Path: ...!Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-2.nntp.ord.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 22:07:49 +0000 User-Agent: NewsTap/5.3.5 (iPhone/iPod Touch) Cancel-Lock: sha1:O309nFECNS/s0WOhB/SdHgufosY= Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-05-19 (Sunday) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: BTR1701 References: Message-ID: Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 22:07:49 +0000 Lines: 60 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-mObG6owG+govsVR34w7KBEEZgFpt2zWnbobsBXaA49b/jMyzyOvkoayJeL/0RYAHgEzQVjiwYq5GNfl!NAEEavNU4UBdin4hChvRanaqRnGMiT38XYXbAIHZEXcfWhw3m0zuP0RzTLwvaG29+RickRSUcg== X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Bytes: 4144 Arthur Lipscomb wrote: > On 5/20/2024 12:39 PM, BTR1701 wrote: >> In article , >> Arthur Lipscomb wrote: >> >>> Aliens (4K disc) 1986 sequel directed by James Cameron and starring >>> Sigourney Weaver who must once again battle aliens that prey on people. >> >> I watched ALIEN a couple of nights ago and it occurred to me when Ripley >> sets the ship to self-destruct... >> > > My original plan was to watch Alien, but I thought Predator 2 better fit > the theme, since it had both the 1700s gun and Bill Paxton chewing the > scenery. Technically Alien may be the better movie, but I think I made > the right call going with Predator 2 instead. > >> Why in the actual hell does a commercial tug have a self-destruct >> mechanism in the first place? >> >> All through the franchise, we're given reminders that the Company only >> cares about money, yet they give a crew of uneducated roughnecks the >> ability to blow up billions of dollars of their equipment and valuable >> ore? >> >> And for what? Why would a tugboat conceivably have any need for such a >> feature? This isn't some top-secret ship with cutting edge military tech >> or something that needs to be kept out of enemy hands at all cost. It's >> a tugboat for a huge ore barge. What conceivable reason would its >> designers have to include an elaborate self-destruct system in its >> design? >> > > I can try to fanwank this. Their faster than light travel is powered by > some sort of fission reactor. If not properly maintained it is > susceptible to a meltdown. You can artificially create a meltdown by > removing the cooling rods. Since the cooling rods are replaceable there > is a built in ability to remove them. But if they are removed while the > reactor is active and not replaced this will trigger a meltdown. All > Ripley did was bypass a few safety protocols to remove the cooling rods > which triggered a countdown of how long she had to put them back in > before a catastrophic meltdown would occur. It was not designed > specifically to be a self-destruct but under the circumstances that is > how it functioned. > > Think of it as a truck driver cutting the break line (or equivalent) on > their truck. It's not *designed* to that, and the company does not want > the driver to do that, but it's possible to do it. That would be a good fanwank except for that fact that when Ripley pulls up the panel to start the process, the screen clearly says: DANGER Emergency Destruction System https://ibb.co/kGCBP34 So it wasn't a case of Ripley sabotaging the ship's normal systems and causing a catastrophic failure. It's a system purpose built and installed specifically so that the crew can detonate the ship.