Forgive me if I'm missing something obvious here...
In the time between the Nostromo's visit to LV-426 and the creation of the Hadley's Hope Colony, why did the "company" not send other missions to check out the derelict ship?

I presume they had an idea of what they would find there because of the directive in Mother and the last minute placement of Ash on the Nostromo. Yet, it seems as if they forgot about the derilict ship until Ripley was found prior to the events of the Aliens movie.

The only solution I could think of is that someone was afraid of being held accountable for the loss of a ship and a huge refinery carrying 20,000,000 tones of ore so they covered thier tracks and swept it under the rug. Then it wasn't until many years later that Burke found out about the aliens from Ripley and sent the Jordans to investigate.

BUT...what about the signal being transmitted from the derelict ship? There is nothing in the Alien movie to indicate that it stopped transmitting, and surely other ships would have heard it just as the Nostromo did (or rather the company assured it did).

Please educate me on what I am missing here...

Thanks,
dropship

I can try and answer that, here I go.
The signal could have stopped transmitting due to the derelict losing its power, or the atmosphere processor could have disrupted all signals. Also Ash might have just made the signal up to make the crew think there was a lifeform on the planet.
Burke might have authorised the construction of a colony meaning more hosts making more specimens.
Ash might not have sent the transmission afterwards because he was burned to cinders and any news failed to get to the company.
This also raises a question, did the company allow ripley to float for 50 years on purpose so there was no witnesses (Unfortunately for them she was picked up by a salvage vessel) and even if she was found they could blame the "ALIEN" on too long a period of hyper sleep.

I think the idea beind Ripley floating around for 50 years was that she was lost in space. And only by chance did someone come across he vesile.

The loss of the signal, I have no idea why the derelict stopped. But, if memory serves me right, it was said that no one actually went to site of the derelict.
For one, the company didn't know the co-ordinates. They only picked up a faint singal and diverted Nostromo to investigate.

2) Only after Ripley told them where the ship was located, did the company actualy send people to investigate. A family with 2 kids, 1 boy and 1 girl (Newt). This bit had been cut out of the main stream movie, but there is an extra in the Directors Cut and the whole bit of them being sent out and being infected is on the DVD.

ahhhh another mysterious thing that film producers thought up.. like the egg on the sulaco in Alien 3! Anyway... The company might've known about the nostromo's destruction way before Ripley was found. They figured they could wait until she was found (if found at all) before they could send marines back, plus as was mentioned previously they didn't know the precise and exact location of the alien ship. Maybe they knew Ripley was still alive as well? Maybe the company thought that going in with no information was too dangerous for even them to send expendable marines to look for it?? ..
...

.....

Nahh!

Its all just a little too messed up to figure out. I think, like most of the time when people ask questions, that its just going to rase more questions for every answer.

The derelict was damaged at some point between the Nostromo and Jordan visits. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that it was partially buried by volcanic activity, and I'm quite sure that when we see the derelict in the Aliens cutscene it's got what looks like a huge rupture in it. In any case, bad luck caused the derelict to have whatever equipment was transmitting the signal to be damaged. After that, the company were simply unable to find the derelict again: understandable, when you think about trying to find something that size on a planet like Acheron. When Ripley was picked up, however, Weyland-Yutani tampered with the ship (we know this because there's no evidence of the alien in the Narcissus, despite the fact that it was drooling all over the place in the original movie) and got a good look at the flight recorder. They'd have found out the location on Acheron where the Nostromo landed, so Buerke knew which part of the planet to send the Jordans to.

Sounds a bit implausible that the derelict was damaged by a volcano almost immediately after the Nostromo visit despite it having been intact for an unknown number of years beforehand, but perhaps the Nostromo's thrusters caused some kind of reaction in the area.

Ok i know this threath is questions about ALIENS but i have to ask some thinh els. Why is there no absoluteavp anymore, now its absolutegamerz, wtf happend i dont get it i like freaked out when i could not come to the site like 7 days, then i started to serache the problem and found that i have to type absolutegamerz?????????

@ TIKI:

Wel its actually very simple tiki yu see absoltueavp is having sum kind of domain problems, but yu can still get there by typing www.absolutegamerz.com/avp or go to the link here hope this works for yu.

Some may have touched on this, but this is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Ahem...

The real reasons behind the loss of the Nostromo were covered up so Weyland Yutani couldn't be held liable for the crew's deaths. If you look at history during the era of sailing, ships were lost without trace all the time. Same thing happening here. Ships are lost; it's part of the risks of space travel and commerce.

So why didn't the Company go back? Probably swept the whole thing under the carpet to avoid any embarrassing questions, then it was eventually forgotten about.

As far as we know all the Company knew was an intelligent life form set down on LV-426 and started to broadcast a warning. If it's a warning it means hazard (hence Ash's inclusion in the crew complement), which in turn means you don't send in a bunch tug jockies to check it out. If the Company knew the true potential of the Alien, they would've sent in a Bioweapons team and not diverted a tug.

As for the Derelict not transmitting by the time Hadley's Hope was founded, there are two explanations:
1 - Dallas switched the transmission off as per script, comic adaptation and novel.
2 - The volcanic eruption that damaged the Derelict between 2122 and the 2150's shut it off (most likely since there's film evidence to support it).

Other points

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The signal could have stopped transmitting due to the derelict losing its power, or the atmosphere processor could have disrupted all signals.

The colony ships would've picked it when approaching LV-426 prior to the AP station being built.

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Burke might have authorised the construction of a colony meaning more hosts making more specimens.

He would've been about 7 years old at the time.

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This also raises a question, did the company allow ripley to float for 50 years on purpose so there was no witnesses

Unlikely. The Aliens novel says the beacon on the Narcissus failed before Ripley reached the frontier.

Or maybe the derelict had an artificial intelligence like mother on the other human ships. Maybe it transmitted the warning as it knew the alien was very very dangerous to all life. But when the nostromo crew actually percieved it as a SOS they explored the derelict and one memeber got infected. So the mother system of the derelict shut off its warning system realising that the signal was actually attracting attention rather than keeping it away. (Explaining the loss in signal)

Although if this mother system was operational why did it not try and kill the intruders to prevent wide scale infection. Probably that blue beam we see was a security weapon but has no effect on either human or alien (How did they know it will happen) so even when the ship tried terminating the trespassers it was hopeless and could not upgrade itself without the pilots presence. Then 50 years later the ships security proved useless once again against the jordans.

Maybe the ship does not exist anymore, maybe after aliens the ship knew it could not kill its deadly cargo with its conventional weaponry so it caused am fusion reaction with what energy it had left and went nuclear.

All very good points.

I checked the original script (as mentioned above) and Dallas does indeed shut of the beacon. That answers that part without a doubt...just never made it into the final cut.

I also agree that the whole thing was probably "swept under the rug" which kept anyone from returning to the planet. I do not think Burke intentionally sent the colonists (also as stated above he was too young to be involved). I think it's safe to say that his first knowledge of the Aliens is after Ripley is found.

Good discussion, thanks all for participating.

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Or maybe the derelict had an artificial intelligence like mother on the other human ships.

When it comes to the Derelict so little is known that nearly anything is possible.

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Maybe the ship does not exist anymore, maybe after aliens the ship knew it could not kill its deadly cargo with its conventional weaponry so it caused am fusion reaction with what energy it had left and went nuclear.

Though this is highly unlikely. If the Derelict were able to auto destruct, it would've been more efficient to do so rather than broadcast something that's going to attract attention, rather than divert it. In fact it would've been better for the Derelict to send no transmissions in the first place.

Perhaps it didn't occur to the space jockey that his ship would be encountered by extratterestrials. The warning was probably meant to keep his own species away, but he probably didn't think set things up so other species would stay away when he was about to die.


Here is another question. In alien, there is the "mist" over the eggs in the derelict. It reacts and makes noises when broek. But in Aliens there is no such mist over eggs. Obviously the fachuggers don't need it to detect hosts. So the question is do you think it was a security system set up by the space jockey to alert him/her/it to facehugger escapes (if so it obviously didn't do a very good job), or was it created by the aliens or eggs to detect hosts (if so it appears to be redundant)? Or is there some third possibility that hasn't occured to me?

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the question is do you think it was a security system set up by the space jockey to alert him/her/it to facehugger escapes

I was under the impression that it was some sort of "stasis field" to keep the eggs in a dormant state. Most likely put there by the space jockey. I figured it would allow movement above the field without alerting the facehuggers.

From The Complete Record of Alien Encounters (Contact #1-1)

"As Kane descends into the egg 'cave' (in reality the hold of what is widely believed to be a Derelict spacecraft - though this is not proven) we encounter the mysterious 'blue laser' for the first (and last) time. We see Kane descend with no blue laser in shot. Another angle reveals the laser field below him is now visible. Did it just switch on when it detected Kane's approach? The wide angle of Kane dangling reveals a vast cavern full of eggs, arranged without any discernable pattern, but the blue laser is only visible over the clutch of eggs just below him. As Kane gets closer we notice exhalations from the eggs - the vapour seems to be coming from the tops of the eggs, but is only really visible when it reacts with the laser field. Is the laser field in fact invisible, and therefore activated throughout the whole cavern, but becomes visible when the eggs sense the potential hosts approach and begin to 'breathe'? Kane also mention that it's "Like the Goddamn tropics". Are the exhalations responsible for the heat in the cavern? Ash reported that the planet was "deep cold" prior to Dallas, Kane and Lambert departing the Nostromo - yet in the cavern it is quite warm.

As Kane passes through the field it reacts with a high-pitched whine but no other visible affect. Is the laser field a stasis field with a trip alarm, and someone long dead is now being alerted that the field has been broken?"

Speculation, of course. There are no definitive answers about the blue mist, other than the production rented it from The Who.

Maybe it was very high doses of radiation in order to kill Kane, but his suit protected him from the radiation. And the Gas? Possibly a type of nerve gas like mustard gas. could have been used to suffocate Kane, but he was wearing a suit so it had no effect on either him or the alien. The hisses might have just been the eggs coming back into action after years of waiting.

hmm... maybe it was message from jockey but kane and others couldnt understand it... like warning in jockeys language.. or something.. i think that it is stasis field......