Alien3: Why didn't the company just return to LV-426? +Resurrection question

[StayFrosty]

This one's been bugging me for a while.

In ALIENS when they nuke LV-426.... you can see only a small part of the planet was nuked. Now LV-426 was actually a moon, was it not? So I assume it was quite a small planetoid. That makes the nuclear explosion we saw likely even smaller than it actually appeared.

Either way, it can be assumed that the derelict was likely NOT nuked. In fact, the derelict probably remains intact. Aliens: Special Edition and common sense implies that the derelict was a looong way away from Hadley's Hope. So instead of going to the trouble of hunting down Ripley and hoping they can get the Queen chestburster out of her, why didn't the company just return to LV-426 and recover the eggs in the derelict? The same could also be said about Resurrection... why go through the trouble of cloning Ripley when the derelict is likely intact on LV-426?

In any event, why not at least TRY going back to LV-426 to see if the eggs are still there?

This has been bothering me for a long time. It seems Alien3 is full of plot-holes. There's the obvious stuff... and I also wonder about something less obvious, like why the Dog Alien goes around killing everybody instead of preparing hosts for the arrival of the Queen?

And now to nitpick Resurrection..... This is something I don't hear people complaining about enough.... Even if we assume the company could find Ripley's blood so they can clone her, what makes you think it would be possible to get the Queen DNA out of her blood? It sounds pretty retarded that the data of her being impregnated by a Queen would be implanted in her DNA strands. And if we assume that's possible, why bother cloning Ripley? Why not just clone the Queen fetus and grow it in a lab?

[Xenomrph]

The EU actually covers a lot of this, assuming you take EU stuff as "canon".

1. LV-426 isn't a planetoid, it's about 86% the size of Earth according to the USCM Tech Manual. In a deleted scene in 'Alien' the planet's size is given as 1200km which is absolutely miniscule and doesn't make sense, so the tech manual retcons it to something that works a lot better.

2. the tech manual also points out that the derelict was behind a mountain range and likely survived the atmosphere processor explosion. It makes mention of a second team sent to LV-426 shortly after the events in 'Alien3'. Likewise, according to the upcoming 'Aliens: Colonial Marines' game, recent 'Aliens: Infestation' game that just came out on the DS, and AvPClassic PC game from 2000, they did end up returning to LV-426

3. As for them not returning to the Derelict in Resurrection, it was destroyed at some point between the events of 'Aliens' and 'Resurrection'. Whether you want to take the EU route (wherein it was destroyed in AvPClassic's Marine campaign) or just assume it was destroyed in 'Aliens' when the AP station exploded, it sorts itself out pretty easily.
You also have to remember that no one really knew what had happened on LV-426 -- the rest of the Company thought Ripley was crazy, and it was Burke who took the initiative to send someone out to check Ripley's grid reference and find the Derelict. I'm not sure offhand what the timeline was like for 'Alien3', but it might have occurred within the "17 days" window that Hicks quotes, in which case the Marines wouldn't have been declared missing yet so the Company wouldn't have even known there was a problem on LV-426.

4. As for cloning Ripley, it's one of those "movie science" things you just have to roll with. Ultimately the idea doesn't actually make sense, and it just served as a way to bring back Ripley's character. As for the Queen fetus, I doubt they'd be able to clone that - it got incinerated with Ripley when she killed herself, after all.

Edit-- SM's Alien Universe Timeline pegs 'Alien3' as happening about a week after 'Aliens', which would fall within the "17 days" window. I'm not sure where that date comes from, but he's a frequent poster here so I'm sure he can explain it.

[wmmvrrvrrmm]

In any event, why not at least TRY going back to LV-426 to see if the eggs are still there?

I would imagine that the company didn't want to be found to be involved in looking for these things and would need a way of covering their tracks

[Xenomrph]

But why not? As far as anyone else knew, no one had ever seen them before. It's not like they were an illegal, controlled cargo or something like that.

[OmegaZilla]

what makes you think it would be possible to get the Queen DNA out of her blood?

Parasitism of the Queen makes it so. It's not fully implied in the movie (which, admittedly, doesn't go too far explaining), but here goes what I think. In certain species of Angler Fish, the male is smaller than the female, and when he meets his mate, it becomes her parasite, and their blood flows fuse - this way, the male takes nutrition from the female via the blood flow. We could have a similar process in Aliens. If you see, in the beginning of Resurrection, when they extract the immature Queen chestburster from Ripley 8, at a certain point, they cut out a thin tube that links the Queen with Ripley. That could be a sort ofd grotesque umbilical cord, that fused the Queen's blood flow with Ripley's. Thus, Alien DNA in Ripley's blood.

why bother cloning Ripley? Why not just clone the Queen fetus and grow it in a lab?

That's a pretty good question. Perhaps they just wanted to play it safe.

Regarding the thread question, in Resurrection it is stated that "Ellen Ripley died trying to wipe this species out. For all intents and purposes, she succeeded", so it is pretty certain that the Derelict isn't around here anymore by the time Perez says that, and that it was Ripley that wiped the species out (for what Perez actually knows; there may have been other worlds hosting Aliens, unknown to humans), so, if the Derelict wasn't destroyed by the explosion at Hadley's Hope (most likely), it certainly was in the time that goes between Aliens and Alien3.

[Xenomrph]

Thus, Alien DNA in Ripley's blood.

There's a problem with that, though - does your mother have any of your father's DNA inside her? I mean he literally inseminated her, right? And then you grew inside her womb, complete with an umbilical cord and everything, and you were a mixture of your mother and father's DNA, right? But at the end of it all, your mom is still your mom, she's not some sort of mom/dad hybrid, right?\

Of course the obvious handwave is "it's an Alien".

[OmegaZilla]

Not seeing what the problem is.
Blood flows fused, Queen Blood in Ripley blood, Queen DNA in Ripley's blood. Used 'grotesque umbilical cord' as a means of comparison, not literally. The thing I'm comparing the process with is the parasitism in those species of angler fish.

[Xenomrph]

The angler fish example is a good one, although the problem is that after they de-couple I suspect each individual angler fish flushes the other's blood out of its system, similar to how human bodies can reject incorrect blood types during transfusions.
That, and while you could clone from any biological matter, it's stem cells that would cause things to grow. The only way to get a Queen out of Ripley would be if the Queen's genetic material somehow fused itself to every single blood cell in her body. Merely "mixing" them wouldn't be good enough, they'd have to literally bond such that when you're cloning Ripley you'd get the Queen too.

[OmegaZilla]

The angler fish example is a good one, although the problem is that after they de-couple I suspect each individual angler fish flushes the other's blood out of its system,

As far as I know, no. The male essentially becomes a parasitic extension of the female, the purpose of which is only to fecundate her. In the species I mean, e.g. Cryptopsaras couesii, when they fuse they fuse, they don't de-couple.
That, and the Queen's blood (thus her DNA) is still present in Ripley's blood, following what I said. How they managed to do X and Y with it is another can of worms.

[Xenomrph]

That, and the Queen's blood (thus her DNA) is still present in Ripley's blood, following what I said

Well yeah, but the point is that in order to get the Queen then the Queen's DNA would need to have fused with Ripley's blood cells.

I'm not saying that didn't happen or that it's outside the realm of possibility, just that merely "mixing" the blood isn't good enough.

[OmegaZilla]

Perhaps the parasitism worked also on a blood level, but I simply answered to the question 'how'd you find that in that?'. And I already said  that how they managed to do what they did is another can of worms.

[wmmvrrvrrmm]

But why not? As far as anyone else knew, no one had ever seen them before. It's not like they were an illegal, controlled cargo or something like that.

well, I suppose the less they shared with anyone else about the creature the better in case there was anything interesting to be discovered that they could make money out of , they would keep it to themselves as a secret and wouldn't have to give in to rules put down by higher authorities

[StayFrosty]

Ok, really good explanations you guys have.

However, these "EU" explanations really just seem to be an explanation for obvious contradictions and plot holes in the movies. Many, many movies out there have contradictions, but if you're talented enough, anyone can create their own explanations to explain these things. So, these explanations came AFTER the movies themselves, just as an attempt to fix what the movies got wrong. Either way, Resurrection was a pretty bad movie, and the contradictions make it much worse. Some comic book answer can't fix that for me. I've usually enjoyed Alien3, and just a few days ago I watched the director's cut (my first time seeing the movie in years), and I honestly hated it. I don't see what's so great about the director's cut.... I found the movie to be boring, irrelevant (to the alien) and it just carries on for too long. Really quite pointless.

For me, mixing comics, books, and video games in with a movie series just doesn't make sense. All canon has to be contained within one genre, for me. The only way I'd consider something to be canon with the Alien movie Universe would be an Alien TV show, I guess. But it would have to be live action.... not a cartoon. I still wouldn't mind reading some of the comics just to extend the experience for me, and get more of a dose of "Alien". But it's hard to take it seriously.

BUT, now I have more questions about the time between ALIEN and ALIENS.

1 - Why does it appear that after ALIEN nobody else picked up the signal the derelict was emitting? The colonists were there for a number of years, but it appears they never picked up the warning signal, nor did the teams and ships that helped build the colony.

2 - We assume that humans had no previous contact with the Space Jockies. Also, ALIEN takes place fairly soon in humanity's future.... and we see that the technology humans are using isn't exactly "Star Trek" quality. In fact, we can easily assume human's built their technology all on their own, while in Star Trek there were great leaps in technological advancement because humans were using alien technology. So... to put it short.... how was Ripley able to decipher ANY of the Space Jockey's signal?

3 - From what we hear in ALIEN, the company wanted the alien pretty badly. So, why does it appear there were no other attempts to recover it? Ash's words imply the company had previously known about the Alien, the signal, and the derelict, and it was the intention all along to send the Nostromo crew out after it. Yet after the events of ALIEN, it appears the company forgot all about the alien. The company could have sent Hadley's Hope after it, but they did not do so until FIFTY SEVEN years later when Ripley returns and "reminds" them about the alien.

In fact, the events of AVP and AVP:R (and probably Prometheus) prove the company did know about the Alien. Prometheus may even show that the company did know the derelict was there. I could easily say that the company was just too freaked out and scared by the Alien after losing the Nostromo, but AVP and AVP:R were even a worse disaster than what happened to the Nostromo, so you would think those events would have scared the company enough to not even send the Nostromo after the alien. Thus, it's back to square one, and we don't know why the company didn't send anybody after the Alien between the first two movies.

[OmegaZilla]

1 - Why does it appear that after ALIEN nobody else picked up the signal the derelict was emitting? The colonists were there for a number of years, but it appears they never picked up the warning signal, nor did the teams and ships that helped build the colony.

No one bothered to explain that in the movies, but the most popular explanation (Cameron's if I recall right) is that the Derelict got engulfed in a lava flow and the signal-emitting device was damaged.

So... to put it short.... how was Ripley able to decipher ANY of the Space Jockey's signal?

Suspension of disbelief.

3 - From what we hear in ALIEN, the company wanted the alien pretty badly. So, why does it appear there were no other attempts to recover it? Ash's words imply the company had previously known about the Alien, the signal, and the derelict, and it was the intention all along to send the Nostromo crew out after it [...]

There's a quite massive discussion about that, you can read it here if you want.

In fact, the events of AVP and AVP:R (and probably Prometheus) prove the company did know about the Alien.

AvP, no. AvPR, maybe.

[Xenomrph]

1 - Why does it appear that after ALIEN nobody else picked up the signal the derelict was emitting? The colonists were there for a number of years, but it appears they never picked up the warning signal, nor did the teams and ships that helped build the colony.

In the 'Alien' novelization, it was because Dallas switched off the transmitter. In the 'Aliens' novelization, it was because of seismic activity on LV-426. Those are both based on the scripts, and they both came out concurrently with the movies' respective releases, so it's not really stuff coming out "after" the movies like you'd mentioned.

At least, it shows that there was an explanation as far back as 'Alien', even though Cameron happened to ignore it and come up with his own explanation when making 'Aliens'.

2 - We assume that humans had no previous contact with the Space Jockies. Also, ALIEN takes place fairly soon in humanity's future.... and we see that the technology humans are using isn't exactly "Star Trek" quality. In fact, we can easily assume human's built their technology all on their own, while in Star Trek there were great leaps in technological advancement because humans were using alien technology. So... to put it short.... how was Ripley able to decipher ANY of the Space Jockey's signal?

Fooking magic, really. There's a lot of shit going on in 'Alien' that doesn't make a whole lot of sense - you can blame that on the writers; for all its strengths, the script really is not among them. It's salvaged by fantastic acting, directing, and art direction.