ALIEN: The Weyland-Yutani Report (S.D. Perry, 160 pages)

[Xenomrph]

I'm not saying this is the case, but that assumes that W-Y doesn't have a lot of pull with the ECA. It could have been "governed" by the ECA on paper, but in practice W-Y could have been running the show.

Like, let's say for a moment that Burke's scheme worked and he got an Alien through quarantine. W-Y has a new toy to play with, but there's still an ECA-governed colony that's been wiped out by an exploded atmosphere processor and 158 dead colonists. Someone's obviously going to start asking questions.

To be honest I always got the impression that "The Company" was so powerful that they could do whatever they felt like without any real repercussions from "the government".

The way they "tried" to keep things together was lazy and halfassed.


Wilks having Drake, Vasquez, and Hudson in his squad.  The Aliens still being on earth post Earth War and somehow the deletion of technology stops them from existing.......nevermind the fact that 200 years isn't enough time for people of earth to forget anything.  People aren't going to stop telling stories or keeping records just because their computers went down.  Never mind the fact that all these other corporations had caches of aliens off planet anyways.  And a memory eating computer virus wouldn't affect old technology that didn't have computers in them.  Took them back to the stoneage.  Right. 


The Weyland family owns the corps yet they need armies of personal security, mercenaries, and combat androids in Alien 3, AvP 2, AvP 2010, A: CM, to pull off their plans. 

The problem was and has been (maybe not now but I have my doubts) been that for the EU Fox has never really cared about their EU concerning Aliens franchise.  If they did they would have multiversed it along time ago or not come up with some of the stories they did.

Everybody looking for an Alien needed to only go to earth.  Or LV1201.  Or one of a dozen other overrun planets.

The EU has always been its own thing for me. 

The problem is this assumes "canon" and "continuity" are synonymous, and they're not. Two completely contradictory things can be "canon".
Heck, we have that situation without even bringing up the EU. Which version of 'Alien3' is "canon"? They've each got contradictory, mutually-exclusive scenes. Or 'Alien', which also has two versions. Or really any of the movies, although 'Alien3' is the most extreme case.

I'm not sure Fox really is fixing AVP canon as many think, this isn't the first time they tried to reboot the series, all one needs to do is look up John Shirley's interviews on this forum for Predator: Forever Midnight.  Fox wanted to reboot the franchise with its new line of DH Press novels but nothing ever came of it.

That much is true, but I also don't remember Fox trying to promote the hell out of that attempted reboot as well.

To be entirely fair, FOX hasn't been using the word "reboot" at all. Even in this very thread, S.D. Perry said that there was nothing she was told to exclude in her book.

[Local Trouble]

I have no doubt that the company greased a lot of palms, but a formal ICC inquest is probably something that the company would like to avoid.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

The company didn't have free rein over the colony.  They owned a lot of the assets there and employed a lot of the settlers, but the colony itself was governed by the ECA.

That's true but what was to stop the Company from sending in their own "security" to check out the comms blackout? I'm sure the USCM Corp would actually have preferred that - save them the hassle and manpower.

And if there was some ECA legal red tape preventing that they could still have sent them in covertly on a supply ship.

The impression I got was that it was the USCM's job to check-up or assist colonies that fall under ECA and US/United America's jurisdiction. So why not just cheap-out and let them do the dirty work? It's probably just another downed transmitter, right?

[Xenomrph]

I have no doubt that the company greased a lot of palms, but a formal ICC inquest is probably something that the company would like to avoid.

Unless it's all basically toothless.

Kinda like the real-life 2008 financial crisis, where even though there were actual no-shit for-serious government investigations into who/what caused it and why, not a single person ended up in prison and the worst punitive measures any companies saw were slap-on-the-wrist fines.

This is probably highsight speaking due to the world we live in now, but I'm surprised any of the characters were shocked by the Company's "crew expendable" edict.
We live in a world right now where no one would be surprised by a company not giving a shit about the lives of random citizens in the pursuit of profits. Just look at the BP oil disaster in the gulf (where, again, not a single person went to jail and the fines were a slap on the wrist at best), to name another example, and that's one where people actually died as a direct result of corporate negligence in pursuit of profits.

Maybe the idea of a corporation being cartoonishly evil was shocking for audiences in 1979, but here and now in The Year Of Our Lord 2014 where companies literally get away with whatever they want in our real-life day to day lives, the idea of an interstellar megacorporation so huge that people just call it "The Company" and everyone immediately knows what you're talking about being essentially omnipotent in the face of the government doesn't seem all that far-fetched in context.

[SM]

That's true but what was to stop the Company from sending in their own "security" to check out the comms blackout?

The ECA.

Retconing to fit in with one big universe - well, it's the approach that has always been taken like with the Big Deletion.

I like that an effort is being made to keep all the new media - Isolation, Fire & Stone, Titan novels - in one coherent continuity but without some official comment (even if just from DH or etc) on them being a new continuity, the old stuff is always going to be there and associated with and the cause of potential issues.

You will know what Fox considers canonical going forward by what is included and what is omitted.

Here's one of the artists: https://www.facebook.com/pages/John-R-Mullaney-illustration/106948306047099

The APC took over 100 hours to complete.  That probably doesn't include the emails going around discussing where things go and how a transaxle works.

[Xenomrph]

That's true but what was to stop the Company from sending in their own "security" to check out the comms blackout?

The ECA.

Maybe, maybe not. See above.

[Local Trouble]

Unless it's all basically toothless.

Ripley and Burke didn't seem to think it was toothless.

[Xenomrph]

Ripley, sure, she's an individual who was being used as a scapegoat and nearly got nailed to the wall. Why would Burke care, though?

[Local Trouble]

Because he's expendable too.

[Xenomrph]

What gave you the impression that Burke cared about the inquest findings, aside from the possibility of him losing access to Ripley as she's led away in handcuffs?

[Local Trouble]

I was referring to his reaction to Ripley's threats later on in the movie.

Just to clarify, I think we're at odds as to just how much regulatory power the ICC has over the company and its employees.  My guess is, quite a lot.  Assuming the company can't keep it quiet and/or bribe its way out of trouble.

[Xenomrph]

I was referring to his reaction to Ripley's threats later on in the movie.

Fair enough. In that regard I agree - he's expendable too. But I maintain that the Company as a whole would escape any real punishment, and I think that'd be the case even if there weren't a convenient scapegoat like Ripley or Burke.

[SM]

If the ICC had no real power, Burke wouldn't have needed to smuggle the specimens back.  And they could've ignored the ruling that removed Ripley's license.

[Local Trouble]

Does the book cover any of this? 

[SM]

I submitted an 11 page essay on that very subject, but the editor politely declined to include it.