12. Alien: Was the derelict ship destroyed at the end of Aliens?
Description
This article is from the Alien Movies FAQ, by Darryll Hobsonand Eelko de Vos E.W.C.deVos@TWI.TUDelft.NL with numerous contributions by others.
12. Alien: Was the derelict ship destroyed at the end of Aliens?
- Yes. The blast at the end of Aliens was big enough to destroy everything in
the neighbourhood. The ship was close enough to get blown to pieces.
[even though Lydecker proclaimed in the director's cut that the
ship's position was "a grid reference in the middle of nowhere"]
- Probably not. The blast was -according to Bishop- 'the size of Nebraska',
but he was only referring to the size of 'the cloud of vapour' at that time.
An explosion that size hasn't been accounted for yet. It's not very likely
that something could create an explosion that would vapourise Nebraska.
(The largest nuclear weapon yet detonated was a 57 megaton
device tested by the USSR in 1961. It produced a crater about 1 mile wide,
and the fireball was estimated to be 4.5 miles in diameter.)
There probably was only a real crater of about five miles that was
completely vapourised. The destructive effect of the blast stopped at
something about five miles or so. Beyond that, there was 'only' the gust of
wind, which could've produced the 'vapour'. So the derelict ship is still
intact.
[Lydeckers also tells us in the director's cut that the grid
reference of the ship was "in the middle of nowhere"]
This is corroborated with text from the 'Aliens Technical Manual':
'"So if one of these things exploded, how big a crater would you get?
"Big"
"Uh- forty megatons? according to the android that's a thirty
kilometer blast radius."
"Fallout?"
"Ground burst explosion - lots, I'd say. How far it would carry
depends on local weather patterns."
"But here, behind the Ilyium range, everything would be sheltered,
right?"
"Probably."
"So if the derelict is still there, there's probably eggs still
there. Bingo - and we get a bona-fide alien artifact as well."
"Yoishida! Get me Wells, and try to arrange a direct uplink to the
Shinoy Maru, immediately"
"Yes Mister Cuellar."'
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