Now that Proximity One: Last Stand At Hadley’s Hope has been released in its entirety, we have a brand new fan produced audio drama released to tide us over! Alien: Solara is the work of Anarchist86ed and has just released the first episode! While Proximity One was based around Aliens, Solara is very much Alien influenced. Check it out below!
“Alien: Solara tells the story of the crew of the USCSS Solara as they’re drawn into a war between rival companies, both of which intend to capture and harness the abilities of the Xenomorph creatures. But now they may be the only hope of stopping new, and even worse forms of the creatures.
Part one Featured the voice talents of A.J. Carter as John, midway traffic controller, man in diner and Weyland-Yutani executive. Stephanie Carlson as Captain Anderson. Mya Schuwerk as mother. And Graham Rowat as Mr. Deckard.”
Anarchist86ed is currently aiming for next month to release Part Two. You can follow Alien: Solara on YouTube or on SoundCloud. For those interested in helping out, Anarchist86ed is still casting for Part Two.
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MP3:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fpaddb28f0whq1o/AlienSolaraPart3.mp3?dl=0
For your convenience:
Alien: Solara Part One:
On youtube:
DL: https://www.dropbox.com/s/42km04u9kx5y6ao/AlienSolaraPart1.mp3?dl=0
Dead Rock:
Two prospectors on the planet Plutus make a discovery that set the entire story of Alien: Solara into motion.
On youtube:
DL: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n02k1h9garayuzf/DeadRockAnAlienSolaraShort.mp3?dl=0
Alien: Solara Part Two:
On youtube:
DL: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o5fz102ikw53k3r/AlienSolaraPart2.mp3?dl=0
So, as always we have the cool references and trivia.
The button sound effects are from Prometheus, as is the door sound effect. I just added a steam sound to finish off the sound effect.
A religious war? How would Deckard know? Because there was an unrecorded engineer line about heretics. He didn't record it, so I decided to move on without it. It was too late in editing to realistically fix it anyway.
As written:
Chiefs assistant: These holograms suck, I can't make out what they look like.
Monk: Secure the orerry. The heretics were traveling to their hidden laboratory to collect the prototypes. We must assure their destruction and all the knowledge of them. We must be prepared to lose our lives. The future of our children is once again in our hands.
The holographic recording ends.
John: I believe we can guess the rest of the story.
Mr. Deckard: Heretics and traitors. Maybe we witnessed a battle in some sort of religious war.
Now, you may not like how I depict the engineers and that's fine. But we needed to hear them since we can't see them. Also we go back to not being canon, so I took some liberties with the engineers.
The engineers refer to Eden, which is apparently what they called Earth.
Contact with the seeder ship was lost... because it crashed on LV-426 and transmitted a warning.
The blaster sound effects are from Star Trek.
The hologram sound effect is from Star Wars.
The grit gate is a reference to river of pain.
Jammed by Raspberry. SpaceBalls, anyone?
Mcguiness orders Bravo team to head 'em out. The marines from aliens are 2nd Battalion Bravo Team.
Colonel Doctor Paul Church makes his first appearance outside of a comic book, but my Church is not directly taken from the comics. He's only obsessed with the Xenomorphs, he's never had any actual experience with them. He'll do anything to acquire them.
Sgt Mcguiness is taken from Lt. McGuinness.
The drop ship is the same sound from aliens, there was nothing useful in the Aliens: Colonial Marines sound files.
Ramirez has half a bottle of Liquremen's ol dirty Canadian whiskey is a reference to the trailer park boys.
The welder sound is the one used in ACM and thus Aliens.
I goofed and used smart gun pulse sounds, not rifle sounds. I just decided not to change it.
The Sergeant says no fire, why do they fire warning shots? Because I was impatient and wanted to use pulse rifle sounds.
Why does the Sgt have a British accent if he's a colonial marine? I never said they were united states colonial marines.
Why is Church kind of a dick? Because he is and has very little respect for the marines or anyone else.
Were there other takes of Church's voice? Yes, and it was hysterically stereotypical of a mad scientist.
Parasitoid? That's what a facehugger is called, but that's not what we're dealing with.
Deckard works for the company, why doesn't he know more about the engineers? He knows. He knows.
Stand by.
As the crew of Solara investigate the engineer ship, Captain Anderson sees only dollar signs and draining the pockets of the rapidly declining Weyland-Yutani. But little does the entire crew know that they've stumbled onto an ancient experiment that may not be what the company, the colonial marines, or others seeking the Xenomorph creatures expect. Events have been set in motion that will see a civil war among aliens, corporate rivals, and the emergence of a new government and it's military force that also seeks to harness the untapped potential of these creatures.
Whoever wins... no one's getting paid.
Honestly can't think of one that wouldn't give him away. But, if you read back, on my references post, you just might get a pretty good hint.
Good episode. We get introduced to a comic book character. If you guess who, I'll let you listen to an unfinished version.
No one will, but hey a bump's a bump.
I'd guess Aliens' anniversary?
When is Solara set? I've not listened to the Audible yet but I've started re-reading the book and they weren't aware of the trimonite until the start of the book anyway. It was just a colony. It's also set well after Alien: Resurrection so it might have caused you some timeline errors.
Late October, 2180. Actually it takes place around Halloween. A little over a year after alien 3, which is why the atmosphere processor explosion on Acheron is recent news and also a joke in part 2 about Disney sending kids to LV-426 to clean up radiation and bits of colonists.
Deleted from the script was a reference to the Captain having dinner on LV-426 and being annoyed by a little girl with a doll and a kind of weird accent who wanted to know what it was like living in space.
Since we're not canon, I only reference some canon things to suit our needs. I threw in the LV-178 reference just to describe Plutus as being an even worse shit hole than it was.
Didn't like that! Breaking the fourth wall. Hated it in Covenant, distracting again here.
Again, a cast member got a kick out of it. Besides, I needed an excuse for him to be able to turn on the console and David could figure out their technology with absolutely no explanation, so John can too.
They make a brief appearance and get a quick mention in the Director's Cut IIRC.
Maybe, but it's still a blink and you'll miss it thing. But just like in Alien, our laser pistols never get used.
I must have missed that! Did you namedrop it?
The kid couldn't pronounce it so he tried to and called it the Narcsistas. The chief doesn't find it space worthy because the rear hatch repair was sloppy because the scrappers who found it didn't bother trying to actually open it first. In part 3 Mr. Deckard gets a kick out of hearing the Narcissus was docked with Solara the whole time and tells the Captain the story of it's former crew and how the survivor passed away from severe chest pains.
I'm keen to see what else you have in store - even if you're not keen on the Engineers. I think they actually open up a lot of possibilities!
I more or less imply the engineers were trying to create something new and royally screwed up. But believe it or not, my creatures won't really be the bad guys, I kinda want you to sympathize with them for the meddling the engineers did. There is not one single reference that David is responsible for the xenomorphs. This is the single most infuriating concept from the entire franchise. I'm retconning that the engineers were ultimately disappointed with the species, labeling them inefficient. They worked to make them more efficient. We do hear from engineers in part 3.
It's not like I have any say to be overruled. lol
I've got no issues with references - I love them. I love the universe connecting that they entail and you're right - they're 100% needed to help keep it all together. I've enjoyed your use of them.
In an endearing way!
I'm keen to see what else you have in store - even if you're not keen on the Engineers. I think they actually open up a lot of possibilities!
When is Solara set? I've not listened to the Audible yet but I've started re-reading the book and they weren't aware of the trimonite until the start of the book anyway. It was just a colony. It's also set well after Alien: Resurrection so it might have caused you some timeline errors.
I'll admit that did give me a chuckle.
I must have missed that! Did you namedrop it?
Didn't like that! Breaking the fourth wall. Hated it in Covenant, distracting again here.
They make a brief appearance and get a quick mention in the Director's Cut IIRC.
I've honestly had no issues with your sounds. In general, as long as the levels are even and they don't spike into the red there's nothing more you can really be doing.
You're overruled on the references, the cast likes them. They're all big alien fans so they appreciate putting in the nods. They particularly liked the crew not being expendable because they didn't want it to be another slaughter fest. So it's more for them than the audience. One of them says it makes them feel like they're in the universe, so that's good enough for me to keep them. Though going forward you won't find many more of them. Except the colonial marines. And pulse rifles. And drop ships. But those are required. And we'll learn a little more about the soon to be united systems military and the downfall of Wey-Yu. All from a non canon perspective.
The chief is probably my favorite character. He's unapologetic scummy.
I honestly didn't even want to address the engineers, but I figured that they're there and we may as well use them. In part three we learn a lot more about what went on in the lab and why the ship is there. But we don't learn about the "science experiment" for a while.
Deleted, because he didn't record it, was a story Chief Hennessy told about visiting LV-178 to prospect for trimonite but in the end all of his fellow prospectors disappeared in the sea of sorrows. I felt it was ok to lose this and just make a reference to the Marion and the miners. Probably best not to reference the new audible drama out anyway.
Chief: I went there once with a prospecting team. They wanted to search the sea of sorrows for any traces of trimonite, but the whole damn area was too toxic even after terraforming. I decided not to go, and they were never heard from again.
People seemed to get a kick out of Disney actually owning Wey-Yu in reality now. No, they don't make an appearance as a villain company. But the crew still finds it hilarious that the house of mouse might build better theme parks.
Trivia:
The sprayer sound effect is the slime blower from Ghost Busters.
The Narcissus was repaired and sold cheaply. The Captain bought it as a back up. The Nostromo had two shuttles, only one functional. At the end of the story the Narcissus will once again be the only functional shuttle on an M-Class ship. With a badly replaced rear hatch because the scrappers didn't bother trying to open it before cutting it off.
A second Negan reference.
Acheron WAS a better place to live than Plutus.
The flute sound is just sped up from a piece of music, I couldn't get a clean sound of the flute from Prometheus.
Greed over the good of Humanity always prevails.
Laser pistols were originally in Alien, but never actually shown or used.
Whatever's in those eggs, it was worth suicide to destroy.
As always there are of course issues with me not being able to make it perfect based on what you listen with. For instance, one line of dialogue spikes hard even though I lowered it by half. It sounds normalized on my laptop speaker, sounds normal on my phone, gets loud on my MP3 player, barely can hear it on my tablet. I do my best to fix these issues but there seems to be no way to perfectly level everything to sound the same in every way people may listen. Having OCD it drives me nuts when it sounds the same on one, then spikes on another. All I can suggest is pick a comfy volume. Hopefully any issues will be fixed when it's all melted into one episode.
I started to have an issue with the homages by the end of the episode though - specifically reused dialogue. I hate it in the actual films and the first few instances worked quite nicely but after "this crew is not expendable" I wasn't so keen. Started to find them really distracting and pulling me out the experience.
In part 1:
Willin' by Linda Ronstadt is a nod to the abyss.
Twister is a nod to Bill Paxton, AKA Hudson. The movie exists in the same universe, though not canon of course.
Wey-yu commercial from AVP, a nod that the predator is also out there.
Midway station, the astral diner and Humans becoming energy beings are all nods to stargate.
It's 2180, a little over a year after Alien 3, and my 200th birthday.
They fly an M-call star freighter, possibly the last one known to still be in use.
Plutus is the god of wealth, the planet Plutus is rich in gold.
Mr. Deckard. You figure it out.
"John" means Jockey. According to Wikipedia, the word jockey in the English language itself derives from the name John also colloquially used for boy, as cognate to the custom found in many Indo-European languages.
The events on LV-426 were covered up as an atmosphere processor explosion.
Milky goop should be obvious, it's what they used in the movies.
Bees man, bees have hives. But in canon there are no bees on Thedus as far as we know.
Dead rock trivia and references:
Power doors use the same sound effect as the aliens doors.
The power loader is the same sound effect.
Country roads is considered classical music.
A nod to the engineer civil war is made.
The eggs were experiments of the engineers, just like David, they wanted the perfect organism.
Humans care more about money than dangers these creatures can cause, just like Burke.
The wind sound is the same used for LV-426.
There were two creatures in the eggs, neither of which were face huggers. I say that because it's obvious they weren't. What they really are will be a big surprise later on.
Part 2 references. Spoilers alert.
They're space truckers, not colonial marines is what a character says. The crew of Nostromo were also space truckers.
Laser pistols make a triumphant return.
The Captain bought a scrapped shuttle for the ship before they left gateway. It's name is too weird to pronounce.
Paxtonol-666 is the name of a chemical that can melt rock. Figure out why it's named that.
Disney and WalMart are rumored to be buying Weyland-Yutani. In resurrection, Walmart allegedly buys them. In reality, Disney just bought them.
That's all for now.
Alien: Solara Part 2.
Happy #AlienDay
Download.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o5fz102ikw53k3r/AlienSolaraPart2.mp3?dl=0
100%
All I'll say about spoilers is John is a synth, but what does the name "John" mean?
Too much to record, and probably too long for people to listen to. And the cast pretty much agreed it was too long.
Eventually it will all be edited into one long episode like the audible drama's.
By the way, the soundcloud version is censored because they kept auto deleting it. People complained there was no soundcloud, so there it is. Just download the dropbox version.
They treaded some familiar territory bu at the right moment navigated away from the obvious results. It's fairly self-aware and uses references in a humorous way.
That song is forever alien to its original context...
https://soundcloud.com/anarchist86ed/dead-rock-an-alien-solara-short
Also merged into a nice new big Alien: Solara thread.
Alien: Solara Part One:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/42km04u9kx5y6ao/AlienSolaraPart1.mp3?dl=0
Dead Rock:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/n02k1h9garayuzf/DeadRockAnAlienSolaraShort.mp3?dl=0
Follow https://twitter.com/AlienSolara for updates and information.
Two money hungry prospectors on the planet Plutus discover an ancient laboratory, and it's secrets.