Louis Melançon
Whether you call it LV‐426 or Acheron, it’s a desolate, ugly hunk of rock. When its atmosphere processing plant’s fusion reactor exploded, it turned it into a desolate, ugly, irradiated hunk of rock uninhabitable by humans for thousands of years. This did not improve property values. The explosion itself can be considered a force majeure (well, maybe a deus ex machina), but it wasn’t far off from what the surviving humans in Aliens were planning anyway: nuke the site from orbit. After all, this is the only way to be sure the Xenomorphs don’t survive. But for purposes of a philosophical thought experiment, let’s adjust the script a smidge: after the initial fight the surviving humans withdraw to the Sulaco without further incident. Once on board, they shoot everything that will explode down the gravity well until LV‐426 becomes glass. That makes boring cinema (because it eliminates dramatic conflicts), but it also raises a question: in a conflict, is it morally acceptable to “go nuclear,” or is there value to demonstrating restraint? As with most things in life, the answer varies with whom you ask. If you asked the Engineers, they would rip your head off. So they don’t see value in demonstrating restraint. But that’s not the only perspective out there.
To set the stage for considering the military decisions of Colonial Marines from an ethical perspective, strap in like it’s a simulated combat drop from low orbit because we’re going to bounce around through time. Before looking at the Aliens future of the twenty‐second century, we need to stop by the fifth century BCE at another rock: the Aegean island of Melos. Back in the day, Athens and Sparta had some problems with each other known as the Peloponnesian War. Consider it the original East Coast/West Coast feud. One of its incidents involved Athenian troops rolling up to Melos and demanding that the Melians not only ally with Athens against Sparta but also pay for the privilege of doing so. The Melians saw themselves as kin to Spartans, yet wanted to be neutral in this entire beef. Thucydides (460–400 BCE), recognizing the importance of this event, left us the Melian dialogue, a dramatization of the negotiations. His record contains the famous line, “the strong do what they will, the weak do what they must.”1 This is the core of political realism.
In political realism, power is what matters. Power keeps you alive; it allows you to do what you want or need to do. If you don’t have it, you need it; if you have some, you want more; eventually, in competition with others, you want more than anyone else.
Being a very astute reader you’re probably thinking, “Hey, political realism is based on the existence of states, groups of humans in a political setting. But what we see in the Alienverse are, mostly, acts of individuals.” You make a valid point, so let’s make an assumption that can carry this issue. Although we see individual creepy creatures with acid for blood, ten‐foot‐tall weirdos with snow white tans, and scared humans, let’s consider each group a state and the actions of the individuals as emblematic of the society and state they represent. Take the Engineers: they clearly have an advanced society with language, art, and music. Oh, and interstellar space ships! Can’t forget that. We can think of them as a state. Same goes for the Xenomorphs; they form some sort of society, even if it’s one that humans have difficulty recognizing or understanding.2 Don’t get me wrong, they are dangerous, terrifying, killing machines; but they aren’t mindless killing machines. They use tools, and they cooperate and communicate among themselves. Let’s consider them another state. Finally, it shouldn’t matter much if they’re a colonist, Marine, or a Weyland‐Yutani corporate yes‐man: the humans can be lumped into a monolithic group for ease of consideration.
Swapping “strong” Athenians and “weak” Melians for our three futuristic states, the Engineers are the strong; they do what they want. I’m not just talking about ripping off the head of an android who pulled you out of the stasis chamber (have a little empathy, who hasn’t been cranky when abruptly awoken from a REALLY good nap?). Let’s take it to a larger scale. As we saw in Prometheus, the Engineers spurred the creation of mankind. Yet two thousand years before mankind achieved space flight, the Engineers were getting ready to wipe the Earth clean with some gnarly biological weapons. Why do that when there was no threat? The answer is simple: because they could.
The Xenos are realists too. From the human perspective, it seems like the Xenos are the strong. But maybe they perceive themselves as the weak, a perception that might drive their actions. After all, it looks like their first concern is survival: every time Xenos encounter a different form of life they are greeted with bullets or fire. And some screaming. First contact encounters, from the Xeno perspective, are high‐threat environments, so engaging with violence has a very low threshold of risk. Sure they kill a lot, I mean a LOT, but it’s not indiscriminate. They preserve and select some humans as incubators, eliminate high‐threat individuals, and although we don’t see it, likely kill for food (can we agree the Xenos probably aren’t vegans?). The Xenos are aggressive because, on some level, they know that if they are not they’ll be destroyed. That’s the mindset of the weak doing what they must to survive.
For humans, it’s a dangerous, scary galaxy out there beyond the third planet in the Sol system, so there’s no question about being weak. They are surrounded on all sides by stronger creatures with no compunction about doing whatever they want or feel they need to do. If you’re one of the Nostromo crew and you run into Xenos, you get away however you can. If you’re Meredith Vickers, you turn a crew member who’s been exposed to Engineer black goo into a Human Torch cosplay. You do whatever it takes to survive.
It might seem then that realism is an amoral position, but that’s not entirely accurate. Within all the varieties of realism, there’s room for ethical and moral considerations in making decisions. It’s just that those considerations can’t hinder the preservation of one’s own security or power. The difficulty comes when people (or Engineers, or Xenos) lose sight of that and begin to conflate realism and its goal of survival with war and pure destruction for destruction’s sake. The Melians understood this and tried to point it out to the Athenians. By allowing Melos to remain neutral, the Melians argued, the Athenians wouldn’t really be losing anything from their alliance. But destroying Melos would show the rest of the Greeks that the Athenians were jerks. Athens didn’t listen, and in the end they slaughtered or enslaved the Melians. In Aliens, we see the same kind of conflicts happening in the back of the armored personnel carrier (APC) on LV‐426.
After the first tragic encounter with the Xenos in Aliens, the remaining humans are trying to figure out their next steps in the back of the APC. Everybody left is in a pretty bad state, damaged either physically, emotionally, or both. Things went horribly wrong: ambushed by Xenos leading to cook offs (thermal ammunition explosions), heavy injuries, and most of the Marines dead or missing. What on screen is a significant emotional debate becomes, from the perspective of this chapter, a look into the decision‐making process of one of our states (you rarely get to see this in the real world). A few active options are discussed: rolling in nerve gas, nuking the site from orbit, changing into clean underwear. Ok, that last one wasn’t mentioned but, come on, don’t we all suspect that Hudson soiled himself? Just a little bit?
Hudson, recognizing that they just got their butts kicked, suggests that the humans leave and call it even. This suggestion has a pretty good realist grounding: it acknowledges that one party is stronger than the other, and that the best way to stay alive and intact is to get away as fast as possible. This represents the opposite side of the Melian coin: although the Marines are, ironically, not in the position of strength, realism claims there is value in not fighting, at least in this case.
At this point Burke (slimy, slimy Burke) steps in with the following suggestion: “This is an emotional moment for all of us, I know that. But let’s not make snap judgments. This is clearly an important species we’re dealing with and I don’t think you or I have a right to arbitrarily exterminate them.”
Wow, Burke is trying to talk people away from the genocidal ledge! Is he suddenly developing a conscience? Not really. His first line of argument is as welcome as a goodnight kiss from a Facehugger: “This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it.” Then, being slimy but clever, he shifts his appeal to the ethical fiber of the other humans: humans don’t have the inherent right to deprive the Xenos of their lives, scary as they may be, if they’re not actively seeking to kill the humans. Burke is appealing to the notion that humans want to do more than just survive. From a position like this, there seems to be definite value in fighting in certain ways and not others. Let’s take a look at that perspective to see if a tension with realism actually exists, and how this might impact the folks debating in the APC.
Should a sentient species seek more than just survival? It sure seems that we, together with the humans on the planets LV‐223 and LV‐246, think we should. The motivations behind the Prometheus expedition explicitly reflect this, asking why we were created and finding, if possible, a way of staving off the decay of time. It didn’t work out so well for that crew, but as Dr. Shaw said in the final log entry, she’s “still searching for answers.” If survival alone isn’t sufficient, our Xeno, human, and Engineer states would need to consider things like whether actions are just or unjust, warranted or unwarranted. Luckily for us, this has been debated for thousands of years. Hang on tight, our dropship is about to bounce back in time.
Over the past few thousand years in the west, philosophers have developed the just war tradition (JWT).3 Cicero (106–44 BCE), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), and many others have contributed to this line of thought over the centuries. We should consider the JWT as a series of compromises between different perspectives, including legal and theological concerns, deontological and utilitarian stances, and differences between the views of Thomas Hobbes (1599–1679) and John Locke (1632–1704) on the state of nature. This idea of ongoing compromises, especially those between followers of Hobbes and Locke, is really useful in highlighting an important, if invisible, assumption about humankind and the organized violence that is war. The assumption is that war generates an overriding need for survival, but it’s not the natural state of human relations. As the price of existence, we may be engaged in constant struggle, but not all struggle is violence, and not all violence is war.
This line of thought suggests that we, as sentient beings, should seek to rise above this slide into violent conflict, but sometimes this violence occurs despite our best efforts. Sometimes we must even initiate that violence on behalf of others. If it must occur, then JWT claims to set limits so that a combatant’s actions are right and just, even in the midst of violence. The hope is that the current war will not turn into the reason for the next conflict.
Keeping to just actions in war isn’t all that hard to do by applying principles of JWT. There are two sets of criteria: one set that, if held to, ensures that a state enters a war justly, and the other set that can ensure that a state conducts themselves justly in a war.4 It’s this second set that’s important to our warring states of Engineers, Xenos, and humans. It consists of a handful of sub‐criteria about how military actions should (a) distinguish between combatants and noncombatants, (b) be militarily necessary for achieving your goals, and (c) be proportional in the sense of measuring the harm and damage from fighting against the military advantage generated by the action. In short, this set of criteria with the fancy name of jus in bello is about fighting well, which often means that combatants restrain themselves from fighting in certain ways. Let’s flesh this out a bit more by examining these sub‐criteria in greater detail.
A good place to start is with discrimination, distinguishing between combatants and noncombatants. We can boil it down to a simple question: is the person (or persons) on the business end of that gun, extending inner jaw, or flamethrower, an armed belligerent, otherwise known as a combatant? This matters because unarmed civilians, noncombatants, have a right to not be attacked. Of course it’s not all fancy free for noncombatants. They have a corresponding duty to refrain from taking up arms unless in direct, immediate self‐defense. Outside of self‐defense, they lose this right if they take up arms. Combatants don’t have that option; they can be attacked at any time.5 So a belligerent must discern between combatants and noncombatants and make the appropriate choice to pull the literal or figurative trigger. You might be thinking, “hang on a tic, what if combatants and noncombatants are mixed, like a bunch of cocooned colonists surrounded by Xenos? Does this mean that a combatant can’t act?” Not exactly. We still have two other sub‐criteria to consider, and we have to see how they interact.
The two remaining sub‐criteria of proportionality and military necessity are heavily intertwined, and it makes sense to look at them at the same time rather than independently. Proportionality speaks to using the right amount of force for the situation. A Marine doesn’t use an M41 Pulse Rifle to take out a pesky mosquito. Sure you’ll get the mosquito, but the damage to your walls will be much more than was bargained for. Maybe you convert your spaceship into a nuclear‐powered flying bomb to take down another spaceship that is headed to Earth. As that’s the only thing that can reasonably bring success, that’s probably the right amount of force. Military necessity speaks to ensuring that the effects of this action further your own goals. The closer you can get to your goals, the sooner the conflict can be resolved in your favor. Does bombing part of the colony allow you to delay the Xenos trying to munch on colonists so that some can be evacuated? Or are the dropship pilots just bored? Do they just want to watch something explode? Both of these sub‐criteria arrive at a common point, albeit from slightly different directions: don’t do something that in itself is evil or can’t be justified. Think in terms of torture, genocide, or using a weapon simply to cause excess pain and suffering rather than achieving your goal.
Back to the issue of combatants and noncombatants in close proximity: even though noncombatants can be distinguished, an action may also be necessary and proportional. That means it is likely some noncombatants will be killed. In modern parlance, this is “collateral damage.” If these deaths and damages are foreseeable, how is discrimination not violated? The sub‐criteria are now intertwined and what matters is how the combatant seeks to mitigate and satisfy each as much as possible. Let’s say there’s a key bridge that would prevent an opponent from resupplying its armed forces, but civilians also use the bridge for food and trade. The ability to prevent the opponent’s armed forces from resupplying would bring the war to a swift end with fewer deaths of both combatants and noncombatants. Thus military necessity and proportionality are satisfied. Using a precision weapon would make sure that civilian casualties are minimal, which speaks to proportionality and discrimination. Attacking when civilian traffic tends to not be on the bridge, say midnight as opposed to rush hour, would also help for both proportionality and discrimination. Good faith efforts are made to satisfy each sub‐criterion as much as possible. On the opposite side of the coin, when a combatant doesn’t seek to address a sub‐criterion, all sub‐criteria tend to become unfulfilled. A real‐world example is probably in order.
When a combatant starts to lose sight of these jus in bello criteria, like Ripley and the Marine survivors in the APC, the overall justness of their effort can start to unwind in a less than productive way. Let’s take a dropship hop to the twentieth century: in 1968, the United States was involved in a conflict in Vietnam. That year saw a major event, the Tet Offensive, conducted by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. Many cities, towns, and villages became battlegrounds as the various combatants sought to gain or retain control of these population centers. Ben Tre was one of those towns. American forces retaking the town basically flattened it by using heavy artillery and aerial bombing. In a press conference about this action, a United States Army representative stated that “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”6 Was this a poor choice of words? Undoubtedly. Flawed logic? Without a doubt. Unjust behavior in the just war tradition? If you answered yes, you win a prize.
Let’s highlight just military necessity and proportionality right now. How does the destruction of the town, in terms of both lives and property, lead to achieving US goals in Vietnam? Was the widespread bombardment of the town by artillery and aircraft necessary to regain control? It’s hard to find a logical path that can justify the actions as they occurred in terms of either sub‐criterion. The lack of attention to either unravels both, and it was likely, although we aren’t going to look at it here, that discrimination wasn’t satisfied either.
This leads to a key point about JWT: a combatant must satisfy all the sub‐criteria, all the time, if their presence in the conflict is to be considered just. When you lose the bubble on a single sub‐criterion, odds are you’ll start to lose the bubble on others. But more significantly, the justness of your entire position comes into question. JWT generally and jus in bello specifically are “all or nothing” propositions. If a combatant cannot conduct a war justly, the combatant’s presence in the war becomes unjustified and the likelihood of justly achieving goals drops drastically.
If you can’t establish a logical pathway to explain how an action is necessary to get you closer to your own goals, and would be done in a proportional manner, you probably shouldn’t take the action. You compromise your justness by abandoning jus in bello, and this may actually hurt your chances of achieving your larger security goals. Think back to political realism where the logic for an action was to improve your security. It seems the tension between JWT and political realism is somewhat moot. They both reach the same conclusion: if an action does not further your security goals, or worse yet actually harms them, then neither realism nor JWT can back it up. Taking an action simply because you can, often doesn’t turn out so well. Ask a fifth‐century BCE Athenian or the US Army in Vietnam for their experiences with that (spoiler alert: not so great).
There were a lot of issues souring domestic opinion in the United States about Vietnam. We can’t say Ben Tre was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it certainly didn’t help matters. Instances like these make citizens of states start to ask things like, “Is this the type of thing we want done in our name? Is this what we, as a society, value?” There are implications that stem from how those questions get answered. Strap in, we’re bouncing back to LV‐426!
The American political theorist Michael Walzer asks us to consider a “supreme emergency,” such as an existential danger of unusual and horrifying depths. This is the kind of danger that might let the survivors in the APC slide a bit on jus in bello principles. Almost everyone in the APC considers themselves to be in existential danger. Seven‐foot‐tall creatures that don’t show up on infrared, have acid for blood, and seemingly pop out of the walls? Let’s put a big check mark next to unusual and horrifying. But Walzer specifies that a supreme emergency needs to be both dangerous and imminent. The danger has to be in the here and now.
In most cases, danger and imminence are distinct characteristics of a situation. You can have danger without imminence and, conversely, you can have imminence without real danger. But not so when talking about Xenos. The Xenos are an interesting case because the immediacy of the danger is directly related to their proximity. A human needs to be within scaly armed reach, or at least leaping range. When they are close, imminence is high and danger goes through the roof. When the Xeno threat is distant, imminence is low, and danger drops close to nil.
Many of the ideas being tossed around in the APC (even slimy Burke’s) keep the Xenos distant and so actually reduce the threat, backing the humans away from the need to make decisions in a “supreme emergency.” What would Vasquez’s nerve gas or Ripley’s proposal to nuke the colony really accomplish? A little vengeance, a cathartic release, sure, but no real benefit to ensuring their survival. These direct engagements don’t make the humans any stronger out in the universe, so Ripley’s and Vasquez’s plans can’t claim a lineage to realism. They are born out of fear and are an attempt to mimic a realist position, but they don’t quite hit the mark. They go beyond what realism, much less JWT, would call for once the danger is no longer clear and present. The humans are mistakenly conflating survival with destruction for destruction’s sake.
If the humans wanted to be realists, they’d just leave. If the humans wanted to consider themselves better than merely being survivors, they’d simply leave. The folks in the APC might need to take a step back from the breathless considerations. Hudson and Burke, though stumbling ass‐over‐butt into it, actually come up with a solution that fits both realism and JWT. It’s very tempting to use whatever strength you have in a situation to strike out at what you perceive to be a threat, especially when you’re weak. Advocates of actions like these may claim the mantle of realism, but realism doesn’t support absolutely anything. Though it may seem like realism and JWT would have significant tensions and reach different conclusions, this isn’t always the case. There are times when they can be quite complementary and can help steer us away from just lashing out. A little something to consider the next time you’re walking around on the surface of LV‐426.