Quote from: Local Trouble on Nov 12, 2014, 08:46:40 PM
They wouldn't need to if the aliens die out naturally after exhausting the target world of hosts.
Judging by the second film, they don't. They just go into limited hibernation, with one or more doing periodic patrols (hence, why the female colonist was caught shortly before the Marines showed up and one boarded the dropship before eventual disaster happened).
QuoteAnd would probably kill all life in the area, not just those species that the engineers might deem threatening. The scenario I'm proposing is one in which the engineers want the ecosystem to remain mostly intact. Mostly.
Considering what the black ooze would have done to the entire planet, if unleashed, I don't tink they care. If anything showed their utter lack for preserving an existing ecosystem, that did.
QuoteI know that, but I'm assuming that bug hunts are usually undertaken on the company's (or ECA's) behalf to make habitable worlds safer to colonize and/or commercially exploit.
'Bug hunt' is a real-world military term, which has been in use for a long time. It doesn't mean literally wandering around and hunting for giant insectoid pests.
It essentially means going on a wild goose chase, if memory serves correct (which is the cynical context in the movie it was being used in).
As for the Colonial Marines, they would answer to the government, not a company. Colonies are extensions of a particular nation's territory, just like in the real historical colonial days. So, Hadley's Hope would be under US (or United Americas, depending on what the political situation is meant to be) governance. Weyland-Yutani had a say in things, as regards what they've contributed, but they don't literally own it.
It'd be like if Boeing helped to contribute a lot of the hardware for an eventual Mars colony. They wouldn't own it. The US or China or whoever put it there, would. The US military might go up there for various reasons and Boeing would have possibly ourchased mining rights or something, but the actual colony, itself, wouldn't be legally owned by them.
Remember, Burke was worried about the "multi-million dollar
installation": Company hardware and investment (primarily, the atmosphere processor, presumably). He wasn't professing to be representative of a body which was in charge of the colony, as a whole. Marines had the final say.