Quote from: SM on May 21, 2009, 12:52:45 AM
It doesn't explain however why they risked something that was supposedly so important to dumbass tug jockies.
They didn't, they had Ash acting on their behalf. He was supposed to be the recovery man with the rest of the crew being expendable. They snuck synthetics on board every WY vessel in case of this type of event I would imagine.
They knew the Alien was out there, and even the Predator, so what better way to keep the corporation tentacles on the pulse than have spies on those vessels.
As I have said ad nauseum - we've seen what the Company did when they realised the Alien's potential in Alien3. They had half a century to do the exact same thing; but didn't. If the Nostromo SO failed - which it did, they're not going to just let it go. They lost an entire colony in Ailens which is going to raise more questions than one tug and 6 crew, and were subsequently all over the Alien like a rash.
Well, now that is a question. Why wait 57 years until 'Aliens'?
Those concerned with capturing an Alien knew they needed to aquire the Alien outside of regular channels and knowing how it reproduced, they saw their chance in placing a terraforming colony on what was basically a worthless moon.
It was a plan that was given the time to gestate, pardon the pun.
Ok, so in the movie timeline:
1987: Predator
The government becomes aware of the Predator for the first time.
Neither Weyland or Yutani are involved at this point.
1997: Predator 2
In the ten years following the debriefing of Dutch Schaeffer, the Predator has become a holy grail for the US government and special teams track Predator activity. This is the first time following the events of 'Predator' that (official) contact with a Predator has been made.
Weyland and Yutani have no known involvement.
2004: Alien vs. Predator
Weyland Industries picks up a heat bloom in Antarctica and a team, with the founder of Weyland leading them, invesitgates to find a pyramid under the ice that reveals the true extent of Predator interaction with the human race.
Aside from images of the heat bloom and all information from satellite and ancient world expert sources, no other information is available to the Weyland Corporation other than the more than likely debriefing of Lex.
This is Weyland Industries' first evidence of the Alien in theoretical terms with no photographic evidence.
2007: Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
A Predator ship crashes in Colorado and a lone Predator investigates, finding a Predalien Queen as the cause.
The Government starts to converge resources on the area, even before the Sherriff's call for help.
Acting on intel from the Antarctica Event, it is decided to nuke the area to avoid widespread outbreak.
An image of an Alien and a Predator plasma weapon are recovered and at least the weapon is given to Yutani.
How involved Weyland or even Yutani were in these events are unclear, but at some point the two merged and their resources pooled.
2122: Alien
WY space vessels are all secretly manned with synthetic spies. A protocol regarding the recovery of ET life is made part of the WY structure and all synthetics are programmed to act on this protocol and recover ETs at any cost for WY.
It is unclear as to wether any previous efforts to track down the aliens were fruitless or if no efforts were undertaken at all between the events of 'AVPR' and 'ALIEN'.
The planting of synthetic spies seems to be a desperate last ditch effort to find a trace of the aliens in deep space.
2178: Aliens (56 Years Later)
After realising that Earth Authorities would never allow an organism like the alien to pass through to Earth, WY exploit the new trend in Terraforming Colonies to set one up on a seemingly worthless and insigificant moon in the hopes someone will stumble across the Derelect and be smuggled to Earth in stasis.
It simply takes the workers/colonists longer to find the Derelect than they had hoped. Once it is confirmed that LV426 is infected, their plan snaps into action - Burke is sent to fulfil the role Ash had in 'Alien' taking Marines for protection and the only known survivor of an Alien encounter as advisor.
It all goes awry and aside from video footage of the Marines that may or may not have made it to WY, there is nothing except ruins of the colony left to investigate once the reactor in the colony goes critical and explodes.
It is also unclear as to why the synthetic, Bishop, does not act on the protocol himself. This may be due to the fact that WY had no need for the protocol to be programmed into the synthetics as it knew where to now source the Alien.
2178: Alien 3
The vessel Sulaco experiences a fire and the ship ejects an escape pod. The pod crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, a penal and refinery colony. Ripley is the lone survivor.
She consults Bishop and is told that a face hugger was aboard the pod. A dog is infected by the face hugger and an Alien, varying from previous physiology (evidence that a host leaves a genetic imprint), is birthed.
WY despatch a ship to rescue Ripley, but the motive is to capture the Alien and the gestating one inside Ripley for use in a bio weapons project.
WY arrive and the company's head, the human Bishop Weyland on which the synthetic was modelled, tries to convince Ripley to accompany them, she declines and kills herself.
2378: Alien Resurrection
Cloning is possible and in the 200 years since A3, no headway has been made in finding more Aliens, or any Predators for that matter.
Ripley is cloned on the military vessell Auriga from a blood sample and the Alien embryo is removed, which is a queen.
The Aliens are bred by the United Systems Military, who have seemingly either bought out or merged with WY.
Through events instigated partially by a faction of mercenaries, the Aliens run riot and the merging of genetic tissue of the Alien Queen and Ripley yields a Queen that can give birth to live young, as humans do.
The hybrid is killed and Ripley approaches the Earth in a seperate ship with the remaining survivors as the Auriga impacts on Earth's surface.
No further intel is available as to where the mythology stands.
