choking smoke from the crash quickly kills any non-armored crewers."

Since when does the Rebellion have Stormtroopers?! You said the Corvette, I assume a Rebel Corvette, goes into hyperspace into our galaxy. Why would there be Stormtroopers on a Rebel Corvette? You have to replace the Stormtroopers with Rebel fleet troopers to make it work, but they don't have armor like Stormtroopers and would die in the crash. You'd have to adjust your story for the situation to fit.

Oops. Forgot to explain that it was one Remnant faction ship chasing another. Sorry about that.

[Antediluvian]

Arthur_Tuxedo:

Errr....there's something seriously wrong with the basic plot.

"Ship with fast hyperdrive (maybe a Corvette) being chased through hyperspace by ISD, crew pushes hyperdrive way past safety limits to get away, and breaks the unit, forcing them into ridiculously high speeds that catapult them into the Trek galaxy"

Okay...the Corvette goes into our galaxy. Nothing wrong with that.

"the only survivors being a dozen stormtroopers, as the choking smoke from the crash quickly kills any non-armored crewers."

Since when does the Rebellion have Stormtroopers?! You said the Corvette, I assume a Rebel Corvette, goes into hyperspace into our galaxy. Why would there be Stormtroopers on a Rebel Corvette? You have to replace the Stormtroopers with Rebel fleet troopers to make it work, but they don't have armor like Stormtroopers and would die in the crash. You'd have to adjust your story for the situation to fit.

The Empire uses Correllian Corvettes too (though that comes from WEG, and may not really be canon.)

[Master of Ossus]

Of course the Empire uses corvettes. Corvettes are merely civilian ships that can be upgraded to military models. The Empire has full access to them, and if not the exact model, then certainly similar designs.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Oh, ok, then it makes more sense. Maybe you should change it, though, to that a random split-second wormhole appeared in hyperspace and made them go to our galaxy.

[Master of Ossus]

Don't bother to change it. These crossover series never have believable methods of connecting the two universes, so either method is as good as the other.

[AdmiralKanos]

One interesting thing about threads like this is that if you say "Colonial Marines vs Aliens" (ie- reproduce the original scenario) and assume that they have a modicum of intelligence, the Marines should wipe the floor with them. It took a string of spectacular and incredibly stupid mistakes combined with unbelievably bad luck to make the mission FUBAR.

If they didn't go in with AP rounds against an enemy who obviously won't be wearing body armour, they won't have to disarm. This will reduce their casualties in combat when the Aliens show up, and it will also eliminate the ammo bag that blew up and killed two troopers.

If they didn't leave the dropship in an unsecured area with the landing door wide open and no one guarding the entrance (Jesus fucking Christ, how stupid can they be?), there's no alien on the dropship and no horrendous crash which simultaneously wipes out their evac and their APC.

If they left just one goddamned crewman on the Suvaco to monitor the situation, he flies down and rescues them with the second dropship after the first one is destroyed.

There should be no "last stand" inside the complex. There should have been fewer casualties when scouting the reactor building. There should have been no damage to the reactor itself. They would have flown quietly back up to the Suvaco, nuked the site from orbit, and then reported back that sadly, the colonists were all killed before they arrived.

A disaster of this sort should not happen twice, or even once. The Aliens' threat level is grossly exaggerated; they're mindless creatures with no ranged weaponry.

In fact, even if every other goddamned thing had gone wrong and they found themselves stranded just as in the original movie, the Marines would have been smarter to simply find a nice flat plain or defensible high ground, set up their sentry guns in a perimeter, and then wait for nightfall. A technologically superior combatant has the edge over open terrain, and he loses the edge in room-to-room close-quarters combat. So why the fuck would a technologically superior combatant hole up in a small-corridor building of flimsy civilian construction whose design layout they are unfamiliar with, and which was already breached once by the aliens, when they could simply double-time it until they find a nice defensible location out in the open? These aliens don't have any fucking artillery, remember? If you have guns and the enemy has claws, you would have to be a complete fucking moron to make your stand anywhere but open ground.

Do the math: they know how many colonists there are, therefore they know how many aliens there are. What was the number? 150? They had 4 sentry guns with 500 rounds apiece; that's 2000 rounds. They had a bunch of pulse rifles with several hundred more rounds. They could have closed ranks, taken a defensible position, and then watched the sentry guns eliminate the aliens at long range.

Tactics, goddammit! Tactics!