Zeta Reticulari, IIRC. Might not have been meant to be the same as Zeta Reticuli. Anyway, there's a reason why they call it science fiction -- it's fiction.

The word "primordial" clearly referred to the chemical composition of the atmosphere, not to its age. Along the same lines, one could say that the atmosphere of Titan is primordial.

You must be thinking of 2010. But there are no manned missions to Europa or Io in that film.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Okay, so I've just finished watching Alien. I'm beginning to think I may have never watched the whole thing, because some scenes were very familiar--to the point where I'm thinking, "Okay, where's the part where the guy does--Oh, there it is." But some parts were completely new.

So let's talk plot, shall we?

First off, is it necessary for a SPOILER ALERT for a thirty-year old movie?

Okay, so as I understand it, Ash receives orders from the Company (after everyone's been woken up by what might be a distress signal) to get the alien lifeform and bring it back home, all other priorities secondary. So how did the Company know about the alien? (Or should that be two aliens? The crew seemed to take the presence of a dead giant pilot on a spaceship quite in stride. More time spent on "What killed it?" over "What the heck is this thing and where did it come from?")

Dallas mentions to Ripley that Ash was a last-minute replacement for his regular science officer:
Ripley: Did you ever ship out with Ash before?
Dallas: I went out five times with another science officer. They replaced him two days before we left Thedus with Ash.

The "science officer's eyes only" order says the Nostromo was "diverted" to where it would pick up the signal and the Company placed an android on board to make sure they would bring something back to study - in other words the whole thing was planned from before the Nostromo left Thedus for Earth.
The Company probably didn't have much information about the alien, because Ash seems surprised at its capabilities, but if you watch Ash carefully you can tell that he has realized what the alien was doing to Kane while in the medical bay (in particular he turns off his gear showing Kane's insides when Ripley comes to confront him), and that he was fully expecting something to happen at dinner (while the others joke he watches Kane carefully and quietly).

They must have picked up the distress signal that the Nostromo also detected in passing, perhaps with a remote drone that couldn't investigate it. It's hard to know what else the Company knows about the alien and its capabilities from just the film.
After the Nostromo didn't return, whatever mid-level manager ordered them out there in the first place must have shreeded all the records of the plan to pick up the life form to cover his rear, because the Company in Aliens doesn't seem to know anything about it until Ripley shows up.

That's actually discussed in the cast interviews and commentaries. Basically they decided that by the time of Alien humanity had already seen a lot of strange stuff and encountered other alien species before. So they weren't suprised by the very existence of an alien spaceship or alien life, they just were surprised at how capable and ferocious this particular alien lifeform was.
Ash: Ripley, for God's sake, this is the first time that we've encountered a species like this. It has to go back. All sorts of tests have to be made.
Not the first time we've encountered an alien species, but "a species like this."

Harry Dean Stanton (who played Brett) in particular has said in interviews that Brett going after the cat only really makes sense if humans have already seen a lot of wierd stuff and dealt with it before. Despite Kane's shocking death, the crew seems to think they can handle the alien up until Dallas is lost in the air ducts. That's when they finally realize they're in over their heads and start to panic.

Later in the movie Parker and the others are surprised to discover that Ash is a robot, but they aren't surprised because the idea that a robot that can convincingly masquerade as a human being is something completely out of their experience - they are just surprised that Ash is one.

Yeah, I'm a fan.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

MORE SPOILERS BELOW:

When Brett goes after the cat, the crew were looking for the alien, but they hadn't yet seen it grown up and in full size. The thing that burst out of Kane was the size of an average fish.

I thought part of the surprise (at least it was part of my surprise the first time I watched the film) was that at first it gave the impression that Ash might be some kind of alien himself. His transformation was reminiscent of those of the infected men in John Carpenter's The Thing (which was only released after Alien, but actually went into production first).

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Thanks, Jason. That helps a lot.

Right. At that point they don't realize how quickly it can grow - Brett is so stunned when he does see how big the alien has become that he fails to react in time to get away. Even after Brett is taken they still don't panic, though Parker is upset and Dallas is obviously worried (he asks Mother "What are my chances?" even though he doesn't really expect an answer). After Dallas disappears they lose it, and Ripley has to shout at them a lot to get things back under some kind of control again.

A first time audience might very will think Ash is infected or some kind of alien himself until Parker yells out "It's a G-D robot!", but the characters know how to put Ash together again enough to talk to him/it, so they obviously had dealt with synthetic humans before.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

Contact

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Here's an oddball question- has it ever been premised what would happen if a face hugger attached to one of these synthetic humans? Would it be smart enough to know it isn't a "full" organism, that would be a valid host? Would it matter? Could the chest burster still develop and hatch? What sort of properties would it inherit from such a host?

Could it be some sort of "pseudo-synthetic" Alien that can spew white goo at you (resulting in a merely irritating mess, rather than hazardous dissolving acid)?

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Dude, don't be a Quaid!

I would guess it wouldn't taste right.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

The first comic book series by Dark Horse after Aliens included a plot to use synthetics (masquerading as a marine platoon) to capture alien specimens by attracting face huggers. I seem to recall the aliens attacked them but didn't try to impregnate any of them, so they may have figured out that they weren't potential hosts. Of course, that series is out of continuity with the movies, since Newt and Hicks were the main characters. Other novels and comic books may have explored the topic more.
In the movie series only one android ever gets attacked by an alien - Biship being attacked by the Queen at the end of Aliens. At that point she seemed only interested in killing him.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

And I would thing that the fact the Company was willing to kill the crew to get a sample is not great for employee moral. It would be hidden not only to cover the "mid-level manager" rear but the Companies as well.

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Smart little buggers! It seems there should have been something there for the facehuggers to be attracted to- presumably the Bishop-era synthetics were realistic enough on the outside (real flesh) as to necessitate an underlying metabolism (with similar nutrient mechanisms and processes to humans) to support that external physicality. I don't get why the facehuggers would see that as any less hospitable as a host. Alas, it's all a made up story, so I suppose the creators can make up any rule they like as they go along...

Imagine what kind of bizarreness could spawn if a facehugger met a T-rex or velociraptor?

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Dude, don't be a Quaid!

Since the aliens were loosely based on Ichneumon wasps laying eggs inside a caterpillar, which eat the host from the inside out until dead, I suppose we could ask ourselves, could you create an artificial caterpillar so lifelike that it fools the wasp into laying an egg in it? Once done, could the artificial caterpillar provide enough nourishment to the larvae? Two different aspects, obviously.

Incidentally, those wasps are nasty buggers. The larvae know to eat body fats and digestive organs first, leaving intact the heart and central nervous system until last. Ick.

Quite probably - it may not even need be very lifelike. While I know next to nothing about these particular wasps, insects as a rule are not inclined to critical thinking and can often be fooled by ridiculously poor facsimiles of prey/mates/threats/etc as long as they display whatever key stimulus the insect's reacting on.

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"Illuminati's Razor - The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer."
-- Fazor

So, the question is, "What would the alien's reaction to that be?" Would it be, "Hey! This tastes like chicken!" or would it be, "What is this? Some kind of cruel hoax?"?

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