What if Gorman was a veteran?

[Elmazalman]

Hudson was a prime example of 'courage under fire'.

[Aspie]

Discuss thx.

this is the best thread opener ever

[Local Trouble]

They're tough hombres because they're marines. State of the art firepower makes them over-confident.

Which is exactly why losing it should have made Gorman stop and rethink their course of action.

[SiL]

Being over-confident is a bad thing in unknown situations.

Whether they went in then or later, they'd still be going in with flamethrowers, they'd still be dealing with radio interference, still be dealing with an enemy they couldn't see until it was, literally, on them, etc.

[Local Trouble]

The least they could have done is go back to the APC to get a flamethrower for each marine, instead of reducing most of them to pistols and "empty" smart guns.

[SiL]

To what end? Their best course of action -- which Gorman rightly ordered them to do, but which they couldn't hear -- was to lay down suppressing fire with the incinerators and fall back. Every person having a flamethrower isn't going to help much.

They're marines. They were still armed, they still had a mission, and they were still sure they could pull it off. An experienced officer wasn't going to pull them back to re-arm themselves in that situation (Note how none of the experienced marines suggest this, even to each other).

[Local Trouble]

Did we watch the same movie?  Apone was about to object when Gorman said "just do it, Sergeant" and Frost made it clear that he felt practically helpless without his pulse rifle.  Hell, Vasquez and Drake both flat-out disobeyed the order because they knew it was bonkers.

Yeah, they're marines, but they're not idiots.

[SiL]

Gorman never explains to the marines why he wants rifles slung. Obviously they'd rather have their weapons, but they're there, and they have a job to do. The only possible change in the outcome would be if someone had noticed they couldn't use their guns prior to the marines getting into the hive.

[Local Trouble]

What difference would the reason make?  Gorman said "we can't have any firing in there" and "flame units only."  That right there should have told them to go back and rearm everyone with flamethrowers. 

[SM]

If they'd more than half finished their sweep, it'd be quicker for them to finish rather than backtrack.

[Local Trouble]

They hadn't even reached the nest by that point.  They were close, but not quite there yet.

[SiL]

What difference does the reason make?

There's a massive difference between "lol no rifles" and "if you use your rifles you will kill everyone in a thermonuclear explosion".

They hadn't even reached the nest by that point.  They were close, but not quite there yet.

They were well in the nest when the order came to shoulder rifles. But they hadn't found the colonists yet. They didn't know any of them were dead.

[Local Trouble]

I guess it boils down to semantics then on where exactly the nest started.  Regardless, it was pretty clear that their destination was the concentration of PDT signals, not necessarily the aliens' lair.

[SiL]

Well presumably the nest starts when all the hive material starts, which was, y'know, basically the second they stepped off the stairs.

[Local Trouble]

Yeah, but they weren't looking for the nest.  They were looking for the colonists.