USS Sulaco matchups

[Shroom Man 777]

Hmm... okay, I think I'm being obtuse about this, a bit thick and shit, okay. I get how if, the Sulaco is a realistic spacecraft, it's mostly fuel and engines and is heavily automated and can probably consist of a crew of a handful of guys (the Marines) as caretakers just like the Nostromo. Hell, if we sent a ship to Mars, the bigass space ship would probably have a similarly small crew.

But still, it kind of bugs me how if the dropship just fucked up in mid-flight, via malfunction or damage from enemy fire/SAMs/space RPG, everyone in that mission - the whole human cast, sans Newt - would've gotten killed and then there wouldn't be anyone on the Sulaco to do anything at all. Maybe the Sulaco has super-advanced AI and if that happened, it would've known what to do or something. They could've just radioed in the Sulaco for an automated dropship evac or something (or get Bishop to do that via remote control). But still. I mean, shit, is the Sulaco's sick bay/infirmary also heavily automated and run by AI doctors? Cause, again, unless one of the Marines was a trauma surgeon or some shit, what if Hudson got his ass blown off by a mine and they needed a medevac and shit? What if someone got critically hurt?

Jesus Christ, send a binillion-dollar supertech spaceship to a faraway world, and it doesn't even have enough Space Marines to clear a building. Lol.

[Swindle1984]

What's wrong with the thing being heavily automated? Space travel ain't like dusting crops, boy.

Still, that's kind of stupid. Robots commanding the ship, nobody else to man the ship (unless the Marines double as tail gunners ), and doing everything without human supervision or maintenance, far away from Earth and far away from anyone who can do any maintenance if anything happens? If they're that advanced, why the hell do they even bother sending meatbag Marines when they could just automate their infantry as well?

Most of it's probably engine and power stuff. Remember how small the crew portions and shuttle were on the Nostromo compared to the rest of the ship?

But yeah, it's just a transport.

But this is weird. I mean, yeah, sure, I can get how the crew of the Nostromo was so small. I can also get it if the Sulaco had a handful of sailors as crew, that would be a bit sensible. But do we even see a crew at all on the Sulaco? And using a 300+ meter huge-ass ship to transport a small bunch of grunts to some crappy moon?

It would make sense if in the future, in that 'verse, 300+ meter warships would be their equivalent of a C-130 or a PT boat or something. Yeah. But man. Kinda underwhelming.

I don't know where it comes from in the canon, but I've always heard that the crew and most of the marines aboard the Sulaco were transferred to give a shake-down cruise for a new ship, so the Company would have as few people involved in the incident as possible (thus, allowing them to secretly obtain an alien and limiting the spread of knowledge about what happened to the colony.). It's supposed to be an indication of how much influence Weyland-Yutani has over the military and government at this point.

[Aaron]

Hmm... okay, I think I'm being obtuse about this, a bit thick and shit, okay. I get how if, the Sulaco is a realistic spacecraft, it's mostly fuel and engines and is heavily automated and can probably consist of a crew of a handful of guys (the Marines) as caretakers just like the Nostromo. Hell, if we sent a ship to Mars, the bigass space ship would probably have a similarly small crew.

But still, it kind of bugs me how if the dropship just fucked up in mid-flight, via malfunction or damage from enemy fire/SAMs/space RPG, everyone in that mission - the whole human cast, sans Newt - would've gotten killed and then there wouldn't be anyone on the Sulaco to do anything at all. Maybe the Sulaco has super-advanced AI and if that happened, it would've known what to do or something. They could've just radioed in the Sulaco for an automated dropship evac or something (or get Bishop to do that via remote control). But still. I mean, shit, is the Sulaco's sick bay/infirmary also heavily automated and run by AI doctors? Cause, again, unless one of the Marines was a trauma surgeon or some shit, what if Hudson got his ass blown off by a mine and they needed a medevac and shit? What if someone got critically hurt?

Jesus Christ, send a binillion-dollar supertech spaceship to a faraway world, and it doesn't even have enough Space Marines to clear a building. Lol.

Yeah, the background to the movie doesn't bear much scrutiny unfortunately.

[NecronLord]

Hmm... okay, I think I'm being obtuse about this, a bit thick and shit, okay. I get how if, the Sulaco is a realistic spacecraft, it's mostly fuel and engines and is heavily automated and can probably consist of a crew of a handful of guys (the Marines) as caretakers just like the Nostromo. Hell, if we sent a ship to Mars, the bigass space ship would probably have a similarly small crew.

But still, it kind of bugs me how if the dropship just fucked up in mid-flight, via malfunction or damage from enemy fire/SAMs/space RPG, everyone in that mission - the whole human cast, sans Newt - would've gotten killed and then there wouldn't be anyone on the Sulaco to do anything at all. Maybe the Sulaco has super-advanced AI and if that happened, it would've known what to do or something. They could've just radioed in the Sulaco for an automated dropship evac or something (or get Bishop to do that via remote control). But still. I mean, shit, is the Sulaco's sick bay/infirmary also heavily automated and run by AI doctors? Cause, again, unless one of the Marines was a trauma surgeon or some shit, what if Hudson got his ass blown off by a mine and they needed a medevac and shit? What if someone got critically hurt?

Jesus Christ, send a binillion-dollar supertech spaceship to a faraway world, and it doesn't even have enough Space Marines to clear a building. Lol.

I think it's blindingly obvious that Burke and his guys were pulling strings there. Getting an inexperienced officer. Imagine if it actually had a full crew and a full-bird Colonel commanding? At some point we'd get, "Guards. Arrest Burke. Take him to the Sulaco and put him back in hypersleep."

An autodoc would certainly be on board. There was an autodoc on the Nostromo, a commercial ship, which according to the novel at least was pretty damn capable. Just not capable of the radical surgery needed to remove the egg.

[Stofsk]

Perhaps the tower wasn't convenient to get to at that time?

Yet when the plot device forced them to look for options, they sprung into action and got bishop to crawl through that pipe for however long he did. I actually think it would be less convenient the way it happened in the film, because they were under a clock.

Besides, they were all panicked and shaken. People aren't always perfectly logical analytical machines, especially in FUBARed situations like that.

Oh? But they were calm and measured when they were talking about bunkering up in the colony building for seventeen days. Seriously, compare the two scenes (just after the dropship with Ferro crashes into the APC, and just after Bishop informs them of the plot device). Only in the second scene does Ripley state matter-of-factly, 'Well, we need to bring down the second dropship from the Sulaco.' Because they couldn't outrun the projected blast radius. And then Hudson went 'HOW?!? The transmitter we had on the APC is wasted!'

Yet in the previous scene, after they had just got their asses kicked, suffered three quarters casualties (there was, what, eight marines? Plus Ferro and Spunkmeyer who went down with the dropship. Only Hudson, Hicks and Vasquez made it out of there, but even Gorman was clonked on the head and out of commission), and yet no one thought they need to GTFORN then? They were calm and measured when they were looking through blueprints and area schematics. They were seriously preparing to sit on their asses for almost three weeks when the first thought they should have had was 'How do we get the second drop ship down from the Sulaco' and realised the Colony uplink tower could do it, then head straight there. There was at least enough time for them to fortify parts of the colony building before the aliens made their first push, and there would be no point in getting Bishop to sneak through to the tower in the pipe. They might even use a vehicle (the colony had a few of those prospecting vehicles) which I'm sure the marines could have gotten onto and drove to the tower, cutting the time down considerably.

The reason it annoys me is because it takes a Plot Device (exploding fusion reactor) for them to come up with a plan that they should have come up with the first time. After several hours had passed even! The aliens had pushed at least once, possibly twice (i need to rewatch it to be sure) at that point, and the auto-turrets couldn't possibly have held out for seventeen days anyway. I consider it the biggest plot hole in the movie.

[NecronLord]

the auto-turrets couldn't possibly have held out for seventeen days anyway.

You are assuming they couldn't be reloaded between bouts there. They do know there's a fixed number of aliens (Number of colonists). Holding out isn't that unreasonable a plan.

Everything else you're saying is fine, mind you, but I wouldn't be surprised if those turrets came with a couple spare ammo loads.

[Stark]

Since they had no idea about numbers and figured at that point they were animals, it's fair to expect they'd just be left alone. As it was the guns killed nearly all the aliens anyway.

[Stofsk]

I thought it was heavily implied in the film that the turrets expended all their ammunition. At one point Hicks says to Ripley 'Next time they can come right up and knock' after one turret went to zero and the other was at 10 rounds or something. (the other turrets were expended completely as well, and they had reinforced doors behind them which they sealed so it's not like they could have reloaded them even if they wanted to)

If they could have reloaded them, then waiting it out isn't unreasonable. I agree with that. EDIT: In context, I should say. We all know the critters found a way to sneak past the sentries so they'd still be fucked anyway.

[Stark]

But it's doctrine dude. The whole point is that staying inside the compromised base with little resources is not a good idea, but their training tells them to hunker down in the most 'defensible' (against people or known threats) position with manual #241-2 sentry and sensor networks and await pickup. It's not SUPPOSED to be right; the Marines are there to talk about how Vietnam sucked for the US.

[Stofsk]

Oh yeah I know that was what Cameron's point. Eliminate the plot device forcing them to get the second dropship down and I wouldn't have a problem with it though. It's just as it stands, it's hard to understand why they didn't simply go there from the beginning if it was always a possibility. Like they don't even discuss it until after the reactor starts venting.

EDIT: For example, a better event to force their hands is actually the auto-turrets expending all their ammo. Suddenly they know they can't wait seventeen days so they look for Plan B. That's still iffy, but at least it follows organically from Plan A failing.

[Stark]

The plot is predicated on them landing their only transport because it was declared 'safe'. If they'd just gone back up to refuel and await the call for pickup, they'd have been fine. Since the ship was both transport and gunship, we can say the doctrinal necessity of keeping it close coupled with its poor fuel performance combined to create this situation.

[Stofsk]

Not to mention lax security arrangements. Fucking Gorman! The area is safe indeed.

[Stark]

I bet there's a field manual that says you can only land the dropship on a prepared landing grid too.

[Darth Nostril]

Don't forget that as far as they are concerned both pilots died when the dropship went down (well, nitpicking, it was their deaths that caused it to go down) so they've got no way off planet.
So they are outside, both APC and dropship are toast, reduced to a fraction of their number with a limited amount of weapons and ammo, Gorman and Hudson are injured .... then Newt starts with the "They mostly come out at night, mostly." Time to get the fuck out of Dodge to a defensible position, treat the wounded and take stock of the situation.
It's not until the emergency venting starts and they have to get the fuck out of there ASAP that they discover that Bishop is capable of piloting the second dropship by remote.
As for why Bishop didn't mention it earlier, I figure it's a lack of initiative programmed into his line of androids following the actions of the Ash line which were in Bishops words "twitchy".

[Stofsk]

Considering Bishop drove the APC and seemed to be attached to the unit, you'd think the marines would know what he's capable of. He doesn't hold a rank or wear a uniform but he's driving the APC and Gorman was telling him what to do and so on.

Bishop lacking initiative doesn't make sense either, since he volunteered almost immediately after the idea was broached. I can't recall him being in the loop when they were planning to bunker down anyway. It just doesn't make sense that they wouldn't go for the tower straight away. Even when they're inside the colony building and asking themselves what to do, not one person goes 'lets get Bishop to remote pilot the second dropship down while we cover him with everything we've got'. The exigent circumstances of the reactor venting is at least as dramatic as the first dropship crashing into the APC.

[Stark]

Yeah, nobody even thought to use the colony transmitter until they were going to explode.

[Highlord Laan]

From the weapon loadout, I'd wager that the Sulaco could slug it out with a standard Mass Effect frigate* and have a decent chance of pulling off a victory. It'd come down to the railguns, and perhaps some creative use of the mines and soft-kill DEW's, but even for a migic-tech setting like ME, the Sulaco would make for a solid battle bus.

*The Normandy isn't a good example of a standard Navy frigate, it's the bleeding-edge experimental design that sees limited use.