Are LV-1201 Aliens sentient?

[Xenomrph]

I'll take direct observation -- from the perspective of all three species, no less -- over the ignorance of a handful of scientists who've studied the Aliens for a matter of hours.

Yeah, and what we observe is that the Aliens the Rookie and the Predator encounter adhere to predictable patterns and end up dying, even when they attack en masse and from multiple directions. All it goes to show is either the Rookie and the Predator are REALLY amazing and substantially better than their peers, or (as mentioned earlier) Six is also better than her peers.

We're talking about a species that can take traits from the host, on some level "ability" will end up being inherent on some physical level if the host species end up being different enough. Why not the mental ability, too?

The 'AvP' novelization goes out of its way to demonstrate that Grid is superior to his Alien buddies, both physically and mentally.

[MadassAlex]

Because there's no reason for Aliens to take mental ability from hosts. As Xhan pointed out, they look for patterns in the environment and in prey with entirely different priorities compared to other organisms. Taking mental attributes from hosts can't benefit the Aliens, but there is the possibility that it would interrupt their thought processes enough to make them less effective survivors and hunters.

The reason Aliens take physical traits from their hosts (which seems mostly limited to skeletal structure) is that having the same locomotive functions as large organisms from the environment allows them to dominate the terrain. Aliens don't need to know exactly what grass or water is, they just have to understand how potential prey organisms interact with those environmental elements. Having the mentality of a rhino in Africa wouldn't assist with that, but having a mentality with alien priority would.

As for the novelisation -- the EU is too incongruous to draw from reliably. Obviously, everything to do with the post-Aliens narrative is down the drain with the implicit retcon that came with Alien 3, and then you have things like some guy beating up multiple Aliens or Alien/Predator/Human hybrids that throw facehuggers. I think there's even one novel that tries to claim that humans created the Aliens, but I'm shady on the details of that (heard it second-hand). In addition, Rebellion specifically pointed out that they were drawing on the first two Alien films and the first Predator film primarily.

Yeah, and what we observe is that the Aliens the Rookie and the Predator encounter adhere to predictable patterns and end up dying, even when they attack en masse and from multiple directions. All it goes to show is either the Rookie and the Predator are REALLY amazing and substantially better than their peers, or (as mentioned earlier) Six is also better than her peers.

I suspect that's mainly due to AI limitations. In any case, the Aliens had more complicated combat patterns than both the human and Predator adversaries, so by comparison we can make a good guess at what the game was trying to express.

My interpretation, overall, is that Rookie, Lord and Six were all essentially normal members of their species that were in the right place at the right time to develop the know-how they needed. Lord was an experienced enough hunter to qualify for Elite status, after all, and Rookie had complete marine training and the luck to take on a couple of Aliens one-on-one before moving on to multiple target scenarios. I don't see anything inherent about them.

As a disclaimer, I have a nurture-over-nature perspective on life in general. If you disagree with that perspective, we're destined to do this forever. 

[Xenomrph]

Because there's no reason for Aliens to take mental ability from hosts.

Yeah I figured that part would be mis-read, I worded it poorly. I didn't mean the Alien would be taking mental abilities from the host, I don't think they do that. I was more meaning that "genetic variance" is sort of an inherent trait in the Alien, and not all Aliens are physically identical. As such, perhaps their brains aren't all "wired" the same way, so not every Alien thinks the same, either.

As for the novelisation -- the EU is too incongruous to draw from reliably.

I'm hesitant to call it "EU" - it's based on the movie script, and just expands on it to write it in book format. It often clarifies things that are on-screen (or on the page in the script) but weren't made immediately clear in the movie itself. Calling a novelization "EU" is sort of like saying '2001' by Arthur C Clarke is "EU" when compared to the Kubrick movie. They're sort of two sides of the same coin, looking at the same ideas and presenting them in 2 different media.

My interpretation, overall, is that Rookie, Lord and Six were all essentially normal members of their species that were in the right place at the right time to develop the know-how they needed.

Yeah, that's the part I really disagree with. Heck, I'll see if I can pick some Rebellion guys' brains and see what they think, just for trivia's sake.

I think there's even one novel that tries to claim that humans created the Aliens, but I'm shady on the details of that (heard it second-hand).

I don't know where you heard that, but it's definitely false.

[MadassAlex]

Novelisations of films will often express ideas that are different or not even touched upon in the films themselves.

Exactly like Grid being some sort of alpha Alien. Nothing in the film, at all, suggest that he is, and none of the films suggest such a thing as a different class of Alien exists. I can accept variance in Alien competence, but I can't see why some sort of line would be drawn arbitrarily -- it seems more appropriate to see it as a continuum.

[Xenomrph]

Nothing in the film, at all, suggest that he is, and none of the films suggest such a thing as a different class of Alien exists.

I disagree, I feel the movie does it, it just doesn't do it as well as the novelization (and script) does.
Like, that was the entire point of Grid as a "character", he's meant to be an individual, set apart from the other Aliens. That's why he was created, as an attempt to include an Alien "character" who wasn't just another Alien.

[MadassAlex]

It could be argued that he earned his characterisation through killing the two Predators -- and there's no better symbol of that than the grid-patterned scar he earned while fighting Celtic. There's just as much or more evidence to suggest that Grid's exalted position comes from his learning than through inherent superiority.

[Xenomrph]

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[MadassAlex]

/nods

[FUZION PREDATOR]

Don't you butcher 2 Predators , while those same Predators murder your buddies alongside you?

The Predators kill the substantially weaker jungle Aliens. In any case, there are Predator corpses elsewhere in the game and they weren't killed by marines.

Of course, you also butcher an Elite Predator -- but you've just learned how to fight Predators from killing two of his buddies, so that could be experience speaking once more.

The one thing the game tries to impress upon the player in all 3 campaigns is that your player character is special and more capable in some way. In all 3 campaigns you go up against crazy odds and prevail. The Rookie, the Predator, and Six are all shown as being badasses and superior to the other members of their race.

Not necessarily. Rookie would've gotten hosed by Aliens if he was in the initial confrontation, and there's numerous instances of him missing out on major conflicts or being a small-priority target compared to others. And I don't see how Six's actions are at all exceptional for an Alien, taking into consideration film evidence. Lord is exceptional in that I doubt any Predator could kill that many Aliens going by film canon, but I don't see why others couldn't butcher that many marines or find ways to take down singular elite foes like Praetorians.

'Course, that doesn't explain when he walks into the Queen's chamber, guns down a bunch of Aliens and turns the Queen into a fine dinner. Or when he killed two Praetorians and a swarm of Aliens. But then again, Rookie's campaign is filled with ridiculously dangerous situations compared to the Alien and Predator ones.

Besides, if nothing else, Six doesn't seem any different from Kane's Son, Acheron Alien #Whatever, Spike or Auriga Alien #WhatHaveYou. Aliens from those films accomplish feats of about equal scale, but not one of them is presented as "special", "superior" or "destined". They're just Aliens being Aliens.

Do you mean the net? I don't think that counts, the plasma shots are pretty substantially different.

I don't see why it wouldn't count. If the last thing that was thrown at high speed from a Predator hurt, why wouldn't this substantially scarier ball of energy hurt, too?

And even if other Aliens dodged the shots, it still remains that some Aliens got hosed and others didn't, despite being in the same situation. That sort of proves my point.

All it proves is that some Aliens moved out of the way and some didn't. We don't know what reasons, but there's no evidence to suggest that there's some sort of advanced class of Alien that's quicker on the uptake. The more rational alternative is that the Aliens who get the opportunity to observe become superior through learning.

More precisely 3 young preds corpse are found in the Pred campaign
1 in the jungle (probably killed by some aliens)
1 in the hive, when you get the smart disc (again porbably killed by some aliens)
1 in a Marines complex, when you get the mines (maybe killed by marines or xenos?)

0 pred corpse in the marines campaign except the Pred boss you fight and kill of course

0 pred corpse in the aliens campaign except the 2 Pred bosses (+the Elite being fachugged)
and the 2 first preds are pretty effective even on normal mode (in my cases) they just butcher waves and waves of aliens until you decide to move.
I remember that (when on hard& nightmare mode) i wanted to let my bros do the job instead of me, and i leave them and wait. I started to count ...... and finally 5min latter, i decided to do the job myself after each preds killed about 20 aliens (each)


It seems that you're very lucky with your aliens AI, because in my case i always, always very quickly become alone.
I don't consider them useless, of course . They help me a lot against the 2 Pred bosses who focuse/kill  them and give my some opportunities to make some damages

[Joss Blaney]

I think its a little dangerous to use feats performed by a campaign protagonist as an indicator of that character's abilities.  Balancing story telling and enjoyable gameplay means that many "realistic" rules are thrown at the window.  In just about every FPS, you have the ability to heal from grievous wounds with magic white boxes with red crosses on them and survive multiple direct shots to the head.  The player character HAS to get to the end of the game, and it's no fun if you don't fight lots of enemies and are able to live through more than one hit, even if a real human/alien could never survive those conditions.  A novelization or a movie of any of the three campaigns from any of the AvP games would more than likely limit a protagonist's enemy encounters, even if they kept the core story as true as possible to the original.

As for the Xenomorphs' sentience on LV-1201?  One of the things I've always liked about Aliens is the mystery behind the true limits to their intelligence.  Its fun having them appear as simple killing machines to human onlookers.  They appear as highly dangerous animals, but with no obvious language or ability to use tools, they are ruled out as beneath human intelligence.  Then bam! they cut the power or burn their way out of a cage and take everyone by surprise.  Still, we never know if that is a simple-minded drive to try one method of attack after another until they kill their enemies or something bordering on sentience.  They're like the clever fox, constantly using its sly cunning to steel chickens from a farmer, but with many more physical advantages at hand.

The Alien character you play as in AvP 2 does things that clearly exceed this level of intelligence.  Destroying every little bit of the landing platform's technology at the end of the game to keep a dropship from stealing the Empress required sentience.  I think this was a gameplay choice on Monlith's behalf, something they thought was necessary to make the game fun for the player.  Interestingly, Monolith did cut something from the game that would have indicated Aliens can understand Engish.  During the level Vengeance, you can hear the mission briefing for Operation Savior as you crawl through the vents.  In the game's script files you see a mission objective that would have popped up here that said "Warn the Hive.  The Empress is in danger."  I think they cut this because they wanted to leave it up to you as to whether or not your character could understand what you they player can.

[predxeno]

Maybe the Alien in that story was just one of those super geniuses; a few humans in the entire population on Earth qualify, so maybe all the Aliens in the games are those rare geniuses for their own species.

[Joss Blaney]

Yeah, I'm down with varying levels of capability from xenomorph to xenomorph.  No two organisms of any species are created equally.  'The Alien' from AvP 2 and 'Six' from AvP2010 are certainly extraordinary specimens.  The problem with the gameplay examples of ability is that those Aliens are both geniuses and super-soldiers.  Its like having Einstein as not only one of Earth's few super genius, but also a man with super-human strength and resilience.  Either way, I like the idea of Xenomorphs being able to understand much more about humans and our technology than one would expect, but I think it only works when there's a lot of gray area about just HOW much they understand.  Piecing together how some words relate to actions is one thing, but understanding entire English conversations is just getting a little too close to driving cars and using machine guns...