Alien: The Cold Forge - Titan Books

[Huggs]

Never met anybody who wasn't crappin' like a teenager after a few doses.

Like...Gojira...it restores the balance.

[Local Trouble]

Another question: why did it take Sudler a whole year to reach RB-232?

[SM]

It's a long way.

[Local Trouble]

But his inner monologue said that RB-232 was only ten parsecs from Earth.  That's closer than LV-426.

It'll be hard to get to an art store ten parsecs from Earth, but he'll figure something out.

[SM]

I asked them to change that to 30 or 40 parsecs.  It also throws up a couple of continuity errors.  Dorian tells Anne at one point "One week and nap and you could be on Gateway Station", while earlier it says that it'd take a lifeboat 10 years to get back to Gateway.  I'm guessing that didn't get addressed either.

[Local Trouble]

Sudler also makes it clear that he likes the passage of time while he's in hypersleep, so maybe he told them to go slow on purpose?  Although, that would seem to be at odds with his job as a company hatchetman.  A job that he apparently relishes.

[SM]

Yeah I wasn't sure what was going on with the timeframes.  A small private ship like the Athenian may not have as powerful a hyperdrive and therefore be slower - but that was exceptionally slow.

[Local Trouble]

For someone as eager to prove his worth to the company by cutting costs, I'd imagine that Sudler would try to get around as much as possible.  Then again, maybe it's far more costly for the company to send a fast ship like the Patna than its auditors are likely to save with their various investigations.

[SM]

I'm thinking cost savings for an installation would be greater than the expense of the faster ship.

[Local Trouble]

I guess it just reminded me of this bit from the Alien 3 novelization:

Andrews sat back in his chair, his eyes cutting into his guest. 'At 0700 hours I received a reply to my report from the Network. I may point out that to the best of my knowledge this is the first high-level, priority communication this installation has ever received. Even when Fiorina was a working, functioning mining and refining operation it was never so honoured. You know why?'

Clemens sipped his tea. 'High-level priority communications have to go through subspace to beat the time problem. That costs plenty.'

Andrews was nodding. 'More than you or I'll ever see.'

[HuDaFuK]

Yeah, but that book's concept of space travel was whack. Like, Andrews' entire family was going to be dead by the time he got home, yet the Marines in Aliens could get to the colony in a few weeks.

[426Buddy]

Well the Nostomo was only worth 42 million. That's minus payload, of course.

[SM]

Yeah, but that book's concept of space travel was whack. Like, Andrews' entire family was going to be dead by the time he got home, yet the Marines in Aliens could get to the colony in a few weeks.

Yeah ADF got the time dilation things a bit mixed up in Alien 3.  He said Jones would be long dead by the time Ripley got back from memory.

I guess it just reminded me of this bit from the Alien 3 novelization:

I was agreeing that spending money on a faster ship seems more sensible than an installation running for an extra 12 months if it's not cost effective.

[Local Trouble]

I was agreeing that spending money on a faster ship seems more sensible than an installation running for an extra 12 months if it's not cost effective.

That makes sense.  I was just trying for a no-prize since this novel is held in such high regard.

Too bad they didn't listen about the ten parsecs.  He just repeated it again! 

[SM]

Too bad indeed.