Alien: River of Pain breathes life - and death - into untold Xenomorph tale
Set between the events of Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ and James Cameron’s 1986 sequel ‘Aliens’, a new audio drama ‘Alien: River of Pain’ tells the story of how LV-426’s colonised settlement, Hadley’s Hope, became overrun by an infestation of Xenomorphs. One of the settlement’s explorers (LV-426 is renamed Acheron by the dwellers) is attacked by a facehugger and taken back to the camp by his wife and children.
Fans of the franchise will know this moment well from the beginning of ‘Aliens’, but this audio prequel/sequel delves deeper, and tells us the desperate story of survival for the inhabitants of Hadley’s Hope before Ripley and the Colonial Marines arrive.
Yahoo Movies was on hand to get an exclusive first listen of Audible’s brand new audio drama as we gazed up at stars inside the Greenwich Planetarium’s magnificent dome. And then, we watched in awe as the file was beamed up into the space – the first of its kind anywhere in the world.
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Listening to sample from the drama in the darkness of the planetarium made for a truly immersive, and ever so slightly frightening experience. But it was when the story was converted into a digital signal and beamed directly into the space, the evening took a surreal turn. Royal Observatory Greenwich Astronomer Tom Kerss said, “With a very powerful and highly directed transmission there is a possibility that our signals could one day be intercepted by intelligent alien lifeforms, listening out for radio signals from space.” Essentially, aliens could actually tune into ‘Aliens’ in the future.
Travelling at the speed of light, the ‘Alien: River Of Pain’ signal will reach the star 55 Cancri (in the constellation Cancer) and its five known exoplanets in 40 years time, where it could be intercepted by intelligent species listening out for radio signals from space. Interestingly, the 55 Cancri exoplanet system is about the same distance from Earth as the fictional Acheron in ‘Alien: River of Pain’ and its parent star Zeta2 Reticuli.
‘Alien: River of Pain’ is available now exclusively on Audible.
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