A, P, AvP Timeline

[Katarn84]

Edit-- Hive was reprinted as 'Aliens: Harvest', and was done in novel form as 'Aliens: Alien Harvest' by Robert Sheckley (I think that's the author's name). It had a scientist who built a robotic Alien designed to study Alien hives. I'm pretty sure the novel references the invasion of Earth, although the comic might not.

Ok, I read it, it's definetly post invasion, since he goes to the Alien Homeplanet if I remember correctly.

Still I think it's impossible to forget (may it be from your own choice or not) something as big as this on a galaxy wide scale. Of course, there are peolpe who pretend to ignore things and events for whichever insane reason, but on Alien 4 we have a total removal of events and their consequences. On 20 some characters the only ones who know something are Call and Ripley outside the lab? And even inside it they forgot everything about the most wanted biological weapon ever discovered? Even if it nearly wiped out all humanity on their home soil? Quite difficult.

I appreciate your try of retconning things, I even tried it for years, but I can't see a way to fix it, everything I came up is as airtight as an open window...


But I'm glad my request for a timeline has spawned such an interesting debate...

[SiL]

Christie seemed pretty level-headed about what was going on.

Christie seemed pretty level-headed, period.

Literally the only Betty crew character who shows any objective indication that he doesn't know what Aliens are is Johner.

The others show nothing resembling familiarity, just that it's slightly less important what they are, as getting out alive.

Perhaps she only stumbled across the Fury 161 info and didn't do any further digging, and then followed it straight to the Auriga because that's where the blood sample went.

She got into the mainframe. Every dirty little secret and, more importantly, cover-up.

...if you want to, that is. If you're predisposed against the idea, well... that's your call I guess. If you want to keep things separate that's just fine, but pooh-poohing people who want to try and make it "fit" seems a bit silly.

If someone could come up with an explanation that didn't make everyone best case amnesiac, worst case borderline retarded; that didn't require a bunch of really, really tenuous "well maybe"s; that, for want of a better way to put it, actually made any God-damned sense with the information as presented rather than exceptionally liberal "creative interpretations" then I wouldn't pooh-pooh people who did it.

You're saying that you can't "make it work" as if it's some sort of objective truth, and it's pretty much just an opinion.

Except making it work or not is objective.

If we had every movie explicitly showing Aliens can't fly, then in a comic an Alien just magically flies under its own power, it's not my opinion that the Alien flying is a load of donkeyturd any more than it would be my opinion that a pig doing similarly in any instance is f**king bizarre.

(Yes, yes, the whole Brett scene in Alien, I know - I'm being hypothetical).

You'd better believe there are plenty of fans (casual or otherwise) who'd be more than willing to drop 'Alien Resurrection' like a bad habit if it means un-voiding the comics and novels and video games they enjoyed.

I don't need to believe what I know.

Or, like I said, creatively interpreting Alien Resurrection to allow both to co-exist, and just not letting the "contradictions" bother them.

They're not "contradictions" if they're actually, you know, contradictions.

[Xenomrph]

On 20 some characters the only ones who know something are Call and Ripley outside the lab?

Alternately, how many characters didn't know about the Aliens? Johner, Distephano I guess, and that's all we know for sure.

She got into the mainframe. Every dirty little secret and, more importantly, cover-up.

So? So you know exactly what she found, or didn't find?

If someone could come up with an explanation that didn't make everyone best case amnesiac, worst case borderline retarded; that didn't require a bunch of really, really tenuous "well maybe"s; that, for want of a better way to put it, actually made any God-damned sense with the information as presented rather than exceptionally liberal "creative interpretations" then I wouldn't pooh-pooh people who did it.

Well that's, just, like, your opinion, man.

If we had every movie explicitly showing Aliens can't fly, then in a comic an Alien just magically flies under its own power, it's not my opinion  that the Alien flying is a load of donkeyturd any more than it would be my opinion that a pig doing similarly in any instance is f**king bizarre.

No, the scenario you just described is actually an opinion. Even something as outlandish as that, it could be retconned out.
I mean, no movie has said that they "can't" fly, merely that we haven't seen it happen. I'm not saying they DO fly, or that some source will show them flying, but saying "oh, Aliens 'can't' do [whatever]!" seems like a pretty silly assertions when the whole series has shown Aliens doing new (and "impossible") things with each iteration.
Hell, here's an example: the novel 'Aliens: DNA War' has facehuggers that end up using their flap-dealies to "glide" after they tumble off a cliff. Do they do it in any of the movies? No. Am I going to say they "can't" do that? No. I am not going to discount the idea any moreso than people discounted the idea that Aliens took traits from their host, which wasn't indicated in the movies until 'Alien3'.

It's like people who say that PredAliens "shouldn't" have mandibles and dreadlocks as if it's some kind of fact. No, that's an opinion. You're welcome to it, but it's still just an opinion.

Except making it work or not is objective.

Except that it isn't. What works for you might not work for other people, and vice versa. As such, it's your opinion. The fact that we're having this debate at all proves that.

Short version: agreeing to disagree really is the best way to handle this topic. Some people are willing to overlook the contradictions or try to find ways around them, some people aren't. That's okay.

[SiL]

So? So you know exactly what she found, or didn't find?

Given she's a robot and would be able to download everything that was on it pretty quickly, it requires an enormous leap in logic to assume someone portrayed as so much a sticky beak would've just stopped at one event.

As bad as what happened on Fury 161 was, it really isn't that far beyond a rabid animal let loose in a house full of people. If that's all the information she had, I don't see why she'd be quite so intent on eradicating the Aliens - Sure, it's bad, but it's not that bad.

Well that's, just, like, your opinion, man.

Come up with an explanation that takes all the comics into account that makes sense with what we see without a liberal dose of "creative interpretation" and I'll shut up.

No, the scenario you just described is actually an opinion. Even something as outlandish as that, it could be retconned out.

How.

Honestly, freakin' how.

Show me. Explain to me how it could be retconned out that oh, Aliens can actually fly. Or retcon out the fact that it can't.

Except that it isn't.

I cannot be at two places at once.

Two stories that, through poor planning, have me appear at two instances at the same time, without aid of the supernatural or supranatural, does not work. I cannot physically occupy two spaces at once, one of them f**ked up.

This is not an opinion. This is a demonstrable fact.

It's like with the new AvP game. The plotlines do not quite add up. The timing on them simply does not work out properly. This is something you've admitted.

This has nothing to do with opinion, it's an observation.

[Katarn84]

Short version: agreeing to disagree really is the best way to handle this topic.

Absolute truth, but not as enjoing as trying to settle this. As far as we stay on civilized terms.

I still have to read DNA war, but that facehugger thing is plausible for me. The problem here is not "let's show something new", but "let's forget something old", quite what happens in Forever Midnight (I know... I'll bithc about it till I finish reading it and forget it ever existed...) for Predator culture and in Resurrection for the invasion and its consequences.

[Xenomrph]

How.

Honestly, freakin' how.

Show me. Explain to me how it could be retconned out that oh, Aliens can actually fly. Or retcon out the fact that it can't.

Okay, I'll bite. Perhaps in enclosed spaces, they can't do... whatever it is they do to allow them to fly. Onboard the Nostromo (Brett aside), in the corridors and sublevels of the colony on LV-426, in the channels on Fury 161, in the corridors on the Auriga, perhaps they merely don't have enough clearance to magically generate "lift".

I'm just saying, especially with fictional creatures and whatever, saying they "can't" do something seems... I dunno... silly, unless it's somehow a blatant contradiction I guess. If a future movie had an Alien hover and shoot straight up into the sky, I'd raise my eyebrows but I don't know that I'd immediately shout "contradiction!" without first seeing if I felt there was a possibility to make it work or whatever.

Of course this is entirely hypothetical and is purely me playing devil's advocate.

To use a practical example, there's the Predalien's reproductive method in AvP:R. Is it wacky? Yeah. Do I like it? Eh, not particularly. Plenty of people have called it a "contradiction", but I'm hesitant to do so because I can think of ways to make it "work". Do those explanations satisfy everybody? I doubt it, but that's okay. The explanation really only has to satisfy me. If other people buy into it, I guess that's a bonus.

[Katarn84]

Aren't we going a bit out of the track?

The discussion is about timeline consistency, not what can an Alien do, the whole issue is about the impossibility to retcon one movie with all the other knowledge.

For what I care the Predalien in AvP:R was a proto-queen with an immediate nedd of troops. That's it.

We were discussing about the chances of Call (and everyone else) miss a full scale alien invasion between Rilpey's death and her cloning to try and retcon Resurrection with the other novels/comics.

If you want to discuss about flying aliens open a topic in the right place and discuss about Superman getting facehugged.

[predxeno]

A possiblity is that the Alien invasion took place after Alien: Resurrection.  After all, Aliens: Earth Hive had plasma rifles and nobody aboard the Auriga had any (but then again that was only a research facility or something).  As for flying aliens, the alien that nabbed Brett could just have leaped up into the vents, they can do that (often leaping up several stories).  Does anyone remember Dietrich in Aliens?  That alien almost seemed to fly, too.  I assume it may just be crawling up somehow.

[Katarn84]

A possiblity is that the Alien invasion took place after Alien: Resurrection.

Problem is the Ripley Synth, everyone though she was the real one that escaped from the Nostromo and all

As for flying aliens, the alien that nabbed Brett could just have leaped up into the vents

I always thought that it was crystal clear it leaped...

[predxeno]

What do you mean regarding the Ripley synth and the continuity?

[Katarn84]

In Asylum (or the female war, I can't remember) Wilkes and Bille think she is the real Ripley, even she thinks she is the real one. Then they discover she is a Synth and that Ripley is dead, so it has to be prior to her cloning.

This was used in the novels to retcon her death in Alien3 with the comics in which (If I remeber correctly) she survived the trip on the Sulaco, instead of changing her name like Wilkes (Hicks) and Billie (Newt).

[predxeno]

You're probably right.  But the fact that Ripley was cloned wasn't that well advertised to the general community in the movies and stuff, was it?

[Katarn84]

You're probably right.  But the fact that Ripley was clones wasn't that well advertised to the general community in the movies and stuff, was it?

But her death was due to Morse's book.

[SM]

 

Her death didn't have anything to do with Morse's book.

People can have an opinion that the whole thing can fit and everyone in Resurrection - USM and Betty crew included are somehow unaware that Earth and many of it's colonies were over-run by Aliens in the past.

However an opinion that ignores the facts which are in the Resurrection dialogue (and the novelisation if one wants to go further) can be wrong.

Does anyone remember Dietrich in Aliens?  That alien almost seemed to fly, too.  I assume it may just be crawling up somehow.

It was.

[SiL]

Whether something makes sense is pretty objective.

The only subjective aspect is someone's ability to comprehend it, which is very different to an outright opinion.