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Konungr
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Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Wed 12 Jun 2019, 07:35

I know that game was a complete train wreck. At the time it was touted as having a story that would be considered canon. Is that still true for the purposes of this RPG?

I want to point out some issues with that games story being in any way official.

-Hicks is alive on LV426 and a captive of Weyland Yutani. ... Wut? They never actually explain how Hicks got there from the Sulaco. They just hand wave it away as "A story for another time". The person who who was still alive should have been Hudson. How good would it have been if he got pulled through the floor grates but managed to survive? The guy who said "17 days! I've got a news flash for you, we ain't gunna last 17 hours!" managed to survive on his own for the whole 17 days?

-The nuclear reactors of Hadleys Hope blew up at the end of Aliens wiping the site off the face of the planet. ... And yet you go there and walk around it 17 days later without suffering from drastic radiation poison or you know... the whole place being a pile of rubble? It even still has power!
 
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VaeVictis9
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Wed 12 Jun 2019, 07:52

It is not mentioned on the timeline in the PDF. Pages 12 and 13.
 
joabe
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Mon 01 Jul 2019, 08:10

Probably not. 

They have taken elements from Alien: Isolation, though.

They've even taken elements from the unused William Gibson Alien 3 script (recently made into an audio drama) that features HIcks.

Canon at your table, at least if you're the GM, boils down to what you want it to be.
 
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aramis
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Mon 01 Jul 2019, 09:30

It's unlikely that the plant at Hadley's Hope would actually wipe the place away. 
It's (quite intentionally) very hard to make a fission power plant go "BOOM!" The best you get is a steam explosion lit from below, and a glowing pool of mixed metal self-heating slag. And radioactive fallout everywhere nearby. 
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toy203
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Tue 09 Jul 2019, 14:19

I'm guessing this RPG and the Colonial Marines game should be both canonical, as long they don't contradict each other, since they are a Fox official product?
 
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aramis
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Wed 10 Jul 2019, 09:01

I'm guessing this RPG and the Colonial Marines game should be both canonical, as long they don't contradict each other, since they are a Fox official product?
Except that Fox only ever produced the movies. Everything else (or very nearly so) was done under licenses. Whether Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (TCF) came to own that material at end of license or not is best left for lawyers... but, looking at one case I can check easily...

The prior RPG was done not by TCF, but by Leading Edge Games (best known for Phoenix Command, a notoriously table-heavy game); the game mechanics remain copyright LEG, while the characters (including new ones) are property TCF.

The videogames were mostly (if not entirely) farmed out. Colonial Marines was apparently by Gearbox  Software, published by Sega, iusing a licensed engine (Unreal)...

Fox also has a history of being notoriously lax about extended universe materials for various IPs...
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toy203
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Wed 10 Jul 2019, 12:13

Guess we'll just have to play a StarWars-y and consider canon only what's on screen for now, everything else is "Expanded Universe". Does AVP counts? Eh... I guess so.
 
Kwin_Original
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Mon 05 Aug 2019, 10:20

As far as I remember, the "Stasis interrupted" DLC for the game explained why Hicks was alive and captive and not the one in the stasis capsule that died instantly at the beginning of Alien 3.
 
Jhea
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Mon 05 Aug 2019, 12:06

I know that game was a complete train wreck. At the time it was touted as having a story that would be considered canon. Is that still true for the purposes of this RPG?

I want to point out some issues with that games story being in any way official.

-Hicks is alive on LV426 and a captive of Weyland Yutani. ... Wut? They never actually explain how Hicks got there from the Sulaco. They just hand wave it away as "A story for another time". The person who who was still alive should have been Hudson. How good would it have been if he got pulled through the floor grates but managed to survive? The guy who said "17 days! I've got a news flash for you, we ain't gunna last 17 hours!" managed to survive on his own for the whole 17 days?

-The nuclear reactors of Hadleys Hope blew up at the end of Aliens wiping the site off the face of the planet. ... And yet you go there and walk around it 17 days later without suffering from drastic radiation poison or you know... the whole place being a pile of rubble? It even still has power!
Aliens Colonial Marines isn't all bad.
It gets a lot better when you have the DLC stasis interrupted.
Hicks is alive then, and it is explained how he stayed alive, woke up and did stuff, and it actually makes LOT of Sense, also it makes a lot of sense to explain how there was still a body in Alien 3 in Hicks hypersleepchamber

Also you find hudson later in the game... in chapter 5, quite early.
He is pinned to the wall and has given birth to a thing.

Next thing... hadleys hope is pretty ragged up, but behind a lot of hills and such, which have taken the brunt of the nuclear explosion.
The radiation from nuclear bombs comes from the fissible atoms aka uranium and plutonium. there are no such isotopes in a fusion reactor, that needs helium-3, deuterium or tritium.
but well, doesn't matter - the game takes place in a matter of hours, and since we learned from chernobyl (series) you can watch right into a reactor core and play cards 3 days later (before you die and get burried under concrete!) ;D

Since none of the plotlines from Alien: Colonial Marines are ever touched again, it can still be canon, since it doesn't interfere with anything else.
this is just a matter of your personal choice if you ask me.

Considering the Alien: Isolation Plotlines...
well there are these audiblebooks (which is pretty much an audio play... and it is really well written and voice acted) 
they mention them in Alien: out of the Shadows
and Alien: Sea of Sorrows

Tbh, i find it quite funny where they find all these alien hives in the first place, on several different planets and other locations.
these things are like a plague, and tbh, everything involving the creators from alien covenant and whatever... is just doing them no justice.

-------------------------------

Addendum.
Just got my hands on the preorder cinematic starter kit and read the timeline.
The question was, is Aliens Colonial Marines still considered Canon.

And the answer i can give is: definetly yes.

All the Timeline states to the LV 426 and Fiorina incidends is 'reasons unknown'.
which is true for the general public, and since they made sure that there are not many survivors and there were no transmissions in the movies, they reasons stay unknown.
and W-Y will certainly not go and tell everyone about them ;D
And what Morse said, is considered fanfiction or a new religious text, if you take the timeline into account.

that's quite funny
I don't need a fancy signature quote from some dude, everything i say is pure gold! ~ myself
 
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toy203
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Re: Is Aliens: Colonial Marines still considered canon?

Wed 07 Aug 2019, 14:14

That's an interesting angle indeed. I'd still love to see it "canonized" in the full manual though, even just with a tiny timeline reference. Or, i guess they might have a Colonial Marines manual hidden in the closet somewhere...

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