ALIEN/Prometheus Timelines

losthomeworld

Hey, I'm a longtime lurker here. I had a thought I wanted to run by y'all. People here may know much more about this than me, but I'd like to know if my theory works out...

Is it possible that the timelines of ALIEN and Prometheus may overlap? Here's what I mean: Interstellar mining may have preceded scientific exploration, and the Nostromo could have been an early mining expedition that was away for a very long time. The company may have been aware of a possible scientific exploration in the future based on information they found just and anticipated they may need to use one of their mining ships as a contingency plan, so they added science officers to the mining crews for that reason. The Nostromo launches, travelling for years to a system far beyond the Zeta Reticuli system.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, technology advances and more clues are found which finally allow for the mission in Prometheus. The events of Prometheus (and possibly the sequel or sequels) occur...

Years later the Nostromo passes close enough to investigate. The events in ALIEN happen.

To me this answers a few questions. First, the Nostromo has less advanced technology because it's an older ship, by a decade or so, than the Prometheus. Even Ash seems like a less advanced robot. Second, considering how long the Nostromo's round trip would have to have been, it doesn't quite make sense that they pass by Zeta Reticuli just 30 years after Prometheus if they left afterwards.

I'm sure there is evidence that contradicts this theory, but with my limited knowledge it seems sound. Thoughts?

tgbyhn

Round-trip for the Nostromo in Alien was ~40 months. Probably several less due to them going a few weeks (six, I believe) off-course to investigate the beacon.

From the final Alien script:

DALLAS: How far to Earth.

LAMBERT: Ten months.

From the spoken dialogue in Alien:

DALLAS: Well, some of you may have figured out we're not home yet. We're only halfway there.

Therefore we can determine the Nostromo launched in ~2119/20, and was due back to return in ~2123.

Ripley wouldn't have even been born during the time the events of Prometheus took place. The oldest crew of the Nostromo would have been children.

The Nostromo has "less advanced technology" because the film was made in 1979. It was equipped with 1979 tech writ large, and what the 1979 film creators imagined technology 140 years in the future could look like, that was within the realm of imagination and technical limitations in 1979.

The direct connection between Alien and Prometheus you seem to be hypothesizing... well, Lindelof explicitly stated the following in an interview from a few days ago:

But the idea of not spelling it out entirely... I will tell you right now, the idea of this movie, even when you go and see it, there is space to debate what the relationship between this movie and Alien is. We are not connecting the dots for you, we are giving you the requisite information to have an impassioned discussion on it. You will know a hell of a lot more about it than you did before. But, it's not like it's not like movie ends, with the derelict spacecraft crashing full of eggs on LV-426, which is the derelict spacecraft the Nostromo happens upon in Alien. Umm, that's inevitability and not interesting.

Mr_Cairo

And Ripley promised her daughter she would be home for her eleventh birthday. Scott is obviously taking Aliens as cannon.

tgbyhn

Mr_Cairo said:
And Ripley promised her daughter she would be home for her eleventh birthday. Scott is obviously taking Aliens as cannon.

Not sure if he is or not. But they're halfway home from wherever the Nostromo picked up the refinery processing 20 million tons of ore, and they're still beyond the "outer rim", 10 months travel time distant from Earth.

I don't recall Ripley saying she had a daughter in Alien. I think that was a James Cameron addition to her backstory in Aliens.

JasonDiaz

Prometheus 2 in Spring of 2014, stay tuned ;)

Smokygrayson

Hey, but if they have FTL travel, wouldn't they get back before they left? (except for the time they spend doing stuff out there like mining).

Cureguy

Yeah, you can explain the retro tech on the Nostromo as just being 1979, but the Nostromo was a tough,old busted up mining freighter. It wasn't specifically designed for science and research exploration missions like the Prometheus. Also, you can glean that Peter Weyland personally oversaw the building of Prometheus himself and would spare no expense to have it equipped with the best and latest technology. The Nostromo didn't have those luxuries.

SargeISdead

It is possible the Nostromo is an older design, some of the oldest designs turn out to be the most reliable and quite durable, just look at the B-52 Bomber and some of the aircraft carriers that were in service for an incredibly long time. Even in fiction for example in Star Trek the Excelsior class of ships was still being used as the workhorse of Starfleet even though they had vastly superior designs like the Galaxy class. Older designs sometimes have less complicated systems and are easier to maintain and upgrade as the years go by whereas newer technology and systems require more complicated training and personel with the knowledge to run them.

tifosi77

tgbyhn said:

Mr_Cairo said:
And Ripley promised her daughter she would be home for her eleventh birthday. Scott is obviously taking Aliens as cannon.

Not sure if he is or not.

SRS has said many times - as recently as the current Rolling Stone interview - that he considers his film (obviously) and Cameron's film to be canonical. The other two films are...... not.

MartinRoby

Scott only said that he doesn't like the latest films in the franchise… those that were only produced to make money. Obviously he means both AvP films, and possibly Resurrection. But Alien3? Hard to believe. There is no reason to discard Fincher's film from canon. It may be flawed, but it's surely not apocryphal like that Predator and cloned-Ripley crap.

captaingeneric

This is all for the joy of speculations. Prometheus is looking like a very nice film. The timeline. Okay perhaps when you have multiple ships running around at near light speed to destinations a timeline must be considered multithreaded and plural. There is not really enough space here of course to talk time and relativity. I first just considered the Weyland timeline. That is a earth based time line. Also specific to Mr. Weyland. I assume high speed travel is becoming a reality around this time. People would have to make difficult choices. Kinda reminds me of "The Forever War" a book about coming and going in a confusing timeline flux during a space war. Becoming long haul space truckers would ruin a lot of relationships. Would explain why Shaw and Holloway would like travel together, among other reasons. Ironic that a state of the art ship leaves earth and returns 20 later earth time, a relic, sort of.

The point of this rambling is that I am naturally bothered by unclear or simply "off" timelines. I have decided to say and think WHATEVER. Don't care. I am more concerned about that sneaky David character :)

coolpapae

I have several theories discussed in the following review and would like to know what you all think. http://coolpapae.com/2012/06/08/prometheus-12-sail-into-the-mystery/

sippinthaaa40oz

I just watched Promethius, and there's something that doesn't sit right with me. The events of Promethius take place in 2091, and seem to be an prequel to Aliens. but In the first Alien V. Predator, the storyline has it set up so that the Predators have been harvesting these aliens for hunting games since the days of the Mayan civilization. U can't have something be created in 2091, and also be present during 2000B.C. -250 A.D. Anyone else catch this?

BooR4dley

sippinthaaa40oz said:
I just watched Promethius, and there's something that doesn't sit right with me. The events of Promethius take place in 2091, and seem to be an prequel to Aliens. but In the first Alien V. Predator, the storyline has it set up so that the Predators have been harvesting these aliens for hunting games since the days of the Mayan civilization. U can't have something be created in 2091, and also be present during 2000B.C. -250 A.D. Anyone else catch this?

AvP exists very much outside of canon. In the univers of Prometheus-Alien-Aliens the AvP films never happened, regardless of similar characters or anything else.Ridley created the universe and ultimately only he gets to decide what is part of it and what isn't.

Xyberviri

Mixing Comics and movies this is your time line, (this includes non canon events.)

Height of engineers civilization 3b BC
Engineers make aliens and almost get wiped out 1.5b BC
Predators cause alient outbreak in Cambodia 2000BC
"Predator" happens on earth 1987
"Predator 2" happens on earth 1990
"AvP" happens on Earth 2004
"AvP" requiem Happens on earth 2007
"Predators" happens on alien planet 2010
"Prometheus" occurs on LV-223 some time in 2093
-----29 year gap----
"Alien" occurs on LV-426 some time in 2122
Colony started on LV-426 and rename planet to Acheron in 2157
"Aliens" happens on Acheron, 2179
"Aliens 3" ahppens on LVL161/Furi, 1 month later 2179
"Alien Resurrection" happens on Pluto/USM Auriga 2381

Shadamachaeon

tgbyhn said:
Ripley wouldn't have even been born during the time the events of Prometheus took place.

Ellen Ripley was born on January 7th 2092 ( link ). "Prometheus" takes place in 2093. So she is a baby during the events of the movie.

I don't think it a coincidence.... :)

Chacej

If Ripley was born around the time of the Prometheus launch and the relative time difference when traveling at the speed of light from the theory of relativity means Ripley might be signing up for her mission while the events of the film take place. ;)

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