Alien: Covenant

[Nessus]

The YT board IIRC expressed incredulity about the whole of her story, and seemed to be of the opinion that she was crazy, but couldn't prove anything, so all they could do was close the file and move her to a job where she couldn't do so much damage if she was crazy.

They did mention going over the lifeboat and not finding any trace of the alien, which could be taken as a sign they took the possibility seriously enough to check, but
1) The alien smears goo and drips saliva everywhere it goes, so they were likely exaggerating the thoroughness of their search at the very least
2) Maybe they did search the lifeboat... not for evidence of the alien, but rather for evidence of human foul play. They might not have bothered to investigate anything that didn't show human (or android) body chemistry.

It was also the end of the meeting, and it wasn't their first exposure to her story. They act like they're tired of the whole thing and just don't want to indulge or argue with her anymore. The "no indigenous life" comment does stick out though, you're right.

The marines seemed like they didn't really care enough to be incredulous during the briefing. Crazy company wants us to check out their Bigfoot tracks? Sure, whatever. They're written to have a very blue collar attitude. The existence of aliens is far fetched, but if it actually happens, then whatever: the big issues are above their pay grade, and if it's dangerous, then they're badasses so that's not a problem.

Gorman takes it seriously because he's the sort of person who takes the job seriously even if it's frivolous. Doubly so, since he's green and insecure. If his superiors told him to clean the toilets, he'd make sure his collar stayed starched and boots stayed shined the whole time he did it.

Burke was the only one who knew it might be legit, since he's the one who sent the colonists to look for the derelict. He's probably the reason they're briefed about aliens at all, possibly even the reason why marines are being sent to investigate instead of just having a passing freighter pop in.

I'm ambivalent about the Jordans. On the one hand you're right that an alien ship should have been more surprising. On the other hand, humans in the Alien universe are as a theme predisposed to "what's in it for me" thinking. I can easily imagine a lot of these people encountering something with massive existential implications, and their first thought being "Jackpot!".

On the gripping hand, I feel the whole prologue scene on the colony was cut from the original version of the film for very good reasons, and am not sure how much I consider it canon. Though admittedly that's not something I could use in argument, since it's in the only cut of the film currently available, and therefore canon weather I like it or not.

[ScreamingDoom]

The lack of interest in Ripley's description of the Space Jockey ship (yeah I'm being pedantic and not calling them 'Engineers') suggests to me that humanity has at least found evidence of past alien civilisations...

I believe the old Aliens RPG book made reference to the fact that the Sol system contains enough material to keep Earth's industry ticking over for centuries at least and that the only reason any of the corporations are out beyond the solar system is because they're hungry for alien technology. All the extra-solar colonies and space stations are entirely there just to provide footholds to search out alien tech; they're all money-losing propositions otherwise and generally a lot of trouble to keep in line.

How much a decades-old table top RPG is canon, though, is a different matter entirely.

[MissKittyFantastico]

The YT board IIRC expressed incredulity about the whole of her story, and seemed to be of the opinion that she was crazy, but couldn't prove anything, so all they could do was close the file and move her to a job where she couldn't do so much damage if she was crazy.

I don't know, it feels like if they were sure she was a complete nut, they'd have enough to nail her - she's on record blowing up Nostromo ("freely admitted"), if her explanation held as much weight in the room as "Magic fairies made me do it!" (and she's adamant on the point, leaving no doubt in the room she believes it) I figure she'd be for a padded cell. Finding that she 'showed questionable judgement' suggests they're leaving room (presumably because the lack of physical evidence either way means legally they have to) for the possibility she was more or less telling the truth, and they're punishing her because (in their eyes) she overreacted and blew the ship when the threat didn't warrant such a drastic step.

Burke was the only one who knew it might be legit, since he's the one who sent the colonists to look for the derelict. He's probably the reason they're briefed about aliens at all, possibly even the reason why marines are being sent to investigate instead of just having a passing freighter pop in.

According to the tech manual (which is non-canon, but brilliant) he is indeed - he even pulled strings to have Gorman put in charge, rather than a more experienced veteran who might've thought for himself (as Hicks did when command fell to him) rather than done what Burke told him to.

I rather like the there-are-critters theory as it relates to Burke as well - it'd seem to make him more intelligent, and I like intelligent bad guys. If there's no such thing as aliens, and he's mounting the whole op because he thinks maybe there are and he can cash in on it... well, wanting to monopolise humanity's first ever contact with himself and a squad of leathernecks is kind of maniacally ambitious. Possible of course, but a bit out of touch with reality. Whereas if there are alien critters, and he just thinks this more-dangerous one would be especially lucrative, that seems more like a gamble an ambitious and amoral exec might take, without having to be too nuts to begin with for it to even be an option.

On the gripping hand, I feel the whole prologue scene on the colony was cut from the original version of the film for very good reasons, and am not sure how much I consider it canon. Though admittedly that's not something I could use in argument, since it's in the only cut of the film currently available, and therefore canon weather I like it or not.

Is the extended the only one out now? Didn't know that; I just got the Quadrilogy box back when it came out and that was me set. I see the rationale for omitting the colony scene (I mean, obviously we know the aliens got them before we see it anyway, on account of the movie not being called 'Downed Transmitter', but suspension of disbelief still matters) but I suppose I've seen it so many times I value all the extra flavour it adds in showing Hadley's Hope pre-xenos (plus Hollister from Red Dwarf).

[Fixer]

I expect "plausible deniability" may have been more of a factor, or the lower rung executives not being delivered all the facts.

The corporation sent explicit instructions to recover an alien creature via the computer Mother, to the homicidal android Ash. A replicant the rest of the crew thought was a normal human being.
http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Special_Order_937
His secret instructions were to recover the Xenomorph with the rest of the crew being entirely expendable. He then went on a murder spree.

Burke's comment was that the android assigned simply malfunctioned.

The whole board meeting was just part of the company cover up.

[MissKittyFantastico]

Certainly it's a coverup, maybe from part of the board too - I misremembered earlier, they're from ICC, not Weyland-Yutani, so theoretically it's a government agency. Given the company's reach it's guaranteed they had enough people there (almost certainly including Van Leuwen) in their pockets, and they steered things so everyone accepted the company line and discounted Ripley's version - presumably, "Nostromo wasn't deliberately sent to LV426, it just happened to be passing by when it heard the signal, and set down just because of the clause in their contract that said they had to check out possible intelligent signals; there was no 'special order', the android just malfunctioned (maybe put a fake order into Mother to justify itself), and Ripley was terrified and paranoid by then so her version of events is suspect."

What with there being a colony set up, but - before Burke - no apparent special effort to find the derelict, it seems like whoever found out about the signal back in the day and set up Nostromo to be their fishing lure just canned the idea once they never came back. Maybe they didn't want to be blamed for losing an expensive ship and cargo, so they covered their tracks and let the world think it was just a mysterious disappearance. 57 years later, those involved were probably retired and playing golf, and it's possible Burke was the only one in W-Y at the time who managed to dig up an old secret file that gave him a clue what had really happened.

(I don't know if any of that's really here nor there about the existence-of-critters question, I just love Aliens. Used to be able to quote the whole thing, start to finish, although that was years ago so my recall's a bit spotty now. Labyrinth too.)

[Fixer]

Just read up on the AVP wiki. They've covered most of what happened after the original movie on their LV-426 history page.

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Acheron_(LV-426)

They did cover it up and apparently in Alien: Isolation they deactivated the warning signal to prevent more ships being lured.
The colony was later setup with zero knowledge of the creatures or the derelict.

[lsgreg]

The rumor is that Covenant will be taking place on LV 426, which is originally the Engineers homeworld. It would make sense since David is experimenting with the black goo on that planet and he may be the creator of the Xenomorph species.

[MissKittyFantastico]

I'm not sure I buy that - if LV426 was Main Engineering, it'd have had to have been so thoroughly paved over by insert-cataclysm-here as to have erased virtually all evidence of it; ICC's paperwork regards it as 'a rock', the environment's a wreck compared to what Prometheus indicates the Jockeys prefer (and presumably evolved in), and the Company would have to be unaware of it (by Aliens anyway) to have let a civilian colony set up shop - however clueless Hollister's people were and however long-buried the evidence was, there'd always be a chance one of them would stumble across something, and moreover if W-Y did go in to excavate by itself, they'd risk the colonists noticing that too. On a planet with 'maybe a signal fifty years ago but the ship vanished and the execs who set it up in secret are retired now anyway', okay, I can buy W-Y forgetting about it until Ripley showed up again and Burke's ears perked up - but the freakin' homeworld, that you doctor the probe data to show zero minerals and high radiation or something that means nobody will ever want to go there, and then plant the entire science division in orbit to get to work.

But if it's so long-gone that there's no evidence and nobody knows - so it's entirely consistent with the derelict having just faceplanted on a random rock during an interstellar trip - what's the point? It's like writing 3P0 into the prequels then having to wipe his memory in order for his behaviour in the OT to make sense, you've gone to all that effort to introduce a plot point that must be erased afterwards anyway. The rest of it may be right (although I'm not entirely comfortable with David being the creator, that'd take away the basic 'alienness' of the alien) but it can't be Acheron.

[lsgreg]

The black goo was tested by the engineers and was found to destroy all sentient life within a few months and possible all life within a year. Waylan-Yutani knew about these data sheets of the engineers somehow. Maybe David somehow got the data to them. The shipwreck shown in Covenant looks remarkably like the ship they find on LV-426. Could just be a coincidence though.

[lsgreg]

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Chemical_A0-3 ... =Hm4SP.PNG

The information of Chemical A0-3959x.91 (black goo) from Alien Wiki. The problem with talking about Aliens is that there is so much information. There has been three comics series about Prometheus written by Dark Horse, so it is hard to tell what is canon and what is not. I just watch some of the Youtube videos on it and it was brought up that Covenant's Paradis may be LV-426 which would be quite interesting.