I don't believe it. 24 hours ago there's no way in hell I'd have thought it even remotely possible, but it's true.

I'm GMing an Aliens game this week end, f2f with at least 5 players, all willing, able and ready to go toe to toe with those lovable acid for blood critters who only want to be our friends!

Excited? Who me?

:D

Right I'm being a right idiot today.

Has anyone got the link to the DC Working Group. Because for the life of me I all I can find is dead links when I google it.

I love me some Aliens but it's got plot-holes big enough to drive a Conestoga class cruiser through.

1 - why in the hell did they all bunch up in the atmo. processor? Why did they not go by bounding advance for crying out loud? Hicks sees the acid damage and says straight up "looks like they bagged one of Ripley's bad guys in here". They KNOW what they're in for!

2 - The Colonial Marines Technical Manual tells us the aforementioned Conestoga class can carry "up to 90 passengers and crew, with as many as 2000 more [hypersleep chambers] in the cargo bays". Aaaand twelve marines and one APC went? WTF? That's like sending an Arleigh Burke class missile frigate out with a bridge crew and four marines. I just can't see how/why that would be done.

3 - the never-ending question of how/why the facehugger eggs got on in the first place, which triggered 3. The eggs are only activated by the presence of someone leaning close to them. The queen tore loose from the ovipositor, and even if she'd "laid" them in the landing strut well of the dropship, how'd the facehuggers hatch and find Ripley.

4 - Really, guys? EVERYBODY leaves the ship? When Burke has absolutely established that the critters are on the ground? Irrespective of his actual motives, he tells Ripley when she says "We're going to wipe them out, not bring back, not study, right?" "That's the plan." - she briefed Gorman on the danger of these things, Burke (acting as the good friend) obviously backed her - but everybody came down. WTF???

I love Aliens, don't get me wrong, but there's a lot of practical problems with the movie.

I see this as further manipulation of the situation by Burke -- presented as not wasting money to the Corporation and not wasting resources to the Colonial Marines.

The dropship, the cruiser, or both?

I’ll preface my response to the “holes” in the Aliens plot by expressing an idea I failed to get across during the discussion about The Hurt Locker. Fiction is not a documentary. Aliens is a Vietnam film until the surviving Marines escape from the atmosphere processor, but it’s not a Vitenam documentary (obviously). As with all literature, events and characters are meant to stand for something and somebody. I’m sure we’ve all seen the disclaimer at the end of a film claiming that similarities between the characters and events of the film and real people and events are entirely coincidental. Although the primary motivator for putting said advisory at the end of the film is to forestall tort suits, there is a literary idea that one story stands for many; therefore, none of the characters are supposed to be exactly like real people because the characters are supposed to represent archetypes. Why archetypes? So the audience’s ability to see something recognizable and be drawn in thereby is maximized. This is good art, and it’s good marketing.

The answer to questions 1, 2, and 4 is hubris, combined with a power structure that puts people with little experience or little common sense in positions of power. It might not have made sense in a vacuum for everyone to go into the atmosphere processor, for a tiny fraction of the potential crew of the transport to go on the mission, or for everyone to go to the surface. One of the main themes of the film, though, is that in a hierarchy decisions get made at every level according to the viewpoints and needs of the people at that level. By the time all of these decisions reach the people on the ground, the effect borders on insanity. This was true in Vietnam, and it has been true in Iraq. I’d put my left testicle on the table that it’s true in Afghanistan, too.

The Company doesn’t believe there’s a real problem on LV426. The scene in which Ripley tries to defend her actions before a Company board of inquiry spells out of the Company’s attitudes very effectively. They don’t believe her story. They don’t want to believe her story. They think they have a good grip on things. Later, we find out that Burke has sent the colonists to look for the original crashed ship on his own initiative. Therefore, when Burke says that the loss of communication with the colony on LV426 could be a result of a “downed transmitter”, he’s expressing the viewpoint of the appropriate officials at the Company. One is forced to wonder whether Ripley’s inclusion in the mission is entirely the doing of some quick talking on the part of Burke, who is trying to cover his fourth point of contact in the event his little venture went sour.

Let’s suppose, then, that the Marines get sent out on the Company’s behalf. The Company doesn’t believe in the Aliens. The Company is checking off a standard procedure box. This attitude is transmitted to the government, who send a bare-bones mission to check their own box. People cost money, so a very small force under a butterbar gets sent. Before we say “That’s crazy! That would never happen!” let us think of a few of the decisions that were made in Iraq and Afghanistan that were based on keeping costs down, supporting other priorities, or just plain oversight. We sent 130,000 to Iraq instead of 350,000, and we got rid of the Army and the police. There was no centralized effort to train a new Afghan police force until Obama was elected. I won’t belabor the point.

Keeping with the Vietnam theme, units in Vietnam were woefully understrength. The small size of the force sent to LV426 is a reference to the inadequacy of the available manpower. We should remember that Aliens is fiction, not a documentary. The small size of the command that hits the ground is symbolic of the shortage of manpower in rifle platoons and companies in Vietnam.

Similarly, the fact that a mission like this is placed under the command of someone so junior is a condemnation of the power structure of the armed forces and the class consciousness of the military. Gorman has forty some-odd simulated missions, but the drop on LV426 is his second live drop. It’s good that he’s been trained, but it’s awful that a man with so little real world experience is put in charge of anything like this. However, we have a good idea how important the Marines think this mission is based on who they put in charge. Again, the specter of Vietnam rears its ugly head. I don’t know enough about the training and experience of USMC lieutenants in Vietnam, but I know the Army lieutenants were not what was needed. Still, an officer has to be in charge, so let’s scrape one off the bottom of the barrel and give him a token force so we can check the box on this little sidebar matter at LV426.

The short-handedness of the mission explains why everybody comes down. There isn’t anybody to leave upstairs. Moreover, as we have seen it’s not strictly necessary to leave someone up top. The approach of the Marines to the atmosphere processor can be explained by the presence of the newbie lieutenant. This is the same guy who had all of the ammunition collected before sending his people into the lion’s den. Utter foolishness, but understandable foolishness given the discovery regarding the heat exchangers. Gorman’s a great character in that we can very easily see and understand the conflicting forces at work in him.

I’m not going to defend or even address the presence of the facehuggers that lead to #3. That’s another story for another time.

Honestly, I don’t see any of the “holes” mentioned as holes. People in their various functions and capacities make decisions based on their perceptions of reality. Everyone down the chain has to live with these decisions. I witnessed insane monkey-ass bullshit daily in Iraq. Everyone from the President on downward made decisions and created policy that drove a reality on the ground that we all felt was markedly deficient. If I had to review my own journal, Adagio for Strings, I would say that as a work of fiction it ranks below anything done by Tom Clancy or Harold Coyle because the levels of stupidity, insanity, and ineptitude are too great to be borne by suspension of disbelief. Aliens gives us the tools we need to understand why the characters who don’t have any dialogue in the film make the decisions that lead to the material we see on the screen. We’re supposed to say “WTF?” because that’s the human experience at war.

Another point is that the Colonial Marines Technical Manual was written well, well after the movie by a fairly talented and motivated fan. It's a damn fine publication, but in no way is it the movie.
For all we know, the Sulaco only held a single platoon worth of marines, one half of which was deleted for the mission to allow carriage of Ripley and Burke, which would explain why there was a spare dropship aboard.
If the ship was big enough to carry thousands of troops, would the marines really have had to carry out all the pre-mission checks and loading themselves, or would there have been specialists available as you might see on an aircraft carrier?
The size of the mess hall we see in the early stages of the movie is also an indication of the limited size and carrying capacity of the Sulaco.

Now, as for the bunching in the atmosphere processor, it's human nature to group together like that in unfamiliar situations. Totally against tactical common sense, true, but those were also some very tight areas. My guess is that if they'd spread out it may have actually worked against them given the aliens could have picked them off one by one at their leisure.

The 3 eggs on the dropship is something I don't buy either. The whole 3rd movie was a disappointment as far as I'm concerned. Sure there were some nice highlights, but the overall concept and storyline just didn't' hang together for me.
I had the opportunity to read the original draft for the 3rd movie a couple of years back - COMPLETELY different. Set on a space station, Ripely was injured early on and in a coma most of the duration, Hicks lives and becomes the hero and I can't remember what happened to Newt (survived I think). Bishop also got a run as well, but again I can't remember details. Ends in an evac of the station by a handful of survivors.
Some of the ideas were a bit dodgy, but as it was only a first draft....

Well I think the +2000 is indicative of an emergency situation - kind of like how you could in a pinch put 10000 people on an aircraft carrier. But with that said, all we have to go on is the CMTM. Nothing else. Who's to say there weren't squad messes, or that with the short compliment, they reconvened in a smaller nominal officers' mess? However, the presence of two dropships is a bit more compelling, although I still think it's kind of wonky to have a huge ship with only fourteen Marines on board: Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Dietrich, Apone, Wierzbaski, Frost, Ferro, Spunkmeyer, Crowe, Gorman, Bishop, then Ripley and Burke taking a berth themselves.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not putting my foot down and saying "No I'm right, you're all wrong"...I just think that James Cameron is a better storyteller than student of things military ;)

(Actually having played the Atmo. processing maps in coop Aliens v. Predator - the original from Rebellion Studios that came out for the PC in like '98 or so - this is actually kind of true...)


The 3 eggs on the dropship is something I don't buy either. The whole 3rd movie was a disappointment as far as I'm concerned. Sure there were some nice highlights, but the overall concept and storyline just didn't' hang together for me.
I had the opportunity to read the original draft for the 3rd movie a couple of years back - COMPLETELY different. Set on a space station, Ripely was injured early on and in a coma most of the duration, Hicks lives and becomes the hero and I can't remember what happened to Newt (survived I think). Bishop also got a run as well, but again I can't remember details. Ends in an evac of the station by a handful of survivors.
Some of the ideas were a bit dodgy, but as it was only a first draft....[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that was cyberpunk author William Gibson's treatment of an Alien3 draft. His take was that VERY early on, Ripley is injured by trigger happy Chinese soldiers who board the Sulaco when it, on autopilot, drifts into Chinese "space". They find Bishop and IIRC the inside of his hypersleep chamber is described as being like a terrarium - beaded with water and steam. As soon as they crack it open, its revealed an egg had developed in there (the how and why is explained later) and it is taken off. The Chinese rebuild Bishop, Ripley (comatose due to the weapons fire) is put in the infirmary, Newt is stuck in an office somewhere and Hicks bands together with some less-than-communistically-correct soldiers to rescue her once it comes clear that due to some around-fucking by Chinese scientists the Xenomorphs can now reproduce by virus. If you get the Alien "goo" on you, you'll turn in to one.

That draft was a bit out there, but still more believable than what ended up running with! :(

Most storytellers fit this description. Dale Dye has a made decent money closing the gap.

I'm. So. Damned. Jealous. If I hadn't just got the news that I've been given a double promotion at work after 10 months in the job I'd take some snap leave and fly to Tassie this weekend! Nice work Leg. I'll be there in spirit.

I've watched Aliens @ least 50 times and Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy is probably my favorite Sci-Fi work ever. The idea of a Gibson-penned Aliens sequel (instead of the disappointing one that ended up getting made) is mind-blowingly awesome. I've never read/heard about this before? Why didn't it go through?

The Sulaco and it's sister vessels were probably pretty modular in their loadout. Maybe they can carry 2000 people in hypersleep if the entire drop ship bay and cargo areas are filled with hypersleep pods?

I think most of the blame for the feeble size of the force sent to LV426 can be laid on Burke. He and Weyland-Yutani Corporation clearly have enormous political and military influence. It was in their best interests to have a small team sent as it would be easier for Burke to manipulate the situation to his and WYC's advantage. Same reason that Gorman was assigned mission commander.

My interpretation of many of the holes in the Aliens film is that a lot of it was intentional. I think the movie is as much a commentary on the power of multi-national corporations as it is on the military mismanagement that led to our defeat in Vietnam. The company set the whole thing up. The corporation likely paid for the expedition so such a small force was justified to the military on the basis of cost. The company aslo wanted maximum control on the ground so they made sure an inexperienced officer (likely with poor marks from whatever academy produces Colonial Marine officers) in charge. Heck, the company may even have had a hand in choosing the "platoon" that was sent- they seemed to have their share of screw ups. I suppose the corporate influence on the military theme could have also been a commentary on the Vietnam situation as well.

On a sidenote, I believe Ripley is one of the most positive female role models in all of film- her and Clarice Starling- and I'd like my daughter to see the film. Unfrotunately, my wife doesn't see this my way. I'm not sure what her problem is. SThe wife's not really a fan of either Aliens or Silence of the Lambs. It's either that or the fact that my daughter's only 4...

You know what's even better?
It's show day here (well, actually Thursday to Saturday) and one of the players is coming straight from there still dressed in his Star Wars storm trooper armour.

That's the implication in the CMTM: that the 2000 will fill cargo/flight bays, but it can be done (they also imply that the ship's powerplant can run an additional 2000; I'd imagine that this load-out would be strictly for evacuation of a colony or post-war troop return).

i use to have the official Aliens RPG book that was done, we ran it with our group back in the day. The company went to the LV426 and found the wrecked starship full of eggs since the processor going nova had only destroyed the colony centre. Our characters were mostly US Army Rangers and a couple US Space Force (space navy) personnel who had been assigned to a colony planet where the company set up a topsecret lab that ended up becoming a hive. the entire game was our characters trying to protect the colonists until they could be evacuated from the planet, and the planet could be sterlized with nuking from orbit.

The planet was an agricultural colony full of genetically bred cattle, sheep and other live stock that became perfect for use as incubators by the Aliens...

I got to play a couple sessions of the Aliens RPG about 10 years ago. Four USCM fireteams from the Draknor boarding a derelict ship. Just to tell you what kind of players these were, we suffered casualties *before* we met the aliens!

Due to clumsiness and conflicting orders, mostly. :o It was fun though, I wished we could have finished it.

Anyone else here a fan of the Badass of the Week website? Here is the Badass look at Ellen Ripley: http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ripley.html

Alien 3 gets a lot of flak (not unjustifiably) because it is a flawed movie. Unfortunately there was constant 'creative' interference from the studio during filming and the movie that director David Fincher actually filmed was, in the end, butchered during the editing and final production to make the movie you all know and loathe.

The original concept for Fincher's movie was that the prisoners on the planet had basically formed a monastic society to cope with their life imprisonment. They had become religious and devout in their obedience to their faith and the feel of the movie was supposed to convey a sense of monasticism, the mythic qualities of gothic cathedrals and the organization of an ordered lifestyle that is upset by the arrival the 'outsider' and the chaos she brings.

Ripley's arrival brought with her the fear of the serpent being released into the "monks" Garden of Eden (note that in the pre-Christian beliefs of Europe, the serpent and dragon were one and the same, although not specifically associated with evil, so the references in the movie to the dragon can be explained - unfortunately this is lost in the theatrical release). Ripley brings with her the Alien, i.e. the dragon, the evil that will bring chaos and destroy the life the prisoners have been leading.
If you can see the 'Assembly Cut', a lot of the removed footage is restored and more of what Fincher wanted to achieve can be seen, it does bring a different feel to the movie.

So who else is excited for Prometheus (opening here in the U.S. next Friday)?

I get goose bumps just watching the TV trailer. I'm preparing myself by watching Alien today. It's been a while.

I am PUMPED.

Also: http://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Colonia...pr_product_top

IF YOU DON'T OWN A COPY BUY ONE RIGHT NOW.

The trailer looks brilliant but the missus doesn't like sci fi films or horror films so the chances of getting her to go and see a film that combines the two are fairly remote. I'll probably wait for the DVD...

Interesting that it's not released in the US until next week. It's released here today. I always thought films (especially big Hollywood blockbusters) were generally released over there first.

I'm anxious. Sequels and spin-offs often are written, directed, and/or produced by people who don't understand why previous work worked.

True. But this one is directed and I think produced by Ridley Scott, the guy who directed the original Alien.

God bless you. I thought it was out of print. Just placed my order.

oh yeah! I am!

Charlize Theron!!!!!!!!

(but I probably won't watch it until much later)

It was. I'm amazed to see it available again. Time was, you couldn't find a copy for less than $100.

- C.

A couple thoughts from a relative newcomer of the board. I apologize for the timing, considering that things seem to have calmed down, but now seems to be the time to do so.

First, a little bit about me. I never played the T2k product line. I was brought aboard through Twilight 2013. Accordingly, I don't have a lot of the same mores regarding canon vs non-canon, unit dispositions throughout the timeline, and the like. I don't expect this to carry any weight - in fact, I would bet that it reduces my "authenticity" - but it illustrates my background.

The tone on this forum is truly bizarre. People seem to be more interested in debating the nature of canon rather than simply cooking up their own versions and sharing them with others. I find the confrontational nature of the board absurd.

I am twenty-four years old. I seem to gather that the crowd here is much older than I am, given the date of the original T2k and some of the life experiences that I've seen related to one another in posts. Why, then, can't we all get along? Is this anyone's first forum? This is a board about an exchange of ideas and creation of new material. Calling one another out about the canon status of various material is simply stupid. This is a work of fiction about a war that never occurred.

If people need to be removed from the boards because of confrontational behavior, then I would submit that it be done immediately. I've spent a great deal of time on forums during my life. In my experience, people's personalities (perhaps "personas" is more accurate) do not change. Their troublesome personalities simply ebb and flow like a sine wave until something breaks. Given the tone, I would say that we are pretty close to something breaking.

Also, someone please get Eddie to come back. He was one of the principle reasons that I perused this board, as he was on the 93 Games board. I enjoyed his no bullshit attitude and his experience in a field directly relevant to our alternate history pursuits.

Thanks,
DigTw0Grav3s
(Earlydawn)

man what

Apologies; didn't see the older dates earlier in the thread. Thought that this thread was more recent, and that the arguments had spilled over into this one.

Nevertheless, I still feel like it's a pretty accurate reflection on a new guy's thoughts with regard to what's been going on lately.

On the positive side, does this mean that Eddie has since come back?

I don't know but can we maybe discuss Aliens and so forth in this thread? And not site acrimony?

Fair enough point but at least give DigTw0Grav3s the courtesy of directing him to a more appropriate thread for his post.

My copy of the Colonial Marines Technical Manual arrived in the mail today. It's pretty dang cool. I especially like the little color blurbs between tech entries- they really add a lot of flavor to the otherwise fairly dry techical text. The multiple mentions of various OPFOR groups (Beebops, Bugboys, Slinkers) make me really curious about the conflicts that the USCMs engaged in outside of the Alien engagements committed to film, since very little additional context was given. It's clear that the Beebops are a nickname for Japanese forces, but the others are anyone's guess. Was the author just shooting from the hip or is there some more fleshed-out USCMs mythos* out there that I'm not aware of? Either way, he did a really convincing job.

On a T2K-related note, the USMC tanks ( including the M40 Ridgeway [sic]) look very much like the LAV-75 (with a dash of Merkava mixed in).

*I've seen covers from a comic book series based on the USCM but I haven't read or looked within.

D'aww, sure is nice to be bragged about. It's a damn shame that most of the party moved to the mainland, that was a good, fun game on a system that, I have to admit, I quite enjoyed.

Wow, a Tassie Dunny! I've never even been in one let alone met one. Cool. :D

I remember back in the day, even before filesharing became so rampant, having a (bad) scan of it and thinking the same thing about the M40. Also, I kinda prefer the whole USCM book as a stand-alone item with the xenos being nothing but background clutter. :) Which it works out they are!

If I recall correctly, when Ripley was being debriefed by the corporate suits, one of the suits said that there was no recorded contact with sentient aliens.

Hudson complains of a "bug hunt", which I always assumed that humans had to deal with non-sentient xenos on colony worlds.
Frost mentions of having relations with an alien.

Of course the Predators may just be waiting for the humans to become a bigger threat before picking a fight.

You know, I just had the thought that maybe Weyland-Yutani had such a hard on for getting an Alien specimen to develop weapons is because they know that Predators exist

I agree. From post #63 of this thread:

The RPG details a few other alien races, but nothing with anything like the intelligence displayed by the Aliens. There's Arcturians (Frost mentions them in the Sulaco mess hall), Blackbody Coral, Harvesters, Hyper Algae, Morphers, Panamar Plankton, and Brachous Slugs. Only the Arcturians and Harvesters pose any threat to humans, and the Arcturians no threat to anyone with rock to throw. The others are actually useful in one way or another.

The RPG also splits known space into sectors, each controlled by a different corporation, or syndicate of corporations. Earth is a cesspool which the corporations try to avoid as much as possible except when they need someone expendable.

Interesting. Thanks for the info, Leg. The CMTM seems to present a slightly different picture than the RPG, then. Although it implies that corporations are still very powerful, the basic economic-political unit seems to be international alliances in the vein of a more pumped-up EU type. The CMTM mentions the United Americas as being the "national" entity which the USCM serves. It specifically mentions that Panama and Argentina are both part of this organization, loosely implying that all of the Americas are members as well. Although it looks like big multinational corporations can sway these political entities, it looks like nation-states or confederations of said still have the final say.

Also, Earth in the CMTM doesn't sound too bad. The USCM has several major bases there still.

I'm thinking out loud now. I mean, if corporations totally ran the show, they would likely have their own organic military forces, right? Also, from the existence of the United Americas, one could extrapolate there are similar confederations for other regions. A new EU, an African Union, some East Asian union, SW Asia union, perhaps? I dunno. It's fun to think about.

I kind of like the "universe" as presented in the CMTM (what I recall, again, from the scan I'd seen years back), such as it was.