Quote from: TheBATMAN on Dec 08, 2014, 06:18:25 PM
Can someone help me with this please?
So the company somehow pick up the signal emanating from LV-426, manage to magically decipher enough of it to suggest there is a living creature of unknown origin located there. Engage Special Order 937 and then put Ash on the Nostromo. Fine.
But after the events of Alien, do the company suddenly forget about the beacon and its location? Why exactly was it untouched for 57 years? Or more specifically, the 15 years until the crew of the Marlow shut it off? Surely Weyland Yutani would have sent every available man to locate that site after Ash and the Nostromo vanished. Am I missing something here?
The Company only knew about the signal. They knew nothing about aliens or the Alien.
Ridley explained that androids like Ash were often sent on missions with company vessels, often clandestinely. Such a policy "would seem to be the normal development of a huge corporation trying to protect its interests. In this particular future, it would be very easy for "pirating" to exist. Corporations will have to find ways to assure that vehicles carrying minerals or vital information will not be hijacked."
Ridley explained further: "[T]he world has been converted into the property of two or three large conglomerates whose sources of energy are provided by the exploitation of deposits in space. The super cargo spaceships that link Earth and the planets would transport enormous loads of minerals: gas, oil and the like. To dissuade the crews from rebelling and to protect their own interests, these companies might place spies aboard, or at least would make the crews believe in the presence of such spies. Gradually a legend would evolve that these people, whose identities remain unknown, are in fact robots. Furthermore, nobody would ever have proof. This would reinforce legends already currently among the astronauts."
Ash was placed deliberately on the Nostromo so the Company could successfully investigate a beacon emanating from a mysterious, far-out planetoid. However, Ridley has repeatedly shot down the suggestion that the Company was aware of the Alien payload: "I think any corporation that sends probes into unknown territory is going to think of the possibility of finding something new," he said. "I'm sure that the crew members on all its ships would have been briefed to bring back anything of interest. It would be part of one's job to bring it back. An alien, of course, would be of top priority. This particular corporation didn't have a preconceived notion that an alien would be found on this mission, much less the particular Alien that is brought onto the ship. The idea of bringing it back alive would not have been on the minds of the corporate executives when they first received the alien transmission. They just had high expectations when they ordered the Nostromo to investigate – it was purely out of curiosity."
This of course also explains Weyland-Yutani's lack of action regarding the derelict and the eggs following the events of Alien. Ridley added: "I would have thought that Earth would have previously received messages [from space], realised they were coming from an intelligent source but, for economy reasons, perhaps have postponed the preparation of an investigatory spacecraft. Then, one day, Nostromo is in the vicinity and the order is given for the crew to bring back the Alien, good or evil, without any real thought being given to the consequences. The presence of the robot virtually guarantees, in principle, the success of the mission."
