Séadna
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An update to the Geneva convention forbids it.Do they have an in-setting reason for not using androids as marines?
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An update to the Geneva convention forbids it.Do they have an in-setting reason for not using androids as marines?
For any interested this is the canon used for the game:I think all the films except for the Aliens vs Predators ones - and maybe not Aliens: Resurrection, since the game takes place hundreds of years before that. Very early in the thread I asked about Prometheus and Seadna confirmed it was part of the game's canon.
I don’t know but I’m guessing the Xenomorphs were wholly lab creations? They don’t seem “natural”.
I want to see Dutch Schaefer in a future sourcebook, dammit! More badass than any Colonial Marine.
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That quote would work for an Alien movie.
So if they don't need to hunt for food why are they so predatory? Is it only for finding hosts to reproduce?Some other little tidbits if it is useful in games. Again taking the "main" stream of setting canon.
The Aliens blood is a a high grade hydrofluoric acid which as you know eats through metal etc, but will not eat through flouride based materials like teflon. I think that's funny little known weakness. It also leads to the weakness to fire.
The reason the blood has this composition is that hydroflouric acid with some other compounds in the blood functions as a battery, so the Alien doesn't breathe, need to eat etc. The battery is "recharged" by eating silicates like rocks and glass or from strong heat sources. This is why the Aliens just sit immobile when there are no hosts around, they've no need to hunt for food. If they get into a ship place them somewhere hibernating in the piping of the fusion core so they've heat for their internal battery. Or have them chew/steal glass from the ship kitchen.
The possibility is purposefully left open in the novels etc that the battery might not be fully rechargeable and that any Alien eventually just "runs out/stops". So it might be possible to kill them from overexertion.
Young Chestbursters have weaker acid, since it's still mostly just hydrochloric acid taken from the host's stomach.
I don't think that's exposited, but IMO it's wired into them as a component of their "bio-weapon" status. From their actions though (hunting and keeping prey alive if possible, to provide additional hosts for chestbursters) I think your assumption might be how that wiring is expressed biologically.So if they don't need to hunt for food why are they so predatory? Is it only for finding hosts to reproduce?
That's (paraphrased or a summary of the text) from the game book, is it?Some other little tidbits if it is useful in games. Again taking the "main" stream of setting canon.
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Colonial Marines Technical Manual and the Aliens novelisation. The RPG actually only mentions that they have acid blood and provides rules for how acid splash deals damage (probably one of the most lethal things in the game).That's (paraphrased or a summary of the text) from the game book, is it?
Thanks Picaroon Jack ! I was mad into the franchise as a teenager, did modding for the older PC games and errata for the Anchorpoint essays. Glad to see it's all paying off!Séadna I can totally see you teaching a master class on Alien!
I appreciate all that you add to this thread!
Thanks Picaroon Jack ! I was mad into the franchise as a teenager, did modding for the older PC games and errata for the Anchorpoint essays. Glad to see it's all paying off!
Some other little tidbits if it is useful in games. Again taking the "main" stream of setting canon.
The Aliens blood is a high grade hydrofluoric acid which as you know eats through metal etc, but will not eat through flouride based materials like teflon. I think that's funny little known weakness. It also leads to the weakness to fire.
The reason the blood has this composition is that hydroflouric acid with some other compounds in the blood functions as a battery, so the Alien doesn't breathe, need to eat etc. The battery is "recharged" by eating silicates like rocks and glass or from strong heat sources. This is why the Aliens just sit immobile when there are no hosts around, they've no need to hunt for food. If they get into a ship place them somewhere hibernating in the piping of the fusion core so they've heat for their internal battery. Or have them chew/steal glass from the ship kitchen.
The possibility is purposefully left open in the novels etc that the battery might not be fully rechargeable and that any Alien eventually just "runs out/stops". So it might be possible to kill them from overexertion.
Young Chestbursters have weaker acid, since it's still mostly just hydrochloric acid taken from the host's stomach.
So if they don't need to hunt for food why are they so predatory? Is it only for finding hosts to reproduce?
You know, I keep hearing this, but none of the "dumb decisions" that people complain about have any relationship to the plot or moving it along. They simply lead to scenes of horror.
In fact, the only movie in the series where a dumb decision in the film is required for the plot is the original Alien.
I spent the first half of Alien almost literally laughing at dumb decisions. I think I mumbled “come on” more than once.
I loved Alien as a kid/teen but as I got older I found the second half too predictable and slasher-like as characters wander off to be picked off by the monster in a dynamic/structure that was driven into the ground by later slashers and other horror films.
But as time passed I came to find so much else to enjoy in the film: the atmosphere and mood, the look, the excellent performances that the less than inspired plotting didn't matter anymore.
I think I eventually came around to the idea that the plot is only a part of what a film is and not always the most important. I love a well constructed thriller but also dig wild, intense films that border on the incoherent or are slower, more about mood and character. To me, Ridely's three best films: The Duelists, Alien and Blade Runner all fall into the latter. The Duelists remains the freshest for me.
There's a possibility, if we had been allowed to see Fincher's vision w/o the studio interference, that there could have been something much more interesting done with the monks in space and stuff.
Maybe that's the trick to an Alien sequel - the Xenomorph is kinda one-note, so you have to make the victims interesting. I dunno. After Prometheus and Covenant, I have to say I'm way more interested in the androids in the setting than I am the Aliens. Well, not so much Winona Ryder's Android...
My favorite was a chainsaw that stated you should not "Catch blade with groin or crotch".Have a look at the safety labels on most any consumer product, they didn't get there for purely hypothetical situations, somebody out there did something to inspire the warning.
This is great stuff.It varies some from source to source, but there is some suggestion that they do consume parts of their victims. May not be for food, it could be chemical components (bones maybe, lots of useful chemicals in those), for other uses like maybe the resin they coat things in (just throwing ideas out there, as I've not seen anything suggesting that if they do eat parts of their victims or some selected victims that it is anything but food).
Left out of the film, but in the book and a deleted scene Ripley finds some of the crew members cocooned and at least some were missing their limbs. The popular image of the aliens crushing the skull with their extending inner jaw would also not leave the victim in a good state for hosting (pretty dead with the brain destroyed, and kind of missing a face for the face hugger to attach to), however consuming the limbs wouldn't impact their ability to host and helps ensure that they are unable to get up to any mischief.
This is canon in the game. Lone “drone” xenomorphs can inject “dna” into victims to transform them into eggs, awaiting the eventual birth of a Queen.Left out of the film, but in the book and a deleted scene Ripley finds some of the crew members cocooned and at least some were missing their limbs.
Thank god. I was beginning to see people building up suspense by having NPC shipmates (who'll totally go missing later in the game) put up sticky notes saying “whoever took all the tea glasses, please put them back” or “has anybody seen the glass ashtray I stole from Xing Xang?” or “I'm not your mother, clean up the bits of broken glass you left under that vent — again” or “if I catch the bastard acid-licking the glass from the telltales in engineering…”.Colonial Marines Technical Manual and the Aliens novelisation. The RPG actually only mentions that they have acid blood and provides rules for how acid splash deals damage (probably one of the most lethal things in the game).
IIRC you die from kidney failure (or was it liver failure?) due to the excess calcium in your bloodstream before the bones turn to glop.In hazmat they called Hydroflouric acid the bone seeker due to its attraction to calcium. If exposed to weaker concentrations it can penetrate the skin causing mild acid burns but then dissolve the bones from inside where the damage it isn't so obvious to the victim until they are a rubber chicken, nasty stuff.
I should say in most ALIEN sources androids are, according to in-setting science, not self-aware and although vastly more powerful number crunchers than humans they have a severely limited ability with abstract concepts and anything vaguely related to what you might call symbology. Their pre-loaded personality is always impassive, neutral and nurturing. Obviously you see this personality frequently in the films.
and a lot more like Genestealers. The Dark Horse comics went whole hog with the Hive Mind idea. I wonder how much influence the two have had on each other’s authors.This is canon in the game. Lone “drone” xenomorphs can inject “dna” into victims to transform them into eggs, awaiting the eventual birth of a Queen.
Super cool (and terrifying).
I'm guessing they're kind of ignoring AnnaLee from Alien Resurrection here, or considering her something outside the normal android (which, admittedly, the line of androids she was of were supposed to be).
The first Aliens mini-series from Dark Horse also showed very human-like androids. I’m disappointed they went the route they did, after reading that.I'm guessing they're kind of ignoring AnnaLee from Alien Resurrection here, or considering her something outside the normal android (which, admittedly, the line of androids she was of were supposed to be).
Hydrofluoric Acid doesn’t do a good enough number on flesh to be Alien blood. Maybe Fluoroantimonic Acid, which dissolves nearly everything (except Teflon).Some other little tidbits if it is useful in games. Again taking the "main" stream of setting canon.
The Aliens blood is a high grade hydrofluoric acid which as you know eats through metal etc, but will not eat through flouride based materials like teflon. I think that's funny little known weakness. It also leads to the weakness to fire.
The reason the blood has this composition is that hydroflouric acid with some other compounds in the blood functions as a battery, so the Alien doesn't breathe, need to eat etc. The battery is "recharged" by eating silicates like rocks and glass or from strong heat sources. This is why the Aliens just sit immobile when there are no hosts around, they've no need to hunt for food. If they get into a ship place them somewhere hibernating in the piping of the fusion core so they've heat for their internal battery. Or have them chew/steal glass from the ship kitchen.
The possibility is purposefully left open in the novels etc that the battery might not be fully rechargeable and that any Alien eventually just "runs out/stops". So it might be possible to kill them from overexertion.
Young Chestbursters have weaker acid, since it's still mostly just hydrochloric acid taken from the host's stomach.
Eh?Resurrection is set a couple of hundred years after the original trilogy, which is when the RPG is set as well. No doubt technology advances over time.
An earlier model of AnnaLee appears in Destroyer of Worlds.
Eh?
Alien is 2122
Aliens and Alien 3 are 2179.
Alien RPG is 2183.
Alien Resurrection is 2381.
He also said that’s where the RPG is set. Last time I looked, it was not.How does that contradict what Skywalker said? He said Resurrection is a couple hundred years after the original trilogy, and last time I look that's what 2381 is to 2179.
Resurrection is set a couple of hundred years after the original trilogy, which is when the RPG is set as well.
The phrasing is a bit ambiguous, but it looks to me like he means the RPG is set at the same time as the original trilogy.
Thanks. Yes, the RPG is set at the same time as the original trilogy, not during Resurrection.The phrasing is a bit ambiguous, but it looks to me like he means the RPG is set at the same time as the original trilogy.
Agreed. Ash and David were far more interesting. However, Bishop was there to subvert expectations, I suppose. Although once we see the “real” Bishop who works for Weyland-Yutani at the end of Alien3… we’re just as confused as Ripley, at least for a moment.I much prefer the inhuman android of the first Alien to the more sentimental Cameron take in Aliens. The first is a much better fit for a horror game I think.
So, here's a question - now that the Aliens RPG is out, do you (meaning anyone in this thread) have any plans to continue playing Mothership?
Does that include Those Dark Places? I'd deffo run that. Play… heck, right now I'm so starved I'd even play TBE.
So, here's a question - now that the Aliens RPG is out, do you (meaning anyone in this thread) have any plans to continue playing Mothership?
I suspect trying to license in other properties to the Alien game would be an economic and administrative nightmare.