You are Burke (Aliens)

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2006-04-03 12:58pm

After reading about people's doubts about the Colonial Marines' competency in this thread, I began to doubt Burke's competency. So here it is:

You are Carter J. Burke, corporate shark, who wants to get rich by acquiring a xenomorph sample for Weyland Yutani's bioweapons division. You know which planet the xenomorphs were first found on, based on the Nostromo's transmissions, Ash's report to the company, etc. What do you do?

For me, it's obvious. Hire mercenaries-- competent gunfighters who I can trust to keep their mouths shut-- to find the alien ship. Establish a fortified camp on LV-426 so the mercenaries can be resupplied, if necessary. If one or more of them get infected by a facehugger, put the merc in a cryo-tube to arrest the chestburster's development-- promise the other mercs that Weyland-Yutani will have a specialist remove the xenomorph and do everything they can to save the infected merc, preventing the others from rebelling-- and send the infected merc to a Weyland-Yutani lab.

If the entire merc team gets wiped out except for the ones guarding the resupply camp-- I'm not stupid enough to leave it undefended-- hire more mercs, have them study the dead mercs' transmissions/reports so they'll know what they need to know to succeed, and send them out.

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2006-04-03 01:17pm

Given good enough defenses I'm guessing that the resupply camp can be held against any aliens. However, it would simply be a matter of sending a merc team into the spaceship (on a side note, was this ship Alien in origin or was it from another species?) to grab an egg with some form of machine, preventing it from hatching. Then transfer the egg back to the camp under high security, and then to a research outpost (not Earth for obvious reasons, maybe a space station). With adequate precautions I'm pretty sure a breakout could be prevented, it would simply require adequeate precautions with full knowledge of the Alien's capabilities.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-04-03 01:18pm

Do you have any idea how much money mercenaries cost? It's not cheap, look at the cost of mercenaries in Iraq. Burke is not rich and he did everything on his own without corporate resources. You'd have to show he has the money to do this in the first place for your plan to work.

Brian

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2006-04-03 01:30pm

Well in that case continue to use the troops he had with him. Ask for more if need be: remember Burke knew about the aliens so he was quite capable of hinting that there might be something dangerous there to get more troops without revealing what it was exactly.
After that, listen to Ripley - she faced one before so she knows more about them than anyone else does. Then go in carefully and kill the aliens as efficiently as possible (nuke 'em if need be, assuming you don't destroy the alien starship - anyone know how far it was from the colony? You could also turn the reactor off presumably to stop it detonating if you needed to use very heavy firepower). With the aliens dead, it should be much easier to get the eggs from the starship. And if you're really paranoid, set the whole place to blow once you leave: Weyland-Yutani will probably fall over themselves to pay for a new one considering what you've captured for them - and that's if they're required to pay for it at all.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-04-03 01:37pm

Simply have an extraction team with stasis pods ready for when the infected colonists return.

Cheap and effective, and I can smooth over the bad publicity by giving free "medical care" to the host.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-04-03 01:42pm

If I was Burke, with Burke's own morals and corporate considerations, I don't think I would have done much different, except that I would have been more aggressive in eliminating Ripley's meddling.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-04-03 01:43pm

Okay, Burke asks for more Marines.

He'll have to end up killing more Marines on the way home. What's the point?

He didn't know the extent of the alien infestation. Nobody did.

Brian

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-04-03 03:32pm

I'd have kept the marine complement the same, more marines means more of a chance of ruining your find, and keeping things small and simple helps when trying to sneakily acquire something that may be illegal.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-04-03 09:51pm

There's some misunderstanding of the progression of the plot in this thread.

Burke did not go out with the Marines intending to kill them on the way home. That's what Ripley suspected only after Ripley refused to go along with Burke's plan to smuggle the facehuggers back. Before then, he thought he could get Ripley on side so she'd simply keep her mouth shut, and they'd both get rich. Bishop was perfectly compliant, he didn't care either way, and there's no reason to believe that the Marines would've raised a stink at all.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-04-03 10:08pm

Okay, that's right, and actually Burke wouldn't have gone through with his facehugging plan if Ripley didn't threaten to "hang him to the wall" by showing evidence that he told the colonists to investigate the bone ship.

Still doesn't change that Burke wanted to keep the operation as low-key as possible. The more people there are the more chance someone could find out and want a cut. Burke probably underestimated the threat too... hindshit is 20/20 but who would have believed the marines would have nearly lost against melee fighters and had such a string of coincidences and bad luck.

Burke probably picked a green lt just so the lt didn't figure things out and demand a cut. Yes this is a reversal of my position earlier that soldiers can't be bribed, but thinking about it yes they can, they are human and Burke could have offered millions.

Brian

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2006-04-03 10:30pm

Burke managed a lot with the resources he had. From the stuff in the tech manual it sounds like he pulled all the strings himself. Of course given the glimpses of the sort of cut-throat mentality and corporate backstabbing we see in there it isn't much of a surprise.

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2006-04-04 12:37pm

Well given the nature of the Aliens breeding methods, and the exponential curve population increase given enough hosts, if I was Burke I wouldn't have sent the colonists out to the ship at all. One gets infected, which infects another...which leads to the hundreds of Aliens and the Queen (by the way, how does a Queen appear? Is there a special egg?).

I would have taken the same amount of marines, with a better CO, or just put Apone in charge he would have done a good job. Then Just take an egg or two in a way that ensures they can't hatch, cryo them, then take them back for research. Given the lack of scruples of the the company, I'm sure they wouldn't have had trouble finding 'volunteers' to test the huggers on...

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2006-04-04 06:12pm

brianeyci wrote:Burke probably picked a green lt just so the lt didn't figure things out and demand a cut. Yes this is a reversal of my position earlier that soldiers can't be bribed, but thinking about it yes they can, they are human and Burke could have offered millions.

This was Burke's big mistake. He should've given a colonel a big patriotic speech about how a xenomorph-based bioweapon will ensure the US's continued superpower status AND a large bribe. The colonel would refer Burke to an EXPERIENCED officer-- preferably a captain-- who'd agree to help for the same patriotic reasons AND a percentage of the profits, e.g., Weyland-Yutani stock options.

If Ripley wants to leak data on the bioweapons project, the colonel and captain will tell their subordinates NOT to give supporting statements-- without further evidence, Ripley's leaking will be dismissed as a fruitcake's paranoid rantings.