US Army Sargeant Volunteers Unit to be First Colonial Marines

Michael Reilly — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:40:00 PDT

Being a member of the US military in Afghanistan takes it's toll after a few years. So last week, Sergeant First Class William Ruth of the Army's 101st Airborne Division proposed an alternative mission for his soldiers: let them be the first humans to colonize another planet. In his letter (below) to an editor at LiveScience, Ruth says his unit's role as advanced scouts and reconnaissance soldiers makes them ideally suited to the rough, lonely life in the cold, barren wastes that await them on Mars, the Moon, or elsewhere.

Ruth's letter says it all:

Please forward this to the proper channels. I have read Stephen Hawking's latest remarks on space travel and the importance of it to human survival. The problem is, NASA is going about it all the wrong way.
Here is an idea: Send battle-hardened, strong-minded soldiers and marines on the long trips into space. We are conditioned to live with the bare minimal (of) life's necessities and are trained to be prepared for ... the worst conditions that any environment could throw at us.

Hell, me and my men will go, set up a colony somewhere and await colonists to arrive.

Me and most of my men are on our 3rd or 4th deployment into a combat area. We are scouts, reconnaissance specialists. We go before everyone else and spend time living off the land. Sounds just like the type of men needed for a long colonization journey.

Please pass this message on to anyone you know in the space program. (T)here are many men already trained and prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country and the human race.

Thank you for you time.

SFC Ruth, 101st Airborne Division. Afghanistan

Patriotism and desire to get out of Afghanistan aside, who better to blast alien nasties than these soldiers? Chances are there's nothing out there that can hurt us, but if there is you're going to regret not having the Colonial Marines expeditionary force along with you.

Source: LiveScience.com

"Aliens" Game Dunks Your Whole Squad In Acid Blood

Kevin Kelly — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:00:07 PDT

Have you ever wanted to play as a Colonial Marine in the Alien universe, blasting those acid-for-blood xenomorphs with your M41A pulse rifle and sweeping areas with a motion tracker? Now your dreams can come true when you slip into your body armor and pick up a controller. Based on these screenshots from Aliens: Colonial Marines, it looks like you'll only need Hicks yelling "Game over, man!" to make it feel like you're really there.

You'll control a squad of four Colonial Marines in the game, issuing commands and dealing with their different personalities as you investigate the disappearance of Ellen Ripley and the team of Colonial Marines she left with aboard the U.S.S. Sulaco. Key areas in the game include the derelict spacewreck from the first Alien movie, and the LV-426 colony from Aliens. You'll use weapons like the pulse rifle, the M240 flamethrower, and the M56 Smart Gun that Vasquez kicked much ass with.

The thing sure looks a bit like Doom meets Quake, but we loved the world of the Colonial Marines so much that we'd watch a television show or movie about them even if it didn't have a single Alien in it. Oh wait, we did... and it was called Starship Troopers. Actually, there were a lot of aliens in that, except they looked like bugs instead of creepy H.R. Giger nightmares. Still, we loved it and have high hopes for Part 3, especially if it includes shower scenes.

Colonial Marines was originally being developed for the PS2, but was cancelled by Fox back in 2001. Then SEGA announced in 2006 that they were working on a game set in the Aliens world, and it'll be out for the PC, the PS3, and the Xbox 360 in late 2008. Which of course means we're going to have to wait on it, a lot more than 17 days. As Hicks would say. "17 days?!?! We're not gonna last 17 hours!"

io9: Colonial Marines

US Army Sargeant Volunteers Unit to be First Colonial Marines

"Aliens" Game Dunks Your Whole Squad In Acid Blood