Arcturians and bug hunts and thoughts

If you haven't already seen it,check my Arcturian poon tang thread lol.It's pretty bizarre to say the least.Also props to another Aliens fan!It's my favorite movie so all the queen stuff doesn't faze me,but then again I'm young.

We don't really know if Arcturians are extraterrestrials or human colonists.

I agree. The Queen is cool, but she brings the Xenomorph down to our understanding, and we don't fear what we understand. Egg-morphing is much more terrifying and alien to us.

However seeing the queen is already canon it should be used sparingly to keep its excitement/fear factor...not just chuck it any movie cause its cool.

Use it as a climax/equilibrium species. Egg-morphing is the primary vector for initial infestation. A single drone needs only to subdue a prey and then use its own energy/nutrients/biomass to produce an egg and facehugger. Efficient and cheap in terms of energy and production. 

The queen is the end-game, she only evolves once a full hive has become established in its environment and threats have been removed or contained. She is much more efficient at mass-producing eggs but requires significant expense in resources to the hive. She and her egg nest also needs significant defence.

Basically if anyone finds a Queen, they know they are in deep-end cause this is an established hive with a large number of warriors, drones, praetorians...

Works for the Aliens hive. Large number of colonists subdued and used as hosts. Threats removed. Hive uninterrupted for an extended period of time until the Sulaco turns up. 

Essentially, the egg comes before the chicken lol

The term "Bug-hunt" definitely de-values the Alien. Makes them sound like a cockroach.....

s.m - I agree, I thought arcturians referred to the name of a planet that had been colonized. 

Re: Bughunt - everything the OP said, but I think if you do a little backstorying, it would stand to reason that if the Company knew of the existence of Xenos they may have sent a bunch of marines out on leads where they might possibly find them, bug *hunts* vs. bug bag & captures. 

The Arcturians are human colonists who have many transsexual individuals living in their community (similar to Thailand).

The marines have never encountered aliens before the Xenomorphs. The term "bug hunt" is an allusion to a snipe hunt/wild goose chase/pointless mission that was used by soldiers during the Vietnam War.

The dropship in Aliens has a Vietnam War style decal beneath the cockpit. But the eagle has enlarged boots with the slogan Bug Stomper, so I don't know, seems to emphasis the whole crush the space cockroach thing. I agree I don't think the Colonial Marines had encountered the Xenos before but I think they could've done without the artwork on the dropship if they wanted to avoided the misconception of portraying the xenos as bugs.

As Mentioned on the other thread,  indeed this place could be a Get Away place like say Las Vegas on Earth and indeed i guess yes Thailand too.... so its pretty much the Alien Franchises version of Star Treks Rigel and Risa Worlds.

Thanks for clearing this up too Foxy..

I would say the only alternative is a Alien Humanoid Race, which is what the Theories about the Race are in Real Life, which is Blue Alien Species sometimes depicted as very Humanoid and sometimes very Alien Grey Looking

But as far as Aliens we have to assume from knowledge gained in Prometheus (where the first Alien deleted Scene shows that Mankind until this point had never came across anything more than micro organic life).

So i would assume we have to ask between 2122 and 2179 had mankind encountered other Alien Races, as far as whats officially acknowledged and common knowledge to the general public in the Franchise (i.e no kept secret conspiracies)

And so yes the Arcturians being a human colony makes more sense.

As for the Bug Hunt, again in Aliens when Ripley is describing the Aliens it appears that Humans (to the knowledge of general public and broad military) have never encountered such a Life Form and so we can assume they may have between the timeline of after Prometheus 2094 and Aliens 2179 had encountered Alien Lifeforms that would be refered to as a type of Bug/Insect we have to assume these are/were in no way a massive threat and at best Star Ship Trooper Bugs/Cloverfield Parasite type Organisms.

But again nothing has been confirmed as far as this goes, but the Last Supper Viral Tess Haubrich mentioned Bugs the size of Small Dogs... so we maybe can assume by the year 2100 Mankind may have encountered such a species but then this can not be taken as Factual

So the Bug Hunt could refer to just a Wild Goose Chase.

I think you need to consider the warrior society here.  In their world, the enemy is frequently denigrated, with labels such as dinks, gooks, ragheads, etc.  The fact that other species would be called "bugs" is nothing new, in fact it plays right in with JC's Vietnam vibe in the movie.  Sometimes I think folks approach things with this PC viewpoint that really doesn't apply to the world being looked at.  The guys (and gals) doing the war-fighting are as far removed from polite society, with all these sensibilities, as you can get.  To hold them to your standards of speech and conduct is pretty ludicrous, IMHO. 

If I was hunting alien species, I would refer to it as a bug hunt as well.  Unless you have a rifle and are standing right beside me, I really wouldn't care what you thought about it.  Just to give you some perspective from the pointy end.  

Have to remember Aliens was a Cameron Movie and so maybe he was setting us up for his Avatar Series back in the 80's

Arcturian Pootang!

The Alien series has never shown any other sentient life forms beyond the Engineers and Xenomorphs.

Arcturian Poontang is just slang for something like "Thai Poontang".

"The Arcturians are human colonists who have many transsexual individuals living in their community (similar to Thailand).

The marines have never encountered aliens before the Xenomorphs. The term "bug hunt" is an allusion to a snipe hunt/wild goose chase/pointless mission that was used by soldiers during the Vietnam War."

I believe, taking the 'bug hunt' comment in context, and it's differentiation from a stand up fight - it's literally hunting for bugs.  A wild goose chase is hunting for something that doesn't exist.  Once Gorman used the term Xenomorph, Hicks knew it was a bug hunt.

As for Arcturians, beyond the throwaway comment in the film, the most recent crop of novels mentions Arcturians a few times and Frost's comment may refer to human colonists or the extra terrestrial race indigenous to the Arcturus system.

I don't see why the Queen wouldn't fit in. It gives options. My understanding is that the queen sets up shop and does its thing. If a Xeno is in an environment with no queen, it is capable of creating an eggmorph provided there are at least two victims.

That's not official, but it is a popular theory that makes a lot of sense.

"Bug Hunt" was a term used by soldiers during the Vietnam War.

Cameron has said that Aliens was heavily influenced by that conflict.

Confirmed by Cameron here:

http://www.lofficier.com/cameron.htm

"The dialog itself, the idiom, is pretty much Vietnam era."

Yep get all that, however I don't believe the term 'bug hunt' in this particular instance refers to a 'wild goose chase'.

Can you backup your claim?

Even the marines thought the mission was a joke, before actually facing the Xenomorphs.

"Someone said "alien"; she thought they said illegal alien and signed up!"

As I said above, I believe the context backs me up.  It's bug hunt vs. stand up fight.  When Gorman uses the term Xenomorph Hicks confirms its a bug hunt then asks what they're dealing with.  They've got a pretty good idea they'll be fighting some indigenous lifeform that the colonist couldn't handle.  Even the nature of Vasquez 'where they are' joke indicates they'll be fighting something, very likely vastly inferior, as they have in the past.

A wild goose chase would mean they'll be searching for something that isn't there, when they're clearly expecting something that is there - but it's 'nothing they can't handle'.

Hudson's 'another bug hunt' tone tells us this is a shit detail.  A kind of outer space pest extermination service, that is beneath them.

S.M - Walked into this one.

Did IQ's drop sharply while I was away...

 I told you, it wasn't indigenous.
                    There was an alien spacecraft there.
                    A derelict ship.

All Vietnam vibes aside, I took the comment to mean that these guys have encountered different species out there before.  A "bug hunt" may have been a nod to Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" (the book, never the movie).  Bug hunt, as in search for insect-like things and zap them.  Versus a "stand-up fight" which I took to mean that the oppo would stand their ground, rather than hide.

Between these two comments, I speculated that Colonial Marines had run across different species before, that either ran and hid, or were aggressive enough to fight, but not a match for the CM's.  So yeah, the over-confidence in the run-in to action.

I think JC did a lot of this kind of stuff, with these throw-away comments, where the characters hinted at other worlds from previous deployments.  This Acturian thing is a perfect example.

In my opinion, it's just the idle chatter of soldiers bull-shitting in the mess hall, which is used to fill the scene.  I don't think it was meant to withstand the scrutiny it's being put under today. 

Spot on Diz! You're not wrong. Back in '86 film directors didn't have to worry about easily-accessible, public internet forums where excited fans could gather to hyper-analysis every detail of your film lol.

I also agree most of the CMs were just chattering to fill out the scene. They apparently filmed that scene last so that the cast had spent significant time together and had developed a camaraderie between them. A lot of those line were improvised throw-away comments as you said.   

All that Arcturian poontang and cornbread stuff was scripted.

"S.M - Walked into this one.

Did IQ's drop sharply while I was away...

 I told you, it wasn't indigenous.
                    There was an alien spacecraft there.
                    A derelict ship."
What?

S.M

"As I said above, I believe the context backs me up.  It's bug hunt vs. stand up fight.  When Gorman uses the term Xenomorph Hicks confirms its a bug hunt then asks what they're dealing with.  They've got a pretty good idea they'll be fighting some indigenous lifeform that the colonist couldn't handle.  Even the nature of Vasquez 'where they are' joke indicates they'll be fighting something, very likely vastly inferior, as they have in the past."

So what?

"Everything in this film universe works best if there is minimal life out there in the vast blackness, it makes whatever horrors our protagonists encounter that much more horrifying and nightmarish"

Grinning & Dropping Linen, I can't agree more with your last paragraph above. I read the Aliens novelization decades ago and was very excited to see Aliens on the screen. That being said, yes, Ridley Scott makes the emptiness more scary to me with the threat coming from ourselves (arrogance). The Engineers and their history is more than enough to represent third parties in the great Deep.

@ingeniero

im glad to know That someone out there appreciates the same themes and concepts I love most about this film universe.... It's the dark unknown, interacting with that unknown the sense of awe and terrifying realization that darkness of space holds nightmares and may hold others our protagonists have yet had the misfortune of stumbling into....thanks for appreciating my take on this stuff 

You're most welcome Grinning & Dropping Linen.

The concept of the ancient technology (black goo) cultivated by the Engineers in their own way (LV-223 at the very least) with what we saw in Prometheus and Alien is much better than a galactic zoo picture. You read more about economics, robotics, weapons design, and biotech when reading the Weyland Industries corporate history than time spent mapping extraterrestrial species. Good.

I can't wait to see who the Engineers answer to. And, what do the humans say about David 8 deciding that humanity's time is over?

I want to see how many humans disagree with David 8 wanting to wipe them out.

What do the humans try to do to a self-aware, vain, organism-creating, multi-planet conquering David 8? They better not mess up his hair or humanity is really in for it.

Is Weyland-Yutani Corporation so immersed in artificial intelligence that it doesn't matter what the humans want and artificial intelligence will impede an attack by the humans on David 8?

When-if humanity is giving David 8's plans a thumbs down and going to war with him, who (black goo creators/caretakers) shows up and wants to discuss what happened to the Engineers or those wiped out on Paradise?

I know this thread is dated but since I'm reading A:SoS I thought I'd share something.

Excerpt from the Book:

"We’re talking a find that may be bigger than anything we’ve run across since first contact with the Arcturians.”
Chatter erupted throughout the group, and Decker felt a sudden wave of excitement that washed over him like a wave. The Arcturians had been the first alien race mankind had encountered, and those initial meetings had marked a turning point for the human race."

I think this makes it clear Arcturians are not human colonists.