Last update 1st May 2004
Here's an overview of what I can figure out about the colony's structure. I'll arrange it in a more coherent manner at some point. Maps, photos and schematics are to follow. I have based it only on the Alien/Aliens movies. Where there is some point from the comics (Newt's Tale - herein in purple) I have noted it. If there is any comment about the place in A3/A4 I have ignored it. There are some discrepancies between various sources as to the layout of the colony, I'll try and note those as I go. The Tech Manual plan is utterly different to the movie, and is ignored. However, it does give some useful dimensions for the standard components, so I use those. I have attached a few small images linked from the text to explain how I derived at certain ideas. They all open in a NEW window so you can read and look at the picture. I did this rather than embed the images and cause alot of unnecessary downloading of images just to get to the text.
The colony (Hadley's Hope - owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corp) supports 60-70 "families," (as mentioned after Ripley's explanation to the 'Board' of the Nostromo affair - "How many are there, how many colonists?" - "I don't know, maybe 60, 70 familes") equating to a population of 158 (shown on the 'Welcome to' sign during the fly over scene.) Considering several children are shown in the movie, one must assume some of the families are either single people (I think unlikely they would send singles out to a rough colony all alone in the wilderness with limited options of finding 'company') or that the initial sign is now outdated, and the children are above the 158 total. In fact, after 20 years, if it's the initial sign, the number could be vastly incorrect, though I can't see why the colony would get too much bigger unless the operation was expanding.
The colony was created to oversee the terraforming of the moon, an automated process likely to take several generations to achieve its goal (movie quote - "takes decades, it's what we call a shake and bake colony"). The moon has a good enough basis for future claims to invest in terra forming, having abundant suitable metals, a strategic location, and abundant water making terraforming a shorter or easier process. Within the period of terraforming (colonies existence over 20 years) the atmosphere was made breathable, so likely a suitable atmosphere was a prime factor in the planets choice. While the colonists can walk outside, the general climate appears very hostile with high winds and some free moisture. Therefore, most time is spent indoors.
It is clear that the station is periodically restocked from offworld, as there is no hope of growing their own food, or mining for metals at this point. One assumes this might be a 3 or 6 monthly occurence. In all other functions, the colony needs to be self sufficient, so luxuries are likely to be scarce on the ground. No doubt the colonists recieve good pay, but the transportation cost for goods will probably negate alot of this. (Note: that the comic 'Newt's Tale' does mention livestock being cocooned in the atmosphere processor)
While it is assumed most of the citizens are engaged in the terraforming operations, the fact that at least one family is referred to as wildcatters and assumed to be not so well off seems to indicate that there are others who rove outside the colony on occasion for extra income. These may be geologists or rock hounds (the seismic/mining charges mentioned in the movie). It seems they are outside of the normal operations, but not outside the colony, so we can assume they live within the colony complex, as they are seen driving out of the north west gate. The general tone appears to be that there is a group of colonists outside of the terraforming process, and may be 'lower' class workers, perhaps cleaners, cooks, general repair workers, labourers or something similar who are keen to look for abit of extra cash. Perhaps they work as part of the unloading crews for the resupplies and are involved with steel fabrication. They may even live in a separate part of the complex to the rest of the colony residents.
The colony appears to have little military association with its operations. The marine scout of the colony only mentions small arms hits and some seismic charge blasts. Bullet marks in the walls tend to indicate some machine gun fire. I assume the colony is not particularly heavily armed. There appears to be no permament military defence infrastruture (ie gun towers, turrets, wall firing ports, vehicles) so in essence the outlook for the colony is almost purely civilian. There being no indigenous life forms, there would be little need for weapons except against invasion (unlikely from another Corporation until the terra forming is more completed I think), piracy (probably the more likely risk), or internal dissention.
Weapons within the colony are likely to be strictly controlled, the only personal weapons that might be allowed would be pistols I reckon. Clearly the wildcatters did not take a weapon with them when they explored the derelict ship. They were either stupid, inexperienced or had no weapons to take anyway. I assume weapons are stored in one place under lock and key. I am uncertain whether there is a security officer as such. I assume it's another duty for a senior manager.Weapons for the colony are *likely* to be pistols, rifles (non military - not pulse rifles) and shotguns. Small arms fire tends to indicate some light calibre MG, most likely hand held. I find it unlikely there are enough weapons for each colonist (certainly Newt's Tale indicates this. It indicates a mix of shotguns - the main weapons - and pistols, and not many at that) Taking a punt I put weaponry at 4 SMG's, 16 shotguns, and 20 pistols. I would say you have two options for how much the colonists can use the weapons. Only a limited number would be trained to use the SMG's in either option. You either have the option of allowing all colonists having a basic weapon training prior to being sent to the colony, or only a select number being trained. Most of them in either case won't be all that flash with weapons, as I couldn't imagine them doing alot of weapons training on the colony. There might be one or two who fill in time with gunnery practice, but not the whole 150! Conversely, they been there 10 years, so maybe they do a firing range once per year to keep their 'licences' active.
It is interesting to note that the marines don't appear to find any of the colonists weapons for their own use, considering that the command centre was the location of the colonists last stand, and the place where any weapons would be dropped.
A period of some 57 years elapsed between the Nostromo adventure compared to the Sulacco adventure.
Some of this physical description is quite wordy without apparently explaining alot. I'm writing it out this way so that I can remember the pieces as I go about recreating the plans. The ground level is called level 1.
The colony is constructed on a moderately open flat area nestled apparently between some adjoining higher rock formations to the east and west, though the atmosphere processor is in the open and not surrounded. The colony is most likely constructed on the flat for easy of construction, and between the rock formations for some weather protection. Within the flat there are still projections of highly eroded rock formations, like the stuff the marines hid behind when the dropship crashed. Judging by photos and the movie, an area roughly 30m outside of the structures has been levelled and is either paved (concrete/steel near entry ways) or natural (packed) soil. There is a 4m high solid metal 'fence' across the north and north-west end of the colony, with a gate on the north-west. It is not clear if this is repeated to the south, but it can be seen in the closeup photo of the command centre..
The complex layout is shown several times in the movie, but never very well. All dropship flyover sequences are very murky, and not easy to put together. The scene where Hicks shows Ripley how to use the pulse rifle has a display panel behind them showing the complex. Most of the time the north end of the map is not visible. The map is shown again briefly just before they all rush out to rescue Ripley from the fire alert. Lastly, there are a number of localised photos on the cd extras disk. This also includes a complex layout made up of wooden blocks. This looks pretty close to the final layout, but the angle the picture is taken at doesn't show the southern end well at all. There is also some layout screens shown on the light table they work on, which zooms in and out when they are looking for the colonists. The colony layout on this (shown when Ripley talks about the service tunnel the Aliens are using to access the complex) is not exactly the same as other layouts, and I assume it is nothing more than a footprint layout for the concrete base which is larger than the structures it supports. It at least clearly shows one access tunnel only.
The complex itself consists of three main structure groups. The 'east' colony, the 'west' colony and the atmosphere processing station (APS for this document). The colony complex is constructed on a roughly north/south access, with the APS to the south. The fly over sequences show a number of what appear to be communications towers around the complex. These may be attached to the two landing pads.
The east core colony structure is mostly modular, and consists of linking corridors on the east/west sides which are 2 storey and hexagonal in cross section. Between these are the main 'rooms' which are trapezoid in cross section.Attached to these standard pieces are a few specialists rooms, such as the command room on the south side. Construction materials are steel for the main structure, with a concrete base. A series of major cable trays run across the roof of the structure and link it to the west colony. An undergound corridor (service tunnel) connects it to the APS to the south. The underground tunnel is constructed of concrete walls with steel doors and fittings and carries all the cabling linking the two structures. It is not all that large, and could barely comfortably accomodate two people walking abreast. It is secured at each end by a pressure door and airlock. The structure has at least two sub levels, seen when Hudson spits into one of the holes made by the death of one of Ripley's 'bad guys.' The second sub levels may instead be sub corridors carrying cable trays, pipework and ducting underneath the structure. It may also be the main drains, full of water usually (3' deep). This is the bit where Newt was taken by the Aliens. They then subsequently probably returned her to the APS via the underground corridor. Newt's tale indicates at least one sub floor, though this may only be one particular store room.
There are three major air locks to the colony. North, south and east.
Level 2 of the complex contains the dedicated work areas ("Hey, you know you kids aren't supposed to be on this level.") This includes the command centre and med labs (med bay to fore, command behind). The command centre has a higher ceiling than the rest of the complex, as show on the exterior view, and also has an airlock below it. It appears all access between levels is by stairs. All internal corridors in the complex are 9.1m wide due to their being half hexagonal, the actual walking area is roughly only the 3m centre strip of the 9.1m width at the floor level. Checking all views I have of corridors, they are all the same shape. There are no square walled corridors. Upstairs and down stairs corridors all appear the same shape as well.
The west colony appears to be the recreation area, including a casino and 'bar and grill.' It consists of a number of unique structures attached to each other, most being single storey with a few parts having a second storey. Access to the outer colony appears to be normal open air access, walking from one structure to the other. There does not appear to be an underground passage connecting the two. There's not alot of info on the west colony as the marines don't go there in the movie.
The APS is a connundrum to reconstruct. An external photo shows it being semi conical and solid walled. I can't imagine anywhere in it that a dropship could fly into without considerable risk, but it flies in through the main entryway through a tower opening with heaps of room to spare. The Tech Manual describes it as being 1.5km high, and judging by the photos therefore roughly 3km diameter. I have some MAJOR issues with this size compared to some of the photography and I will tentatively put it at 1/10 the size quoted. I say main structure 300m diameter, 150m high to the top of the main structure. There is an antennae above this. The above ground structure is symmetrical, with 6 major towers surrounding it. There appears to be a major intake near ground level at each tower, with one major entry on the west side facing away from the colony (red arrow is where the APC drives up, the yellow arrow where the dropship flies through). Nearby this is the landing pad where the initial dropship lands to wait for the marines to do their job. This major entry is split into two entry ramps. One drives straight up the middle (36m wide) and goes roughly horizontal, ending in an airlock. The bright light above the lock can be seen in the previous entry picture just where the centre ramp would enter the structure.
This entry is ground level 1. The airlock continues in for a long wide corridor, before T'ing both sides. Half way along it, the marines jumped out and headed off to a flight of stairs on a corridor to the right. Here the stairs went up and down. They went down the stairs to sub level 3. Here they found the Alien nest not far from the steps. They went in, and quickly found the Alien nursery, with all the colonists. During the subsequent action, Frost falls down a stair well, at least 3, and probably four levels down to the bottom. This gives a total of 6 or 7 sub levels. Ripley following behind in the APC does a right at the T and continues doing right hand turns until she hits the Alien colony on sub level 3. This therefore is likely the extent of the corridor as far as going down is concerned. Once the marines are in, she reverses, does a hard right again, and is going up. Therefore, she must return the other way up to the ground level, where she drives out the door. Note the door opens and closes on the way in, but not the way out. Note the corridor is quite high going down and up, probably equating to 2 levels in height all the way. There is at least one set of internal elevators (2 together) which go from sub level 2 to level 5. Ripley has to get out at sub level 2 and run down a flight of steps to the Alien lair.
Either side of the centre access ramp a main ramp (37m wide each) runs up into the area of bright light, where I assume alot of airflow is being sucked in, and so not regularly used as an access. This upper area is a very broad (100m) and high (173) hexagonal shaped intake going straight through to the centre structure core. The core is a vast array of pipes and flumes surrounding a single venting chamber. This central chamber is 91m in diameter with a 75m wide clear zone between the core and the exterior walls. From this 75m wide clear zone to the exterior walls is cram full of pipes and flues. This main entry way is lvl 2 of the APS. Above it are 3 more genuine levels. I guess this because Ripleys elevator stops at level 5. The Queen has no control over hers, so I assume it just goes to the top by itself. No doubt there are a few scattered levels above this, accessed by stairwells. I'd almost think another series of elevators exists which go right to the top. There are a couple platforms that cross from the outer wall to the inner core, but not many. For example, the platform where Ripley drops off is quite wide and long and doesn't appear to go anywhere in particular. There is at least one platform crossing from wall to core above this, so more levels exist.
There are two landing pads, one near the north west gate on the outside, the other about 200m to the west of the APS. The view where Bishop is piloting in the 2nd drop ship clearly shows the APS entry directly behind him. The first dropship leaves the APC at the northern one, then flies off, and is parked on the southern one I guess. The second drop ship lands near the APS. Both landing pads are surrounded on 3 sides by a 4m high solid metal fence. Each has at least one major automated communication tower and beacon next to it. The pad itself is made of metal sheet.
Newt's Tale very briefly describes the colony's last stand, but not very well. It actually shows a few colonists being killed, which in some ways surprises me. How many marines in Aliens died by an Aliens hands? We see the dropship pilot only actually killed IIRC. How many colonists were killed? The marines found no dead bodies, and all colonist's personal data transmitters were in the Alien lair.
Newt's tale says that Mr Jorden is brought in with a face hugger, and is followed shortly by a few others at least. Next cut scene after a chestburster scene and the family is being moved to a safer place (sub level storage) with many other unarmed colonists. They are told the marines are coming (contradicting the movie story) At the same time the colonists send a foray into the APS to hunt the Aliens and find out what they are doing, with the action supervised from the command centre. The search party are armed with shotguns and pistols, and locate the missing colonists, but are promptly over run. Everyone flees to the safe area, which is sealed up, but in a scene reminiscent of Starship Troopers, the door is unsealed because they believe there are people trapped outside. The Aliens flock in and the few defenders are overrun. I count at least 5 killed intentionally by the Aliens. Only Newt escapes in the ventilation ducts.
Trying to work from the movie, information is scant and there needs to be some reading between the lines and best guesses. We know it takes some time for the wildcatters to reach the derelict ship. ("Al, hey Al!" - "What?" - "Remember you sent some wildcatters out into the middle of nowhere last week, out past the Alien Range." - "Yeah, what?" - "One of them's on the horn. A mom and pop survey team. Says he's onto something, wants to know if his claim will be honoured.") As the colony has been there twenty years, it must be quite some distance through difficult terrain. None of the colony vehicles appear to be overly fast, though the tech manual says the Dohatai tractor has a top speed of 110km/hr over roads, and it just as good over terrain. The colony commander has had enough time to pass since ordering them out that he has basically forgotten them. That to me seems to be 4 to 7 days travel, though they do have to go to the other side of the Alien Range. It is possible they are doing other work on the way, so they may be from 2-7 days travel away in direct drive from the colony and could be driving 12 hour days at least. That's a long long way. My guess is that the derelict spaceship is at least some 1000km away, though the distance isn't really all that important compared to the time travelled.
What is unclear is the repercussions of the mayday call. It is apparent she is calling for help (duh) but in truth why! A long distance away from base, and a facehugger doing its job, a mayday call isn't going to achieve any real result for quite some time. We see no evidence of air vehicles at the colony, but considering the time delay we know it takes for a facehugger to drop off, a 4-7 day drive back will be too long before the chestburster arrives. The Aliens RPG says it takes give or take a few hours off 3 full days from attack to chestburster. Note also the Aliens RPG says that one egg will be implanted for roughly every 30lb of flesh in the host. They are therefore implying an adult male could host 3-4 chestbursters no problems. I don't go along with this theory, and will stick to one chestburster per hugger. General consensus among other sites is that Queen Facehuggers are required to make Queens, and that warrior Aliens can lay one egg give or take per day. Sounds rubbish to me, I prefer all huggers can make viable Queens, and are only suppressed to warrior drone form by an exisiting Queen's pheromone control. I'd suggest the immature form of the Queen looks alot like a drone until it goes into a 3rd moulting phase to make the final Queen shape.
We face the first quandry, how does the Alien get back to the colony from the derelict ship?
I like option 2 best, but am open to other ideas. Option 1 & 3 leave the colony already on a state of some alert. Granted, they are looking for something smaller than they are expecting, and you could play it out as another Nostromo adventure. In all options it is pretty clear to me that unless there is a major air lift vehicle, the outbreak is the result of the one facehugger attack, there just isn't enough time to get out to the derelict ship with an exploration party and bring them back. I can't see anyone driving out to the derelict ship over several days while the colony faces the solo alien. The only way multiple face hugger attacks will occur is if a search party is airlifted in a short period of time to the derelict ship and brought directly back into the base.
The dropship puts the APC down outside the northern fence and they then rush the northern airlock. The dropship is seen taking off after dropping the APC off, but it flies off to land somewhere else, which looks like it might be another landing zone. A second landing zone is shown when Bishop lands the second dropship. Why drop the APC off outside the fence, then fly to the other end of the complex and wait there? Odd. Also, after the aliens have chased them out of the complex, the dropship is still sitting around casually unaware of anything untoward. Somehow they have been off the communications.
The marines split into two sections and begin searching a level per section. They don't appear to search the two sublevels at all, they just march casually off to the command centre. They clearly only search the eastern complex, and then only a part of it. They do not find any civilian bodies.
When in the Queen's chamber, Ripley deliberately upsets the Queen. The place is going thermo very soon, why bother? It would then negate the Queen chasing her, and the whole Sulacco episode. On the other hand, perhaps the enraged Queen loses control over her minions who then are confused for long enough not to follow Ripley.
Script 1 -1983 pre treatment (Links to AVP site)
This script by James Cameron indicates that when the Alien vessel is first found the colonists explore it after the first attack on Russ Jorden. It indicates a dozen searchers, and during their visit to the ship, alot of eggs open, giving the impression that the floor is alive with huggers.
Script 2 - 1985 the first draft script parallels the movie, and does not give any indication of further Alien activity on Acheron.