Alien/Aliens - LV-426 timeline

[Candlelight]

Alien (T=0)

- Signal discovered, ship lands, Kane impregnated, ship leaves.

Between films (T+37 years)

- Alien signal stops functioning.
- LV426 founded by colonists, clearly no one decides to explore the planet, only stay in one location, set up the atmosphere processors.

Aliens (T+57 years)

- Colony reaches population of 158.
- Ripley revived from stasis, court martial.
- Burke sends signal to LV426, Newt's family investigate, father inpregnated.
- Newt's father possibly contained a queen, which set up shop in the atmosphere processor, began spawning facehuggers (and eventually adults) that slowly grabbed the colonists. Newt and her brother go into hiding, but Timmy is soon taken.

T+57 years+3 weeks

- Signal (constant beacon?) from LV426 lost. Marines assembled, set on mission.

T+57 years+6 weeks

- Sulaco arrives at LV426.

 

[Anwar]

But still, the ship was strong enough to survive LV-426's geological activity for MILLIONS of years, and yet something happened in the 60 years between Alien and Aliens to take out the signal that never happened in the millions of years the ship was there?

Newt's dad couldn't have had a Queen, since only a Superfacehugger can make one. The theory is that the rescue team sent to get the Jordans also investigated the Ship and some got infected too (you'd think after seeing what happened to Jordan they'd not do this, but...).

 

[Rarewolf]

Just watching it again, I wondered - Given that it was only a matter of weeks to get there, why need hypersleep at all?

 

[zephramc]

^^^I never realized it was only two to three week trip. I always assumed that those ships (Nostromo, Sulaco, etc...) were out for months or even years, though considering Aliens mentioning Ripley's daughter, I suppose that she would have never went on the Nostomo mission if that meant she'd be away from her child for that long.

 

[Candlelight]

Newt's dad couldn't have had a Queen, since only a Superfacehugger can make one.

As that only really took place in the Alien 3 special edition the jury is still out (the one attached to Ripley's face in the bio scan at the beginning of the film looked normal in size).

My only argument is it was a queen was that the ship was a very long way from the colony, and we don't know how well tuned an Alien is with returning to a nest so far away. I honestly think Newt's father was the first of a new colony that sprang up at Hadley's Hope, and that once they got away from the alien ship they never went back.

 

[Candlelight]

^^^I never realized it was only two to three week trip. I always assumed that those ships (Nostromo, Sulaco, etc...) were out for months or even years.

It comes from one of Hudson's rants when he says "four more weeks then out", which is supposed to imply it would only take less than a month to get home.

This interestingly points to how fast propulsion has developed in 57 years:

In Alien, Lambert says it will take 10 months to get home from their current location, which is identified as Zeta Reticuli, about 40ly from Earth.

In Aliens, it will only take 4 weeks.

This is despite seeing both ships never seemingly to break faster than a lumbering crawl...

 

[Reverend]

But still, the ship was strong enough to survive LV-426's geological activity for MILLIONS of years, and yet something happened in the 60 years between Alien and Aliens to take out the signal that never happened in the millions of years the ship was there?

I don't know about millions, certainly several millennia. How long exactly would it take an alien corpse (of unknown chemistry) take to mineralise in an alien atmosphere (also of unknown chemistry) anyway? It could be a few hundred, it could be a hundred thousand or maybe even a billion.
Either way, the odds of a lava vent opening up right next to it are long enough for it to only happen the once it that amount of time.

Newt's dad couldn't have had a Queen, since only a Superfacehugger can make one. The theory is that the rescue team sent to get the Jordans also investigated the Ship and some got infected too (you'd think after seeing what happened to Jordan they'd not do this, but...).

I'm not sure if the Superfacehugger is "official" since it only really comes from a deleted segment of Alien 3. So it has just as much credence as a human being cocooned and metamorphosed into an egg by a lone alien. Don't ask me about either of the AvP films, I didn't bother with them.

As for the timing of events, as I recall, there was a line about rescue being at least 17 days away, though that may be from a base in a system closer than Earth.
Also remember that the Nostromo was a flying petrolium refinery (or at least was towing one) so speed wasn't quite as important as say a military transport. So if we assume that the Nostromo was slow in it's day and the Sulaco was one of the fastest around 57 years later, the difference in development isn't quite as dramatic.

But yes, it always kind of bothers me we never saw them in hyperspace (though I think the novelisation does describe it.) I think part of the reason is that the crew are purposfully still asleep during the lengthy decelleration process. For all we know decellerating from the outer system and coming into a stable orbit could take several days in and of itself. That is consistant with the fact that they're always practically on top destination when the computer wakes them up. Though I'm not sure how well it explains the Sulaco just happening to be over Fury-161 when the fire broke out.

 

[Anwar]

The Sulaco wasn't over Fury 161 when it ejected the EEV, the EEV homed in on the Company Beacon the prison had (they had a working comm system). It's just the editing makes it seem like it immediately crashed after ejection. The EEV was really floating in space for a while before the crash.

 

[Reverend]

I'm about 80% sure the film shows the EEV un-docking and then falling towards a planet in a single shot, no cuts.

Of course either way, the odds of happing to be in range of a planet at all, never mind an inhabited one are decidedly slim. I mean 99% of the journey must take place in deep space, no? The only thing I can think of is that when the fire broke out the tubes dumped into EEV where they'd be relatively safe from the fire while the computer locked onto the nearest beacon, changed course, decelerated and dumped the EEV when in orbit. But then you have to wonder why over a planet when the EEV clearly wasn't designed for re-entry. Xenomorph aside they'd have been safer ejecting into deep space...not that this is the only logical gap in Alien 3 of course.

 

[MarianLH]

^^^I never realized it was only two to three week trip. I always assumed that those ships (Nostromo, Sulaco, etc...) were out for months or even years.

It comes from one of Hudson's rants when he says "four more weeks then out", which is supposed to imply it would only take less than a month to get home.

Plus Hicks says they can expect a rescue 17 days after they're declared overdue.


Marian

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Just watching it again, I wondered - Given that it was only a matter of weeks to get there, why need hypersleep at all?

This isn't mentioned in any of the films, but in the 'Aliens: Colonial Marines Technical Manual' it explained that hyper-sleep is necessary because ships traveling at FTL speeds experience a sort of reverse time dilation effect where the faster the ship goes the longer time appears to pass from the perspective of someone aboard the ship. On a trip of 17 days the passengers could possibly age decades if they weren't in hyper-sleep modules.

 

[Reverend]

Plus Hicks says they can expect a rescue 17 days after they're declared overdue.

I believe I mentioned that already.

As for Hudson's comment, I took that to mean he had four more weeks left on his tour and he was out of the Coups. I'm assuming they don't count hypersleep time as a part of a Marine's hitch.

 

[Rarewolf]

Just watching it again, I wondered - Given that it was only a matter of weeks to get there, why need hypersleep at all?

This isn't mentioned in any of the films, but in the 'Aliens: Colonial Marines Technical Manual' it explained that hyper-sleep is necessary because ships traveling at FTL speeds experience a sort of reverse time dilation effect where the faster the ship goes the longer time appears to pass from the perspective of someone aboard the ship. On a trip of 17 days the passengers could possibly age decades if they weren't in hyper-sleep modules.

I thought it might be something like that - or perhaps some sort of engine radiation.

Question though - for either would Bishop be affected? Did he have a Stasis tube (so many characters in that scene I don't recall!) It seems a bit of a design flaw to have an automated system that could eject escape pods without even waking the crew, but if you normally relied on an android caretaker to look after the ship; systems could be heavily compromised without one.

This interestingly points to how fast propulsion has developed in 57 years:

In Alien, Lambert says it will take 10 months to get home from their current location, which is identified as Zeta Reticuli, about 40ly from Earth.

In Aliens, it will only take 4 weeks.
This is despite seeing both ships never seemingly to break faster than a lumbering crawl...

And even later in Alien Resurrection Ripley says the ship technology almost as old as she is! (or words to that effect)

What about if there was some sort of jumpgate ala Babylon 5 by the time of Aliens? A motorway for shortcuts across large distances. Once you're off that its the slow roads again.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Question though - for either would Bishop be affected? Did he have a Stasis tube (so many characters in that scene I don't recall!)

It seems a bit of a design flaw to have an automated system that could eject escape pods without even waking the crew, but if you normally relied on an android caretaker to look after the ship; systems could be heavily compromised without one.

Yep, Bishop was in hyper-sleep both on the way to LV-426 and on the way back to Earth (well, his upper torso was at least) before crashing.

As an android, his body could no doubt survive the journey of virtual decades in roughly the same shape with some minor wear and tear since he wouldn't age (there's no indication androids have artificial aging at least), but as a full artificial intelligence in every sense of the word, he might be subject to the same problems a human would over such an extended period of time: boredom, madness, loneliness, etc. He certainly had personality quirks that seemed to be more than a product of simple programming, but then maybe that's a quality all Bishop models share.

 

[Reverend]

It might be interesting to note that in the novelization Bishop is in fact wide awake and wandering the ship alone while everyone else is asleep. I think it also states he's incapable of boredom. I think the concept comes from an earlier script draft, but I'm not sure.

 

[Rarewolf]

. Don't ask me about either of the AvP films, I didn't bother with them.

Funny enough it was AvsP2 that led me back to watching Alien & Aliens again.

It wasn't very original, but finally getting Aliens on Earth is worth wattching IMO. It's almost Aliens before the marines turn up. And it does offer some new lore to what a queen can do to quickly build up an army.

 

[Anwar]

I'm about 80% sure the film shows the EEV un-docking and then falling towards a planet in a single shot, no cuts.

Of course either way, the odds of happing to be in range of a planet at all, never mind an inhabited one are decidedly slim. I mean 99% of the journey must take place in deep space, no? The only thing I can think of is that when the fire broke out the tubes dumped into EEV where they'd be relatively safe from the fire while the computer locked onto the nearest beacon, changed course, decelerated and dumped the EEV when in orbit. But then you have to wonder why over a planet when the EEV clearly wasn't designed for re-entry. Xenomorph aside they'd have been safer ejecting into deep space...not that this is the only logical gap in Alien 3 of course.

That's what I meant, the final editing made it seem like the EEV immediately was over Fury 161 when it ejected, when it really just homed in on the planet after ejection. They just didn't bother showing it floating in space for a long period of time.

They were on a course back to Earth from a frontier world, so it's believable that they'd be passing back in a normal "lane" of space used by other space ships in the past (like the initial survey ships that scouted LV-426, and the colonizations ships) to get from Earth to LV-426. And a normal "lane" would pass by prior settled worlds.

And the EEV not being designed for Re-Entry, is there any proof that it wasn't? The Prison staff never question "why would an EEV crash land?", they just wonder why the people on it clearly weren't military personnel. That it crashed is more due to the fire screwing up the launch mechanism.

 

[Ryan]

Seems they have lost the concept of 'air strike' in the future.

It probably would have been considered bad form to carpet bomb survivors on a rescue mission.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Seems they have lost the concept of 'air strike' in the future.

It probably would have been considered bad form to carpet bomb survivors on a rescue mission.

Yes. Also consider their plan once the rescue mission failed was to nuke to sight from orbit after evacuation. They just didn't make it that far.

 

[Rÿcher]

Hadley's Hope had a population of 158 people. That make one alien per colonist minus Rebecca (Newt) and John J. Marichuk. That's 156 aliens the Marines had to battle. There were at least several people still incubating the alien embryos as evidenced by the victim scene "k-kill me, please". I'd say for argument's sake 10 victims still having chestbursters within.

The colonists surely fought and killed several aliens before the Sulaco arrived. Let's say another 10 which leaves 136.

During the remote sentry scene, we don't really see aliens being plowed down by the guns but we can safely assume that at least 100 aliens bought it. That leaves 36 aliens to contend with.

All the running and gunning during the initial battle sequence, aliens being hit by the APC, we'll say 20 aliens died in that engagement including the one that got aboard the dropship killing Spunkmeyer and Ferro. That's 16 aliens left.

The second engagement where they came down from above the ceiling: maybe 10. 6 aliens left including the queen, the alien that took Newt from the sewer, the two sentry aliens in the queen's lair.