Alien Division #1: Conspiracy vs Curiosity.

conspiracy 100%. it would tie into the motives of the company and using a non military vessel that was kinda passing by anyway would help reduce any prying eyes questioning what they were up to. plus with the crew in hyper sleep there wouldn't be any objections as the ship diverted of its own accord. there also wouldn't be the chance of any rival company smuggling a spy on board

the company were not aware of any xenomorph being on lv426 as no report or evidence has 'yet' been established to allow david to inform them that anything specific is there. due to the signal, they know something intelligent or of intelligent origin sent the signal.

ali81 +1! You pretty much nailed it!

going by the timeline, the owner of the company died onlv223, a neighbouring moon. there must be so many eyes watching to see what the company does and if they send anyone 'ifficially' there, more people would want to know what happened to the expedition. the nostromo, already in outer space, would be the perfect vessel to bypass all unwanted eyes and questions. also with the order of diverting uploaded into the ships computers, the company can deny any direct involvement

Very interesting idea, Gavin. Good discussion.

I lean towards "conspiracy" but I have no idea "how much" conspiracy, if that makes any sense. I find it hard to believe that in the future people would not find out QUICKLY if a private starfaring crew encountered something really bad, so I don't know how much could truly be kept away from the everyday person.

space is a huge place and the events simply get lost there. im not sure but I don't think, other than the attempt to contact the company when the crew first come out of hypersleep, that anyone sent any messages from the nostromo.

I go with conspiracy. WY obviously knew something was there and Ash's mission was to retrieve the organism no matter the cost. Advent seems to be a message towards WY informing them of the organism so there's that. Hopefully by the time the prequels wrap up we'll get our answer. 

true, david informs them of the organism and it wouldn't take much for them to connect lv223 to the signal on lv426. im assuming the company has already decoded the signal and know its a warning so given the nature of davids information, im sure they believe something hostile is involved on lv426

Excellent topic Gavin, an intriguing one! I would be leaning towards conspiracy also, perhaps David extending the "olive branch" was the beginning of curiosity which then over the next few years til Alien began the conspiracy by the company to be the first to reap any benefit of discovering a new weapon or species in a clandestine way, similar to how corporations operate today! 

After the Phobos clip, 100% conspiracy.

W-Y have known since the failed Prometheus mission IMO. Im hope we will find out more in ADF's Origin novel, but it looks like the Covenant crew were tested and chosen for their psyche responses to xenomorph related phobias at the very least - suggesting foresight of what they may expect to encounter.

It has to be Conspiracy

i think the company was aware of something, but maybe not to much as far as what to expect, but each Prequel seems to add weight to potentially the company knowing more and more..

For example when we apply Prometheus then we can assume the Company knows something is on LV-426 thats related to LV-223 and what reports came back from this place at very least.

Alien Covenant would seem to lend weight to the company having to know even more..

I think the ADF Prequel Novel could give some back ground to the companies objective and i think the next 1-2 Prequel movies will paint a clear Picture to show us it is indeed a conspiracy

I think it may even go further to show us the conspiracy also includes AI that has got out of control and is actually pulling the strings all along.

what they know I believe is very limited before covenant. I doubt much was transmitted back during the Prometheus expedition as weyland was on the ship and I don't think hed have wanted others in on what he had discovered. they have the signal which is obviously from an intelligent race. is it hostile? usually goes with the territory of an advanced race. it wont have been till davids olive branch message while leaving planet 4 that they will start putting larger pieces of the puzzle together and then I believe things will get very juicy

I’m all for conspiracy. In AC and Alien we have Weyland-Yutani, and in Prometheus we just have Weyland. Something wee seem to have very little knowledge about is Yutani. I’m not too sure how this fits into the overall timeline, but could Yutani have knowledge of LV 426 that Weyland did’nt. Maybe by the time David gets in touch with WY, the company has gained information relating to LV426 from Yutani and unknown to David. I just think that there could be room for some back story on Yutani Whose to say Yutani did not have its own missions going on, and discovering some outpost similar to want happened in Prometheus. Eventually both companies realise that there is an Engineer threat and need to work together. The Nostromo is the means to get what they want.

There was definitely some conspiring going on!

Let us just admit it- conspiracy is just more fun! 

I believe dk was behind all this!

I believe that it is 100% conspiracy even if we just go by the events presented in the original 1979 Alien film.  The only doubt in my mind comes from nobody admitting it, but who's going to do that?

Weyland's personality has definitely rubbed off on David.

Plus, in Alien, it's suspicious that Ash is so ready to state the clause in the contract that all Nostromo crew agreed to.  He's says it like he memorized it.  I guess he is a robot though, even though nobody knows it at the time.