Was Jones in hypersleep?

Good question. We never saw her emerge from a pod with every one else (pretty sure) - including Ash, yet she was put into a pod with Ripley at the end of Alien. I have some silly ideas about how it could have happened but no really good explanation. Perhaps she was a little kitten or even not born during the crew's hyper sleep, But then we need to consider their food/hydration sources during the trip.

Excellent topic! Up voted.

Jones was in hypersleep with everyone else.  Likely Ripley's tube which isn't really visible in the final film.  There's deleted dialogue from Dallas "One of you jokers get the cat" and Ripley complies.

We dont see the Cat come from a Cyro-Pod but we do see Jonsey in one at the END.

So we have to assume the Cat was in one of the Hybpersleep Pods, likely with Ripley as SM had indicated.

Slightly flawed logic there, BigDave...

Jones certainly could have been in the sleep chamber at the beginning (deleted dialogue doesn't count as proof in my book). After all, some of the sleep pods were hidden from camera. But Ripley had no idea how long she was going to be asleep in the Narcissus, and there was nowhere for the cat to run around. Jones would soon be dead, so it makes a lot of sense to take him to sleep with her.

The Nostromo is a different kettle of fish. It's huge, and traditional ships of old often had a cat to keep rats under control. With its workmanlike dirty environment, I wouldn't be surprised if a ship like the Nostromo had a few rats running around.

The one thing that puts me off the rats theory is that Parker made Brett go after the cat because otherwise they might pick it up again on the tracker. The same would presumably be true for scurrying rodents.

The purpose of hypersleep is so you don't have to provide food, water, air and heat for the crew on long voyages.  Without those things, no vermin and no need for a cat to stay awake and keep them under control.

I can pretty much guarantee you’re no further than 100m from a rat right now. Large unkempt ships have always had vermin. There’s no reason to suppose it would be any different for a bunch of space truckers in this future.

Supplies are irrelevant for something as huge as the Nostromo. The main reason for having hypersleep is to claim back years of your life that would be wasted in travelling.

A large ship like that would only have vermin if there was a food source. 

If a cat was meant to hunt vermin, why would it be in hypersleep? Do threats to food sources just go away because humans are slumbering? Why would there even be an oxygen source exterior to the sleep pods?

Who is to say Jonesy was not a synth cat?

dk Well not only that but rodents would be highly dangerous to your cables hence dangerous for your ship's integrity. Relying solely on one single cat on a huge ship would highly ineffective. Especially if you have technology to detect unwanted lifeforms on-board. But something being a robot solves everything every-time.

Robocat. I didn’t think of that. But, weirdly, how did he get so much bigger by the time he appeared in Aliens? There will be plenty of food available on the Nostromo. There’s the trash, for one thing. There’s going to be a lot of that. Galley stores. Perhaps even a viable ecosystem in the bowels of the ship.

Remember, this is a dirty poorly maintained vessel that goes wrong quite a lot. It has water traps in its depths, an ideal place for fungi, moss and small creatures to live. Who knows what kind of life it could pick up on its travels through The Solomons.

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I can pretty much guarantee you’re no further than 100m from a rat right now.

You're probably right.

I'm not on a spaceship with no food or heat though.

On a large ship like the Nostromo you would think there would have been many kits, if their purpose had been traditional rat catcher moggies.

Hypothetically, I think little mechanical rat-zapping tech could have been an appropriate alternative for an old Bison class ship. (Remember Ridley's little flying mechanical repair "mice" from his Ridleygrams?) well something along those lines, but smaller. With Jonesy serving only as crew-comfort fur ball companion.

I have entertained the idea that he may have been artificial, perhaps that's why the Alien got annoyed and swiped his cat box aside? I prefer to think of him as real moggie, just feels more comforting, though probably more troublesome :)

Knowing kits, I'm pretty sure Jonesy would have been curled up, all cosy by Ripley's feet in her hypersleep chamber, until a dream of his full Nostromo cat bowl woke him up!

The Synthetic Feline.... ;)

Now that would be a TWIST ;) as such a Creation could Monitor and Record a lot of Information with the Crew being Unaware ;)

Regarding a Space Rat problem... i dont really buy that the Nostromo would have a Rat Infestation, but we maybe cant 100% rule that out.

I would however think the Best Solution would be to Terminate Life Support while the Crew are Safe in Cryo-Sleep, any Rats on the Ship would NOT survive if this was done ;)

@hox...that cat in ALIENS wasn't our Jonesy, that was an imposter! :)

Spot on solution BigDave ;)

This is from 2015...Petition for The Return of Jones[y] in Alien 5!

Lest anyone gets the idea that I'm a Rat Advocate, I'm just being Devil's Advocate instead. It's pretty clear there's no definitive answer one way or the other.

@BigDave, to terminate life support, as you put it, you'd need to depressurise the entire ship and pressurise it afterwards. No mean feat for something the size of the Nostromo. A rat doesn't need much in the way of life support. It only needs a bit of warmth (plenty of that), oxygen (normally plenty of that), water (loads of it) and a source of food (probably a fair bit).

It's possible you could through that whole routine. Or, alternatively, get yourself a cat!

It seems reasonable to have a cat for hunting vermin, but on a ship like that, one would not be enough. A synth might be able to handle those duties though. If a convincing and complicated synth like Ash (and David/Walter for that matter) can be created, a synth cat should be child's play for WY.

Msg To: WY-SYNTHOPS

Ident: FLX-9-1174 Jones 6

Src : Commercial Towing Vessel 18092460

UTC: 2122-06-02T04:35:16

Status:

Hyperspace egress complete.

Beacon A119LV426 confirmed.

Environ: ATP nominal.

Crew in stasis. 120-A/2 in stasis.

CMD SO937-26: Air Duct compromise complete as requested. Protein sacs deployed as requested.

[End Msg]

Everybody is responding in the same way wireone login. This is awesome.

Great catch hox. 

Not so much a catch as a throw, @Ingeniero. But you will find that a fair amount of my carefully crafted message is accurate :-)

I get what you mean hox...good point.  It was a throw out into the open for us to debate.  Good stuff....I didn't catch that the cat wasn't around when they woke up.

"Who is to say Jonesy was not a synth cat?"

Great question dk and the introduction of synthetic animals in the novel Alien: Covenant Origins was one of the most interesting parts of the book.  Alien: Containment gives us a look at that as well, below.