The colonial marines are replaced by post-war UNSC Marines

[Archinist]

The colonial marines are very excited and getting ready to repair the colony's satellite communications system since they know that aliens don't exist, but then there is a blinding flash of light and the colonials vanish and there are 20 UNSC Marines instead. There are two CAS-ready pelicans in the parking garage and one Mantis in the hangar, and the UNSC marines have Ripley. Will they believe her odd claims about mysterious aliens, or is that too unlikely and fanciful for them?

[hunter5]

Hmm I would say they would belive her given their experience with the covenant. They probably wouldn't make the same mistake of leaving the shuttle unguarded.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Agreed. These Marines know there's such things as aliens, because the Covies(and possibly the Flood) sure as hell weren't human.

[Crazedwraith]

Agreed. These Marines know there's such things as aliens, because the Covies(and possibly the Flood) sure as hell weren't human.

So did the Colonial Marines. They had the concept of the 'bughunt' and also Acturian pussy (where it doesn't matter if it was male or female)

Basically any force would do better, since Burke was sabotaging and manipulating the CM from the get go.

[Lord Revan]

Agreed. These Marines know there's such things as aliens, because the Covies(and possibly the Flood) sure as hell weren't human.

So did the Colonial Marines. They had the concept of the 'bughunt' and also Acturian pussy (where it doesn't matter if it was male or female)

Basically any force would do better, since Burke was sabotaging and manipulating the CM from the get go.

The issue with the Colonial Marines was that they had rookie commander who had never done actual combat before this operation and Burke calling the shots due to this (I suspect their CO was intentionally someone who hadn't done real combat before so that he wouldn't argue with/overrule Burke).

[Crazedwraith]

That is in essence what I said, yes.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Point.

The thing that we can all agree on is if Ripley tells them about the aliens, the UNSC grunts are more likely to believe her.

And, since they have no real reason to capture the aliens or hold the colony, they may just take the "return to the Sulaco, and nuke the colony from orbit just to be sure" option.

If, in Archinist's next post, Sulaco is magicked out of existence, then the UNSC grunts will establish a base camp, send out patrols and possibly look for survivors.

[Archinist]

Point.

The thing that we can all agree on is if Ripley tells them about the aliens, the UNSC grunts are more likely to believe her.

And, since they have no real reason to capture the aliens or hold the colony, they may just take the "return to the Sulaco, and nuke the colony from orbit just to be sure" option.

If, in Archinist's next post, Sulaco is magicked out of existence, then the UNSC grunts will establish a base camp, send out patrols and possibly look for survivors.

I was more interested in their military technology/strength VS the colonial marine's own, not how they would act and their tactics. Their tech is quite different as the UNSC marines have motion sensors built into their HUD, their Mantis has an energy shield, and their weapons are just as powerful, while having much lower recoil.

Anyway, the Sulaco glassing the planet and leaving would be unfair and too short, so let's say their FTL is disabled and they ran out of missiles.

Also, what sort of experiences did the colonials actually have with aliens? By "bughunt", that seems more likely to be a minor threat where they were just hunting some overgrown spiders/scorpions that are far less dangerous than a xenomorph, especially if they compare it to "astarian pussy", whereupon maybe they would land on a planet of harmless astarians who promised free sex for the colonials if would kill a bunch of low-threat giant scorpions, which they did effortlessly?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Did I call it, or did I call it?!

Their tech and their strength will determine their tactics. Their motion sensors will give them an edge against the Xenomorphs, along with their experiences fighting the Covies—who would probably eat the Xenomorphs for lunch, dinner, and an aperitif—while the simple expedient of engaging at range will keep the alien threat at bay, while the UNSC grunts go looking for survivors(two five-man teams patrolling, ten remaining at the base,in shifts)and securing their perimeter from the enemy the nice lady said were lurking about in the shadows.

If need be, they could, and probably would, remain outside the colony complex, and use the Pelicans' firepower to take out as much of the buildings as they could, and, hopefully, the Xenomorphs with them.

especially if they compare it to "astarian pussy", whereupon maybe they would land on a planet of harmless astarians who promised free sex for the colonials if would kill a bunch of low-threat giant scorpions, which they did effortlessly?

Broomstick's parrots FTW.

[The Romulan Republic]

Point.

The thing that we can all agree on is if Ripley tells them about the aliens, the UNSC grunts are more likely to believe her.

And, since they have no real reason to capture the aliens or hold the colony, they may just take the "return to the Sulaco, and nuke the colony from orbit just to be sure" option.

If, in Archinist's next post, Sulaco is magicked out of existence, then the UNSC grunts will establish a base camp, send out patrols and possibly look for survivors.

What reprecussions might their be for nuking an entire colony without even trying to determine if their were survivors to rescue on one civilian's say so?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Point.

The thing that we can all agree on is if Ripley tells them about the aliens, the UNSC grunts are more likely to believe her.

And, since they have no real reason to capture the aliens or hold the colony, they may just take the "return to the Sulaco, and nuke the colony from orbit just to be sure" option.

If, in Archinist's next post, Sulaco is magicked out of existence, then the UNSC grunts will establish a base camp, send out patrols and possibly look for survivors.

What reprecussions might their be for nuking an entire colony without even trying to determine if their were survivors to rescue on one civilian's say so?

None from the UNSC. As for Weyland-Utani, it kind of depends, on how they spin it back to their corporate masters. Not that it matters, because B'rer Archinist, true to form, has magically nullified the Sulaco, so it's out of the question anyway.

[PREDATOR490]

The marines might not be able to NUKE the site from orbit but the place is one giant nuclear reactor and a reasonable force will have the weapons to obliterate the Xenomorphs.
Any force with a will should be more than capable of blowing the place to pieces with impunity since they have a air / space and vehicle superiority advantage that Xenomorphs cannot nullify at all.

Anyone who was paying attention to Aliens would notice the contrived nature the story takes to weaken the marines to the point they are working on fumes. When you consider this alongside how much damage those marines were able to inflict EVEN while operating at such a massive disadvantage should make it clear Xenomorphs are not THAT effective. Starship Trooper bugs put Xenomorphs to shame by comparison and that movie still had idiots running the military operations.

I have no knowledge of UNSC capabilities.

It does not matter what force you substitute.
1) IF they believe Ripley then one expects that force will prepare accordingly.

The marines in Aliens did not initially take Ripley seriously but that was changing rather quickly before the ambush. The only question is: Will any force substitution react differently from the marines up to that point ?

2) IF they are competent and not-plot-stupid then the Xenomorphs are screwed

- They bring a gigantic spaceship and have noone to babysit it. All it takes is ONE person to be left on the Suluco for the Xenomorphs to be completely screwed regardless of what happens on the planet.

- They bring a landing craft and leave it's doors wide open and unguarded so a plot-xenomoroph can take it out. If that dropship survives then the marines can get out of the reach of the Xenomorphs and / or happily bring in fresh equipment.

- They bring an APC that kinda disappears in that film. I think it gets hit by the dropship ?
If that survives, they get a mobile base that will have equipment and the marines can move to favourable ground.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah the APC is torn apart by the drop ship, and as for the UNSC guys, they basically have real life capabilities, which turns into slaughter anything made of flesh. Even the damn Colonial Marines would have all but certainly have killed 100% of the aliens if not for loosing most of their equipment and ammunition in the APC. The aliens cant outnumber the colonists, and the original colonists surely killed at least a few aliens, so its a limited threat. Perhaps 200-300 aliens max. With enough ammo the marines of any sort could have defended an open area with clear fields of fire and killed everything approaching. As it was with very limited ammo they had to hope they could hold an indoor citadel with fixed fortifications.

[Tribble]

Anyone who was paying attention to Aliens would notice the contrived nature the story takes to weaken the marines to the point they are working on fumes. When you consider this alongside how much damage those marines were able to inflict EVEN while operating at such a massive disadvantage should make it clear Xenomorphs are not THAT effective. Starship Trooper bugs put Xenomorphs to shame by comparison and that movie still had idiots running the military operations.

IMO that's why the premise of Alien worked better, it was regular people reacting to events and their mistakes were more believable... and even then they would have had the situation contained if it weren't for Ash sabotaging their efforts at every turn.

I have no knowledge of UNSC capabilities.

It does not matter what force you substitute.
1) IF they believe Ripley then one expects that force will prepare accordingly.

The marines in Aliens did not initially take Ripley seriously but that was changing rather quickly before the ambush. The only question is: Will any force substitution react differently from the marines up to that point ?

IMO the USNC would take her seriously as they would be fully aware of how dangerous extra-terrestrial life could be given their battles with the Covenant. Plus if the USNC group is post-Halo they would have heard of / dealt with the Flood, which are somewhat similar to Xenomorphs in terms of abilities and temperament.

2) IF they are competent and not-plot-stupid then the Xenomorphs are screwed

- They bring a gigantic spaceship and have noone to babysit it. All it takes is ONE person to be left on the Suluco for the Xenomorphs to be completely screwed regardless of what happens on the planet.

IIRC Ripley was supposed to have remained on the ship, though I agree it's still stupid that they didn't leave someone else behind when she decided to go down.

- They bring a landing craft and leave it's doors wide open and unguarded so a plot-xenomoroph can take it out. If that dropship survives then the marines can get out of the reach of the Xenomorphs and / or happily bring in fresh equipment.

I can't remember the details of that scene in the movie exactly, were the doors actually left wide open? In the novelization a Xenomorph was strong enough to rip the door right off the APC, and another one forced the door open to the landing craft. The co-pilot goes to see what the noise was and is killed, then after the landing craft takes off the Xenomorph goes into the cockpit and kills the pilot. While it's stupid that the landing craft was left unguarded, at least in the novelization the doors weren't literally left open for a Xenomorph to stroll right in.

- They bring an APC that kinda disappears in that film. I think it gets hit by the dropship ?

Ya, the dropship crashed right into it. They salvaged the sentry guns from it when they went into the colony.

If that survives, they get a mobile base that will have equipment and the marines can move to favourable ground.

Given time constraints, lack of ammo and the lack of support I'm not sure they would have been better off going somewhere else rather than trying to fortify the colony, it seemed like the most defensible location, and had more equipment available. Unless they found a cave with a single entrance or something the Xenomorphs would have been able to overwhelm them, especially after nightfall as the marines seemed to have lost their night vision equipment.

Another thing that screwed the marines was that they were forced to shelve their heavy weapons for fear of damaging the power plant.

It's made pretty clear that under ordinary circumstances the marines would have mopped the floor against the Xenomorphs, the deck was just stacked heavily against them. Too heavily IMO as I feel the circumstances were less believable than the first film (though still enjoyable to watch).

[Sea Skimmer]

I can't remember the details of that scene in the movie exactly, were the doors actually left wide open?

Yup, vehicle ramp was left wide open. The co pilot was standing guard very close by though, in reality I doubt an alien that damn big with that tiny of feet, even in a rainstorm, could have moved quiet enough not to be noticed at that distance.

Still though this would have been far more reasonable if the drop ship had landed say 30 miles away over the horizon to wait, rather then on the grounds of the colony.

[hunter5]

I though the drop ship got hit because either the pilot or co-pilot got out to take a piss and the xenomorph got on board thenot. The thing that always confused me was why the drop ship stayed on the surface instead of going back to the ship.

[Sea Skimmer]

The copilot is clearly standing guard with a pulse rifle. Alien must have snuck onboard behind his back.

When Bishop goes to get the antenna to summon the second drop ship he quotes 50 minutes of flight time. Which is logical and fair for space shuttle like reentry profile, the drop ship doesn't fall vertically out of space. That's a good reason not to send it back to the Sulaco, as it would mean it can't show up for nearly an hour if needed. Since its not only evacuation but fire support letting it go too far away is a bad plan. Its just yeah, landing 20 miles away, a distance a human could walk (case it broke down) would have been much smarter then landing at what appeared to be the compound's landing pad exposed to an unknown enemy force.

[PREDATOR490]

Logically, Aliens would have ended when they reached the command center.

By this point they had encountered clear signs that Xenomorphs were real and no one should be doubting Ripley's story. Telling the Dropship to take off and do aerial recon would make sense and that is even before one clicks to the fact that somewhere on this planet an alien spaceship full of eggs exists on this planet. Even with a CO that is a complete idiot, I would expect marines to cut the shit when faced with the mounting pile of evidence and start taking Ripley seriously.

Sending a scout team to the reactor complex to check if the colonists were still alive is quite likely. Sending the ENTIRE group while the dropship is left in a complete vacuum with it's ramp open is completely unreasonable. Keeping the dropship around in case an evacuation is needed would make sense but I would expect the marines to send a message off-world about the situation. I do not see Burke being able to do anything to prevent this even if he wanted to. He did not any real command authority and I do not expect Gorman will be very receptive to Burke objecting to the marines requesting help or even making a report.

WY want a Xenomorph - If the CM send in a report, WY will tell the marines to leave the Xenos alone until a WY team gets there.

If you want to believe WY are completely stupid evil bastards. The WY will kill all the marines, Burke and Ripley and then have a planet full of Xenos to play with.

If WY are reasonably evil and stupid. The marines, Burke and Ripley will be made to shut the fuck up and they still have a planet full of Xenos to play with.

If WY are reasonably sane and driven by a competent motivation. WY will quarantine the planet and play with the Xenos while the marines and Ripley are bought off and Burke gets thrown under the bus to convince Ripley WY had nothing to do with Burke's idiocy.


Granted, Ripley is very likely going to lose her shit regardless and try and convince anyone to nuke the site from orbit. Even if Burke can legitimately argue that doing so is wasteful, I cannot see Burke having a leg to stand on if the marines decide to fuck off back to their spaceship and make a call to superiors.

[NecronLord]

Yup, vehicle ramp was left wide open. The co pilot was standing guard very close by though, in reality I doubt an alien that damn big with that tiny of feet, even in a rainstorm, could have moved quiet enough not to be noticed at that distance.

As I recall LV-426 was a very noisy place due to the weird-ass wind. Perhaps that covered the sound of its approach?

[Sea Skimmer]

Wind does make noise, but on the other hand rain means puddles which means either splashes, or incredibly slow movement. Wind driven rain hitting a moving object makes noise too, and while human hearing is not amazing by animal standards it is extremely sensitive to doppler shift. Directionally so too, as the skin around our earlobes helps sense this. But it's just as likely that a copilot is simply a bad sentry, he would have been on duty for at least several hours at that point in the movie. Once a human is bored all bets are off.

Does raise another tactical error though, which is that once the Marines located the colonists, deep underground at the processing plant, rather then at the compound, that should have been grounds to put the drop ship back in the air. But Gorman was supposed to be dumb, and while James Cameron had some bizarre notions of the Vietnam War the VC having excellent infiltrators was a real thing. The human sentry was actually the only effective defense against them at all.

[PREDATOR490]

The Dropship exists in it's own weird vacuum for the film. It gets really stupid to think that dropship was sitting around for HOURS doing fuck all with no one seemingly informing the crew about the xenomorphs being confirmed. Even when shit hits the fan, the dropship is still sitting around until they finally get told to move for an extract.

The simple fact is: The only reason the marines got completely wrecked in that film was because of the fantastic luck of ONE suicidal Xenomorph taking out the dropship in such a way that it ALSO takes out the APC. If that APC survives, it supposedly had the ability to remotely call in the back up dropship.
50 minutes later it arrives, the marines leave and then the site gets nuked from orbit.

[TheFeniX]

Anyone who was paying attention to Aliens would notice the contrived nature the story takes to weaken the marines to the point they are working on fumes. When you consider this alongside how much damage those marines were able to inflict EVEN while operating at such a massive disadvantage should make it clear Xenomorphs are not THAT effective. Starship Trooper bugs put Xenomorphs to shame by comparison and that movie still had idiots running the military operations.

This basically sums it up. Even more than weakening the marines: where is the support staff at? Infantry Space Marines are required to know everything about arming and using futuristic mobile equipment (such as the loaders, which require training, considering Ripley was highly rated IIRC)?

The Sulaco is left completely unattended, which is dumb from a tactical stand-point, but also a maintenance stand-point. Out of anyone on that ship, who is even rated to effect repairs? How many would you need? Isn't the ship a 1/4 mile long? That's longer than an aircraft carrier and I've been on one of those: they are fucking HUGE. You'd need more than one platoon of marines to maintain that kind of ship, even if it was highly automated. What happens if the hanger doors jam when they come back? What if the antenna goes offline?

I know Burke was acting against the marines and everyone else, so he almost definately cut the personnel list down for fewer witnesses, but there's a point where bringing too few people would raise even more questions. What if the survivors are wounded or lacking equipment to effect their own repairs to comms? Was there like 1 medic? That guy going to treat 300 people? Do they even have a mechanic/electrician/electronics technician? Is Hudson some kind super-fixit guy? What if he got sick? What if your essential non-combat personnel got knocked out of action? Is Bishop their Mr. Fix-it? Even as an android, he can't be everywhere at once.

I love Aliens. Easily in my top 10, probably top 5, favorite movies. But you can poke so many holes in what had to happen for the plot to work. "Contrived" is the best way to explain the plot. Replacing the actors does little to change the outcome unless they have firepower and protection above the level of the Xenos. And in that case, it's moot anyway.

EDIT: Whoops, I meant "Artificial Person." Sorry Bishop.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's a really good point that I don't think ever really occurred to me before, though in hindsight its obvious.

Clearly they don't just automate everything, either because they lack the ability to, or for ideological reasons. Otherwise they wouldn't be using flesh and blood human troops when they could be using those androids for everything dangerous.

They should have maintenance people, and medics. Even if they're not likely to need them, better to have at least minimal redundancy in case something breaks down.

Which makes me want to ask: what would be a reasonable force given the mission parameters?

[Elheru Aran]

Which makes me want to ask: what would be a reasonable force given the mission parameters?

Honestly for what they were doing, what they THOUGHT they were going to do, and considering that they were pretty much straight-up sabotaged by Burke and Weyland-Yutani...

The force they had wasn't THAT bad. Their biggest failures were in not securing the dropships and in not having a crew aboard the Sulaco in case the merde hit the air exchanger.

The only thing I would have changed beyond that would be having perhaps another squad acting as a tactical reserve, sitting tight with the APC or the dropship, ready to deploy as needed to cover the first squad's extraction.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

That's a really good point that I don't think ever really occurred to me before, though in hindsight its obvious.

Clearly they don't just automate everything, either because they lack the ability to, or for ideological reasons. Otherwise they wouldn't be using flesh and blood human troops when they could be using those androids for everything dangerous.

I say it's for people reasons. As in, they can't trust the androids, because they can be reprogrammed to serve other interests and not necessarily the best interests of the humans they're with. And, of course, because logic doesn't care.

They should have maintenance people, and medics. Even if they're not likely to need them, better to have at least minimal redundancy in case something breaks down.

Not having a crew independent of the Marines is just...stupid.

Which makes me want to ask: what would be a reasonable force given the mission parameters?

At least company strength, with a platoon(perhaps two) to investigate the colony proper, while the rest set up a base camp outside the colony, and maintain an alert force with the remaining maneuver platoons, just in case the ones sent into the colony encounter more than they can handle.

And, the Sulaco in orbit, with a crew awakened and at the wheel, ready to nuke the damn colony from orbit. Just to be sure.