History Characters / AlienIsolation

* ArtificialHuman: Is a synthetic that works for Weyland-Yutani. This is only mentioned in passing, though, as it is assumed Amanda already knows.

* AdaptationalBadass: In the films, she is only known to the audience as an innocent 11-year-old girl and an elderly 66-year-old woman who dies of natural causes. Here she's a capable and resourceful action hero to easily rival (or even outstrip) her mother -- her trauma is far more sustained.

* EnragedByIdiocy: In the novelization she detests people who try to use technology they don't understand, nearly to BerserkButton levels; at one point she's tempted to help some survivors who don't seem like they'd be instantly hostile, only to decide they're too stupid and move on. This is exacerbated by the fact that most things on Sevastopol have been accidentally by broken by people who don't know how to use it correctly (or deliberately broken to hamper the Joes/other survivors/the Alien) and she has to repair it to proceed. But the novel gives the strong impression that "fix this because some idiot broke it" is a thing she's had to do so many times she's stopped counting.
* FailureHero: Almost everything the player does is for nought. [[spoiler: Getting a trauma kit for Taylor only delays her death by a few hours. Jettisoning the alien only forces APOLLO's hand in killing the rest of the survivors. Those civilians you told to get to safety at the Marshall Bureau just get killed by the androids. Blowing up the alien hive only results in them spreading across the station and building a nest elsewhere. Stopping Marlow from blowing up the station only pushes back its destruction by a couple hours. By the end of the game, Ripley's only accomplishment is finally finding out what happened to her mother and surviving.]]

* GadgeteerGenius: Amanda definitely qualifies. She devises medkits, molotov cocktails, and electronic noisemakers from random components and scrap that she finds around the station. She even manages to repair a motion tracker using pieces from a children's toy -- anything to stay one step ahead of anyone trying to kill her.

* SuperpoweredRobotMeterMaid: Is there any reason ''why'' an android intended to be a glorified secretary should have the strength to rip other androids in half with his bare hands?

* AdaptationalVillainy: The novel makes him an even bigger jerk, actively using Ripley as bait to lure the Alien away so he can make good escape. The original version was at least willing to treat Taylor's injuries after Ripley gets the supplies for him, though [[spoiler:the Alien kills him before he can.]]

* TokenEvilTeamMate: Is easily the biggest jerk out of all of your allies.

* SuperPersistentPredator: Understatement of the century. This thing has a nasty habit of going to areas where you ''need'' to head to in order to advance your objectives For gameplay reasons, the Alien is governed by two [=AIs=]: its own and a Director, which feeds it info about the player such as their location, and also "leashing" its roaming space so that it's never too far from Ripley.[[note]]A mod called the "Unpredictable Alien Mod" undoes this "leash", allowing it to freeroam away from you. This can make the game both much easier and much harder -- while the Alien is no longer constrained to being near you, allowing it to disappear for long stretches of time rather than constantly pursuing you, this actually allows it to sneak up on your far easier, such as dropping down from a vent a few rooms away before bumping into you on foot.[[/note]] It almost stretches into ItsPersonal territory given its love to [[GangUpOnTheHuman go straight for you rather than other targets]]. Plus there's virtually nowhere you can go that it can't; but [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules the reverse is not true -- the alien gets to use all kinds of inaccessible vent areas that let it constantly outmaneuver you]]. If all this wasn't enough, the alien can and will kill you during hacking minigames, while you go through your inventory, while you save your game, and even '''during cutscenes''' (though that last one is believed to be a glitch).

* RealLifeRelative: Ransome is voiced by Ben Cura who was married to Amanda’s voice actor Andrea Deck at the time of production. Downplayed, as the two never meet in-game.

* AdaptationalExpansion: In the novelization of the game, we learn considerably more about Amanda's life prior to her arrival on Sevastopol, and it's... not pleasant. Her mother, for all her many virtues, had ''terrible'' instincts about men: her father, Alex, was a wastrel who disappeared from her life while Amanda was still a toddler. Her stepfather, Paul Carter, was an alcoholic who spent most of his life passed out drunk. Such was Amanda's luck that he became her sole parent once her mother disappeared. Despite having prodigious mechanical skills, she couldn't afford to attend a trade school and was forced to take menial jobs far below her aptitude level. Throughout her life, she was continuously swindled, conned, betrayed, and lied to by pretty much everyone she trusted. As such, she developed a deeply misanthropic outlook.

* FailureHero: Almost everything the player does is for nought. [[spoiler: Getting a trauma kit for Taylor only delays her death by a few hours. Jettisoning the alien only forces APOLLO's hand in killing the rest of the survivors. Those civilians you told to get to safety at the Marshall Bureau just get killed by the androids. Blowing up the alien hive only results in them spreading across the station and building a nest elsewhere. Stopping Marlow from blowing up the station only pushes back its destruction by a couple hours. By the end of the game, Ripley's only accomplishment is surviving.]]

* WrenchWench: She is well-versed in all sorts of machines and tools. This is absolutely essential to her survival on Sevastopol as the station has fallen into extreme disrepair.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: The first person to being an ally to Ripley (at least not killing her on sight), [[spoiler:yet the first victim of the Alien.]]

* RichJerk

* EnragedByIdiocy: In the novelization she detests people who try to use technology they don't understand, nearly to BerserkButton levels; at one point she's tempted to help some survivors who don't seem like they'd be instantly hostile, only to decide they're too stupid and move on.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: In the game Ripley may kill humans, but in the novelization she has no desire to kill anyone who hasn't wronged her personally, and hates to even play a role in the death of someone who wants her dead. She has absolutely no hesitation about 'killing' Working Joes. Then again, she also doesn't feel any antipathy towards Samuels for being an android.
* WrenchWench: She is well versed in all sorts of machines and tools. This is absolutely essential to her survival on Sevastopol as the station has fallen into extreme disrepair.

* ButtMonkey: Things do not go well for Taylor. [[spoiler:In addition to being terrified of space in general, she's traumatized repeatedly, gravely injured, kidnapped and ultimately killed.]]

* DamselInDistress: Unlike [[ActionSurvivor Ripley]] Taylor is taken out of the action early on when she's gravely injured during the journey to Sevastopol, and only recovers much later thanks to the help of Ripley and Samuels. Even then, [[spoiler: she's kidnapped by Marlow after releasing him and although she does manage to turn the tables and [[DamselOutOfDistress kill him]] she's immediately killed during the ships destruction.]]

* AdaptationalBadass: In the films, she is only known to the audience as an innocent 11 year old girl and an elderly 66 year old woman who dies of natural causes. Here she's a capable and resourceful action hero to easily rival (or even outstrip) her mother - her trauma is far more sustained.
* AdaptationalExpansion: In the novelization of the game, we learn considerably more about Amanda's life prior to her arrival on Sevastopol, and it's... not pleasant. Her mother, for all her many virtues, had ''terrible'' instincts about men: her father, Alex, was a wastrel who disappeared from her life while Amanda was still a toddler. Her stepfather, Paul Carter, was an alcoholic who spent most of his life passed out drunk. Such was Amanda's luck that he became her sole parent once her mother disappeared. Despite having prodigious mechanical skills, she couldn't afford to attend a trade school and was forced to take menial jobs far below her aptitude level. Throughout her life, she was continuously swindled, conned, betrayed and lied to by pretty much everyone she trusted. As such she developed a deeply misanthropic outlook.

* MacGyvering: She could give the original Series/{{MacGyver|1985}} a run for his money - she can improvise a sizable array of deadly weaponry using what passes for household supplies on Sevastopol. She can also rig the station's systems to do things not originally anticipated by their designers.

* PostDramaticStressDisorder: Is quite susceptible to this - understandably so, given all the bad things that happen to her. [[spoiler: It nearly gets her killed in the finale, though.]]

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: As an executive with Weyland-Yutani she certainly has the potential to be this. [[spoiler:Ultimately this is only [[PlayingWithATrope played with]]. While she does attempt to [[JustThinkOfThePotential secure a xenomorph for study]], she does not try to betray anyone while doing so. Even then, her attempts are more about gathering information about the alien shipwreck and the creature than trying to persevere them at the expense of anyone's life. And, as soon as she learns what the hell is going on and that Marlow intends to kill innocent people, she works with Ripley to stop the ''Anesidora'' from exploding - at the cost of her own life.]]

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: He's the one who allowed the crewmembers of the Anesidora to come onboard Sevastapol - [[spoiler:including the one who had been implanted with an alien]] - because they had the Nostromo's flight recorder and he wanted a cut of the profits.

->''"[[ImplacableMan You don't beat this thing, Ripley. You can't]]. [[StealthBasedGame All you can do is refuse to engage]]. [...] Because [[OneHitKill the moment it makes contact,]] [[TheBadGuyWins it's won.]]"'' - Marlow

* InvincibleBoogeymen: It's immune to all weapons, trying to tackle it up close is suicide, and the only items that are of any use against it are flamethrowers and Molotovs - and that's only because it's afraid of fire. More often than not, the safest option is to hide in/under/behind a solid object or get away from it in as quiet a manner as possible.

* SuperPersistentPredator: Understatement of the century. This thing has a nasty habit of going to areas where you ''need'' to head to in order to advance your objectives For gameplay reasons, the Alien is governed by two [=AIs=]: its own and a Director, which feeds it info about the player such as their location, and also "leashing" its roaming space so that it's never too far from Ripley.[[note]]A mod called the "Unpredictable Alien Mod" undoes this "leash", allowing it to freeroam away from you. This can make the game both much easier and much harder -- while the Alien is no longer constrained to being near you, allowing it to disappear for long stretches of time rather than constantly pursuing you, this actually allows it to sneak up on your far easier, such as dropping down from a vent a few rooms away before bumping into you on foot.[[/note]] It almost stretches into ItsPersonal territory given its love to [[GangUpOnTheHuman go straight for you rather than other targets]]. Plus there's virtually nowhere you can go that it can't; but [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules the reverse is not true - the alien gets to use all kinds of inaccessible vent areas that let it constantly outmaneuver you]]. If all this wasn't enough, the alien can and will kill you during hacking minigames, while you go through your inventory, while you save your game, and even '''during cutscenes''' (though that last one is believed to be a glitch).

[[/folder]]

* AdaptationalBadass: The Alien's immunity to revolver bullets can easily be explained by the civilian-grade pistol being an intentionally insufficiently powerful caliber to avoid hull punctures, and its resistance to the flamethrower can be attributed to it being a jury-rigged device and not a true military flamethrower. It's only when the Alien starts ignoring ''shotgun blasts to the face and pipebombs'' that you realize this trope has fully come into play and shortly find out that '''''[[ThisIsGonnaSuck you are screwed]]'''''.

** A Xenomorph personally targeting Ripley out of an actual anger towards them, such as in ''Aliens'', when the Queen goes full MamaBear, and the Dragon in ''Alien3'', after Ripley angers it enough to ignore the Queen inside her, and in the ''Aliens vs Predator'' game series, Specimen Six specifically spares Doctor Groves out of personal anger towards him.

* FailureHero: Almost everything the player does is for nought. [[spoiler: Getting a trauma kit for Taylor only delays her death by a few hours. Jettisoning the alien only forces APOLLO's hand in killing the rest of the survivors. Those civilians you told to get to safety at the Marshall Bureau just get killed by the androids. Blowing up the alien hive only results in them spreading across the station and building a nest elsewhere. Stopping Marlow from blowing up the station only pushes back its destruction by a couple hours. By the end of the game, Ripley's only accomplishment is still being alive.]]

* InvincibleBoogeymen: It's immune to all weapons, trying to tackle it up close is suicide, and the only items that are of any use against it are flamethrowers and Molotovs - and that's only because it's afraid of fire. More often than not, the safest option is to hide in a locker or run for your life in as quiet a manner as possible.
* ItCanThink: The xenomorph is actually programmed to be kind of clever beyond simply picking up on your hiding habits. If you use your flamethrower on it enough it'll eventually start to hesitate if it sees you with the flamethrower pointed at it. It will also start to become bolder (because you're pissing it off) and need more sustained bursts of flame to get it to run away (and it'll start showing up more often). It is also shown to have a personal dislike of Amanda since she escaped it so many times.
** An alarming variation on this behavior is when the Alien figures out the flamethrower's effective range, at which point it will sometimes retreat when blasted... only to hover right outside that range, watching you and just waiting for you to turn your back or lower your weapon for that ''split second'' it needs to make a DeadlyLunge...

* NoSell: It's immune to all projectile weapons, and fire is only going to work so many times before it just powers through and kills you.
* OffScreenTeleportation: Specifically averted, according to the game developers. Outside of two specific instances (which were necessitated by its appearance in cutscenes), it cannot do this. ArtificialBrilliance, indeed. There are times when it might ''seem'' like this trope is in effect, though, but it's justified: [[spoiler:there's a hive and more then one Alien, and it's likely you're encountering more than one Alien in some parts.]]

* OneHitKill: If this thing grabs you, it's lights out. Permanently.

* OnlyAFleshWound: Shooting the alien ''does'' injure it...technically (see AlienBlood, above). Apparently its innards are even tougher than its exoskeleton, because this does nothing to stop it.

* {{Phlegmings}}: Inherited from the source as a product of the Alien. Becomes important when [[spoiler: Axel]] notices something dripping on his arm [[spoiler: right before being ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice and [[VerticalKidnapping dragged into an air vent]]]]. This becomes a clue to the player: when you see [[DroolHello drool dripping down from somewhere above you]], [[CeilingCling heads up]]...
* {{Pride}}: It is heavily implied that the Alien hounds Amanda constantly is because it's upset that Amanda has managed to escape it for so long.

* {{Sadist}}: Quite an option. When it has you cornered, with no visible way of running away, it doesn't seem to feel any need to hurry for the kill. It takes its time with a slow, [[SarcasmMode lovely]] OminousWalk to indulge it.

* StompyMooks: The loud alien stomps are a helpful indicator of their presence.

* SuperPersistentPredator: Understatement of the century. This thing has a nasty habit of going to areas where you ''need'' to head to in order to advance your objectives. It almost stretches into ItsPersonal territory given its love to [[GangUpOnTheHuman go straight for you rather than other targets]].
** Plus there's virtually nowhere you can go that it can't; but [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules the reverse is not true - the alien gets to use all kinds of inaccessible vent areas that let it constantly outmaneuver you.]]
** For gameplay reasons, if you're in a part of the game where the Alien can kill you, it will never be more than a certain distance from you, no matter how big the level you're in is, whether or not it actually knows you are present, and the fact that there's an entire space station it could be hunting through; it keeps to the cluster of rooms near you no matter what. A mod called the "Unpredictable Alien Mod" undoes this "leash", allowing it to freeroam away from you. This can make the game both much easier and much harder -- while the Alien is no longer constrained to being near you, allowing it to disappear for long stretches of time rather than constantly pursuing you, this actually allows it to sneak up on your far easier, such as dropping down from a vent a few rooms away before bumping into you on foot.
** Add to that that the alien can and will kill you during hacking minigames, while you go through your inventory, while you save your game, and even '''during cutscenes''' (though that last one is believed to be a glitch).

* EvilAllALong: [[spoiler:Turns out to be the corrupt representative that tries to harness the creature for the Company]]. However, [[DownplayedTrope it's not as extreme as most examples]] in the series, as [[spoiler:Taylor isn't purposefully malevolent to Amanda, nor does she continue to prioritize harnessing the Xenomorph once the danger becomes clear.]]

* ArtificialHuman: The Working Joes are synthetics, robots made in the human image. Although not very successfully.
** The 'unsuccessful' nature of their appearance is actually intentional; they're a budget line compared to more realistic synthetics, with a selling point being that they are ''clearly'' not human, as more realistic ones can make people uneasy.

* CaptainObvious: One of their possible responses to Ripley struggling to get free from their grapple is "[[MemeticMutation You're becoming hysterical.]]"

* FalseReassurance: Working Joes spout these constantly, [[DissonantSerenity even as they're actively strangling and pummelling you.]]

* KillAllHumans: [[spoiler:After Amanda and Waits successfully ejects a xenomorph from the station, APOLLO determines that the humans now pose too great a threat to the remaining xenomorphs to be allowed to remain alive and it adjusts the Working Joe's behavior accordingly.]]

* PlayingPossum: You may occasionally find seemingly dead Working Joes on the floor, only to turn your back and have them grab your leg so they can drag you in for the kill. Mercifully, they will only do this if you're both close enough and not watching them. You also can't search them, which is a dead giveaway. You can also identify them from a distance by seeing that their eyes are still glowing.

* RoboticPsychopath: [[spoiler:The Working Joes aren't malfunctioning. They just aren't programmed to be ThreeLawsCompliant in the first place, and prioritize protecting the Xenomorph, not avoiding human harm.]]

* UnnecessarilyCreepyRobot: The androids of Weyland-Yutani, as seen starting with ''Film/{{Alien}}'', are extremely humanlike, except when cut and bleeding milky white fluid. The Working Joe androids of Seegson, on the other hand side, start in the UncannyValley and are programmed to dig it into an Uncanny Mariana Trench with their waxy appearance and bad AI that can barely deviate from its standard functions (but will still merrily try to strangle you while asking you to remain calm). It's fully acknowledged in-universe: The Seegson marketing department tries to spin their faults as features, claiming [[ParanoiaFuel no one would want an android]] that [[TheyLookLikeUsNow you can't tell from a human]]. Considering that, for quite some time, the Working Joe was the face of the [[NightmareFuel/AlienIsolation Alien: Isolation Nightmare Fuel page]] rather than the titular creature, it may come as little surprise that Seegson is in the process of going belly-up.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Given that most of the station's survivors attack strangers on sight, avoiding contact with other people or killing them in self-defense are not unreasonable methods for survival. Moreover, it is all too likely that Ripley [[NotSoDifferent will resort to the same methods herself]] later on. As he points out, trying to survive at any cost is important.

* MisaimedFandom: An InUniverse example. After Amanda reads the message left by her mother to her, Marlow tries to invoke NotSoDifferent as to why he is doing what he is doing, hoping that Amanda having heard what her mother did will convince her to side with him. However, he misses the fact that Ripley's actions came about after she and her crew tried to stop it by working together, not sacrificing each other. [[spoiler:This lack of understanding both mother and daughter leads to her death when Taylor and Amanda try to stop him.]]

* NotSoDifferent: After listening to several of the personal recordings from the ''Nostromo'', he comes to believe that [[spoiler:Amanda's mother, Ellen Ripley, would likely have aided him in destroying Sevastopol. No matter the cost. And, apart from murdering the innocent, he's right -- Ripley would nuke the place to dust, having learned that obliterating the goddamn things ''is'' the way to deal with them.]]

* IdiotBall: It's too quiet to hear as you're in space, but some of the subtitles when you're trying to get onto the Torrens has Verlaine say that she's putting "the airlock on auto". She ''knows'' there's a deadly alien organism on board Sevastopol...

* FamousLastWords: [[spoiler:"I wanted...Amanda Ripley...to have closure..."]]

* WorfEffect: [[spoiler:He had to be a least a bit of a badass to survive on his own as long as he has, but is brought down swiftly once the Xenomorph enters the picture.]]