Is the Covenant intended to land on the surface?

dk

Great and Dark minds think alike. :) BUT, I think it's safe to assume there won't be Aliens waiting to pounce on every world Humanity colonizes.

...BUT, there might be some things like, I dunno, some kind of Super-Opium that's Illegal, but when did any good money-grubbing megacorporation ever turn away from something that makes them beaucoup bucks? Sinister/hidden agendas, oh there's SO many possibilities...maybe some local plant, or combo of such Greatly extends Human Lifespan, BUT, it's hard to harvest/very limited growths, so it's KEPT QUIET and available only to those with supreme $$ and Supreme Discretion...

Blackwinter-witch ...and ultimately comes back to f%$k us all. Interesting how the franchise has religious themes of gods and demons, which is interesting in its own right, but it seems we screw things up by ourselves so well that we need no other worldly or spiritual assistance. We perfected the art all by ourselves. And what a way to sell it as a mission of building better worlds and other buzzwords to earn public trust. IDK I might be getting into BD territory here.

dk

No, you're making an excellent point!! In ALIEN: Manticore I have the Captain make that same observation regarding Humanity, the Engineers and how Humanity has enough problems of it's OWN making and doesn't need any more from Globicidal extraterrestrials.

Nefarious activities by persons and corporations, governments..well, that's just...The Human Way. Remember Ripley's comment about her 'not knowing which species is worse, you don't see them F---ing each other over for a dollar.' ?? That alone supports your points right there. :)

I am glad your book will have that element!

dk

TY for saying! :) When I was working out the dialogue for the characters (good thing hubby understands when I'm 'talking to myself') I had that burst into my head, thought about leaving it out, then realized that if I did discard it, it'd mess up some main story points, especially some key character motivations.

Also, and I think you'll agree, it's a Truth about the Human Condition. An unpleasant one, but a Truth nonetheless.

Yes, the human condition and scifi was brought up before in a different thread as I recall. Maybe the off the beaten path movie thread- I don't remember.

I think I may know what you mean about talking to oneself. I wrote some stuff on a thread nin coughed up. It was exactly that- rehearsing the dialogue with a mental picture of the scene and then writing it out how people actually talk instead of word smithing and polishing every line- if that makes sense.

dk

Makes total sense! It also really helps me in getting the 'mood' of a scene right, and being able to properly frame tones and such. I've tried just keeping it in my head, but I dunno, the 'feedback' one gets in acting/talking out a scene and dialogue, allows a better 'grasping' of things.
Discussions of The Human Condition are likely all across every ALIEN themed forum as mainly that IS what the franchise is about.

Blackwinter-witch Sounds like you are all in. Not sure if you are into the band Motorhead, but the late great Lemmy once said regarding presenting material to the masses- "Fly your flag up the pole and see who salutes it!"

dk

I forget at the moment who said it, but akin to Lemmy's advice, it was: "Write for yourself, not for the audience. Then you'll find out who genuinely appreciates your stories." It might have been Arthur C Clarke, maybe Asimov, or Bradbury...I just recall the quote.

BWW- sounds familiar. Mark Twain wrote some decent stuff and had some words about writing too. You probably know and don't mean to insult intelligence but here are some gems:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwj068GRxY_TAhVS9WMKHTOiBEgQFggxMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.onlineuniversities.com%2Fblog%2F2010%2F07%2F12-timeless-writing-tips-from-mark-twain%2F&usg=AFQjCNHKLCPvGjTaoic44TA9cX05Zdxbkw&sig2=scFKKkS5m7uQ0TUbCPJdNQ&bvm=bv.151426398,d.cGc

dk

NO insult percieved and TY for the link!! There's some really great quotes here! Many I didn't know previously! :)

The best part is the 'translations' of the quotes, those really help, and there's some VERY valuable advice here for all writers!!

TY again!!

Reading some of the comments and looking at the Ship, it would appear a ship this size once all the modules have been taken down would have trouble finding a space to land on their destination.

Maybe it can be broken down as SM stated or maybe it either stays in Orbit where they can use it as we would for communications and how we use Satellites in General.

Am am sure once we master vast Space Travel where we can send hundreds of people maybe hundreds of light years, the ship designs would be more in line of something that can be re-used.

Maybe they can send it back with Skeleton Crew to re-use?

As for the Company and Inside motives and Agenda's of the Nefarious kind, i am inclined to think at the present time so 2100-2105 the Companies objective for the Covenant Mission is exactly that a long term, long rang large colonization mission.

As back-handed as the Company came across in the Alien Franchise i dont think they would invest all that money and send 2000 souls on the off chance off what David was up to.

They would send a Military/Science exploration craft with a number of Androids on to either LV-223 or Paradise and not a Colony Mission.

I would think any company interest would come after the fate of those Colonists in future movies has been established and relates then to a Organism they can use  as a Weapon or Research for other uses of it.

BigDave

Good points!!

My considered theory on the ship (after a solid dose of eyestrain examining pics) is that it's a long-range, open-frame hauler, and covered in the modules for a pre-fab Initial Colony Site. The dropship as folks pointed out, it's design is VERY specific and fits to the look of the assorted 'modules' too closely to be accidental.

Once everything's offloaded and set up, working, the ship would return home to do the same again. Minimal innate ship-mass, maximum cargo-carrying capacity, meaning Low Overhead in establishing colonies quickly.

As nefarious as W-Y, and likely assorted other corporations are, like you I think Covenant is just a by-the-book colonization mission, albeit the first one of it's scale, and that W-Y had zero knowledge of where David and Shaw had gone, or even what happened to them post-Prometheus Incident. So, I don't see any company nastiness in this movie, but Walter MIGHT have some contingency 'sleeper' programs, always a possibility.

At first, I thought that the Covenant- provided that it's a lot bigger than the Prometheus- was too big to enter planetary atmospheres and effectively landing on the surface without being shredded and melting, (also depends on the atmosphere of course) and land on surfaces. I still do to some extent but it's rather difficult to measure the size of the ship without at least a dropship right next to it for size comparison.

Judging by the first picture Ingeniero posted, it does seem like the Covenant is travelling at a very low orbit imo (either that or it's an illusion of distance). Not sure if it will descend further though before (more) dropships are deployed.

 Can someone clarify if the Covenant was always heading to Paradise or if it got diverted on route to somewhere else?

Thanks :) 

@Blackwinter-witch

Totally 100% Spot on, this is how i see it too.

Indeed Neomorph  the Covenant did look like it had entered the outer Atmosphere, i think however as Blackwinter-witch put it, i would consider the main ship not being really intended to land on the Surface.

I think it could land however provided there was a purpose built platform for it, i just think it would need a massive Flat Area to land.

As far as the Size, i have not worked that out.. i would be willing to take some measurements for a estimate if anyone likes lol

I agree to Neo.

I further think the cargo lifter/transport is meant for "on site" transport.

Considering the briefly shown bumpy ride of the dropship i can't imagine the cargo lifter doing an orbital decent with, let's say, an ATV strapped onto it. Unless there's some sort encasement to protect the cargo during atmospheric entry.   

On the other hand, we're talking scifi here so anything is possible if the story needs it. ;)

Deep Space, this may answer your question.

"Deep into their mission, the crew is awakened from their cryogenic sleep pods by a mysterious distress signal that is human in origin. That signal leads them to another planet, a paradise that looks far more appealing than their initial destination. And then they do not peacefully settle on that planet and do not happily establish a colony because this is a movie with Alien in the title."

http://www.slashfilm.com/alien-covenant-characters-plot/

BigDave

TY !! :)

Given the tech we've seen in the ALIEN universe, like you I suspect Covenant COULD land, but it would need an appropriately large, flat or reasonably-flat area. But while it CAN probably do so, I doubt it's a 'preferred option'.

Ingeniero

"Deep into their mission, the crew is awakened from their cryogenic sleep pods by a mysterious distress signal that is human in origin. That signal leads them to another planet, a paradise that looks far more appealing than their initial destination. And then they do not peacefully settle on that planet and do not happily establish a colony because this is a movie with Alien in the title."

LOL Love it!!! :D