What happened to ash?

[Cromartie]

WTF happened to ash? did he have a special order that if the crew found out about the Special order that he was to kill them?

[Darkness]

Ripley: What was your special order?
Ash: You read it. I thought it was clear.
Ripley: What was it?
Ash: Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded.

[Cromartie]

no i mean another special order assuming anyone found out about that special order.

[Darkness]

Well, that wasn't a special order to kill everybody. His priority was keeping the alien no matter what.

[SiL]

Dangit, D, you beat me to it.

[Cromartie]

So he just malfunctioned?

[SM]

No, no malfunction.  He simply followed the SO.

His orders were to ensure the safe return of the specimen.  If that meant he had to kill the crew, then so be it.  They were, after all, "expendable".

[Hankerson]

Ash was working perfectly fine. "All other priorities rescinded" simply means that all other priorities were canceled by the special order. When a general, or someone in charge, rescinds an order it becomes moot and of nonevent.

He wasn't exactly sure how to kill the crew because he wasn't designed for combat so he got creative, very creative. The fact that he was created for science, and not combat, was the reason he lost his head and failed his mission.

[Cromartie]

yes maybe but why did he start bleeding when he was chasing ripley?

[Newsfop]

Listen to the commentar with Ridley Scott; he explains that Ash is unfamiliar with human emotion and recoiled at the sight of Ripley in panic. It's possible that he was an older model of robot that was in constant need of maintenence. Recall the scene where the drinks a glass of what looks like milk. He was likely losing fluid and had to keep replacing it. His major malfunction began when someone finally hit him with a blunt instrument.

[SM]

Or, much more simple, he hurt his head when Ripley threw him against the wall.

And it's much more likely Ash was drinking milk.

[Meathead320]

Or, much more simple, he hurt his head when Ripley threw him against the wall.

And it's much more likely Ash was drinking milk.

I agree with that 100%.

Now here is a sinister thought, and one that could actually be evidence that WY knew about the Alien all along.

The original science officer had been recently replaced with Ash on their last mission, and at this time it was NOT yet standard procedure to have an android onboard. None of the crew knew about him.

The original science officer having been replaced by Ash recently, the Special Orders, him helping the Alien by letting it in when Cain was hugged, etc...Even earlier he had lied about the "warning" being a "distress signal". Ripley discovered it too late.

If he had been programmed to do all this, and then placed with the team, before the alien was known about, then that only leaves one conclusion, as far as I can tell:

WY knew about the alien before the Nostromo event ever took place.

So how would they know about it?

[SM]

No, the most WY knew was that they had been warned to stay away from the planet because of a hostile organism.  So they put Ash on board to ensure the Nostromo was re-routed and the speciment returned.

[SiL]

In the movie, they're only aware of a hostile organism.

In the novel, Ash expounds that the transmission - Which Ripley surmises was probably originally picked up from a drifting satelite thingy - was actually very detailed and gave a clear definition of the Alien, and that WY wanted it to see what it could do.

Either way, they had no knowledge of the Alien until they received that signal.

[Meathead320]

I did not read the Novel, and go by what I have seen on film.

I am still not convinced that WY did not have more information on the Alien before.