Why do the aliens want Ripley?

[Dave]

In Aliens 57 years have elapsed since Ripley left LV 426. During this time something like 200 terra-former colonists settled there, made it there home, yet never noticed or were disturbed by the 'alien eggs' in the derelict spaceship.

Within days of Ripley being returned to civilisation, or a waking state, the signal from LV 426 cuts out. Why?

It can only mean one thing. The alien intelligence has been waiting for Ripley, and that somehow they know she is ready again. They want her.

Why? Did they find that only her DNA is somehow compatible with theirs? Is it Ripley herself that they want, or is it simply vengeance?

They capture all the colonists bar one. Why did they leave Newt? Were the aliens careless? If they wanted to, they must have been able to kill a small girl too. Yet they leave one person who will arouse a maternal instinct in Ripley, bait in a special trap for Ripley.

in Alien3 the alien kills Newt and Hicks, but saves Ripley to become the alien queen's mother -- why not pick Newt? Isn't Newt younger and stronger?

[Chilly]

sorry to say this dave, but i think u have to much time on ur hadns!
i always just thort its coz shes the lead....lol
and as for alien 3, i heard the micheal biehn wasnt prepared to appera in it so they had to kill him..

[Dave]

Well, I was reading a book on the Alien Quartet, and the author posed these questions, but also I wanted to raise the level of this forum. The other threads here are just "I love ..., I hate ..., ... is cool, have you seen ... yet?" We ought to get down to the philosophical meaning of these films.

And I realise that there are RL considerations that affect the plot, but this is a series of films written over 20 years. The writers have had plenty of time to think about the story, it isn't a TV episode that they need to finish 'yesterday', you would think that they could have some consistency (like actually watch the films that came before the one they are writing!)

[markpud]

I think you may be over-playing this one Dave... If you watch the Spl Edtn of Aliens you see that the colonists are sent to investigate the derelict by Burke and they disturb the alien eggs. Ripley's awakening was the catalyst for this, in that she told Burke of the aliens, but the aliens themselves were as dormant as they'd ever been regardless of Ripley's state...

[Dave]

But 57 years have past. 200 people live on the planet. The planet now has an Earth-like atmosphere.

Do you believe that none of them explored their local countryside and found it for themselves, no kids out playing fell down a subsidence and into the cave full of eggs?

Maybe that's not a huge problem though, but the aliens are certainly interested in Ripley more than other humans.

[Tabitha]

Actually Dave, I do think it is very conceivable that 57 years could pass and 200 colonists could miss one small (relatively!) spaceship on an entire planet!

The coincidence is that the mom&pop team are sent to investigate in the same time frame that Ripley is found. But perhaps these two things are linked.

Here's how it could have happened.

*The company sent the Nostromo to investigate the area (I can't remember the details), the Nostromo self-destructs and Ripley is adrift in a lifepod.
*The company decide to just send colonists out there anyway - The Nostromo hasn't reported back, but hey, Space is big, and they could be anywhere!
*57 years later Ripley's lifepod is finally discovered, along with info regarding the downed alien spaceship and the events that happen all that time ago.
*While Ripley is recuperating - and before she is brought up to date, the company send out a message for a team of scientists to check out the co-ordinates of the downed ship
*Contact lost - Ripley informed, marines, alien queen, screaming kid....

How does that sound?

[Dave]

It could work like that, but in the inquiry meeting into the destruction of the Nostromo, someone asks if such a creature has ever been found on LV426, to which a woman expert sitting at the table replies "None". That's when Ripley asks "Did IQs just drop while I was away?" It is a very short time after that until they lose contact with LV426, but it would be time enough for someone from the planet to investigate.

It still sounds contrived to me, it is a very small planet, not to have been fully explored.

[Tabitha]

We're just going to have to agree to differ on this one Dave. I don't think it is really that contrived.

The only problem I really have with the colonists not finding the spaceship earlier is that, even if they didn't have the resources to check everything out in person, they should still have had access to very very very detailed satellite mapping (whether images or spectra or whatever) that should have shown up something as obvious as the spaceship.

On a related note, how did the Nostromo find the alien ship in the first place - was it a distress beacon? I can't remember, but if that was still running then IQ's had definitely dropped while Ripley was sleeping :evil:

[Dave]

It was an acoustical beacon at 12-second intervals. The Company's contract required that any intelligent signal be investigated or all shares are to be abandoned.

It could have stopped working after a few years though

[Kanazaka]

I recently bought Alien on DVD, and one of the special features is character dossiers. In Ripley's several of the entries note that she requested and was ultimately granted maternity leave. I forget whether or not the movies even mention what happened to her child, whether born or unborn. But if she was once pregnant (and this is a huge shot in the dark), perhaps Weyland-Yutani engineered a strain of Aliens to ultimately impregnate Ripley . It's the only connection I can think of that fits that information.

[the wild]

Originally Posted by Dave

In Aliens 57 years have elapsed since Ripley left LV 426. During this time something like 200 terra-former colonists settled there, made it there home, yet never noticed or were disturbed by the 'alien eggs' in the derelict spaceship.

Within days of Ripley being returned to civilisation, or a waking state, the signal from LV 426 cuts out. Why?

It can only mean one thing. The alien intelligence has been waiting for Ripley, and that somehow they know she is ready again. They want her.

Why? Did they find that only her DNA is somehow compatible with theirs? Is it Ripley herself that they want, or is it simply vengeance?

They capture all the colonists bar one. Why did they leave Newt? Were the aliens careless? If they wanted to, they must have been able to kill a small girl too. Yet they leave one person who will arouse a maternal instinct in Ripley, bait in a special trap for Ripley.

in Alien3 the alien kills Newt and Hicks, but saves Ripley to become the alien queen's mother -- why not pick Newt? Isn't Newt younger and stronger?

omg they killed newt i dnt remeber that how and where and why in alien 3 they were on the prizon planet and i dnt remeber newt being on there she wasthe only female !!!!

lovidge also aint seen number is it true that they sey the 1st one better than them all because i think 2 is better than 3 and resurrection is good with WINONA RYDER wat a call name hehe !!

[Ice fyre]

Now I'm not sure about this. But how long were the colonists on this world?

It seems to me that it would take time for the atmosphere converters to work. The planet we saw in Aliens is very different to the one the Nostromo left.

I would surmise that they would have had quite a bit to do before they explored this world fully. The ship was a fair way from the colony. Also maybe all the colonists wouldnt have gone down at first lack of manpower and the risk of an unteraformed world would have had them staying close to their bases.

It seems to me it would worked like this. They would have had a skeleton staff go in and build the atmosphere generators, now I'm assuming there were a few not just one.

Next the second wave of colonists would go out a few years later the planet being more habitable by then able to support a colony less expenisivley (no need for expensive specialised atmosphere equipment like sealed domes and such like) there is also another reason they waited so long. Perhaps they were told to leave that area alone or misdirected by company teams amongst the colonists.

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by Kanazaka

I recently bought Alien on DVD, and one of the special features is character dossiers. In Ripley's several of the entries note that she requested and was ultimately granted maternity leave. I forget whether or not the movies even mention what happened to her child, whether born or unborn. But if she was once pregnant (and this is a huge shot in the dark), perhaps Weyland-Yutani engineered a strain of Aliens to ultimately impregnate Ripley . It's the only connection I can think of that fits that information.

I'm not sure about that but she did have a daughter, who had died before Ripley was picked up at the start of Aliens.

[a-champ-production]

Originally Posted by Ice fyre

Now I'm not sure about this. But how long were the colonists on this world?

It seems to me that it would take time for the atmosphere converters to work. The planet we saw in Aliens is very different to the one the Nostromo left.

I would surmise that they would have had quite a bit to do before they explored this world fully. The ship was a fair way from the colony. Also maybe all the colonists wouldnt have gone down at first lack of manpower and the risk of an unteraformed world would have had them staying close to their bases.

It seems to me it would worked like this. They would have had a skeleton staff go in and build the atmosphere generators, now I'm assuming there were a few not just one.

Next the second wave of colonists would go out a few years later the planet being more habitable by then able to support a colony less expenisivley (no need for expensive specialised atmosphere equipment like sealed domes and such like) there is also another reason they waited so long. Perhaps they were told to leave that area alone or misdirected by company teams amongst the colonists.

I agree, the atmospheric processors would of taken a while to build let alone the time to make the air breathable after completion. The colonists wouldn't of had any time to explore because they were still building their complex. By the time Ripley was found the colonist would of had more freedom to explore. Also Newt's family was tipped by Burke to explore the alien spacecraft so his company can capture an alien from the infestation. I would like to add that when colonist sleft their "city" they need authority from Earth (or something) which took weeks so that would of prevented anyone from bothering to travel. The higher ranking colonist gave Newts family a blind eye because I couldn't be bothered waiting for weeks getting back a reply and he figured that they wouldn't find anything out there so no one knew it was their except for Ripley. The company that Burke represents probably thought that they could tip a family to go there to see if ripley was right, either that she was lying or they would have the greatest biological weapon.

Ripley's daughter died from old age in the deleted scenes btw.

[RustyHicks]

I think the Aliens wanted Ripley for revenge. She kicked their butts in Alien and Aliens and now it was time for her to get some of it back. What better way to embark thier revenge by implanting her with an Alien. Turning her into something she hated. A mother for a race she worked so hard to terminate.