Quote from: Jonjamess on May 29, 2023, 07:35:11 PMThe Special Order Ash adheres to from MUTHUR is not a transmission from anyone at WY. The Nostromo makes no transmissions to anyone during the events of the movie.
The Special Order is literally a fail safe coded into obviously all WY ships for use in the RARE event an anomaly resulting in "valuable" cargo is encountered. Wether this be alien life or something else.
WY as a company furthermore had nothing to do with the events of Aliens, that was all on Burke. The movie makes it clear they don't believe Ripley. Whomever (at WY) knew of any of the events in Alien, if anyone at all, has obviously passed on by the events of Aliens or has chosen to keep the information entirely classified.
Indeed, it was very likely already programmed in the computer long before, and known by company assets like Ash.
If they wanted to keep things classified, then that means that Burke didn't act alone, they obviously want to show Ripley that she's lying, and would use Burke as a front.
All of these were discussed previously, together with Ripley's odd behavior, e.g, she knows about the alien ship location, together with Burke and the rest of the board, but doesn't raise it during the inquiry, and then she's asked by Burke to join an armed mission even though it's supposed to be involving an downed transmitted, and could have raised that to the board as part of an appeal (which is valid given such proceedings).
She probably needed a good lawyer, who would have informed her (she was gone for five decades or so) at least about the existence of the colony and reminded her of the alien ship location in the lifeboat logs (where else would have Burke gotten the info?); never mind "Arcturians" if that was classified, if not units that are trained to go on "bug hunts".
Quote from: Necronomicon II on May 29, 2023, 01:01:09 PMI like the haziness to be honest, how much the company knows exactly about the organism itself, etc. Do all extraterrestrial organisms/specimens warrant such a priority where the crew is wholly expendable? Is that standard? Something seemed particularly special about this order though. "There is an explanation for this, you know."
From what I remember, there are two parts to it:
The crew was told that they had to investigate the phenomenon or else they lose benefits, etc. On the other hand, if they do, they were assured of a percentage of what is earned when it is monetized. If I'm not mistaken, this was in their contracts. Meanwhile, I think the contracts also required them to help those in distress, and what was involved in this case appeared to be a distress signal. I don't know what financial benefits they get from rescuing others, but I'm guessing none.
The other part is what they didn't know but for company eyes only, i.e., the crew was considered expendable.
In addition, Burke points out in the second movie that the company has a bio-weapons division. If we add that to the commonsensical point that companies believe that they can profit from not only organisms but also what might be advanced technology, and that the military can gain from both, then the following become clear:
If there's something that can be monetized, then exploit it. If the company can potentially earn more even by considering the crew expendable, then do that as well. It's similar to what's happening in some companies and governments today.
The crew was aware of this because the need to investigate distress signals, etc., was in their contracts. (Maybe it's even a government requirement.) At the same time, some of them complained and implied that if there was nothing there or it was discovered that nothing is monetizable, then they gain nothing. If it involved people who needed to be rescued, then they didn't sign up to rescue others, and such investigation would only lengthen their trip. Meanwhile, it didn't bother them that they had a lifeboat that couldn't take all of them.
Everyone gets a cut not only because they're working for a company but also because they wouldn't have the means to exploit what was found due to lack of resources. That together with the points above and earlier ones show that Burke couldn't have acted alone.
Given such, I'd say that was was shared in the films mirror circumstances today: companies firing people only because it increases their profit margin, governments seeing their own personnel, or citizens, or people of other countries, expendable for strategic gain, companies and governments exploiting technology for monetization and weaponization as part of a military industrial complex, and so on.