Why WY established colony on LV-426 without investigating Derelict ship?

[Ingwar]

Another question: what happened to distress signal coming from LV-426? It just disappeared?

According to James Cameron, volcanic activity damaged the ship and silenced the beacon.  That's why it was in worse shape in Aliens than it was in Alien.

Fair enough. It's logical but it still doesn't change the fact Company knew about the signal long before Aliens events. If they didn't know about it then why putting agent droid on Nostromo? They purposely assigned Ash because they knew something fishy was going on. They wanted to investigate which is understandable. What is not understandable is the fact they completely didn't bother about it after Alien events. They didn't send specialised team to investigate.

[Local Trouble]

Because it wasn't a company-wide endeavor.  It was probably a small group of conspirators or even some lone corporate exec like Burke who orchestrated the whole thing.

After it all went to shit, costing the company millions of dollars and the lives of seven people, I can easily imagine why those responsible buried anything related to it.  It's called CYA.

[Ingwar]

Because it wasn't a company-wide endeavor.  It was probably a small group of conspirators or even some lone corporate exec like Burke who orchestrated the whole thing.

'Probably' is a key word. We don't really know what happened. We just speculate. Your theory makes sense but receiving distress extraterrestrial signal was extraordinary and unique. Why didn't investigate with full power? We'll never know unless upcoming Alien prequel trilogy will address that issues.

[426Buddy]

Because it wasn't a company-wide endeavor.  It was probably a small group of conspirators or even some lone corporate exec like Burke who orchestrated the whole thing.

'Probably' is a key word. We don't really know what happened. We just speculate. Your theory makes sense but receiving distress extraterrestrial signal was extraordinary and unique. Why didn't investigate with full power? We'll never know unless upcoming Alien prequel trilogy will address that issues.

The derelict find would be worth untold billions, someone acting alone or with a couple conspirators would be trying to position themselves to reap the most or all of the benefits. Their biggest fear would be a rival co-worker or rival company swooping in an stealing possibly the biggest find in human history, so they kept it quiet and when it all turned ugly they buried it before anyone could find out and fry them.

[Ingwar]

Because it wasn't a company-wide endeavor.  It was probably a small group of conspirators or even some lone corporate exec like Burke who orchestrated the whole thing.

'Probably' is a key word. We don't really know what happened. We just speculate. Your theory makes sense but receiving distress extraterrestrial signal was extraordinary and unique. Why didn't investigate with full power? We'll never know unless upcoming Alien prequel trilogy will address that issues.

The derelict find would be worth untold billions, someone acting alone or with a couple conspirators would be trying to position themselves to reap the most or all of the benefits. Their biggest fear would be a rival co-worker or rival company swooping in an stealing possibly the biggest find in human history, so they kept it quiet and when it all turned ugly they buried it before anyone could find out and fry them.

Conspirators wouldn't do anything without full support from Company. Too risky. Let say they brought alien life form back to Earth and then what? Company probably would have killed them for that and sent professional team to investigate LV-426.

However your theory makes sense.

[Local Trouble]

Because it wasn't a company-wide endeavor.  It was probably a small group of conspirators or even some lone corporate exec like Burke who orchestrated the whole thing.

'Probably' is a key word. We don't really know what happened. We just speculate. Your theory makes sense but receiving distress extraterrestrial signal was extraordinary and unique. Why didn't investigate with full power? We'll never know unless upcoming Alien prequel trilogy will address that issues.

It's more than a theory when Burke spelled it all out for anyone who was paying attention:

Okay, look. What if that ship didn't even exist, huh? Did you ever think about that? I didn't know! So now, if I went in and made a major security issue out of it, everybody steps in. Administration steps in, and there are no exclusive rights for anybody; nobody wins. So I made a decision and it was... wrong. It was a bad call, Ripley. It was a bad call.

It's all about the goddamn percentage.

[OpenMaw]

The Company doesn't need to know shit.

In fact, i've always said I thought the far more chillng idea is that everything that happens in Alien is due to an AUTOMATED system. Ash reassigned to the ship, the Nostromo sent to check things out... All part of programming that was already in place, and there's not really anyONE on the other side of it. Oh sure, the people in bioweapons division would be all over that shit, but they didn't actually conspire to do it.

That's actually based on nothing but my own imagination, but I still like it. In reality the intention was always for the situation to be the acts of a few looking out for their own bank accounts. Seeing dollar signs. Cutthroat corporate behavior. It was NEVER supposed to be that WY was somehow a big bad evil. Negligent, bloated, and unaware of what was going on more than likely. I doubt the execs at the top would want to jeopardize all of their interests on such a "risky venture." Of course, if it had been successfully carried out, they would embrace it, try to make it their own, but that's the corporate machine for you.

[Local Trouble]

Of course, if it had been successfully carried out, they would embrace it, try to make it their own, but that's the corporate machine for you.

Exactly.  Success has a thousand fathers (who all want a percentage), but failure is an orphan.

[SM]

Conspirators wouldn't do anything without full support from Company. Too risky. Let say they brought alien life form back to Earth and then what? Company probably would have killed them for that and sent professional team to investigate LV-426.

Burke didn't have full support.  He was operating alone.

You said you're only talking about the films - if you're going to make things up of nowhere, at least take said films into account.

[whiterabbit]

It's either a cover-up or people's IQ's really did drop.

[Local Trouble]

OP should buy the WYR and treat it as gospel.

[Ingwar]

Conspirators wouldn't do anything without full support from Company. Too risky. Let say they brought alien life form back to Earth and then what? Company probably would have killed them for that and sent professional team to investigate LV-426.

Burke didn't have full support.  He was operating alone.

I wasn't talking about Burke. You took quote of mine out of context. My comment was an answer to Local Trouble regarding his theory about conspirators in Alien not Aliens.

[Local Trouble]

Have we reached a consensus then?

[Scorpio]

Huge plothole in Aliens:

If Company knew about derelict, why didn't they investigate it sooner?

If Company didn't know, then why did they set up a colony there (there are billions of planets in the galaxy)?

[Local Trouble]

If Company didn't know, then why did they set up a colony there (there are billions of planets in the galaxy)?

Mining.