Egg on Sulaco

[SM]

Bishop was ECA and there's no evidence he was secretly programmed by Burke or The Company.
He has no motive.
He has no time.

Plz cut and paste and put at the top of every page.

[oberonqa]

in my opinion. Bishop put the egg on the Sulaco, either the company or Burke programmed him to get an egg and bring it back to  Earth. so  Bishop got an egg on his way to the comm tower, put it on the 2nd dropship, sedated Hicks, flew back to the Sulaco with it, came back (late) for Ripley. and thats it.

Bishop states earlier in the movie that he "cannot harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being."  Given that he has gathered enough information via observation and testimony that the Alien is a dangerous lifeform, he would not have been involved in bringing an Egg onboard the Sulaco. 

As for programming him to bring the egg back, this kind of reprogramming basically entails overriding one of Issac Asimov's "Three Laws" that Bishop was referencing when he stated he cannot hurt or allow a human to be hurt.  These laws are generally accepted to be in place whenever dealing with artificial intelligence and are a cornerstone of all AI programming regardless of the fiction or medium.  You would have a better chance of reprogramming Bishop to bark like a dog than overriding the Three Laws (which are generally described as being autonomously integrated into every part of the AI so as to make such reprogramming impossible to accomplish without compromising the overall integrity of the AI as a whole.)

One scenario where the Three Laws were bypassed that I am aware of is "I, Robot"... but that basically involved the artificial intelligence being made self-aware and was therefore, no longer an artificial intelligence and was just an intelligent life form (translation: it's actions were no longer dictated by programming, but by conscious choice) and was therefore no longer bound by the Three Laws.  If you were to apply the "I, Robot" scenario to Bishop, you would be freeing him of the Three Laws, but you would also be making him his own person and therefore free to make his own decisions.  And in that scenario, his response to Burke trying to get him to bring an Egg back would be about the same as any other sane and rational person put in that position... which would be to refuse.

[Local Trouble]

Bishop states earlier in the movie that he "cannot harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being."  Given that he has gathered enough information via observation and testimony that the Alien is a dangerous lifeform, he would not have been involved in bringing an Egg onboard the Sulaco.

Bishop was all set to preserve the two live facehuggers in stasis for return to the company labs, but that's probably because doing so wouldn't pose an immediate danger to anyone.  They were safely contained.

However, you're right that placing an egg free of the confines of a secure stasis tube on board the ship would doubtless violate his programming.  Regardless, as SM said, he had no plausible opportunity or motive for doing so anyway.

[oberonqa]

Bishop was all set to preserve the two live facehuggers in stasis for return to the company labs, but that's probably because doing so wouldn't pose an immediate danger to anyone.  They were safely contained.

That was prior to the incident at the Atmosphere Processor.  At that particular point, he was still collecting data and had no knowledge of what they were.  All he had to go by at that point was Ripley's testimony which no one on the mission was taking seriously enough for any number of reasons (bravado, lack of data, unbelievable story, etc).  From a purely logical point of view (which is how Bishop would assess any situation), the facehugger specimens were no different than any other lifeform humanity was aware of at that point in time.  They weren't dangerous because there was no data to say otherwise.

[SM]

This comes up when Bishop, Ripley, Hudson and Vasquez are discussing the Alien life cycle - which was post AP ambush.  Everything Ripley had said had been confirmed by that point.

[oberonqa]

This comes up when Bishop, Ripley, Hudson and Vasquez are discussing the Alien life cycle - which was post AP ambush.  Everything Ripley had said had been confirmed by that point.

Ah I could have sworn that was before the AP when they were still looking for PDT's.... your right SM!

[Local Trouble]

That's why he's SM.

[oberonqa]

That's why he's SM.

Absolutely!  =)

[Xenoscream]

David did it :-D

[Mrcreosote]

in my opinion. Bishop put the egg on the Sulaco, either the company or Burke programmed him to get an egg and bring it back to  Earth. so  Bishop got an egg on his way to the comm tower, put it on the 2nd dropship, sedated Hicks, flew back to the Sulaco with it, came back (late) for Ripley. and thats it.

Bishop states earlier in the movie that he "cannot harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being."  Given that he has gathered enough information via observation and testimony that the Alien is a dangerous lifeform, he would not have been involved in bringing an Egg onboard the Sulaco. 

As for programming him to bring the egg back, this kind of reprogramming basically entails overriding one of Issac Asimov's "Three Laws" that Bishop was referencing when he stated he cannot hurt or allow a human to be hurt.  These laws are generally accepted to be in place whenever dealing with artificial intelligence and are a cornerstone of all AI programming regardless of the fiction or medium.  You would have a better chance of reprogramming Bishop to bark like a dog than overriding the Three Laws (which are generally described as being autonomously integrated into every part of the AI so as to make such reprogramming impossible to accomplish without compromising the overall integrity of the AI as a whole.)

One scenario where the Three Laws were bypassed that I am aware of is "I, Robot"... but that basically involved the artificial intelligence being made self-aware and was therefore, no longer an artificial intelligence and was just an intelligent life form (translation: it's actions were no longer dictated by programming, but by conscious choice) and was therefore no longer bound by the Three Laws.  If you were to apply the "I, Robot" scenario to Bishop, you would be freeing him of the Three Laws, but you would also be making him his own person and therefore free to make his own decisions.  And in that scenario, his response to Burke trying to get him to bring an Egg back would be about the same as any other sane and rational person put in that position... which would be to refuse.

this! this is the one!!

[SM]

Bishop could accurately ascertain that a facehugger in stasis is no threat to a human, so could therefore follow such an order.
However he could cast the net wider and also reasonably decide that Company experimentation with a facehugger would involve the death of a human and not follow the order.

[Local Trouble]

Experimentation with a facehugger could involve laboratory animals too.

[SM]

Indeed it might.
It also might not.

[Local Trouble]

The point is, I have hard time believing that Bishop would "reasonably decide" that the company would forego laboratory animals and jump straight to human experimentation.  Ripley?  Sure.  Bishop?  Nah.

[SM]

It would depend on the point in the film.  When Burke first ordered it, probably not.  Later on - he might be more likely.