Quote from: Jonjamess on May 31, 2023, 07:50:54 PMPerhaps WY did have some information on LV-426 before the events of Alien. A tip off or a scan or they detected the beacon. Then perhaps they replaced the Science Officer on the Nostromo knowing it could be re-routed to investigate this signal. And I could even buy that the Special Order was uploaded by Ash or by WY prior to the Nostromo departing.
But the fact of the matter is nobody in that movie is communicating with anyone back at Earth, WY employees or not. They are 10 months out and wouldn't be able to get instantaneous communications back and forth. So it still stands the Special Order is automated and not the instructions of an individual communicating directly with the Nostromo. And it also still stands that WY very very likely had no idea what they were sending the ship to investigate. They likely had no idea it was acid bleeding facehuggers and alien eggs. The Special Order mentioning retrieval of the lifeform and the crew being expendable is likely just one of many "predicted" or "possible" events that WY either programs into all their vessels or as I mentioned was planted when they swapped the Science Officer.
This whole WY conspiracy thing just seems to be a fan need rather than an actual plot point. There is nothing in the movies that suggests WY know anything about the Xenomorph. In Alien all we see is a generic Special Order that literally just mentions lifeform (a generic term). We know Ash is swapped in so that's the only other suspicious link we have that WY is sinister. Bit that still doesn't prove at all they have any knowledge of Xenomorphs. Then Aliens its further made clear WY have no idea about Xenomorphs as they build a colony right next to the Derelict and its only when Ripley turns up 20 years later ONE single WY employee sends the colony to investigate. Why would they wait 20 years if they knew??? There's zero logic in that. The simple fact is none of them knew what happened on the Nostromo and none of them believe Ripley, only Burke takes a chance on her story being true and only him alone. Then Alien 3 all of a sudden they are interested in the Alien, but only because 85 has contacted them and told them there's one running around Fury and one in Ripley! And also that flight recorder data was transmitted.
WY literally don't try to find any Xenomorphs until the end of Alien 3. The entire events of the other movies they don't act! They dont act after the Nostromo is destroyed, they dont even know its location or thats its been on LV-426 otherwise they would have gone looking there! They dont act after they find Ripley and they dont believe her story. They build a colony right nextvto their apparently highly sought after Derelict and do NOTHING for 20 years! They only decide to act at the climax of Alien 3. This heavily implies they don't have prior knowledge of the Xenomorph.
FWIW, Burke was able to send a message to the colony to investigate a particular location, and one timeline indicates that it took a week from the time he sent that and the time the Jordens were sent out:
https://alientimeline.wordpress.com/2127-2179/One problem is that it's assumed that one has to wait for a response before sending a message. Commonsensically, one can send many messages with or without the recipient responding. For some reason, the colony chose not to send anything about the Jordens, the facehuggers, etc. Either that or the company got all of the details and came up with the downed transmitter storyline not to alarm anyone who finds out about the mission. But that's pointless as well because they're sending an armed contingent and with Ripley, so it's obviously that the storyline doesn't hold water.
Oddly, Ripley's behavior doesn't show that, as she would have easily realized that something has gone wrong with the colony, which is why they need her help. She would have also suspected that Burke, representing the company, wants to retrieve alien tech and specimens, following what she realized from the first movie. Add to that her anger upon discovering that they had Bishop on board, which reminds her of Ash.
Even the Marines would have realized similar, and after reading Ripley's brief: they're not there on a rescue mission or even to even help the colony work on a downed transmitter but to help anyone who could retrieve alien stuff. The fact that they specialize in "bug hunts" also attests to that.
This view, that transmissions of reports without the need for acknowledgment from the recipient, also creates problems for the first movie. That is, a computer that's so sophisticated that it can navigate vessels while the crew is in hibernation could easily and automatically transmit reports on location, course, things like distress signals, to the company, government, etc., in the same way that various vehicles do today. That implies that the company and government would not have had to rely on Nostromo logs from the lifeboat but could have received the same while the events in the first movie were taking place, although delayed by a few days or weeks (probably longer if they didn't have outposts and relay stations that time, compared to what they had around five decades later, when the second movie took place).
Similarly, the company/gov't could have received reports from the Nostromo about the Jordens, the facehuggers, etc., automatically using colony computers, long before the transmitters go offline.
Finally, the idea of communicating with anyone on earth or in outposts, etc., can be seen in what happened in the third movie, where protagonists were communicating with the company/government via text messages. In any case, distance and human agency could be set aside if computers are able to communicate and send messages without waiting for responses.
