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

[Alyrium Denryle]

So, I have been thinking about how the whole scenario could have played out, and I dont think outright stupidity need necessarily be involved.

So daddy gets face-hugged. Keep in mind, these people at this outpost are not co-workers. They are colonists. They live mostly independently of the Company, and while they pay lip-service to it and get paid by it, they fucking live there and are 2 weeks at FTL comms away. They do shit their way. So, while there are quarantine procedures, this dude is their friend. Their neighbor. Maybe their brother in law. Getting people to stick to quarantines with something like Ebola is difficult at best and we all know exactly what Ebola is.

So they did was decent and well-meaning people do. They tried to help their friend by bringing him into medical.

While in medical, they might not actually know what he has in his chest. They may not have a military grade medical scanner handy (WY does like to cut corners...). They dont see a little monster using his lungs (or liver, I honestly dont remember where the little guy implants) as a placenta. They will just see a mass, and not know what it is. Once he wakes up, the doctors will want to run tests and the like, but his family is definitely going to want to see him, and there would be very little a doctor could ethically do to keep them out. Informed consent is a thing, and even though WY might not give a shit, the doctors do. If they have no reason to think it is infectious (a predator is one thing, but even conventional parasites are often an outside context problem for most GPs), they will allow visits.

Then the chest-burst happens and our cute little monster zips off into an air duct while everyone else is in a horrified state of shock.

Yes, I think baby xenomorphs are cute. Dont judge me.

They search for it, but good fucking luck finding it. It gets by hunting rats and things until it is big enough, goes and finds a warm dark place (like the bottom of the atmosphere processor) and starts laying eggs. Now, the first few babies probably have to look after themselves. They hatch, and the face-huggers have to find their own hosts, rather than have workers bring them hosts. So they scuttle around for a while until some poor maintenance workers come by. HUGS!!

Once they have adapted to a new host type (which her Royal Majesty has already done), it does not take very long to go from snuggles to thoracic expulsion, so a bunch of dudes doing their 10 hour shift over at the processor well... they wont be missed until it is already too late. When overdue, someone will probably go look for them. HUGS! Eventually, the colonists will put two and two together, but by then there are like... five xenomorphs bopping around in the ventilation shafts and sewage systems. Waiting. Someone goes somewhere alone, Snag, later hugs.

Trying to root them out from the atmosphere processor will be suicide for the first few people who try, at which point the colonists barricade themselves in the habitation module. However, you noticed that their barricades (even those of the marines, really) didn't cover ALL the crawl spaces? How could they, they have massive false ceilings and shit for cables etc. Oops.

Newt probably only survived because she stuck to places she could close off like garbage chutes etc.

Once the xenos have half the colonists, they reach Peak Host, and have an exponentially harder time finding said colonists. So you get that poor poor unfortunate who was the last to be caught. Mere hours before colonial marines got into the atmosphere processor (if I remember my chain of events in the film correctly).

[Joun_Lord]

I wonder if there was perhaps some sabotage. Maybe there was a company man like Burke there who was the voice of the company and could override quarantine. Or just somebody working for WY on the down low, some random colonist or another synth like Ash.

The person could have been carrying out WY's/Burke's order to retrieve a specimen and like Burke later tried, purposely got people infected to have more specimens. Probably didn't think the plan through or was even given a flawed plan on purpose to spread the infection further.

With just Newts dad with a face full of alien wing wong that should be easy to contain, thus Burke's patsy gets more people infected probably by eggs brought from the derelict. More people get infected and making the situation hot enough to send in the Marines. The company probably thinks a bunch of jarheads can clean up the mess while Burke gets specimens. Or the company was making a patsy out of Burke. Send in Burke with the Marines, let them get wiped out so their are no witnesses about what truly went on letting WY spin it as a rogue operation. Burke's name was on the comm logs, Burke organized the mission and left out crucial information that got a Marine squad killed. WY publicly denounces Burke's action and vows to clean up the mess he made at no charge. They can place all the blame on Burke and get a planet full of bugs to study.

And they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for that meddling Ripley.

A half assed theory but would explain some shit.

[Tribble]

So, I have been thinking about how the whole scenario could have played out, and I dont think outright stupidity need necessarily be involved.

So daddy gets face-hugged. Keep in mind, these people at this outpost are not co-workers. They are colonists. They live mostly independently of the Company, and while they pay lip-service to it and get paid by it, they fucking live there and are 2 weeks at FTL comms away. They do shit their way. So, while there are quarantine procedures, this dude is their friend. Their neighbor. Maybe their brother in law. Getting people to stick to quarantines with something like Ebola is difficult at best and we all know exactly what Ebola is.

So they did was decent and well-meaning people do. They tried to help their friend by bringing him into medical.

On the other hand, you could easily argue they would be more cautious, seeing as they were in the process of terraforming the planet, and the first alien life they find immediately attacked and latched itself onto someone's face. Fear of the unknown could be just as powerful a motivator.

While in medical, they might not actually know what he has in his chest. They may not have a military grade medical scanner handy (WY does like to cut corners...). They dont see a little monster using his lungs (or liver, I honestly dont remember where the little guy implants) as a placenta. They will just see a mass, and not know what it is. Once he wakes up, the doctors will want to run tests and the like, but his family is definitely going to want to see him, and there would be very little a doctor could ethically do to keep them out. Informed consent is a thing, and even though WY might not give a shit, the doctors do. If they have no reason to think it is infectious (a predator is one thing, but even conventional parasites are often an outside context problem for most GPs), they will allow visits.

The Nostromo had sensors capable of detecting the embryo once it was big enough for there to be discernable features (before that it was seen as a smear on the lungs). IIRC Ash is looking at scans of the embryo when someone walked in on him and quickly hid the image. While the colony wouldn't be expected to have military-grade equipment, one would think that at the very least they'd be able to match what was essentially just a space-tugboat.

Also, even if we assumed their equipment was inferior to the Nostromo's, they would still know that:

An alien creature attacked a person and latched itself on his face
The creature is keeping the person alive for some reason
The creature deposited a mass in the person's body
The mass appears to be growing exponentially

It doesn't take a Doctor to know that can't be good for the body, and the mass needs to be removed asap (even if only to prevent the risk of the mass damaging other organs). Especially if they tried removing the Facehugger and learned of the acid; it'd be logical to assume the mass would likely be comprised of acid as well and needs to be removed immediately. The bigger it grew the more danger it would pose to the patient. No one in their right mind would let that mass sit and grow in the guy's chest.

Also, if they had no idea what the mass was, it would have been prudent to assume it was infectious, just to be safe. Even if the quarantine was rather lax and visitors were allowed, the room should have been closed while the guy was in there. If some some bizarre reason the chestburster was allowed to develop it still should not have had time to escape before the people recovered from their initial shock.

Then the chest-burst happens and our cute little monster zips off into an air duct while everyone else is in a horrified state of shock.

If the airducts lacked grills, sure. I can't remember if they had them or not. If the ducts had grills, the chestburster would have been slowed down.

Yes, I think baby xenomorphs are cute. Dont judge me.

Oh no worries, the chestburster is pretty cute... when it's wearing a tophat and cane of course:

They search for it, but good fucking luck finding it. It gets by hunting rats and things until it is big enough, goes and finds a warm dark place (like the bottom of the atmosphere processor) and starts laying eggs.

I agree that they would have had a lot of difficulty tracking the chestbuster given the size / complexity of the colony. The full size Alien should have been another story though. The colony had sensors and surveillance equipment. IIRC the sensors were used to locate the colonists in the Atmospheric Processor, and while they weren't able to detect the motionless Xenomorphs (due to the nest material, the steam and the ambient temperature of the processor) the sensors were able to detect the Xenomorps once they started moving. Even if they weren't precise, A T-Rex sized alien moving around the Atmoshperic processor should have set off something.

Now, the first few babies probably have to look after themselves. They hatch, and the face-huggers have to find their own hosts, rather than have workers bring them hosts. So they scuttle around for a while until some poor maintenance workers come by. HUGS!!

IIRC there was no evidence in the film that the eggs would hatch unless a victim was nearby, though I suppose it's possible a Queen could order it to. Also, we're not even sure if the first one was a Queen, though it's the most likely explanation because a regular adult would have had to go back to the ship (despite not knowing where it was) and bring back eggs to infect people without somehow being detected the entire time.

Once they have adapted to a new host type (which her Royal Majesty has already done), it does not take very long to go from snuggles to thoracic expulsion, so a bunch of dudes doing their 10 hour shift over at the processor well... they wont be missed until it is already too late. When overdue, someone will probably go look for them. HUGS! Eventually, the colonists will put two and two together, but by then there are like... five xenomorphs bopping around in the ventilation shafts and sewage systems. Waiting. Someone goes somewhere alone, Snag, later hugs.

IIRC the gestation period from initial face-hugger attack to chestbuster was ~24 hours or so, and several more hours elapse from chestbuster - full size. Even assuming the first couple of groups were successfully face-hugged, there would have been plenty of time for the colony to put two and two together and mount an expedition before there were any other adults to back the first one up. Mind you they would be dealing with a Queen... but "hey, we've got a T-Rex sized Alien laying eggs everywhere!" should have elected a massive response from the colony, as should have realised they have a do or die scenario on their hands.

Trying to root them out from the atmosphere processor will be suicide for the first few people who try, at which point the colonists barricade themselves in the habitation module.

Which would be another silly decision on their part. Why would the send in small groups after the first groups stopped communicating and moving (Remember they can track them)? Even the stupidest of them ought to have known how dangerous it was to let the infestation get out of control. While the Xenomorphs are nasty they're not invincible, and they'd still be heavily outnumbered.

However, you noticed that their barricades (even those of the marines, really) didn't cover ALL the crawl spaces? How could they, they have massive false ceilings and shit for cables etc. Oops.

To be fair, the Xenomorphs apparently didn't know about the crawlspaces / false ceilings until late in the movie, since their initial attacks merely involved charging at the doors. Ripley pointed out that they withdrew precisely because they wanted to figure out another way in. In the first couple of movies Human-Xenomorphs appeared to prefer walking over crawling (out-side universe is because they were people in suits) which may explain why they didn't try it the first time.

Newt probably only survived because she stuck to places she could close off like garbage chutes etc.

That was the implication. She also knew about the Xenomporh's sleep cycle: "They mostly come out at night. Mostly."

Once the xenos have half the colonists, they reach Peak Host, and have an exponentially harder time finding said colonists. So you get that poor poor unfortunate who was the last to be caught. Mere hours before colonial marines got into the atmosphere processor (if I remember my chain of events in the film correctly).

Well, it would have been ~24 hours before the marines showed up, but ya that sucks. Mind you, the colonist probably would have died anyways given the events in the film.

I wonder if there was perhaps some sabotage. Maybe there was a company man like Burke there who was the voice of the company and could override quarantine. Or just somebody working for WY on the down low, some random colonist or another synth like Ash.

The person could have been carrying out WY's/Burke's order to retrieve a specimen and like Burke later tried, purposely got people infected to have more specimens. Probably didn't think the plan through or was even given a flawed plan on purpose to spread the infection further.

With just Newts dad with a face full of alien wing wong that should be easy to contain, thus Burke's patsy gets more people infected probably by eggs brought from the derelict. More people get infected and making the situation hot enough to send in the Marines. The company probably thinks a bunch of jarheads can clean up the mess while Burke gets specimens. Or the company was making a patsy out of Burke. Send in Burke with the Marines, let them get wiped out so their are no witnesses about what truly went on letting WY spin it as a rogue operation. Burke's name was on the comm logs, Burke organized the mission and left out crucial information that got a Marine squad killed. WY publicly denounces Burke's action and vows to clean up the mess he made at no charge. They can place all the blame on Burke and get a planet full of bugs to study.

A half assed theory but would explain some shit.

IMO that's the most likely explanation, as it doesn't require Chernobyl levels of incompetence on the part of the medical / science stuff. I think there would have to be synthetics like Ash involved though. Would you trust your boss's word when he tells you to "collect specimens, colonists expendable" if you saw the thing growing in that guys chest? Would you dare risk letting that thing out of quarantine just to make sure the colonists won't kill it? Just because the boss offered you a bribe? Oh, and while your boss is safe on another planet? I highly doubt it. It'd be a lot easier for them to just use a synthetics over trying to bribe someone since a synthetic could be programmed to obey orders without question. IIRC, according to the novelization Burke tried to have Bishop replaced but wasn't able to in time.

And they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for that meddling Ripley.

Funny thing is Burke was the one who convinced Ripley to go, even though he didn't really need her as he already had her testimony. Then he convinced her to go to the planet, as she initially wanted to stay on the ship. His plan must have been to kill/infect Ripley from the get-go. This might help explain why the company sent a relatively high-level officer on the mission. Ripley was a loose end, but she initially refused to leave. They couldn't kill her on Earth because that would raise too much suspicion... so why not earn her trust by sending a higher up who pretended to agree with her and was willing to share in the risks to prove her story?

Of course just because I nitpick doesn't mean I hated the movie. I liked it a lot, I just feel that like Termiantor 2 Aliens wasn't as tight of a movie as the original was.

[FaxModem1]

Note about the motion sensors, it was only the Marine equipment that picked up the movement, not the colony's sensors. Their detection of the colonists was through the tracking chips that were surgically implanted into all the colonists.

Question about facehuggers, is there a set distance or time before they run out of energy and die if they don't get a host? If there's enough for it to go about a day or a few kilometers, old queen xenomorph can just sit on her butt squeezing out eggs, have the eggs hatch, and wait while facehuggers start grabbing people's faces.

As to the colony, we are talking about a small town here. There will always be individuals who are loners, are sick/too drunk and don't show up for work, or who venture out by themselves, meaning potential hosts. If there are 150 people, and the first one is a queen. Imagine after the queen escapes from quarantine somehow, it's facehugger army captures a few people wandering the local drinking hole. Unless the colony administrator is some sort of tyrant, he probably didn't put the whole colony on lockdown immediately, but did have groups searching for the chest-burster. Facehuggers appear to be highly mobile and sneaky, as shown by Ripley and Newt's encounter with them in the medical bay(thanks to Burke). Meanwhile, life continues on as normal at Hadley's Hope, with facehuggers grabbing stragglers working at the atmosphere processor or as they swagger home from the local bar, or as they wander the hallways alone after a fight with the spouse, or even while using the bathroom. If the xenos get lucky, they may acquire over a dozen people before anyone is the wiser.

It really depends on how tight-knit Hadley's Hope was. After all, if your neighbor disappeared for an entire day because a facehugger grafted onto him and he was lying in his bathroom, how long before you would notice? How about his boss? His friends?

Either that, or the Queen acted out a slasher movie and took colonists one by one and used the sticky goo to graft them to walls for later implantation after she hatched a few eggs.

[biostem]

You bring up some interesting points, FaxModem1. It is not clear how many colonists were cocooned and/or chest-bursted before the colony's doctor started removing them, even at the cost of their lives. It is also unclear how long, or even in what manner, the xenomorphs went about abducting people, or how they managed their own resources/members before making a direct assault - 1 or 2 xenomorphs are vulnerable, even against small arms, and if they're building a hive, they can't afford losses early on.

It would be quite interesting to see that developed further. Heck, maybe the first few xenomorphs simply dragged people back to the Jockey ship and used the eggs there, until they had a sufficient number, then one developed into a queen.

I would like to second the notion that, with the exception of the colonists locator implants, the colony computers did not demonstrate any functionality other than schematics, pulling up logs, etc. No where did they ever use the colony's computers to check for motion, heat signatures, or so on.

[FaxModem1]

You bring up some interesting points, FaxModem1. It is not clear how many colonists were cocooned and/or chest-bursted before the colony's doctor started removing them, even at the cost of their lives. It is also unclear how long, or even in what manner, the xenomorphs went about abducting people, or how they managed their own resources/members before making a direct assault - 1 or 2 xenomorphs are vulnerable, even against small arms, and if they're building a hive, they can't afford losses early on.

It would be quite interesting to see that developed further. Heck, maybe the first few xenomorphs simply dragged people back to the Jockey ship and used the eggs there, until they had a sufficient number, then one developed into a queen.

I disagree about the spacejockey ship being where the xenos got the eggs, due to the Queen setting up shop in the atmosphere processor. The ship would have been a better place for her and her babies safety-wise from external threats. Animals do go and prefer for familiar territory, and the ship would have been that. There also seemed to be a bit of a distance involved between the colony(land of potential hosts) and the ship(land of eggs). Though the mental image of a bunch of Xenos ferrying eggs back and forth like monsterish weasels is rather amusing.

[Tribble]

Note about the motion sensors, it was only the Marine equipment that picked up the movement, not the colony's sensors. Their detection of the colonists was through the tracking chips that were surgically implanted into all the colonists.

Ah right, it's been awhile since I saw the movie last.

Question about facehuggers, is there a set distance or time before they run out of energy and die if they don't get a host? If there's enough for it to go about a day or a few kilometers, old queen xenomorph can just sit on her butt squeezing out eggs, have the eggs hatch, and wait while facehuggers start grabbing people's faces.

No known limit, though IMO it wouldn't be much more than you described since they usually stay in the eggs until a victim comes close enough to be impregnated. A major exception was Alien 3 where the face-hugger hatched inside the dropship, crawled around until it located the cyrostasis tubes, attacked Newt (it's clearly her being attacked in the beginning) then decided to switch to Ripley... for reasons. It must have had pretty good senses given that it was able to detect them even though they were in stasis, because why else would it hatch and heads towards the stasis chamber? Oh right, because the plot demanded it. To be fair that face-hugger was unusual, because it was to impregnate both Ripley and the dog. Also because the plot demanded it, but in-universe I suppose Queen face-huggers are different?

As to the colony, we are talking about a small town here. There will always be individuals who are loners, are sick/too drunk and don't show up for work, or who venture out by themselves, meaning potential hosts. If there are 150 people, and the first one is a queen. Imagine after the queen escapes from quarantine somehow, it's facehugger army captures a few people wandering the local drinking hole.

Again, I think the most likely explanation is active sabotage on the part of the medical staff and the administrators, since no Doctor in their right mind would let an exponentially growing mass caused by an attacking alien to just sit there in his chest and grow... especially if they are able to see the embryo.

Unless the colony administrator is some sort of tyrant, he probably didn't put the whole colony on lockdown immediately, but did have groups searching for the chest-burster. Facehuggers appear to be highly mobile and sneaky, as shown by Ripley and Newt's encounter with them in the medical bay(thanks to Burke). Meanwhile, life continues on as normal at Hadley's Hope, with facehuggers grabbing stragglers working at the atmosphere processor or as they swagger home from the local bar, or as they wander the hallways alone after a fight with the spouse, or even while using the bathroom. If the xenos get lucky, they may acquire over a dozen people before anyone is the wiser.

At the minimum the locator beacons should have noted that the person stopped moving for an extended period of time, and/or was located in odd locations (such as lying motionless at the bottom of the atmospheric processor for hours), or left sensor range. At some point the lack of movement / going out of sensor range should raise an alarm, because why else would they have implanted locator beacons in the first place? A system which only tracked people on request would be kind of useless - the whole point of having a beacon implanted in you would be so that in the event you were incapacitated someone would notice fairly quickly, not so that days later they can find your corpse (mind you this is Weyland-Yutani we're talking about). They were terraforming a moon, not planting flowers in the local garden on Earth.

It really depends on how tight-knit Hadley's Hope was. After all, if your neighbor disappeared for an entire day because a facehugger grafted onto him and he was lying in his bathroom, how long before you would notice? How about his boss? His friends?

I agree that it depends on how close-knit the community was, though I'd imagine things would be fairly tight - there were only 158 of them (children included) and their job was ostensibly to terraform the moon. Given the size of the colony and atmospheric processor and the small population you'd think someone would check in on the guy if the locator beacon shows he hasn't been moving for awhile, and he fails to report for whatever job he has, to show up for breakfast, work out at the gym etc.

Also, IIRC most of the beacons were located in the Atmospheric processor. One would think it would be suspicious if the number of motionless people at the bottom of the atmospheric processor started piling up.

Either that, or the Queen acted out a slasher movie and took colonists one by one and used the sticky goo to graft them to walls for later implantation after she hatched a few eggs.

I'd imagine it'd be pretty hard for a T-Rex sized Alien to go sneaking around kidnapping people, though it would have been fun to watch on-screen.

You bring up some interesting points, FaxModem1. It is not clear how many colonists were cocooned and/or chest-bursted before the colony's doctor started removing them, even at the cost of their lives. It is also unclear how long, or even in what manner, the xenomorphs went about abducting people, or how they managed their own resources/members before making a direct assault - 1 or 2 xenomorphs are vulnerable, even against small arms, and if they're building a hive, they can't afford losses early on.

My guess is active sabotage on the part of the admin/medical staff. They let the chestburster develop and escape, suppressed knowledge of people disappearing for a long as possible, and when pressed to take action only sent in small groups which would guarantee failure. They were probably given false promises such as reinforcements being sent right away to extract them, the aliens wouldn't be able to spread too rapidly etc. so they let things get out of control. Too bad for them that Weyland-Yutani would want to wait as long as possible before sending in the marines, because that would mean there would be no witnesses and plenty of specimens. Burke only said they completely lost contact, he never said whether there were any distress calls in the meantime.

[FaxModem1]

Question about facehuggers, is there a set distance or time before they run out of energy and die if they don't get a host? If there's enough for it to go about a day or a few kilometers, old queen xenomorph can just sit on her butt squeezing out eggs, have the eggs hatch, and wait while facehuggers start grabbing people's faces.

No known limit, though IMO it wouldn't be much more than you described since they usually stay in the eggs until a victim comes close enough to be impregnated. A major exception was Alien 3 where the face-hugger hatched inside the dropship, crawled around until it located the cyrostasis tubes, attacked Newt (it's clearly her being attacked in the beginning) then decided to switch to Ripley... for reasons. It must have had pretty good senses given that it was able to detect them even though they were in stasis, because why else would it hatch and heads towards the stasis chamber? Oh right, because the plot demanded it. To be fair that face-hugger was unusual, because it was to impregnate both Ripley and the dog. Also because the plot demanded it, but in-universe I suppose Queen face-huggers are different?

Either way, if Queen Xeno finds a nice safe secluded spot to hatch eggs, and those facehuggers start hatching to find people, as they did in Alien to the third power(at least, that's how the logo looks), it can utilize 'human wave' tactics of facehuggers on the colony. Imagine the queen hatching up to 20 to 30 eggs, and they all take out an entire office or factory room. Though, if we want to go by Alien vs Predator, the xenomorphs drag their prey to the egg room and don't make the facehuggers do all the work.

As to the colony, we are talking about a small town here. There will always be individuals who are loners, are sick/too drunk and don't show up for work, or who venture out by themselves, meaning potential hosts. If there are 150 people, and the first one is a queen. Imagine after the queen escapes from quarantine somehow, it's facehugger army captures a few people wandering the local drinking hole.

Again, I think the most likely explanation is active sabotage on the part of the medical staff and the administrators, since no Doctor in their right mind would let an exponentially growing mass caused by an attacking alien to just sit there in his chest and grow... especially if they are able to see the embryo.

Possible, but also possible is that Newt's survey team family was so far out from Hadley's Hope when at the ship that by the time rescue arrived, the facehugger had fallen off, and by the time Newt's dad had gotten back to the colony, he chestbursted before they got him into quarantine. After all, they were a survey team, and that implies they do this sort of thing regularly, meaning they're exploring the planet. It could be possible Newt's mom drove the family back to Hadley's Hope as fast as possible, but it was too far to get him in there in time. It really depends on how much distance there is between the ship and the colony, and how fast their little vehicle can go on the terrain.

Unless the colony administrator is some sort of tyrant, he probably didn't put the whole colony on lockdown immediately, but did have groups searching for the chest-burster. Facehuggers appear to be highly mobile and sneaky, as shown by Ripley and Newt's encounter with them in the medical bay(thanks to Burke). Meanwhile, life continues on as normal at Hadley's Hope, with facehuggers grabbing stragglers working at the atmosphere processor or as they swagger home from the local bar, or as they wander the hallways alone after a fight with the spouse, or even while using the bathroom. If the xenos get lucky, they may acquire over a dozen people before anyone is the wiser.

At the minimum the locator beacons should have noted that the person stopped moving for an extended period of time, and/or was located in odd locations (such as lying motionless at the bottom of the atmospheric processor for hours), or left sensor range. At some point the lack of movement / going out of sensor range should raise an alarm, because why else would they have implanted locator beacons in the first place? A system which only tracked people on request would be kind of useless - the whole point of having a beacon implanted in you would be so that in the event you were incapacitated someone would notice fairly quickly, not so that days later they can find your corpse (mind you this is Weyland-Yutani we're talking about). They were terraforming a moon, not planting flowers in the local garden on Earth.

Yes, but it also depends on how much the sensor beacons are used for. They could be a 'in case of emergency' thing, like cell phone GPS. We're talking about pioneer colonists here, they might very well like their privacy, and the beacons are only used when there's a manhunt for a murderer or whatever. I think you're treating this as if the colony admin is like the Overseer from Vault 101 in Fallout 3, constantly watching where his people go, who they frequent with, and what they're up to. Unless you think Hadley's Hope had an entire office dedicated to watching which colonists were taking too long in the bathroom.

It really depends on how tight-knit Hadley's Hope was. After all, if your neighbor disappeared for an entire day because a facehugger grafted onto him and he was lying in his bathroom, how long before you would notice? How about his boss? His friends?

I agree that it depends on how close-knit the community was, though I'd imagine things would be fairly tight - there were only 158 of them (children included) and their job was ostensibly to terraform the moon. Given the size of the colony and atmospheric processor and the small population you'd think someone would check in on the guy if the locator beacon shows he hasn't been moving for awhile, and he fails to report for whatever job he has, to show up for breakfast, work out at the gym etc.

Also, IIRC most of the beacons were located in the Atmospheric processor. One would think it would be suspicious if the number of motionless people at the bottom of the atmospheric processor started piling up.

Yes, it would be suspicious, if they were monitoring the beacons at all times. Only when a sizable amount of people have gone missing would they know there's a problem, and by then they have the bigger issue of xenos trying to kill them.

Either that, or the Queen acted out a slasher movie and took colonists one by one and used the sticky goo to graft them to walls for later implantation after she hatched a few eggs.

I'd imagine it'd be pretty hard for a T-Rex sized Alien to go sneaking around kidnapping people, though it would have been fun to watch on-screen.

Those tunnels the marines and the xenos crawled around in were rather sizable, maybe not big enough for the queen, but big enough for full grown adults to bend over and run in. Newt's little shelter in the air ducts was also the size of a rather large bathroom or small bedroom, so they are rather big. It's Hollywood style air ducts, not ones made for reality.



It really depends on how the colony operates, as it went from business as usual to a warzone. From the small scene we see of colony life, it seems that it was a rather chaotic place, with children even playing around where they shouldn't, so the number of guards(if there were any) or people keeping everyone in their place was limited. That sort of situation is rife for a someone or something to take advantage of the chaos.

[Tribble]

Possible, but also possible is that Newt's survey team family was so far out from Hadley's Hope when at the ship that by the time rescue arrived, the facehugger had fallen off, and by the time Newt's dad had gotten back to the colony, he chestbursted before they got him into quarantine. After all, they were a survey team, and that implies they do this sort of thing regularly, meaning they're exploring the planet. It could be possible Newt's mom drove the family back to Hadley's Hope as fast as possible, but it was too far to get him in there in time. It really depends on how much distance there is between the ship and the colony, and how fast their little vehicle can go on the terrain.

Well it would ~24 hours before the chestbursters would come out. The derelict would have to be pretty far away for that to happen, though I suppose it's possible. IIRC, according to the novelization they did get him back in time, so IMO it's still more likely that the chestburster was allowed to develop and escape on purpose. Ditto for the 2nd team which also came back with face-huggers.

Yes, but it also depends on how much the sensor beacons are used for. They could be a 'in case of emergency' thing, like cell phone GPS. We're talking about pioneer colonists here, they might very well like their privacy, and the beacons are only used when there's a manhunt for a murderer or whatever. I think you're treating this as if the colony admin is like the Overseer from Vault 101 in Fallout 3, constantly watching where his people go, who they frequent with, and what they're up to. Unless you think Hadley's Hope had an entire office dedicated to watching which colonists were taking too long in the bathroom.

Then you'd think they would have some kind of portable device rather than implant something into their body?

And I don't think you'd literally have to have an office full of people watching every move 24/7. You could have the colony's computer monitoring, and if it detects abnormal behaviour (eg. a person is outside of the colony and motionless for a couple of hours, or a person is motionless in non-habitat areas like the atmospheric processor) it flags the person and sends a warning to the administrator. The administrator then tries to contact the person to see what's going on, and if he/she faisl to communicate back a team is sent out to investigate. Note that they had trackers rather than cameras everywhere, so perhaps that was their way of keeping things relatively private while still making sure that people don't get lost / get into an accident without someone else becoming aware of it.

Those tunnels the marines and the xenos crawled around in were rather sizable, maybe not big enough for the queen, but big enough for full grown adults to bend over and run in. Newt's little shelter in the air ducts was also the size of a rather large bathroom or small bedroom, so they are rather big. It's Hollywood style air ducts, not ones made for reality.



It really depends on how the colony operates, as it went from business as usual to a warzone. From the small scene we see of colony life, it seems that it was a rather chaotic place, with children even playing around where they shouldn't, so the number of guards(if there were any) or people keeping everyone in their place was limited. That sort of situation is rife for a someone or something to take advantage of the chaos.

Which is why I think sabotage / suppression of events by the administrators and med staff is the most likely event, since they'd only have to keep people distracted long enough for a bunch of xenos to develop. It worked out on the Nostromo, so I could see it working out on the colony. IIRC the administrator was pretty much just a yes man, who was told "don't ask" whenever he wanted to question something.

[FaxModem1]

If that were the case, why weren't there a bunch of red flags for the children being in a work zone, an area they specifically aren't supposed to be in? I mean, it's possible that the Administrator has to routinely erase a bunch of automated emails on his computer every morning letting him know that kids are playing in the air ducts again before he gets his coffee, but things didn't seem that tightly run. It seemed more like they had beacons installed because of some law from Earth, Weyand-Yutani regulation to avoid a lawsuit or something, and those were generally ignored until things went round the bend.

[biostem]

If that were the case, why weren't there a bunch of red flags for the children being in a work zone, an area they specifically aren't supposed to be in? I mean, it's possible that the Administrator has to routinely erase a bunch of automated emails on his computer every morning letting him know that kids are playing in the air ducts again before he gets his coffee, but things didn't seem that tightly run. It seemed more like they had beacons installed because of some law from Earth, Weyand-Yutani regulation to avoid a lawsuit or something, and those were generally ignored until things went round the bend.

It would seem that either the locator implants were, as you brought up, either there as a formality of working on a remote colony, or perhaps they weren't even aware that they had them, (or maybe not even the colony's leader had the requisite authority to access their data).

[Tribble]

If that were the case, why weren't there a bunch of red flags for the children being in a work zone, an area they specifically aren't supposed to be in? I mean, it's possible that the Administrator has to routinely erase a bunch of automated emails on his computer every morning letting him know that kids are playing in the air ducts again before he gets his coffee, but things didn't seem that tightly run.

Which does raise a good question: why would the colonists allow children into work zones and play around in areas like air ducts? Especially given where they were and what they were doing? They weren't running a neighbourhood donut shop, they were a remote colony that was using heavy equipment to terraform a moon. Hell, even the employees at a donut shop know enough to keep kids from going into back areas / kitchen, less they try to play with equipment and injure themselves. My local Starbucks has far better safety and security policies than Hadley's Hope. "Things not being tightly run" is an understatement - things were grossly negligent.

It seemed more like they had beacons installed because of some law from Earth, Weyand-Yutani regulation to avoid a lawsuit or something, and those were generally ignored until things went round the bend.

That's likely the case, it's the ignoring part that is stupid. Why would they ignore something that is obviously meant to help ensure their safety? It's the equivalent of ignoring the law and not wearing seatbelts when you're in a car; not many people do that anymore because generally speaking people know that it's there to help you survive in case of an accident. And it's not like the colonists would have to actively do anything either, since the system could have been setup in such a way that the computer handled things. Again this points to gross negligence on the part of the colonists and especially the administrative staff (because hitting "ignore" whenever you see a warning is pretty damn negligent if you ask me).

It would seem that either the locator implants were, as you brought up, either there as a formality of working on a remote colony, or perhaps they weren't even aware that they had them, (or maybe not even the colony's leader had the requisite authority to access their data).

One would hope that the colonists would know that they had beacons implanted into their bodies. And it would be pointless to have them if no one in the colony was allowed to access them.

Again, this points to two things: the colonists were done in by their own stupidity and negligent behaviour and/or there was a conspiracy involved. They don't have to be mutually exclusive: the Administrative staff's negligent behaviour made accidents more likely to spiral out of control, and the med-staff were ordered/bribed/encouraged not to operate on the mass growing in the people's chests (since the novelization makes it clear that the face-hugged people made it back to the colony with face-huggers still attached). Or maybe the Doctors were grossly incompetent as well and the med team consisted of Dr. Nick and Dr. Zoidberg: "hmm, maybe if we just leave the exponentially growing mass of tissue caused by an alien creature alone, it might go away!"

[streetad]

From vague 20 year old memories of the comic, I recall the initial wave of Xenomorphs got hold of the colony's livestock (there was definitely a cocooned sheep in one panel that I remember). By the time they sent an armed group of colonists into the atmosphere processing plant, there were already dozens of xenos holed up in there.

They got into the colony building where everyone else was bunkered up by letting a couple of survivors escape and then rushing the doors when they were opened to let them in.

But then the comics version of the creatures were always portrayed as hyper-intelligent, omniscient and occasionally actually telepathic so a different beast entirely.

Something that would have been super useful for the marines to have would have been some kind of robotic drone/MALP from Stargate that they could send into the nest for a recce. It seems like the sort of thing a team like that should have - however in the absence of any such device even being hinted at in the film I suppose the only thing to do is pull the squad back as soon as I can plausibily do so whilst at least making it LOOK like I tried to find out what happened to the colonists. Along with sending the dropship off as people have said, this will allow the xenos to be engaged somewhere where all that firepower I brought with me can actually be used.

[biostem]

One would hope that the colonists would know that they had beacons implanted into their bodies. And it would be pointless to have them if no one in the colony was allowed to access them.

Well, given that they can create synthetic humans in this setting, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that they could inject some grain-of-rice sized tracking implant into each colonist, during their "routine checkup" that may be required for any colony posting.

It also makes me wonder why they never accessed Newt's locator, instead of using the wristband thingy - maybe they are non-specific, and simply indicate "a colonist" instead of "colonist John Smith".

I'm also thinking that maybe there wasn't much real estate dedicated to a children's play area, and perhaps some leeway was given for them playing in the halls - IIRC, we saw some sort of school area, (where the hamsters/gerbils were), but not much else.

I also wonder, given the level of automation, if perhaps most of the colonists were kind of settled there to provide other functions, or just to build a population, rather than as direct support for the atmosphere processor.

[Batman]

Who says Newt 'had' a locator? Maybe it was something only the people actually working for the Company got.

[biostem]

Who says Newt 'had' a locator? Maybe it was something only the people actually working for the Company got.

Well, they said "each colonist", though they could have only meant "adult colonists".

[FaxModem1]

Going by the wiki, the colony of Hadley's Hope was established in 2157, and the events of Aliens happened in 2179. 18 years is longer than Newt's life by a decade, so maybe they did implant the original colonists, but the offspring born on LV-426 never got the Weyland-Yutani implant? This might also explain the rather lax attitude Hadley's Hope has. The air outside is breathable due to the atmospheric processor, they've established local bars, and have an entire new generation of kids scurrying around everywhere. Sure, they report to Corporate Headquarters with weekly reports or whatever, but for the most part, they're their own little community in the middle of nowhere, almost answerable to no one. Unless of course, Weyland-Yutani wants a sector surveyed.

[Starglider]

I thought the wristband thing was so that Ripley could quickly and easily find Newt with her little dedicated portable tracker, whereas the implanted transponders seemed to require hours of messing around with the control room computers before Hudson could bring up them up on a map.

[Terralthra]

The implanted transponders seemed only findable with the control room computers (otherwise why not just look for them from orbit?), but I always inferred that the length of time it took to find them on a map was that the system was itself limited, and he had to "pan and scan" around on a map to look for them, and didn't get to the terraforming reactor for a while. Like, the system was designed as a security system to track who was in a particular place, rather than a S&R system of "where is person n?"

[MKSheppard]

What fun!

I've actually been reading the Aliens novelization ($0.99 on kindle this month), and there are tons of tidbits relevant to this.

She put the cigarette (guaranteed to contain no carcinogens, no nicotine, and no tobacco— harmless to your health, or so the warning label on the side of the packet insisted) aside and moved to open the door.

- Cigs in Aliensverse

Backpacks that would enable a fragile human being to survive for over a month in a hostile environment without any supplemental aid whatsoever.

-- Backpacks for USCMC capable of letting a human survive 30 days.

Directly ahead a metal volcano thrust its perfect cone into the clouds, belching hot gas into the sky. Audio pickups muted the atmosphere processor’s thunder. ‘How many of those are on Acheron?’ Ripley asked Burke. ‘That’s one of thirty or so. I couldn’t give you all the grid references. They’re scattered all over the planet. Well, not scattered. Placed, for optimum injection into the atmosphere. Each is fully automated, and their output is controlled from Hadley Operations Central. Their production will be adjusted as the air here becomes more Earth-normal. Eventually they’ll shut themselves down. Until that happens, they’ll work around the clock for another twenty to thirty years. They’re expensive and reliable. We manufacture them, by the way.’

-- Atmospheric Generators

Wierzbowski offered a comment from the far side of the room. ‘Don’t PDTs keep broadcasting if the owner dies?’ ‘Not these new ones.’ Dietrich was sorting through her instruments. ‘They’re partly powered by the body’s own electrical field. If the owner fades out, so does the signal. A stiff’s electrical capacitance is nil. That’s the only drawback to using the body as a battery.’ ‘No kidding?’ Hudson spared the comely medtech a glance. ‘How can you tell if somebody’s AC or DC?’ ‘No problem in your case, Hudson.’ She snapped her medical satchel shut. ‘Clear case of insufficient current.’

-- PDTs

The APC was designed for comfortable travel in winds up to three hundred kph. A typical Acheronian gale didn’t bother it.

What’s an atmosphere-processing station’s interior built out of, anyway?’ ‘Carbon-fibre composites and silica blends up top wherever possible, for strength and lightness. A lot of metallic glass in the partitions. Foundations and sublevels don’t have to be so fancy. Concrete and steel floors with a lot of titanium alloy thrown in.’ Gorman was unable to contain his frustration as he fiddled futilely with his instruments. ‘If the emergency power was out and the station shut down, I’d be getting clearer reception, but then they’d be advancing with nothing but suit lights to guide them. It’s a trade-off.’ He shook his head as he studied the blurred images and leaned towards the pickup.

She switched to automatic navigation, and the APC kept itself from crashing into the enclosing walls, ranging lasers reading the distance between wheels and obstacles twenty times a second and reporting back to the vehicle’s central computer. She maintained speed, knowing that the machine wouldn’t let her crash.

Something made a soft metallic thump as it landed on the roof. Gorman had retreated into a corner to the left of the aisle. He was staring blankly at his frantic companions. Consequently he did not see the small gun hatch, against which he was leaning, begin to vibrate. But he felt it when the hatch cover was ripped from its seals. He started to turn, not nearly fast enough, and was snatched through the opening. There was something at the tip of the alien’s tail, something silver-sharp and superfast. It whipped around one leg to bury itself in the lieutenant’s shoulder. He screamed. Hicks threw himself into the crew bay fire-control chair and clutched the controls, jabbing contact points and switches with his other hand as the seat motor hummed and swung him around. Brightly coloured telltales came to life on the board, adding no cheer to the beleaguered APC’s interior but bringing a smile to the corporal’s face. In response to his actions servomotors whirred and a small turret came to life on the personnel carrier’s roof. It spun in a half circle. The alien holding Gorman two-thirds of the way out of the vehicle turned sharply in the direction of the new sound just as twin guns fired in its direction. The heavy shells blew it right off the top of the machine, the impact knocking it clear before the acid in its body began to spill. Burke dragged the unconscious Gorman back inside while Vasquez hunted for something to plug the opening with.

[MKSheppard]

Vasquez stared at him out of slitted eyes. ‘Getting queasy, Hudson?’ ‘Queasy!’ He straightened a little in reaction to the implicit challenge. ‘We’re in over our heads here. Nobody said we’d run into anything like this. I’ll be the first one to volunteer to come back, but when I do, I want the right kind of equipment to deal with the problem. This ain’t like mob control, Vasquez. You try kicking some butts here and they’ll eat your leg right off.’ Ripley looked at the smartgun operator. ‘The nerve gas won’t work, anyway. How do we know if it’ll affect their biochemistry? Maybe they’ll just snort the stuff. The way these things are built, nerve gas might just give them a pleasant high. I blew one of them out of an airlock with an emergency grapple stuck in its gut, and all it did was slow it down. I had to fry it with my ship’s engines.’ She leaned back against the wall. ‘I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit and the whole high plateau where we originally found the ship that brought them here. It’s the only way to be sure.’

‘First of all, this installation has a substantial monetary value attached to it. We’re talking about an entire colony setup here. Never mind the replacement cost. The investment in transportation alone is enormous, and the process of terraforming Acheron is just starting to show some real progress. It’s true that the other atmosphere-processing stations function automatically, but they still require regular maintenance and supervision. Without the means to house and service an appropriate staff locally, that would mean keeping several transports in orbit as floating hotels for the necessary personnel. That involves an ongoing cost you can’t begin to imagine.’ ‘They can bill me,’ she told him unsmilingly. ‘I got a tab running. What else?’ ‘For another thing, this is clearly an important species we’re dealing with here. We can’t just arbitrarily exterminate those who’ve found their way to this world. The loss to science would be incalculable. We might never encounter them again.’

‘What I’m trying to say is that this thing is major, Ripley. I mean, really major. We’ve never encountered anything like these creatures before, and we might never have the chance to do so again. Their strength and their resourcefulness is unbelievable. You don’t just annihilate something like that, not with the kind of potential they imply. You back off until you learn how to handle them, sure, but you don’t just blow them away.’ ‘Wanna bet?’ ‘You’re not thinking rationally. Now, I understand what you’re going through. Don’t think that I don’t. But you’ve got to put all that aside and look at the larger picture. What’s done is done. We can’t help the colonists, and we can’t do anything for Crowe and Apone and the others, but we can help ourselves. We can learn about these things and make use of them, turn them to our advantage, master them.’ ‘You don’t master something like these aliens. You get out of their way; and if the opportunity presents itself, you blow them to atoms. Don’t talk to me about “surviving” back on Earth.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Come on, Ripley. These aliens are special in ways we haven’t begun to understand. Uniqueness is one thing the cosmos is stingy with. They need to be studied, carefully and under the right conditions, so that we can learn from them. All that went wrong here was that the colonists started studying them without the proper equipment. They didn’t know what to expect. We do.’ ‘Do we? Look what happened to Apone and the rest.’ ‘They didn’t know what they were up against, and they went in a little overconfident. They got caught in a tight spot. That’s a mistake we won’t make again.’ ‘You can bet on that.’ ‘What happened here is tragic, sure, but it won’t be repeated. When we come back, we’ll be properly equipped. That acid can’t eat through everything. We’ll take a sample back somehow, have it analyzed in Company labs. They’ll develop a defence, a shield. And we’ll figure out a way to immobilize the mature form so it can be manipulated and used. Sure, the aliens are strong, but they’re not omnipotent. They’re tough but they’re not invulnerable. They can be killed by hand weapons as small as pulse-rifles and flamethrowers. That’s one thing this expedition has proved. You proved it yourself,’ he added in a tone of admiration she didn’t believe for an instant. ‘I’m telling you, Ripley, this is an opportunity few people are given. We can’t blow it on an emotional spur-of-the-moment decision. I didn’t think you were the type to throw away the chance of a lifetime for something as abstract as a little revenge.’ ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with revenge,’ she told him evenly. ‘It has to do with survival. Ours.’ ‘You’re still not hearing me.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘See, since you’re the representative of the company that discovered this species, your percentage of the eventual profits to be derived from the study and concomitant exploitation of them will naturally be some serious money. The fact that the Company once prosecuted you and then had the decision of the prosecuting board overturned doesn’t enter into it. Everybody knows that you’re the sole survivor of the crew that first encountered these creatures. The law requires that you receive an appropriate royalty. You’re going to be richer than you dreamed possible, Ripley.’

‘What is it?’ ‘Emergency beeper. Military version of the PDTs the colonists had surgically implanted. Doesn’t have the range they do, and you wear it outside instead of inside your body, but the idea’s the same.

In the service tunnel that connected the buildings of the colony to the processing station and each other, a pair of robot guns sat silently, their motion scanners alert and humming. C gun surveyed the empty corridor, its ARMED light flashing green. Through a hole in the ceiling at the far end of the passageway, fog swirled in. Water condensed on bare metal walls and dripped to the floor. The gun did not fire on the falling drops. It was smarter, more selective than that, able to distinguish between harmless natural phenomena and inimical movement. The water made no attempt to advance, and so the weapon held its fire, waiting patiently for something to kill.

[MKSheppard]

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.

This is actually mentioned in the novelization as a possibility -- you need to read a little between the lines:

‘Let me get this straight, the aliens paralyzed the colonists they didn’t kill, carried them over to the processing station, and cocooned them to serve as hosts for more of those.’

She pointed into the back room where the stasis cylinders held the remaining facehugger specimens.

‘Which would mean lots of those parasites, right? One for each colonist. Over a hundred, at least, assuming a mortality rate during the final fight of about a third.’

‘Yes, that follows,’ Bishop readily agreed.

‘But these things, the parasitic facehugger form, come from eggs. So where are all the eggs coming from?

When the guy who first found the alien ship reported back to us, he said there were a lot of eggs inside, but he never said how many, and nobody else ever went in after him to look. And not all those eggs may have been viable. ‘The thing is, judging from the way the colony here was overwhelmed, I don’t think the first aliens had time to haul eggs from that ship back here. That means they had to come from somewhere else.’

‘That is the question of the hour.’ Bishop swivelled his chair to face her.

‘I have been pondering it ceaselessly since the true nature of the disaster here first became apparent to us.’

‘Any ideas, bright or otherwise?’

‘Without additional solid evidence it is nothing more than a supposition.’

‘Go ahead and suppose, then.’ ‘We could assume a parallel to certain insect forms who have a hivelike organization. An ant or termite colony, for example, is ruled by a single female, a queen, who is the source of new eggs.’

Ripley frowned. Interstellar navigation to entomology was a mental jump she wasn’t prepared to make.

‘Don’t insect queens come from eggs also?’

The synthetic nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

[biostem]

It makes me wonder - I would assume that the first adult Xenomorph couldn't start the process of changing into a Queen while simultaneously hunting down potential hosts to face-hug. Perhaps it simply captured several people, trapped them in resin it secreted, then began a rapid metamorphosis and abruptly laid multiple eggs, which proceeded face-hugged that first bath all at once.

[MKSheppard]

If you watch some of the deleted scenes from ALIEN; the members of the Nostromo's crew that weren't outright killed, were being converted somehow to more eggs. That's clearly non-canon given how this ability was never shown again.

Perhaps there is a component to the ALIEN life cycle that is a semi complex IF/OR/THEN logic tree concerning the danger to the Alien, whether there's already a Queen nearby, and sufficient prey to parasitize that triggers whether a drone becomes a Queen

[biostem]

If you watch some of the deleted scenes from ALIEN; the members of the Nostromo's crew that weren't outright killed, were being converted somehow to more eggs. That's clearly non-canon given how this ability was never shown again.

Perhaps there is a component to the ALIEN life cycle that is a semi complex IF/OR/THEN logic tree concerning the danger to the Alien, whether there's already a Queen nearby, and sufficient prey to parasitize that triggers whether a drone becomes a Queen

Is it completely out of the realm of possibility that the first alien that was born on LV-426 simply returned to the Space Jockey ship to get more eggs, or just brought additional colonists there to be face-hugged?