Amph On Earth, Everyone Can Hear You Scream: The Prometheus / Alien Discussion Thread (Romulus)

No problem.

 

Not to mention mile-long refinery filled with ore it's towing. That's a lot of mass.

 

I wonder, why does Weyland-Utani not just use Androids to do mining instead of sending people who get sick and they have to feed and house?
Same in the labs, androids can't get infected by anything.

 

Humans are probably cheaper labor, and more expendable and abundant.

 

Most of what we have seen of the androids in the films has been as science officers. Call is the only exception, since she was working on her own and was just a crew member on the Betty.

Spoiler

Andy, of course, has been reprogrammed.

The expanded universe was the only place to find androids in other functions. My guess is that the Company still felt that humans were a necessity for the Nostromo and Fury 161. In reality, Ash being revealed as an android was meant to be WTF moment and wouldn't work otherwise.

 

The cheaper "Working Joes" from Alien Isolation fit that bill, but they are certainly substandard androids in comparison.

 

Yeah, android scarcity is still a concept.

Androids are certainly superior to humans in many respects. But that comes with a high price tag.

Also need to consider the utility of people at all. People have to do something. Same question arises with Star Wars and a galaxy full of droids...why do people do anything? There is either a cost driver, a scarcity driver, or simply an internal drive to do something that a droid could do for you.

I also think there is something of a phobia about them in the popular conscience, which may prevent the company from relying on the exclusively.

 

Not to mention physical things routinely survive nuclear explosions here on Earth. Pieces of hull on the exterior of the craft would definitely survive.

 

3 times?

 

What do you mean by three times? The exterior of the hull would have been shot in all directions outward by the force of the explosion. I don’t see why pieces of it would not have survived.

 

I agree with that assessment too.

I am still unsure if I felt the final act of this movie went too far. I otherwise unreservedly loved the rest of it. That actor playing Andy was incredible.

 

There were 3 explosions. So whatever survived probably needed to be ejected from the center of the explosion fast enough and far enough to escape the further 2.



This seems improbable. Not impossible. I'll buy it if the story is good enough.

The question is, is it?

 

You and I are going to have a talk about safety.

 

What? Various pieces would have been ejected at extreme velocities with the first explosion (probably the hull plating, which is what we see in the new film) and wouldn’t have been as severely impacted by the subsequent explosions because they were hurtling away from the ship.

 

I feel like we're one hardline physicist away from a repeat of the Endor Holocaust here...

 

Let me explain how careful examination of freeze frames of Alien shows, via careful comparisons, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Nostromo is 18km in length and anyone who says different is either ignorant or a troll, and either way I have no time for you.

Spoiler

It's officially 243.8m long, BTW.

 

Hey, now I feel attacked!

 

They (or at least newer models) also appeared in both Aliens: Fireteam Elite and Aliens: Dark Descent (iirc both take place 20+ years after the events of Aliens). The only uses Wey-Yu has used them for were: maintenance, security assistance, and office assistance* and were mainly used in outer colonies as "cost management". Dark Descent did feature a couple different mines, but I don't recall any androids working them. Guess Wey-Yu found human miners to be more "cost efficient" than Synths. They were also built by another corporation, Seegson, so they might not have been too eager to prop up the competition.

*Vague, non-specific spoiler/s for all three games listed so far:

Spoiler: Wey-Yu Shenanigans

Working Joes were also a way around some regulations regarding "artificial persons," and useful in carrying out certain directives supplied by Weyland-Yutani.

 

Alien vs Ewoks. Get it done Disney.

 

Seegson was a low-rent competitor to W-Y - at least with regards to androids - and tried to spin it as a positive, with their advertisements stating "At least you know they are a robot!" (I mean, with what happened with Ash and all, they have a point. Still, their androids are way creepy)

 

The Nostromo was a modified Lockmart CM-88B Bison M-Class star freighter, featuring an impressive length of 334 meters and a width of 215 meters. Its mass of 63,000 metric tonnes was capable of carrying significant cargo, specifically a mile-long ore refinery. s This behemoth could process 20 million tons of raw ore during its long trek from Thedus to Earth, reflecting its role as a commercial hauler. The refinery that the Nostromo was towing is often confused with the Nostromo itself, while the ship was about 10 times smaller than its payload. In 2179, the ship was valued at $42 million in adjusted dollars, minus the payload.

 

Gungan vs. Predator

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