Aliens Canon: Fitting the jigsaw together
It's currently cool to hate Aliens: Colonial Marines. Every blogger out there has taken out their knives, sharp sticks. Sure, it may have not been quite what we saw in the demo, and the textures and AI could have been a little better, but is it FUN? I'd have to say YES! Fighting through the actual locations of the film, untarnished by Predators, has been exhilirating.
Warning- Spoilers ahead!
The icing on the cake has been that the story is officially Aliens canon, picking up soon after Alien 3. You're not just walking around game levels here, what's going on is actually going down in the Aliens universe.
That's where some fans get even more rabid. Corporal Hicks, the badass survivor of Aliens who was stupidly killed off in Alien 3, has been resurrected (righting one of the great wrongs of Hollywood history) and a lot of gamers have been left with questions, the main ones being:
How did Hadley's Hope survive the thermonuclear explosion of the reactor?What's the Sulaco doing back at LV-426?The queen was killed in Aliens and Ripley sacrificed herself to make sure the company wouldn't get another specimen, so how come there are aliens running all over the Sulaco and LV-426?How and why did Weyland-Yutani (WY) exchange another body for Hicks?
At first glance this list, coupled with the need to resurrect Hicks, looks like an insurmountable jumble of jigsaw pieces. How can we get a clear story out of this?
Hell, I'll even throw in the one we used to rant about on the net before it turned into the web:
5. How the hell did eggs get on the Sulaco?
Total mess, right? I don't think so. In the absence of an official timeline, I think we can don the writer's hat and examine the motivations of the various parties (most notably the ruthless and well-resourced WY), and piece together a sequence of events that, given the premise, falls within the bounds of credibility. Let's pick it up with Ripley in the queen's chamber, surrounded by eggs:
The storyRipley torches the Queen's egg chamber with her flamethrower. The Queen calls all her children to her. Two facehuggers survive the incineration and cling to the queen, guards come running and are shot down.Ripley boards the dropship. The Queen hangs from it as it flies from the atmosphere processor.The underground fusion reactor detonates. The atmosphere processor and the surrounding mile in diameter is vapourised into a Nebraska-sized cloud. The colony half a mile away, partially protected by geography and built to withstand the extreme conditions of LV-426, nevertheless sustains heavy damage. Much of the structure is left standing similar to some buildings at Hiroshima's ground zero.Dropship 02 boards the SULACO. The two facehuggers detach from the queen and scuttle through the ship in search of prey.Ripley fights the queen and expels her from the SULACO's airlock.Cpl Hicks issues a transmission describing the facility as destroyed and the marines KIA. They enter hypersleep.Not finding any signs of life aboard the ship, the facehuggers excrete a hibernation shell of resin (similar to a small egg) in a corner and wait.Weyland-Yutani intercept the transmission and watch an acid-burned Hicks explain the situation. They realise that they have lost the facility, that Ellen Ripley's report about the valuable bio-weapon is true, and that they are responsible for the deaths of the colonists and marines.Weyland-Yutani has assets closer to the SULACO's flight path than the USCM does. They opt for a covert approach. WY mercenaries intercept the SULACO over Fury 161. They download information from Bishop and take who they believe is the only combatant to have faced the creatures, Cpl Hicks. In its place they leave the acid-burned body of one of their enemies, to prevent or delay the USCM from discovering the crime. They depart.The boarding of the ship puts the SULACO in alert and rouses the two facehuggers. Following scent and heat, they find the cryo-tubes.The SULACO ejects the tubes in the EEV over Fury 161 and holds orbit.WY torture Hicks, who only gives the information already contained in Ripley's report.WY receives information about the aliens on Fury 161. They arrive in time to see Ripley sacrifice herself to prevent them getting a specimen.WY abandons their covert approach. They return to the SULACO to find evidence of the creatures, brazenly steal the ship and turn it around, and take it back to LV-426.Using Carter Burke's coordinates, they discover the derelict spacecraft. They deploy shake-n-bake buildings to set up laboratories and other resources. They bring in prisoners and other disposables, gestate a queen and study the creatures. They work fast, intending to get their specimens onto the SULACO and leave before the USCM arrives.The SEPHORA arrives before this transfer is complete. It hails the SULACO but receives no response from the WY team aboard.Marines from SEPHORA board the SULACO. When it is clear that they outmatch the WY security forces, WY scientists release the captive xenos and quarantine themselves in the bridge and command sections of the SULACO.When it is apparent that the USCM marines (led by Winter) are breaking through the xenos, WY turns the SULACO's weapons on the SEPHORA. Both ships go down.Winter and the USCM marines fight their way through the xenos, disrupt and destroy the research facilities, rescue Hicks and escape in the other WY FTL vessel.
That's how I see the pieces naturally falling together. Hopefully we'll get an official timeline soon, to tell me "F@#$ A" or "Bad call".
Warning- Spoilers ahead!
The icing on the cake has been that the story is officially Aliens canon, picking up soon after Alien 3. You're not just walking around game levels here, what's going on is actually going down in the Aliens universe.
That's where some fans get even more rabid. Corporal Hicks, the badass survivor of Aliens who was stupidly killed off in Alien 3, has been resurrected (righting one of the great wrongs of Hollywood history) and a lot of gamers have been left with questions, the main ones being:
How did Hadley's Hope survive the thermonuclear explosion of the reactor?What's the Sulaco doing back at LV-426?The queen was killed in Aliens and Ripley sacrificed herself to make sure the company wouldn't get another specimen, so how come there are aliens running all over the Sulaco and LV-426?How and why did Weyland-Yutani (WY) exchange another body for Hicks?
At first glance this list, coupled with the need to resurrect Hicks, looks like an insurmountable jumble of jigsaw pieces. How can we get a clear story out of this?
Hell, I'll even throw in the one we used to rant about on the net before it turned into the web:
5. How the hell did eggs get on the Sulaco?
Total mess, right? I don't think so. In the absence of an official timeline, I think we can don the writer's hat and examine the motivations of the various parties (most notably the ruthless and well-resourced WY), and piece together a sequence of events that, given the premise, falls within the bounds of credibility. Let's pick it up with Ripley in the queen's chamber, surrounded by eggs:
The storyRipley torches the Queen's egg chamber with her flamethrower. The Queen calls all her children to her. Two facehuggers survive the incineration and cling to the queen, guards come running and are shot down.Ripley boards the dropship. The Queen hangs from it as it flies from the atmosphere processor.The underground fusion reactor detonates. The atmosphere processor and the surrounding mile in diameter is vapourised into a Nebraska-sized cloud. The colony half a mile away, partially protected by geography and built to withstand the extreme conditions of LV-426, nevertheless sustains heavy damage. Much of the structure is left standing similar to some buildings at Hiroshima's ground zero.Dropship 02 boards the SULACO. The two facehuggers detach from the queen and scuttle through the ship in search of prey.Ripley fights the queen and expels her from the SULACO's airlock.Cpl Hicks issues a transmission describing the facility as destroyed and the marines KIA. They enter hypersleep.Not finding any signs of life aboard the ship, the facehuggers excrete a hibernation shell of resin (similar to a small egg) in a corner and wait.Weyland-Yutani intercept the transmission and watch an acid-burned Hicks explain the situation. They realise that they have lost the facility, that Ellen Ripley's report about the valuable bio-weapon is true, and that they are responsible for the deaths of the colonists and marines.Weyland-Yutani has assets closer to the SULACO's flight path than the USCM does. They opt for a covert approach. WY mercenaries intercept the SULACO over Fury 161. They download information from Bishop and take who they believe is the only combatant to have faced the creatures, Cpl Hicks. In its place they leave the acid-burned body of one of their enemies, to prevent or delay the USCM from discovering the crime. They depart.The boarding of the ship puts the SULACO in alert and rouses the two facehuggers. Following scent and heat, they find the cryo-tubes.The SULACO ejects the tubes in the EEV over Fury 161 and holds orbit.WY torture Hicks, who only gives the information already contained in Ripley's report.WY receives information about the aliens on Fury 161. They arrive in time to see Ripley sacrifice herself to prevent them getting a specimen.WY abandons their covert approach. They return to the SULACO to find evidence of the creatures, brazenly steal the ship and turn it around, and take it back to LV-426.Using Carter Burke's coordinates, they discover the derelict spacecraft. They deploy shake-n-bake buildings to set up laboratories and other resources. They bring in prisoners and other disposables, gestate a queen and study the creatures. They work fast, intending to get their specimens onto the SULACO and leave before the USCM arrives.The SEPHORA arrives before this transfer is complete. It hails the SULACO but receives no response from the WY team aboard.Marines from SEPHORA board the SULACO. When it is clear that they outmatch the WY security forces, WY scientists release the captive xenos and quarantine themselves in the bridge and command sections of the SULACO.When it is apparent that the USCM marines (led by Winter) are breaking through the xenos, WY turns the SULACO's weapons on the SEPHORA. Both ships go down.Winter and the USCM marines fight their way through the xenos, disrupt and destroy the research facilities, rescue Hicks and escape in the other WY FTL vessel.
That's how I see the pieces naturally falling together. Hopefully we'll get an official timeline soon, to tell me "F@#$ A" or "Bad call".
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