Humans awareness of extraterrestrials in the Alien Series

[Local Trouble]

Ripley was making an informed deduction based on what she was told by Mother, Ash and Burke.  That doesn't mean she was right.  By then, she was so paranoid that she was certain that Bishop II was an android. 

Now, being paranoid doesn't automatically make a person wrong, but it's something that needs to be taken into account if you're going to cite Ripley's beliefs as conclusive evidence of anything.

[Primordial]

Ripley was making an informed deduction based on what she was told by Mother, Ash and Burke.  That doesn't mean she was right.

By saying that, you don't take into account that she may have done some research about people who were involved with the special order while she was at Gateway.

By then, she was so paranoid that she was certain that Bishop II was an android.

When you first saw him, did you automatically think he was a human ? I didn't and I believe very few of the viewers did. Does that make us paranoid ? On a side note, 4 persons out of 10 on AvP galaxy voted Bishop II as droid despite the 'blood evidence'.

The scene with Bishop II is about Ripley being suspicious about his intentions, droid or not, and she was right. Her suspicions were justified.

Now, being paranoid doesn't automatically make a person wrong, but it's something that needs to be taken into account if you're going to cite Ripley's beliefs as conclusive evidence of anything.

In this case, I would rather say ''being wrong doesn't automatically make a person paranoid.''
My point is that what is shown and said in the movies has priority over the filmmakers intentions, if there is any contradiction. I agree she may not be right, but you have to demonstrate her statement is only based on deduction and she didn't make any research to find out that some individuals of the company had already heard about the alien, before going back to LV-426.

[Corporal Hicks]

but you have to demonstrate her statement is only based on deduction and she didn't make any research to find out that some individuals of the company had already heard about the alien, before going back to LV-426.

Can you demonstrate she did do research? I know where you're coming from but I find that quite unlikely. When we see her, she's a mess. Barely sleeping. Working a menial job. She doesn't look like she has much going on. Not until she stands up straight and decides to go along with Burke.

I think it's more likely that Local is right and it's just an informed decision. Hell, she might even be stretching the truth. She has her own agenda with these prisoners, she needs to convince them to potentially give up their lives to help her goal.

The Derelict would certainly have been exploited if it hadn't been destroyed. But first things first, alien life has priority over alien technology 

We still don't know if it actually was. I think it's safe to say something eventually happened to the Derelict due to Resurrection but that's not to say it was destroyed by the events of Aliens. There's quite a bit of leeway with that.

[Primordial]

I understand your stance is that she doesn't tell the truth whereas I think she is saying it. Yes, she has nightmares etc.. but that doesn't mean she didn't do any research. I think we have to agree to disagree here.

We still don't know if it actually was. I think it's safe to say something eventually happened to the Derelict due to Resurrection but that's not to say it was destroyed by the events of Aliens. There's quite a bit of leeway with that.

I believe the first thing Bishop II would have done after Ripley's suicide is to check out LV-426 and the Derelict if it was there.

However, this ship destroyed by the Hadley's Hope explosion is much too convenient imo because the 30km blast radius on this moon is less than 1% of the surface. And the ship would magically be within this range ? That is why I prefer the 'nuking it from orbit' theory. But to each their own. I remember reading a Local Trouble post, where he says the explosion triggered a volcanic activity which destroyed the ship.

[Corporal Hicks]

I believe the first thing Bishop II would have done after Ripley's suicide is to check out LV-426 and the Derelict if it was there.

Completely agree. It's one of the things Colonial Marines gets right.

However, this ship destroyed by the Hadley's Hope explosion is much too convenient imo because the 30km blast radius on this moon is less than 1% of the surface. And the ship would magically be within this range ? That is why I prefer the 'nuking it from orbit' theory. But to each their own.

Or some other cataclysm, but yeah. I've never brought into the blast taking it out. I've always wondered why no-one ever considered the Derelict for Alien 3.

[oduodu]

There is also the illium range that would have possibly blocked the shockwave from the nuclear blast.

In one of the alien scripts the knowledge about the existence of an alien lifeforms was gleaned from the beacon and it being decoded. So no one was down on LV 426 before the Nostromo crew touched down.

[Local Trouble]

I understand your stance is that she doesn't tell the truth whereas I think she is saying it. Yes, she has nightmares etc.. but that doesn't mean she didn't do any research. I think we have to agree to disagree here.

You'd think that's something she might have mentioned at the inquest...

I remember reading a Local Trouble post, where he says the explosion triggered a volcanic activity which destroyed the ship.

It's plausible enough.  We know that the derelict was already damaged by volcanic activity between Alien and Aliens.  It's not much of a stretch to believe that a powerful nuclear explosion could trigger another eruption that finished it off.

[Corporal Hicks]

It's plausible enough.  We know that the derelict was already damaged by volcanic activity between Alien and Aliens.  It's not much of a stretch to believe that a powerful nuclear explosion could trigger another eruption that finished it off.

It's as likely as anything else.

[Primordial]

You'd think that's something she might have mentioned at the inquest...

I was thinking after, because the inquest left her unsatisfied.

It's plausible enough.  We know that the derelict was already damaged by volcanic activity between Alien and Aliens.  It's not much of a stretch to believe that a powerful nuclear explosion could trigger another eruption that finished it off.

The idea is great, the hiccup is the time range. I recently read an article about the dinosaurs extinction and it was proposed that the 'Yucatan asteroid' lead to lava coming out of Earth 50000 years after the impact, which finished to kill the majority of life on Earth.
To make this work within a limited time range, we can theorize that LV-426 was so sensitive that a tiny shock would 'immediately' trigger the lava flow.

[Local Trouble]

Don't forget how small LV-426 is.  We're not talking about a planet the same size as Earth.  Hell, it's even smaller than our moon.

On a related note, there are very real fears that North Korea's nuclear weapons tests could trigger an eruption of Mount Paektu.  That would be bad.

[Primordial]

Don't forget how small LV-426 is.  We're not talking about a planet the same size as Earth.  Hell, it's even smaller than our moon.

True, but the energy equivalent of 100 000 000 megatons of TNT of the Yucatan impact is a large figure too.

On a related note, there are very real fears that North Korea's nuclear weapons tests could trigger an eruption of Mount Paektu.  That would be bad.

Indeed. Why such kind of decisions are being made is beyond me.

[Adam802]

Humanity never discovered alien life before the "Nostromo Incident" in the 1st film as far as im concerned.  Even the lady in the board room in Aliens says something to the effect of  "and found something never recorded once in over 500 surveyed worlds" when referring to the Alien. As for the clause in the Nostromo crew's contract about signals from possible intelligent life having to be investigated, i'm pretty sure that was just a contingency IN CASE of any discovery of alien life, though it never had to be enacted before the events in the 1st film. 

[EJA]

Well there's the mention of Arcturians in Aliens. A number of EU sources have mostly primitive life existing on other worlds that humans are well aware of, and of course, there have been numerous sporadic encounters with the Predators over the centuries.

[Valaquen]

Humanity never discovered alien life before the "Nostromo Incident" in the 1st film as far as im concerned.  Even the lady in the board room in Aliens says something to the effect of  "and found something never recorded once in over 500 surveyed worlds" when referring to the Alien.

There's nothing like the Alien, but she doesn't say there hasn't been any extraterrestrial life. Again, I'm thinking they've merely found microbrial and 'pond' life, but nothing animal-esque.

[Perfect-Organism]

The silliness behind never exploring the derelict again after Aliens, is another good reason to retcon alien 3 and AR.

Arcturians are definitely something that has been discovered.  I'm betting they are another experiment of the engineers.