One question that a lot of people might have asked about the Alien franchise, the first movie especially, is why in the world a cat was allowed on a space mission aboard such an expensive piece of machinery where it could wander and cause all sorts of problems? There are likely many different explanations for this since one can only imagine that in space, everything has to be welded, tightened, and kept in such great working condition that it won’t risk the lives of those aboard the craft. Of course, given that the Nostromo and its other functioning craft didn’t look as though they were given the kind of routine maintenance that would keep them in tip-top shape at all times, it’s easy to think that anything might have gone wrong at any moment, especially with two mechanics that were more concerned with their shares than with doing their job at times. But the idea that Jones the cat was an android, which was why it was allowed to come along for the ride, is an interesting theory. Some folks might want to shoot it down by saying that there’s no way that a company would take that kind of risk by taking the time and effort to create such a realistic device, but there are a few hints here and there in the movie that lend some credence to this theory.
One is the fact that Jones wasn’t eaten by the xenomorph or otherwise damaged when the creature encountered Jones. The xenomorph has been known throughout its long history to have little if any issue with breaking or cracking things that are supposed to be durable enough to withstand a lot of punishment. But where this part of the theory falls apart is that there’s no way to know if the xenomorph attacks anything that’s perceived as a threat, or if truly knows just what is biological and what isn’t. This point becomes rather muddled after a while since some people would say that Ash wasn’t targeted by the creature, but then Ash had another part to play. Bishop in Aliens was attacked by the queen xenomorph, but it would appear that as far as the queen knew, Bishop might have been another human she could tear apart. It’s kind of hard to say really since the xenomorphs have been developed over time and their idea of what is and isn’t acceptable as food or as a host has been debated. It’s kind of obvious that they wouldn’t see an android as a possible host simply because they’re probably not compatible as an incubator. Maybe androids have a different scent, or maybe the xenomorphs can sense something different about them that doesn’t trigger their need to kill. After all, in Aliens, Bishop was in the queen’s way, and to be fair, she was more than a little pissed. It’s been established that despite not being able to read their ‘faces’, that the xenomorphs can express anger in a very obvious manner since their actions and their snarling does grow even more intense when they’re mad.
But getting back to Jones. The theory is sound enough since it would be wise to have eyes on a crew that was transporting a very valuable piece of machinery with a heavy payload, and it wouldn’t be above Weyland-Yutani Corporation, since between the movies and the books they’ve been seen to be one of the biggest antagonists of anyone, even those that are actively trying to betray their companions in service to the corporation. Ripley has a long-standing hatred of the company, as was revisited in Alien Resurrection, and it’s not hard to see why, since they sought to bury the destruction of the Nostromo and to implicate her in the loss. When they sent her to LV-426 as a consultant they also sent Burke, who attempted to further the company’s goals by trying to use Ripley and Newt as hosts, at which point he would have them frozen before doing the same to the marines. This is how determined the company is to get what they want, so thinking that they would stoop to using Jones as one of their spies wouldn’t be too far-fetched. They used Ash after all, and no one knew that Ash was a robot until his head was nearly torn off. Well, Ripley figured it out, but she couldn’t do much about it at that point.
There are a lot of arguments over whether Jones was an android or not, but a lot of them center around the idea that Weyland-Yutani is one of the biggest corporate villains of all time since they’re more than willing to sell out their own kind to come up with a weapon of war. Jones would have been just a means to an end, but it’s not too hard to think of why he didn’t get to accompany Ripley in the second movie. Just imagine trying to explain the need for a cat on the mission to a bunch of marines. Yeah, that wouldn’t look suspicious at all, would it?
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