Amanda Ripley/Synopsis

==Early Life==
Amanda was conceived by her mother during a layover between haulage trips. Despite the fact this contravened Weyland-Yutani policy, Ellen Ripley was not disciplined for her indiscretion and the pregnancy was allowed to come to term. Amanda was delivered in a home birth, in the presence of her father Alex.
By the time Amanda was three years old, her mother and father had separated and Alex had no further contact with his daughter. Further tragedy would follow seven years later, when Amanda's mother disappeared following the loss of the Nostromo in deep space. Just prior to that, her mother had promised to be there for Amanda's eleventh birthday, a promise which she was unable to keep.
Her mother's disappearance garnered attention in the press which made Amanda famous for a time, and she received direct financial support from the company as a result, from education, to healthcare to bail. Amanda was raised by her stepfather Paul Carter, but their relationship was increasingly estranged due to Paul's self-destructive personality. Soon, the two began fighting, causing Amanda to run away from home, apparently multiple times.
By the age of eighteen she was on her own. Around that time, Weyland-Yutani set up a standing offer of employment within the company, something Ripley would continue to refuse over the years. During her teen years, Amanda developed a great talent for engineering and subsequently took up the profession as a means of getting by.
==Finding Ellen==
The lack of explanation for her mother's disappearance greatly affected Ripley, to the point where, as a young adult, she took up work in the sector where the Nostromo had vanished, apparently hoping to be close at hand should any news arise. During this time, she encountered — and later befriended — Private Zula Hendricks at Tranquility Base on Luna.
News eventually came in the form of Samuels, a synthetic in the employ of Weyland-Yutani, who came to see Ripley to inform her that the black box from the Nostromo had been recovered. He invited Ripley to join the small Weyland-Yutani team being sent to recover the recorder from Sevastopol Station, and while she was initially cold toward Samuels, the chance to potentially discover her mother's fate led her to accept his offer.
Ripley and the team traveled to Sevastopol aboard the Torrens, a commercial courier ship privately owned by Captain Verlaine. Upon arrival, they found communications with the station scrambled and unintelligible. With the station's docking facilities damaged, Ripley, Samuels and Weyland-Yutani lawyer Taylor attempted to spacewalk over to Sevastopol, but debris resulting from an explosion severed their guide line. Ripley managed to enter the station through an airlock, but was separated from the others and found herself unable to contact neither them nor the Torrens.
==Sevastopol==
Ripley found Sevastopol to be largely deserted and showing signs of a collapse in civil society. She also found evidence of violence, not least of all the bloodied body of Watson. Ripley eventually encountered an armed man named Axel, who, despite his initial hostility towards her, eventually agreed to help her contact the Torrens in exchange for a place on the ship so he could escape Sevastopol.
En route to the station's communications center, the two avoided other hostile inhabitants, who had formed together into a small band and were hoarding supplies in the freight shipping area. As Ripley and Axel prepared to board a tram to the comms center, Axel was attacked and killed by an unseen Alien, his body dragged into a ventilation shaft. Ripley managed to flee the area before the creature could return.
Upon reaching the Lorenz SysTech Spire, Ripley gathered additional supplies, including a .357 Revolver and a Security Access Tuner to help her bypass locked systems. She also discovered the black box recorder from the Nostromo, but to her dismay found its data had been corrupted and was unreadable. As she prepared to move on, a localized security lockdown activated due to unauthorized access in the area, and in the midst of deactivating the lockdown the Alien that had killed Axel dropped from a vent directly in front of her.
A terrified Ripley hid under the console at which she had been working, narrowly avoiding the creature's tail as it jumped onto the desk above her, before the Alien slipped out of the room. As Ripley moved on, she saw the Alien slaughter a group of other survivors, before again moving away through the station's network of ventilation shafts.
Upon reaching Sevastopol's comms center, Ripley discovered the station's Working Joe androids were hostile towards any attempt to re-enable the communications, watching as a Joe brutally murdered a survivor named Hughes. Ripley managed to avoid the patrolling synthetics, and while still unable to contact the Torrens, she did manage to reach Samuels, who revealed that he and Taylor were in the SciMed Tower, and that Taylor had been injured in the accident that had separated them earlier.
==The Alien==
Ripley joined her colleagues before entering the nearby San Cristobal Medical Facility to retrieve a trauma kit for Taylor. There she met Dr. Kuhlman, one of the surviving doctors, who agreed to help her retrieve the supplies she needed, but refused to leave his office until she had recovered the passcode and keycard required to access the hospital dispensary.
In the corridors of the deserted hospital, Ripley was again confronted by the Alien, which hunted her as she attempted to complete her goals. Despite the creature's presence, she recovered the necessary items and returned to Kuhlman, whom she scolded for placing her in danger. He apologized and prepared to leave with her, but was at that moment dragged away by the Alien, the creature having broken into his office behind him.
Ripley fled to the hospital dispensary, recovering the necessary trauma kit and initiating the hospital's evacuation procedure to allow her to escape. As she left the area, however, the Alien dropped from a vent overhead and appeared to have her cornered, before an explosion temporarily knocked Ripley unconscious. Upon waking she found the area heavily damaged and the Alien gone.
Returning to Samuels and Taylor, Ripley found them being held at gunpoint by Marshal Waits and his deputy Ricardo of the Colonial Marshals. After defusing the situation, Waits informed Ripley that the Alien had been brought to Sevastopol by the Anesidora, the ship that had recovered the Nostromo's flight recorder, and that he had the ship's captain, Marlow, in custody at the Marshal headquarters.
He also informed her that the explosion that had inadvertently saved her from the creature was in fact a trap set by his men in the hopes of killing it. At the Marshal headquarters, Ripley interrogated Marlow, learning that his crew had discovered the flight recorder drifting in space and had followed the data it contained in the hopes of locating and salvaging the Nostromo.
It had led them to the derelict on LV-426, and as they explored the vessel Marlow's wife, Foster, had been attacked by a Facehugger. Marlow brought her to Sevastopol seeking help, but in doing so unleashed the Alien upon its populace. Ripley attempted to inquire more, but Marlow demanded his freedom in return, which she could not grant.
==The Plan==
Waits informed Ripley of his plan to neutralize the Alien by trapping it in the Lorenz SysTech Spire, inside a server hub that could be totally sealed off. With little alternative, Ripley agreed to help, arming herself with a Flamethrower before heading out to begin sealing the area. The plan went wrong when Ripley was mistakenly trapped inside with the Alien, and Ricardo was forced to lift the lockdown to allow her to escape, thereby releasing the Alien once more.
Waits improvised a new plan to lure the creature into the Gemini Exoplanet Solutions labs before jettisoning the entire module into space, thereby ridding Sevastopol of the Alien altogether. Ripley again spearheaded the scheme, but was betrayed by Waits when he detached the module with her still inside.
Ripley managed to fend off the Alien with her flamethrower long enough to get to an airlock, don an EVA suit and space-jump back to Sevastopol. Behind her, the jettisoned module was sucked into KG-348's gravity well and destroyed, along with the Alien on board.
==APOLLO==
On her way back to the Colonial Marshal bureau, Ripley discovered that the station's Working Joe's were now slaughtering its remaining human survivors, including Waits, whom she heard being killed over the radio. Upon reaching the bureau, she found only Ricardo had survived the attack. In an attempt to stop the murderous androids, Ripley helped Samuels interface with the station's artificial intelligence, APOLLO, so that he might order the computer to stop the carnage.
Despite Ripley's desperate attempts to save him, Samuels was killed by APOLLO's defensive countermeasures, but not before he opened up access to APOLLO's core for Ripley. Interfacing with APOLLO, Ripley discovered that Sevastopol had in fact been purchased by Weyland-Yutani two days after the Torrens set out for the station, and that the company had programmed the computer with Special Order 939 directing it to preserve the Alien for capture, regardless of casualties.
Evidently, APOLLO had come to view the human survivors as a threat to the creature's survival, and had therefore begun eliminating them by way of the androids under its control. Ripley ordered APOLLO to cease its actions, pointing out that as the Alien was no longer on board, the computer had no reason to follow its orders. However, APOLLO refused, citing an irregularity in the station's reactor core.
Investigating the core, Ripley discovered the Alien had constructed a Hive, inside which many of its victims were cocooned, used as hosts to breed even more Aliens. Despite her terror, Ripley entered the Hive to initiate a reactor purge, hoping to destroy the nest. While she succeeded, several Aliens escaped into the station before the blast.
==The Anesidora==
After destroying the Hive, Ricardo informed Ripley that Taylor, under orders from Weyland-Yutani to recover the Alien, had freed Marlow in exchange for the location of the derelict on LV-426. However, Marlow had instead abducted her and taken her to the Anesidora, which was still parked in orbit around Sevastopol. Ripley pursued him using one of the station's ambulance shuttles, hoping to use the ship to escape.
On board the Anesidora, Ripley uncovered a personal message from her mother, extracted from the Nostromo's flight recorder, explaining that she destroyed her ship in an attempt to kill the same Alien creature Amanda had now encountered on Sevastopol. Ripley was then confronted by Marlow, who explained he planned to detonate the Anesidora's reactor to destroy Sevastopol, and with it the Alien.
He was attacked and subdued by Taylor, who then helped Ripley stop the detonation. However, they were only partially successful. Taylor was killed by an explosion, while Ripley escaped the ship moments before it exploded. While the blast was not large enough to destroy Sevastopol, it damaged its gravity stabilizers, and the entire station began falling into KG-348's atmosphere.
==Escaping Sevastopol==
Now running out of options, Ripley went outside the station to manually align its communications array so that she could finally contact the Torrens and request evacuation. Upon her return, she discovered Ricardo had been subdued by a Facehugger and was forced to leave him to his fate. Moving through Sevastopol's increasingly unstable and damaged interior, hounded by Aliens all the way, Ripley managed to extend a docking cradle beneath the station so that the Torrens could dock.
With the personnel umbilical destroyed, Ripley would have to spacewalk over to the ship, but as she reached an airlock and prepared to don an EVA suit, she was attacked by an Alien and dragged into an overhead air shaft, losing consciousness as she tumbles through the vent. Ripley awoke in a new Hive, cocooned to the wall like the victims she had seen in the reactor maintenance area.
Escaping, she returned to the air lock and learned from Verlaine that the Torrens was now trapped in the docking clamps due to damage. Ripley got into an EVA suit, headed outside, and activated the mechanism to detonate the explosive emergency release bolts. Several Aliens appeared and surrounded her on the maintenance walkway, but just as they prepared to pounce, the bolts detonated, sending Ripley tumbling overboard into the Torrens and freeing the ship.
Climbing back aboard the Torrens, Ripley believed herself to be safe. However, on her way to the bridge to reunite with the crew, she came face to face with one more Alien, which had managed to board the ship. The creature cornered Ripley in an air lock and prepared to make the killing strike, but at the last moment Ripley, still in her EVA suit, hit the emergency release, sending both her and the Alien out into space.
As she and her suit went into a spinning freefall in space, Ripley managed to use her thrusters to steady her position. She was however unable to prevent a piece of debris from hitting her, which jarred her a little. Finally getting her bearings, she attempted to call out to the Torrens but received no response. She realized that her suit's propulsion was non-functional due to the presumed damage it took.
She then began to send a distress broadcast, emphasizing that she would continue broadcasting on the link until a point that she could no longer do so. She then began chronicling how her mission to Sevastopol began. At some point during her narration she caught sight of a communication beacon and began to loudly outline a plan to intercept its trajectory, which would require her suit's propulsion to be repaired. Sometime after that she had made repairs to her propulsion system and that she would try it once she got close enough to the beacon.
Amanda managed to get the propulsion working and was ready to start heading to the beacon. But suddenly, she noticed several Xenomorphs attached to the floating wreckage within her proximity. She observed that they were in some sort of stasis, hybernating until awakened. Fearful but accepting that she had no other choice, Amanda signed off and headed towards the beacon located amidst the nearby Xenomorph threat.
Working carefully she managed to fly towards the beacon and cling to it without awakening any of the nearby Xenomorphs. She then plugged into the beacon and began broadcasting a distress signal on the wider range supported by the beacon. She closed off by saying that she would be waiting. Ripley was subsequently left alone and adrift for three days, unconscious, until found by a powerful searchlight.
==Mendel Station==
After being rescued from space after ejecting from the Torrens, Amanda was taken to the Mendel Station. There she witnessed a breeding ground for the Xenomorph which killed the crew of the Weyland-Yutani vessel she was rescued by. After a short period, the USCSS Haldin docked at Mendel Station for repairs and Amanda helped direct the crew to safety. When the crew fixed the ship and escaped the station, Amanda joined - travelling to KOI-125.01 - with a further planned path to Earth.
==Reunion with Zula==
Three years following the Sevastopol disaster, it is revealed that Amanda eventually returned to Earth, with the Weyland-Yutani Corporation making sure her attempts to expose the company's corruption and unethical practices be moot and disregarded. Amanda subsequently spent her time hiking in the countryside in an attempt to distract herself from her trauma and newfound claustrophobia, openly stating that she has "trouble with small spaces". On one such hike, she is approached by old friend and now ex-marine Hendricks, who takes her back to her apartment in the suburbs.
Zula introduces Amanda to her synthetic companion Davis One, now confined to a neural chip, and reveals to her that despite both of their best efforts in the past, Weyland-Yutani still eventually managed to obtain Xenomorph samples and intends to use them in a bio-weapons program. Amanda agrees to join forces with Zula in 'finishing the job'.
Amanda subsequently infiltrates a Weyland-Yutani tower with Davis, who gathers information on the location of the testing facility for the company's bio-weapons program. She is subsequently halted by advanced model Corporate security drones known as Franklin, who notices her earpiece and seize her. However, she is saved by Zula, who flies in with her ship- the Celestial- and launches a missile into the tower, allowing Amanda to use the chaos as an opportunity to jump into the hull of Zula's ship, but not before being grazed by a bullet laced with Xenomorph blood.
Zula's ship uses the recently launched colonist ship the Gaspar as cover to escape from the company's radar and are on a set course to the research facility. Zula and Amanda both enter Hypersleep chambers. Nine days later, the ship arrives at its destination. Zula awakens Amanda, having suffered from a nightmare. However, Zula expresses concern, as the Gaspar is also nearby. Davis scans the ship and cites no available life-forms, also noting that "the passenger manifest has been erased and the ship reclassified as a re-supply only".
Amanda and Zula, with Davis, board the Gaspar, now empty and are subsequently forced to put on pressure suits when entering the facility, something that unnerved Amanda. Exploring the depths of the ship result in a sudden encounter with a Drone carrying a crate. As it flees and attempts to sound the alarm, Amanda tackles the Drone to the floor, but the Drone quickly mounts her and begins pummeling at her helmet, causing a crack. Zula guns down the Drone and saves Amanda.
The two soon realize that the colonists of the Gaspar are being sent back aboard the ship, with the ship being sent into a lower orbit by a nearby planet. Davis uncovers that the black site is rigged with the nuclear failsafe, and the group intend to hijack it from the outside of the site. As Amanda attempts to rewire the systems of the bomb with Davis' chip inside, they are caught by synthetics and a firefight ensues. Zula is shot in the arm and is sent into space, with Amanda following her. Zula realizes that Davis is still left inside the systems of the bomb and calls out to him, to no response.
==Exploring the Planet==
Amanda and Zula, alongside the Gaspar are sent plummeting into the planet's atmosphere, with Amanda managing to activate one of the suit's emergency landing hex capsules that engulfs the two. This, alongside the planet's dense troposphere allowed Zula and Amanda to survive the fall in relatively good shape.
After exploring the abandoned wreckage of the Gaspar, Amanda and Zula explore the planet and subsequently save fleeing colonist Alec Brand from two Xenomorphs, as well as spot two non-hostile bullet-proof Franklins before setting up camp. During nightfall, it is revealed that Davis managed to contact the two using a micro-transmitter hairclip on Zula.
Davis reveals that the black site is a testing ground for generations of bred Xenomorphs, with the colonists being tagged for data research, as well as serving as a lure. He opts for the two to retrieve a tag and return to the Celestial, as the tag would be evidence enough to expose the company for their crimes. From there, Davis will detonate the nuke, destroying himself and the facility and wiping out all traces of the weapons program.
While Zula and Amanda explore the jungle depths of the planet, after detecting a nearby heartbeat they are suddenly ambushed by Alec Brand. He is initially hostile, but eventually allies himself with the two after they guarantee him a way off the planet. Brand reveals that he has been tagged, Amanda cites that they can use the tag and Alec as testimony to put down the company for good. Davis contacts the group and states that he is transmitting his data to the Celestial and will land the ship at an extraction point.
The group are seen running in a large open field being chased by a horde of Aliens. Whilst Amanda and Zula hold off the horde, Brand climbs into the recently landed Celestial and straps himself into the nearest acceleration chair. With the Franklins closing in on Davis' position and attempting to remove him from the nuclear device, he announces to the group that he will be forced to detonate.
As the Celestial takes off into the planet's atmosphere, stranding Amanda and Zula, Davis detonates the nuke, destroying the facility. As the blast sweeps the atmosphere and kills all of the Xenomorphs, Amanda activates Zula's hex capsule and the two embrace for impact. They both survive, and three months later they continued their fight against the Xenomorphs with help from the Colonial Marines.
==Surviving the Nuke==
Amanda and Zula survive the explosion and emerge from the hex shelter, still under duress from surviving Xenomorphs. The two eventually manage to escape the planet with the assistance of Davis, who transferred his AI to a ship. Davis sedates them and returns them to earth where they are treated for their injuries. Following Amanda and Zula's revival, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is consequently exposed for their violation of human rights and are forced to pay a gargantuan fine, though they pay even more for political bribes and lobbyists to cover their tracks.
==Operation==
It is revealed that following the nuclear explosion, the moon subsequently split apart, causing debris to collapse onto the home planet's atmosphere. Amanda and Zula discover that Weyland-Yutanti is looking to purchase copyright over the planet and retrieve bacterial Xenomorph samples from the meteorites. Amanda and Zula agree to launch a secret operation backed by a small group of Colonial Marines to land on the planet and wipe out all remaining Xenomorphs present.
They eventually establish themselves within a USCM forward operating base with thirty other marines. Alec Brand, now a marine and previously assuming Ripley and Hendricks to be deceased, is also briefed on the mission by Lena Bowden and is transported by Davis to their destination where they reunite. After a quick embrace, Amanda and Zula brief Alec on the mission before subsequently bringing the platoon down and landing on the planet.
By dawn, the platoon set up camp and the question is raised whether Weyland-Yutani are controlling the Xenomorphs somehow. Davis refutes this proposal, stating that the company have changed tactics - instead of sidelining military laws, they have taken the laws unto themselves. The following morning, Brand, Amanda, Zula and the rest of the platoon arrive at a large Xenomorph hive. After battling hordes of Xenomorphs and pushing themselves deeper and deeper into the nest, the group encounter a ghastly sight: a large chamber with hundreds of eggs and three Xenomorph Queens.
Brand deduces that the chamber has a thin ceiling, and suggests combining the door breaches with Davis' seismic charges to bring the hive down and bury the Queens. As the remaining marines keep the Xenomorphs at bay, Brand rushes the three Queens and places the breaches down as Davis drops the charges. Amanda, Zula and the remaining platoon retreats as Brand stays behind as the chamber collapses, though he later survives and emerges from the rubble.
==Later Life==
At some point in later life Amanda married taking the name "McClaren" alongside her own. According to Carter Burke, the union produced no children, although Alan Decker was said to be a descendant of Ellen and Amanda Ripley, so the accuracy of this statement is unclear.
Amanda died on December 23, 2178 at the age of 66 from cancer. After her remains were cremated, Amanda was interred at Westlake Repository, Little Chute, Wisconsin.
In 2179, a year after Amanda's death, the Narcissus, the shuttle Ellen Ripley used to escape the USCSS Nostromo was finally recovered by a salvage team, and Ellen was awakened from hypersleep. She inquired to Weyland-Yutani executive Carter Burke about Amanda and he presented her with an image of Amanda as an old woman, revealing Amanda's fate to Ellen.
Category:Synopsis