ALIEN: The Weyland-Yutani Report (S.D. Perry, 160 pages)

[RakaiThwei]

I'm not sure Fox really is fixing AVP canon as many think, this isn't the first time they tried to reboot the series, all one needs to do is look up John Shirley's interviews on this forum for Predator: Forever Midnight.  Fox wanted to reboot the franchise with its new line of DH Press novels but nothing ever came of it.

That much is true, but I also don't remember Fox trying to promote the hell out of that attempted reboot as well.

[Local Trouble]

If WY influenced anything it would be behind the scenes.  Lubing some top Generals bank account so that he might send assets one way or another. 

A grunt isn't going to give a good goddamn what some suit says to him.

Would've been interesting to see how different the "nuke the site from orbit" conversation may have been if Gorman had been conscious at the time.  Ripley probably got lucky that it was a rank-and-file grunt who was suddenly in charge of the mission, versus a pushover like Gorman or some other bought-and-paid-for officer.

[Kimarhi]

I never got the impression that Gorman was bought though.  Just an inexperienced LT that Burke might've pulled some strings to get in place so he could try and manipulate or maybe just an inexperienced LT like most platoons have already.

He wasn't leadership material but he did seem to have decent moral fiber when it came down to it.

Plus contrary to popular relief you only have to follow LEGAL orders.  Bringing an alien specimen back trying to avoid ICC quarantine would strike me as illegal so any Marine could've stopped Gorman if he made that mistake.

[Local Trouble]

If I were writing the bio for Gorman, I'd say his daddy was a moderately powerful exec at the company, but generally regarded by the corps as a dickhead with a silver spoon (and a corncob) up his ass.  Burke then pulled some strings with a USCM colonel that was in the company's pocket and got him assigned to the mission as a favor to Gorman Sr.

Yeah, I read a lot into Burke's line: "You had your chance, Gorman!"

[predxeno]

According to the novelization, the reason an inexperienced Gorman was put in charge was because the higher-ups were too cheap to get someone better.

[HuDaFuK]

I thought it implied Gorman engineered it because of his inexperience. The CMTM said the same.

[Local Trouble]

I didn't get the impression that Gorman was in a position to engineer much of anything.  I figured he just was the beneficiary of nepotism and honestly wanted a chance to prove himself, but he couldn't help being a product of his upbringing.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

Service personal don't get paid by the hour. Most likely the top brass thought it was a downed transmitter or something, so why not just send in the green lieutenant and a bunch of scraps.

[Local Trouble]

That would have been my impression as well if it weren't for the vibe I got any time I saw Burke interacting with Gorman.  It wouldn't surprise me if Gorman was instructed not to ask too many questions and to look the other way if it seemed like Burke was up to something shady.

Mods, feel free to split this discussion if it veers too far off-topic.  I don't know how much of this is relevant to the book.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

It wouldn't surprise me if Gorman was instructed not to ask too many questions and to look the other way if it seemed like Burke was up to something shady.

Burke was acting on his own though. The company wasn't aware of Burke's machinations.

[Kimarhi]

An LT is the private of the officer corps with college education.  A 2nd lt is going to be very inexperienced and it usually takes them awhile as a first lt before they start finding their footing. 

I've never met a 2nd lt that was worth a damn that wasn't enlisted first.   

Gorman's cluelessness just happened to be a byproduct of the way we have our system set up.  You are basically putting a college educated private in charge and saying run dis shit. 

This looking at it from the military perspective. 

[Local Trouble]

Burke was acting on his own though. The company wasn't aware of Burke's machinations.

It's deja vu all over again.  Mind you, I'm not saying that whoever gave Gorman his marching orders was in on the whole thing, just the part about ignoring Burke's shenanigans.

This looking at it from the military perspective.

And I'd agree if Burke's line hadn't given me the impression that it went deeper than that.

[Ultramorph]

In response to the question of whether or not we'll be buying the Report, there's no way I'm spending $300+ on it, but I will pick up the cheaper standard version when it comes out.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

Burke was acting on his own though. The company wasn't aware of Burke's machinations.

It's deja vu all over again.  Mind you, I'm not saying that whoever gave Gorman his marching orders was in on the whole thing, just the part about give Burke a wide berth.

Burke was a junior executive in the Company so he might have had a certain amount of pull himself. Enough to reinstate Ripley at the very least. Or even to give Gorman's bank account a lube job.

But I would prefer to go with Occam's razor rather than cooking up wild conspiracy theories. If the company was involved why not just send in their own PMC's? Why involve a third-party at all? Before they arrived at LV-426 even Burke wasn't sure if the comm blackout had anything to do with his request to check out Ripley's co-ordinates.

[Local Trouble]

The way Burke phrased it, it sounded like it was someone else at the company who agreed to pick up Ripley's flight contract.  Maybe they did it at Burke's behest with no questions asked.  I don't know.  I'm not saying that whoever did it was in on it. If anyone was in on it to any degree, I'd say it was someone in the bioweapons division who was expecting a specimen of "something interesting."

The company didn't have free rein over the colony.  They owned a lot of the assets there and employed a lot of the settlers, but the colony itself was governed by the ECA.