March 26, 2012The following is the opening to a thread about what the company knew that I started a while back....it should answer some of your questions Mark Cawley
"Ok....so......the following is from Alan Dean Foster's novelization of 'Alien', which was adapted directly from an early version of the script. We know this due to the fact that the facehugger, for one, has an eye on its back, which was taken from early Giger concept art. Two, the derelict, in the novel, lacks a central chamber with a SpaceJockey pilot.
The following directly concerns our numerous conversations about what, exactly, the Company knew about the signal, the alien, etc...why they sent the Nostromo...why Dallas' former science officer was replaced with Ash five days before they left Thedus...etc….And, a very interesting bit about the xeno’s origin:
Page 248 - 250
"'He's been protecting the alien from the beginning. I tried to tell you.' [Ripley] gestured at [Ash's] corpse....'He was using Kane's life as an excuse, but he was never interested in Kane. He let that thing grow inside him, knew what was happening all the time. And he set of the emergency airlock Klaxon to save it.'
'But why?' Lambert was struggling, still couldn't put it all together.
‘I’m only guessing, but the only reason I can come up with for putting a robot crew member on board with the rest of us and not letting us know about it at the time is that someone wanted a slave observer to report developments back to them.’ She glanced up at Lambert. “Who assigns personnel to ships, makes last-minute changes like trading science officers, and would be the only entity capable of secretly slipping a robot on board? For whatever purpose?’
Lambert no longer looked confused. ‘The Company.’
‘Sure.’ Ripley smiled humorlessly. ‘The Company’s drone probes must have picked up the transmission from the derelict. The Nostromo happened to be the next Company vessel scheduled to pass through this spatial quadrant. They put Ash on board to monitor things for them and to make sure we followed something Mother calls Special Order 937.’
‘If the follow-up on the transmission turns out to be worthless, Ash can report that back to them without us ever knowing what was going on. If worthwhile, then the Company learns what it needs to know before it goes to the trouble of sending out an expensively equipped exploration team. Simple matter of maximizing profit, minimizing loss. Their profit, our loss.’”
Page 251 – 253
Ash speaking: “‘I was directed to reroute the Nostromo or make sure that its crew rerouted it from its assigned course so that it would pick up the signal, program Mother to bring you out of hypersleep, and program her memory to feed you the story about the emergency call. Company specialists already knew that the transmission was a warning and not a distress signal.’
Parker’s hands clenched into fists.
‘At the source of the signal,’ Ash continued, ‘we were to investigate a life form, almost certainly hostile according to what the Company experts distilled from the transmission, and bring it back for observation and Company evaluation of any potential commercial applications. Using discretion, of course.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Ripley, mimicking the machine’s indifferent tone. ‘That explains a lot about why we were chosen, beyond the expense of sending a valuable exploration team in first.’ She looked coldly pleased at having traced the reasoning behind Ash’s words.
‘Importation to any inhabited world, let alone Earth, of a dangerous alien life form is strictly prohibited. By making it look like we simple tug jockeys had accidentally stumbled onto it, the Company had a way of seeing it arrive at Earth ‘unintentionally.’ While we maybe got ourselves thrown in jail, something would have to be done with the creature. Naturally, Company specialists would magnanimously be standing ready to take this dangerous arrival off the hands of the customs officers, with a few judicious bribes prepaid just to smooth the transition.
‘And if we were lucky, the Company would bail us out and take proper care of us as soon as the authorities determined we were honestly as stupid as we appeared. Which we’ve been.’
‘Why?’ Lambert wanted to know. ‘Why didn’t you warn us? Why couldn’t we have been told what we were getting ourselves into?’
‘Because you might not have gone along,’ Ash explained with cold logic. ‘Company policy required your unknowing cooperation. What Ripley said about your honest ignorance fooling customs was quite correct.’
‘You and the damn Company,’ Parker growled. ‘What about our lives. man?’
‘Not man.’ Ash made the correction without anger. ‘As to your lives, I’m afraid the Company considered them expendable. It was the alien life form they were principally concerned with. It was hoped you could contain it and survive to collect your shares, but that was, I must admit, a secondary consideration. It wasn’t personal on the Company’s part. Just the luck of the draw………
‘……..It was much too late, according to what the translators determined, for a distress signal to do the senders any good. The signal itself was frighteningly specific, very detailed.
‘The derelict spacecraft we found had landed on the planet, apparently in the course of normal exploration. Like Kane, they encountered one or more of the alien spore pods. The transmission did not say whether the explorers had time to determine if the spores originated on that particular world or if they had migrated there from somewhere else.
‘Before they all were overcome, they managed to set up the warning, to keep the inhabitants of other ships that might consider setting down on that world from suffering the same fate. Wherever they came from, they were a noble people. Hopefully mankind will encounter them again, under more pleasant circumstances.’"
