Following the release of Part 2 on Alien Day, the cast and crew of Alien: Solara are back with the third part of their fantastic Alien fan audio drama!
“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.”
Part Three is also available for direct download via Dropbox. If you haven’t already, head on over to YouTube to check out their previous two installations and their short, Dead Rock! You can follow also Alien: Solara on SoundCloud and Twitter. Be sure to let creator Anarchist86ed know what you thought down below!
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Those fun references:
See you on the other side. The episode starts with the Cap and her daddy watching Ghost Busters, and ends with her telling the kid she'll tell him her first name on the other side.
M41A Pulse Rifle MK2 from colonial marines.
When the kid says Colonial Marines is one of his favorite games, he's full of shit. Colonial Marines is no one's favorite game.
Doctor Church mentions he has upgrades.
"Cheap obsolete electronics" references the Alien films being in the future, yet all of their tech is laughably obsolete by our modern day standards.
John mentions the "chosen one" who was killed. Ridley Scott implied the engineers introduced the concept of "Jesus" to Humans and was killed yet turned into a god. Making no sense.
Church talks about how inefficient Xenomorphs are as a species. If they propagated the way they do, they probably wouldn't even exist. The engineers wanted to fix that.
The sarge reminds his soldiers they're not expendable just like the Captain tells her crew they're not expendable.
Deckard freaks out when he hears the word Xenomorph because special order 938 is always in effect.
The Zeus is a ship on the planet Plutus. Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. Plutus was the god of wealth in ancient Greek religion and myth. Plutus is rich in vast amounts of gold.
"This is tactically dangerous". That's what the T-800 told John.
"I'll stay here and make spooky sounds". That's what a pilot says in Monster Squad as his co-pilot goes to see what made a noise.
They can be trained. Church seeks to train the aliens in the comics.
Xenomorphs continue to be afraid of fire for some reason.
They're only animals like Hudson said.
The Sargent has a Hudson level freak out while blasting away.
The pulse rifle sound effects are from colonial marines. There was too much BASS in the effects, but I could not remove it so sometimes they can get a little too thumpy.
"Ya don't say". We all know the meme.
Sentry robotic sounds.
"You stupid slag". I was watching Alien Nation as I wrote this. But the word has another meaning.
"Always wondered what your first name was". It's not that hard to figure out, and the whole crew should know it.
Stephanie kind of hits on herself because she plays the Captain and the prospector.
Post credits scene.
Bacchus Station provides luxury accommodations, nightclubs and bars, sports events, prostitutes, and many other things to entice its guests. And was featured in Space: Above And Beyond.
Chief almost banged a shemale and no one could tell the difference. A friend of mine had a similar experience and ran screaming from it.
"Yellow stained underwear". Further proving our engineer is a filthy space trucker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdZd29_ftzk
https://soundcloud.com/anarchist86ed/alien-solara-part-four
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zczm4qldiqtv3ck/AlienSolaraPart4.mp3?dl=0
As the crew of Solara deal with a serious problem with John's memory, Sgt McGuinness and his marines seek out a viable "specimen" for doctor Church. But what they find is not what the doctor was hoping for.
Official short preview:
https://soundcloud.com/anarchist86ed/solara-part4-preview
Yeah it would, but they still had no contact with them. There was a deleted scene I wrote about Burke implanting Newt and Ripley for pickup by the shinyo Maru but it just made no sense. I decided it made more sense for them to arrive at the same time and have events occur at the same time. Was cooler that way knowing our heroes were there at the same time. But anyway, it's always tough getting these things right. And since we're not canon we can take as many liberties as we want as far as I'm concerned.
I'LL check it out. Thanks.
If you want, you can PM Stephanie on Twitter about the Facebook, she runs @AlienSolara
Does a better job than I could.
Personally, I would have swung the other way. Wasn't something that stuck out at me as something that needed fixed and would have made more sense for your story to have them rushing to beat the marines. But fair enough.
Ah! You're trying to make an actual profile aren't you, not a page.
I hope you don't find it presumptuous and I'll delete it if you're not happy about this but I did quickly set-up a Solara page to see if it'd let me and it did: https://www.facebook.com/aliensolara
Do you have a personal account on Facebook?
Sorry to hear but these things take time!
I know, but then I couldn't reference the Sulaco or why a star ship couldn't detect Human life signs down in the colony. So that's really why I did it, was to kind of sort of clean up a plot hole. Sulaco surely would have scanned for life signs and detected them. That never made sense to me so I decided to fix it.
Suit only has a few lines in part 4 and we don't hear from him again till the last episode. So we gotta get those insults in.
I've tried, but Facebook won't allow me to use anything but a real name. Besides, there's that ever looming possibility of the Fox.... I mean mouse catching us and gobbling us up.
Part 4 isn't coming too soon due to recording schedule conflicts, but here's a short preview.
https://soundcloud.com/anarchist86ed/part-4-preview
That's fair enough.
Sorry, I didn't mean them get to the colony before the marines. I'd meant it seems more logical they'd want to get to the moon over all before the marines did.
I get that. I just felt like it was over-used and he was getting away with it too much. Lost it's impact for me.
Have you tried Alien: Solara? Seems more appropriate than just Solara. Keyword hits and all that. And I'm sure you can do that, just got a limited audience at the minute with Twitter. Gotta branch out, get involved in those busier Alien groups on Facebook too.
Thank you.
As with Stephanie's interview, I enjoyed that. It's great hearing them outside the series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYr0GYuPC_s
I wanted to use audio from the river of pain audio drama, but it didn't work out. I couldn't justify spending money on it just for that. We is poor.
I thought about them getting there before the Marines, but the derelict was more fun to return to.
The full work up is not a memory wipe. It's something very... Special order related.
Calling him suit is more an insult. Notice in Solara he's only called a stiff suit once.
It seemed unlikely some bullets could cause such problems. I figured Burke was a perfect Patsy. If you think about it, the plan makes sense. He didn't want to wait for rescue, and was a greedy little weasel. He could have set the processor to go off to motivate the retrieval of the drop ship. Obviously he'd know they had another. But it was a gamble they'd be able to even try.
You need 500 likes to make a Facebook named Solara. We can't get that many listens.
I use Sony Vegas. It's easier.
Loved the opening and placing Deckard in there. Thought it was a nice move. The difference in audio quality was a tiny bit noticeable but not really sure what you could have done there to deliberately improve or lower the quality of the two different audio?
I liked the idea of sending a pick-up to the Derelict. However, thought it was silly to have them also alert the Marines. I feel like it would have been far smarter to have them not get involved with the marines and instead Deckard has to beat them there. Seemed counter-intuitive.
That's a Tech Manual reference IIRC?
I was honestly expecting that to be the Assault Rifle from Colonial Marines when he was talking about it! Nice to see some Resurrection references - some oblique ones that I only see now you've pointed them out. You really do put some hard work into that!
I assume the "full work up" is the memory wipe! Though, kind of makes me wonder why they didn't just do that with the mercenaries. It was interesting to see Deckard go full badass, though. Not a side of him we've seen so far!
Oh, I wasn't keen on the over-use of Suit as a nickname. I get it and I think it works. But damn, he just kept on saying it and saying it. Got a bit eye-rolly.
I liked the idea that the company could do it if a colony tried to declare independence. I don't think it works in Aliens, though. There's nothing in Aliens that would make me think that was a likely thing.
As I said at the beginning though. Over all, I continue to enjoy your work. Really glad you're actively putting these out and the production is great.
I think you really need to branch out from Twitter. It's so small compared to Facebook. You could do with a well organized website, a Facebook page for the show and to get involved in the active Facebook groups.
She's embraced fandom so much in the last few years. I don't think she's embarrassed by it anymore.
Oh, I was curious as to what program you were using to edit btw?
Follow https://twitter.com/AlienSolara for updates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V_ga_CaTb8
MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/61p1u0a6n0pj4fh/MrDeckardAnAlienSolaraShort.mp3?dl=0
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/anarchist86ed/mr-deckard-an-alien-solara-short
Now for those fun references. Most will be obvious.
Ripley's debriefing at the beginning. This sets up the episode. But who were Deckard and the executive in the briefing? Use your imagination.
Glass of Malbec? The drink of choice of Dr. Reese in river of pain. It doesn't travel well.
The executive mentions the Nostromo was rerouted by some executives who knew it was a warning. Apparently the company did know it was a warning and sent the crew in anyway.
Priva son d'ogni conforto, the first Resurrection reference. Deckard enjoys it along with his signature cup of tea.
The second time Deckard drinks tea. Graham, for some reason, really liked Deckard drinking tea so I made a second nod to it.
"We've arrived at the river of pain". That's what Acheron is, and that's what it's called in Alien: River of pain.
FATHER, another Resurrection reference. There's a point to these references.
Father references sporadic Human life signs, one of which of course was Newt. He also lists off Hamsters and cows. Newt owned a hamster, and the marines in river of pain liked to go cow tipping.
Why Sulaco didn't scan for life signs? The Shinyo Maru scrambled them.
The Shinyo Maru was a ship of unknown class privately-owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It was the second vessel that rediscovered the derelict ship on Acheron (LV-426) following the disastrous mission to Hadley's Hope in 2179. It was sent to ascertain the status of the Atmospheric Processing Plant. But I changed it's history a little bit.
The draco double burner prototype makes an appearance. This suggests that even though Wey-Yu allegedly went under in the future, their influence was still everywhere.
Tire tracks and that crack down the side. Newt's families crawler, and the crack was how they got into the derelict.
It was raining on the planet suggesting events at the colony were happening at the same time Deckard and his team were at the derelict.
Dropped gear and critter bodies. In river of pain Newt's parents mentioned finding bodies. The dropped gear could have been from the other colonists who investigated and were face hugged.
The mapping scanner is just the motion tracker with a retro screen static sound effect.
"There are no children there". Deckard was wrong, there was one there.
Deckard terminates the contracts with the date Aliens was released.
Light-plus engines were mentioned in an earlier draft from Alien. In fact dialogue was lifted from that script.
The Merc is yet another unsung hero who prevents the aliens from reaching Earth.
"Have a good journey, Mr. Deckard". David told Weyland to also have a good journey.
We know that Deckard encounters an engineer ship again, why doesn't he remember the one on Acheron? Executive Carter tells us why. "All you need to remember is special order 938". All evidence of the "adventure" had to be taken care of. When he encounters the engineer ship, he literally has no idea he's seen one before.
"The full work up" is something we won't learn about until the very last episode of Solara.
Special order 938 sits between 937 and 939.
Why did I have Graham do Burke when you can clearly hear Paul Reiser? This was not really my intention, but more of a problem. I covered him up as best I could.
It's suggested Burke may have nuked the colony and been given full blame for it, and in Charon, the upcoming spinoff, we'll learn more.
Hadley's hope may have been destroyed, or so everyone thinks, but that's not where the story of Acheron ends. It's only begun.
Charon, an Alien: Solara spinoff. Acheron still holds many secrets, and so does the forbidden planet known as LV-223. After the atmosphere processor explosion that killed 158 colonists, Weyland-Yutani has gained full control of the planet and decided to begin the second phase of colonization construction as radiation levels drop thanks to secondary processors. With permanent habitats already constructed far away from what was Hadley's hope, a new batch of colonists are on their way to make a new life working the recycling plant that was to make Acheron self sufficient and profitable. But there are many dangers and secrets on Acheron, and it's neighbors. Secrets that may once again doom this dark, cold little moon.
https://i.imgur.com/jHmYZj9.jpg
Yep, all A.J.
John is one of a kind. They only made one of him. Obviously Walter won out, but he escaped recycling by pretending to be a Droid.
He also cost as much as the robo flops from RoboCop 2.
I chose queen. It seemed to fit with John's "awakening".
He also names the most precious life in the universe to him, and the "love" his creator told him about. But we'll get to that later.
So I have a question - and apologies if I've missed this in the other episodes - is John one of a kind? Because that's a whole lot of androids pretending otherwise!
Also, who choose Queen? AJ did a good job singing along to that.
John is born into a new world that doesn't consider him alive, it only considers him property.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi38DBx30pY
MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t3ys3s92m3gdi4w/AlienSolaraJohn.mp3?dl=0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9VYQsBRv-k
I didn't like her noooo either, but you have to remember they don't record in studios with million dollar equipment. She couldn't scream like you'd expect and it would have blown the audio to hell if she did.
I couldn't find a better explosion for the shuttle, I had to go with what I had.
Yes, we go back to the ship. In fact we learn what John was doing for an hour. The ship is very important going forward.
Yep, no slaughter fest. My aliens are different, half of them anyway.
Church continues to be a dick in 4.
I know you've said before you're not too into the Engineer war thing but I'm glad to see it still being embraced and the possibility of going back to the explore the ship is still there.
I wasn't expecting
Spoiler
Fortunately for me only one piece of re-used dialogue but I think we know each other's thoughts on that by now!
And Dr Church. Also wasn't the character I was expecting. Since you're not going for the same Church from the comics I'm interested to see how you progress with him.
All in all, I'm still very much enjoying the dramas and I'm eager to listen to more.
John. An Alien: Solara short. Learn the origins of John as he comes to the realization that he is more than an android.
Mr. Deckard. An Alien: Solara short. Mr. Deckard is a complicated man, and so is his story.
Cast interviews from Captain Anderson, Stephanie Carlson and the rest of the cast as they discuss their personal history with the alien films.
https://soundcloud.com/anarchist86ed/doctor-church
I really want to see 'hear' more audio dramas made in the Alien, Predator and AvP archives.