Sulaco

[littlesprout]

Since I'm rewatching aliens, what was the deal with the sulaco it's a huge ship but only has that small volume of marines on board? Shouldn't there be a crew for the ship if so where are they?? I'm just surprised such a big ship housed so few and was totally reliant on a computer I guess? You would think a crew would have to maintain and be assigned to the sulaco

[Local Trouble]

The EU tries to tell us that the Sulaco is capable of accommodating a much larger force and many more passengers, but I don't see why it should.  The habitat area where the cryotubes, lockers and mess all share the same space doesn't look like it was designed for a significantly larger crew.

I'd say that the bulk of the Sulaco was devoted to machinery, not crew quarters.  Kinda like the Nostromo and the Auriga.  Big ship doesn't mean a big crew.

[littlesprout]

I still see the need for a crew. I doubt that the marines from ALIENS were qualified to know how to fix things on the ship when they went wrong. Like how a naval ship houses marines but there's still a crew for the ship specifically trained for that vessel, but then again it is the fuuuuture

[Local Trouble]

Bishop can probably fix anything.  And any task that requires more manual labor than he can perform himself, well, marines can dig ditches too.

[SiL]

The ship is automated in flight and only needs a single crewmember, Bishop.

Taken from the script.

[Local Trouble]

The only thing that indicates the Sulaco is capable of accommodating a somewhat larger number of passengers is the other EEVs visible during the start of Alien 3.

Or maybe it was designed to have more EEVs for redundancy.

[Acid_Reign161]

The only thing that indicates the Sulaco is capable of accommodating a somewhat larger number of passengers is the other EEVs visible during the start of Alien 3.

Or maybe it was designed to have more EEVs for redundancy.

That, and the fact that it was a rescue mission, meaning there had to be additional cryo bays for civilians... kinda like the ones in the opening of Alien 3... 😏

[ralfy]

It's probably like spacecraft in real life, which can be fairly big compared to the crew involved because of machinery, equipment, etc. And they're used only for much shorter trips compared to the ones used in the franchise.

[Corporal Hicks]

In the earlier drafts Bishop was assigned to the ship, not to the marines. He was basically the crew of the Sulaco. Can't remember if there's still some semblance of that in the later drafts or the novel though.

According to the Colonial Marines Tech Manual, there's 90 cryotubes on the Sulaco, with an ability to add another 2000 tubes in the various cargo bays.

[SiL]

He's still the ship's crew in the shooting script.

[Corporal Hicks]

Thanks. Shame it doesn't come across in the film, if that was still Cameron's intent.

[SiL]

He does say he's the only one who can remote pilot the drop ship, if that helps.

Fun fact; Gorman was originally an ECA member, not a marine, which honestly would've made more sense given his incompetence.

[BlueMarsalis79]

Because if it made any sense, (had a crew present) the plot could not, and would not happen.

[Acid_Reign161]

I feel this would have been made clearer had Bishop not being in cryo with the rest of the crew. In 'Alien', Ash was a plant, and thus nobody knew he was synthetic. In 'Aliens', it's common practice to have a synthetic on board - therefore there was no need for him to be in cryo, except for the whole "we need Ripley to find out over dinner for the sake of the plot and plant negative connotations to the character to cast doubts about him with the audience".

I mean, if we are going to be honest, you don't need a synthetic on the ship full stop, anything that particular ai could do could be integrated into the ships' MUTHUR when it comes to navigation/flight etc. (kind of like in Star Trek - why have a bridge crew when you could literally be like "computer, set a course for the Romulan neutral zone, warp 7, engage" "computer, raise shields", "computer, target phasers on enemy warp core. Fire" when you have technology that can pretty much carry out any command, the crew seems pointless. 😂

[BlueMarsalis79]

Apart from you know, about a hundred and fifty people that might need assistance, more than one medically trained professional might help.

And some more crew members to avoid the exact scenario they end up in.