To implement 'Aliens' movie in Mongoose Traveller

[Gruffty the Hiver]

Also in Aliens one of the Wayland Yutani employees (early in the film, before the alien ship is found by the prospector family) says something along the lines of "Some guy in a suit on Earth says 'go check out a grid reference'.....it takes two weeks to get a reply out here, so I don't ask"

 

[lastbesthope]

Doesn't the Auriga start out on the far edge of known space (or somewhere like that)? I assumed the cryotubes were used to preserve the specimins, making them easier to transfer than actual live people.

You could be right Greg I think I'm getting mixed up with Event Horizon here :lol:

Also in Aliens one of the Wayland Yutani employees (early in the film, before the alien ship is found by the prospector family) says something along the lines of "Some guy in a suit on Earth says 'go check out a grid reference'.....it takes two weeks to get a reply out here, so I don't ask"

But is that comms time or bureaucratic delays ? :lol:

I really should just dig out my Aliens Colonial Marines Tech handbook that thinking of it gave me the idea for this thread.

LBH

 

[Beastttt]

the use of low berths could be that
1 going FTL was hazardous to your health
2 conserve power to enter FTL and stay there

 

[GamerDude]

the use of low berths could be that
1 going FTL was hazardous to your health
2 conserve power to enter FTL and stay there

and
3 For pre-FTL trips to reduce the amount of supplies needed
4 SAVE A BUCK for both the captain and the person travelling that way.

 

[Greg Smith]

Certainly in Alien, hypersleep was a way to conserve oxygen among other things. IIRC there is a line about them getting low before they have captured/killed the creature and Harry Dean Stanton saying he isn't getting back into hypersleep with that thing running around.

60+ years later hyperspace travel is significantly faster (Hicks saying 17 days for rescue), but hypersleep is apparently still neccesary.

Although with any discusionof Aliens technology, we are back to the question of who flies the Sulaco? Autopilot? Bishop?

 

[Supergamera]

Although with any discusionof Aliens technology, we are back to the question of who flies the Sulaco? Autopilot? Bishop?

Could it have been the dropship pilot (Spunkmeyer?)?

 

[Bendigeidfran]

How many people were on the Sulaco? It seems a trend in the Alien franchise that huge ships are run by a very small group of people.

 

[rust]

It seems a trend in the Alien franchise that huge ships are run by a very small group of people.

This is probably just realistic.

The world's biggest container ship, the Emma Maersk, is able to transport
11,000 containers and is built for a crew of only 13 people. Now add in
some more automation, and in the not so far future a ship of that size,
397 meter / 1,300 feet long, can be handled by a team of 4 or 5 specia-
lists - a spaceship probably even with a smaller crew, since there are not
so many navigation hazards and the like in space.

 

[Vile]

Neither the Nostromo nor the Sulaco had any waking crew at the controls until they approached a planet. I assume that there are no crew required for those long, interstellar voyages and the ship runs on autopilot. Ripley was a navigator, so presumably someone has to set the controls before everyone goes into cold sleep.

The Betty, on the other hand, seemed to have a 'live' crew, but that could be because we didn't see it until it was already approaching the Auriga. Or it could be because Joss Whedon was practicing for Firefly and wasn't too worried about continuity ...

BTW, the dropship pilot was Ferro. Spunkmeyer was her crew chief and weapons officer. :wink:

 

[Paladin]

Also, the "Alien" universe has real-time interstellar communication.

(In fact, they don't seem to have this in "Alien", but they definitely do by the time of "Alien 3"."Aliens" talks about losing communications with the colony, but I don't remember if there's a strong implication about how fast the communications normally are.)

I know the films quite well, and I can't think of a single time when we see evidence of real time interstellar comms, even Alien 3 we only see text xomms received by the prison complex.

LBH

In part two there is some mention of "losing communications" with the colony on LV-426 so there is at least some manner of interstellar comms, but no mention on timeframe.

Also in Aliens one of the Wayland Yutani employees (early in the film, before the alien ship is found by the prospector family) says something along the lines of "Some guy in a suit on Earth says 'go check out a grid reference'.....it takes two weeks to get a reply out here, so I don't ask"

That would imply that it's 1 week or less to send a one way transmission since the two weeks would include travel time in both directions. But that probably also has some lag time for the bureaucracy to get the answer and get it back in the mail.

 

[Paladin]

In Aliens I remeber Hudson panicking and asking how long it would take to get reinforcements.

The answer was 17 days, which Hudson thought was too long.

If the colony planet is in another solar system and it only takes 17 days to get there, the ships much surely have FTL capability?

FTL - I'd assume yes. But the 17 days doesn't mean the reinforcements were coming from Earth. They could be diverted from another planet/ship/space station elsewhere.

 

[Greg Smith]

Ripley was a navigator,

Lambert was the navigator. Ripley was the warrant officer, which is fairly undefined.

 

[Supergamera]

FTL - I'd assume yes. But the 17 days doesn't mean the reinforcements were coming from Earth. They could be diverted from another planet/ship/space station elsewhere.

Was it 17 days until reinforcements, or 17 days until they were reported as overdue?

 

[rje]

Regardless, all that's needed here is a relatively slow, but tunable, FTL speed, be it warp or subspace or jump.

 

[vargr1]

Was it 17 days until reinforcements, or 17 days until they were reported as overdue?

He opens one of the scorched cases, revealing a
high-tech servo-actuated machine gun with optical
sensing equipment, packed in foam.

RIPLEY
How long after we're declared
overdue can we expect a rescue?

HICKS
About seventeen days.


(Yeah, I collect movie scripts. )

 

[vargr1]

the use of low berths could be that
1 going FTL was hazardous to your health
2 conserve power to enter FTL and stay there

The Colonial Marines Tech Manual says this (pg118):
"...the occupants of vessels in hyperdrive flight suffer the effects of time expansion, a phenomenon which is directly proportional to the square of the speed. This places a practical limit to the maximum speed you can travel at before subjective journey times become untenable; it also makes starships ever more reliant on hypersleep freezers to prevent massive crew againg."


Yeah, I don't know if i buy it.

 

[Gentleman John]

It's to do with the time dilation effect. According to relativistic physics, as you approach the speed of light, time for a traveller slows down. The factor by which time slows depends on the square of your speed divided by the square of the speed of light in the local medium. As a result, at c time will appear to stand still for the traveller.

If you draw a graph of the time dilation effect vs speed, the graph goes asymptotic at c. Keep this image in mind.

Now, as you exceed the speed of light the question is "What happens next?" The answer is nobody really knows because you are now entering the realm of imaginary. The rationale behind the decision in the Colonial Marines Tech Manual is based on the graph described earlier. In real life, a lot of graphs that go asymptotic as they approach a value reverse once they pass that value. If you apply that to the graph of time dilation vs speed, then the time dilation factor will become a time expansion factor with an infinite amount of time passing for the traveller as his speed tends to infinity. Thus, the journey as you experience it will take longer than an outside observer would measure.

An imaginative approach that at least takes account of some physics.

 

[Bendigeidfran]

I don't suppose anyone could suggest a place to get the "Aliens: Colonial Marines Technical Manual" at something under the absurd $60+ USD price?

 

[Greg Smith]

It seems a trend in the Alien franchise that huge ships are run by a very small group of people.

This is probably just realistic.

The world's biggest container ship, the Emma Maersk, is able to transport
11,000 containers and is built for a crew of only 13 people. Now add in
some more automation, and in the not so far future a ship of that size,
397 meter / 1,300 feet long, can be handled by a team of 4 or 5 specia-
lists - a spaceship probably even with a smaller crew, since there are not
so many navigation hazards and the like in space.

I can see the Nostromo being crewed by just a few people, but the Sulaco appears to be a warship with weapons mounts and the like. Even modern warships have crews of 3-400, and carriers in the thousands.

But then the Auriga has a crew of 42 (IIRC), however that is 200 years later.

 

[lastbesthope]

I get the feeling the Sulaco is capable of carrying a much bigger force than it did in Aliens, I mean why would 2 squads need 2 dropships?

If it were taking a more active role, other than ferry as it did in ALiens I suspect it would have had more crew.

LBH