An Engineer Building Walter is from Frankenstein, Germany

Ingeniero

An Engineer Building Walter is from Frankenstein, Germany

Loess Steinmetz is the head of the Department for Neurological Engineering, Weyland-Yutani Greater London Division (Alien: Covenant Origins novel, page 137).

Steinmetz was the last head of a department to sign off on commissioning Walter for the Covenant mission causing a delay in delivering Walter to the Covenant.

When pressed further by the Weyland-Yutani rep, Loess Steinmetz, said:

"'Sometimes I think I should have skipped engineering and joined my father's medical practice in Frankenstein.'

Harbison was taken aback. 'In where?'

He smiled at her startled response.

'Frankenstein. It's a small town in the mountains west of Heidelberg.'"

There are aspects of the castle in Frankenstein that tend towards the concepts (or hopes) seen in Weyland-Yutani's intent in their attempt to harness the positive aspects of the mutagen, specifically the concept of the fountain of youth.

The Insurance Payout from the Prometheus Mission Loss Funded Walter’s Development

“Both Gilead and Harbison preferred to refer to the Prometheus mission as “inconclusive,” even though that ship and its crew were considered lost by nearly everyone else, including the expedition’s insurers. 

Harbison smiled to herself. Peter would have been pleased to learn that the bulk of the policy payout had been directed into the Walter project’s fund, giving it a financial boost just when it was needed.”

Alien: Covenant Origins novel, page 133.

Ati

FRANKENSTEIN

The town Frankenstein is about 20 minutes of driving from Kaiserslautern.

Not to be confused with another Frankenstein Castle near Darmstadt, its castle is situated literally on the top of a railway line connecting Neustadt to Kaiserslautern.

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The German name Frankenstein means "stone of the Franks", and it is associated with various places in Germany, including Frankenstein Castle (Burg Frankenstein) in Darmstadt, Hesse, and Frankenstein Castle in Frankenstein, a town in the Palatinate. There is also a castle called Frankenstein in Bad Salzungen, Thuringia, and a municipality called Frankenstein in Saxony.

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Frankenstein is a municipality in the district of Kaiserslautern, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. On a hill towering over the village is Frankenstein Castle. Frankenstein (Pfalz) station is located on the Mannheim–Saarbrücken railway.

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It is not a place I would like to live in Ingeniero but thank you for your investigation and informative topic.

Ati

Ingeniero - In your article you linked the Castle Frankenstein which is close to Darmstadt. That seems to be totally 'understandable' owing to the Mary Shelley/Modern Prometheus connection.

But the character from the book, Loess Steinmetz, mentions the town Frankenstein adding that it can be found in the mountains west of Heidelberg. So she is speaking about the town close to Neustadt.

I think Foster wanted to refer to the castle in Darmstadt as well since that would be much more relevant. Have we just discovered a mistake made by the writer? If so, not an important one, of course...

BigDave

"Harbison smiled to herself. Peter would have been pleased to learn that the bulk of the policy payout had been directed into the Walter project’s fund,"

This is interesting, as it shows a majority of the pay out went to the improvement and manufacture of the Synthetics putting the Emphasis on Synthetics being very important... compared to other projects.

Ingeniero

That is great Ati. I'm sure the writers just love our auditing of their everything regarding characters, places, etc...thank you. Good work...I wouldn't have found that....

One thing I noticed BigDave that the multi-trillion dollar Prometheus mission was confirmed lost, the insurance company agrees, and the funds are paid within a few years (less than a decade). And fund the Walter project in time for the Covenant mission. There must have been some sort of confirmation of loss on LV-223 by the insurance company to pay that much, that quick.

There is another potential inconsistency with the old Weyland site is the "Expected Launch Date" which was a decade later in 2091 but that can be explained because nothing leaves on time and this projection was made in 2073. So, most of a policy payout, that could be near a trillion $ or more, was put into Walter before 2104.