Anne Jorden was a wildcat prospector at Hadley's Hope on LV-426, the wife of Russ Jorden and the mother of Tim and Rebecca "Newt" Jorden in Aliens. In 2179 she and Russ followed coordinates from Weyland-Yutani to the derelict ship that the crew of the Nostromo had found decades earlier, and she dragged her husband back to the family tractor with a Facehugger on his face. Her mayday brought the creature home to the colony. Aliens: Newt's Tale and Alien: River of Pain followed her until she died getting her children into the air ducts, leaving Newt as the only survivor.
Biography
Early Life & Family
According to River of Pain, the novel by Christopher Golden, Anne and Russ left Earth because there was no work for them at home, and they found jobs on Acheron, the moon catalogued as LV-426. Years before her marriage Anne had been in a relationship with Demian Brackett, which ended when he joined the Colonial Marines. Their son Tim was born first. Their daughter Rebecca arrived on 15 March 2173 after a seventeen-hour labor under Dr. Theodora Komiskey, and Anne greeted her as "little newt," the nickname that stayed with the girl for the rest of her life.
The Jordens worked as a mom-and-pop survey team, prospecting the wild country around the colony for claims that could earn them a bonus. Administrator Al Simpson liked them but considered them scruffy, careless and too eager for money, and he told chief engineer Greg Hansard that any serious trouble on Acheron would come from people like them. The Aliens novelization by Alan Dean Foster described Anne as weathered and wind-blasted after her years on the moon. Unlike most of the colonists of Hadley's Hope, the couple took their children along on surveying trips.
Anne was content with her life. She told Russ that she had a happy family, good friends and a job with the occasional surge of adrenaline, and she had no wish to leave the colony. She loved puzzle games with Newt, who often repeated her mother's sayings, and she worried that Tim's friend Aaron was a bad influence. Her firmest rule was that the children must never play Monster Maze, their game of chasing each other through the colony's air ducts, because it was dangerous. The ducts she forbade later became the only safe place in Hadley's Hope.
Brackett Arrives
In June 2179 Brackett arrived at the colony as the new commander of its Colonial Marines. Anne was surprised and pleased to see him, but Russ grew suspicious of the man she had once loved and accused her of staying in touch with him. Anne was furious and told him that she had not spoken to Demian since they left Earth. The quarrel ended when Russ admitted that he had been foolish, and Anne assured him that the colony was their home and that their family was safe there.
The peace did not last. When their friends Otto and Curtis Finch died in a storm, the grief turned into a bitter fight about Russ's wish to leave Acheron and his jealousy of Brackett. Newt overheard, feared that her father was leaving and ran off, and Brackett found her and brought her home. Alone with Anne afterward, he told her that he had no intention of interfering in her life. She admitted that she was glad to see someone from home again, and Brackett remarked that the girl was just like her mother.
Orders From The Company
The Jordens' last trip began with Ellen Ripley's account of the derelict ship she had found decades earlier on the same moon. Carter Burke of Weyland-Yutani passed its coordinates to the colony without explaining what was there, and Simpson sent the Jordens to look, telling Lydecker in operations that anything they found would be theirs. Ripley later found Burke's signed order, dated 6-12-79, and realized that he had sent the family out without a word of warning about what was waiting for them.
In River of Pain the job came on 19 June 2179. Anne was excited that the company seemed to expect a real find this time, but she hesitated when the children begged to come along, remembering how the Finch brothers had died. She also knew that if they refused, the claim would go to another wildcatter, and that days alone in a crawler with Russ would only revive their quarrel. She agreed to take the children if the storm forecast stayed clear, and she believed that the trip promised a new beginning for the Jordens.
The Survey Trip
The family crossed the plateau in a six-wheeled tractor, with Russ driving and Anne watching the instruments and life support. As the signal grew stronger, Russ boasted that the find would be his, and Anne teased him that half of it was hers. When the children squabbled in the back over Monster Maze, she warned them again to stay out of the air ducts. In the novelization she explained that the game broke colony regulations and that one of them could fall down a vertical shaft, and River of Pain had her reading the magnetic sensor that guided them to the ship.
Finding The Derelict
When the alien ship came into view, a huge bonelike shape rising from the ash, Russ was overjoyed, but Anne was more cautious. In the novelization she doubted that something so large could have gone unnoticed, and Russ explained that the mountains and the heat of the colony's atmosphere processor had hidden it from its sensors. She wanted to report the find at once, but he insisted on waiting until they knew what it was. Before they set out on foot in environment suits, Anne ordered the children to stay in the tractor, although Newt's Tale gave that order to Russ.
Into The Derelict
Anne admitted that she was nervous as they climbed toward a dark gash in the hull, and in the novelization she thought that the opening looked like part of the ship's design rather than damage. In River of Pain she found the way in herself. Inside, the place gave her a cold, uneasy feeling, and she wanted to report the find and take the children home, but Russ argued that they had to see what they had before Reese, Mori or another company scientist did. Anne agreed to give it half an hour, thrilled despite her fear.
The empty corridors reminded her of an abandoned church from her childhood, and she told Russ that they were intruders in a place that did not want them. Scorch marks on the walls suggested that weapons had once been fired there. Still, she was as eager as her husband, and when they reached a spiral passage leading down, it was Anne who chose to descend, because she did not want to spend the rest of her life on Acheron and believed this find could free them. The black, ribbed walls made her think of a hive.
The Hive & The Egg Chamber
Below, they found about 20 dead Xenomorphs, which Anne called horrible creatures born to kill, and the remains of a giant crewman in a strange organic suit. A larger creature lay locked in combat with one of the giants, and its crest made her think of a queen. She concluded that the ship had seen a war. In a domed chamber they found the giant pilot in its seat, and Anne noticed that its ribs were bent outward, which told her that whatever had killed it had burst out from inside its body.
A recessed floor below the platform held dozens of leathery eggs in a glowing mist. Anne climbed down among them and even suggested taking one back, teasing Russ about his lost sense of adventure when he warned her off. When an egg opened behind her, Russ pulled her clear, and the creature that leapt out clamped onto his face instead. Anne then dragged her unconscious husband all the way back to the tractor, a feat that River of Pain said took every bit of her strength.
Mayday
The children had waited in the tractor for hours when Anne burst in, terrified, and seized the radio. "Mayday, mayday! This is Alpha Kilo Two Four Niner calling!" Outside, Russ lay on the ground with the Facehugger wrapped around his head, and Newt began to scream. In River of Pain Anne kept the children inside through the long wait and refused Tim's pleas to bring their father into the tractor, since she could not move him again. She covered part of Russ's face with a blanket so that her children would not have to see the creature.
Waiting For Rescue
Help took hours to arrive. When Brackett finally reached them with a Marine crawler, Newt ran straight to him and begged him to drive the family home himself, and he did. Back at the colony, Anne saw Reese smile at the creature on her husband's face and told Brackett that the scientist had good reason to be nervous. When Brackett mentioned that more teams would go out to the ship, she warned him that there were many more of the creatures waiting there. The teams went out anyway.
Vigil In The Medlab
Russ woke in the medlab the next day, insisting that he felt fine. Anne begged the doctors to let her take him home and promised to watch him every minute, but they refused. In Newt's Tale it was Dr. Kent who kept him there, while the children watched from an air vent after sneaking through the ducts against their mother's orders. River of Pain gave the decision to Komiskey, who feared that the creature had left something inside him, while Reese made it clear that the science team wanted him kept under observation.
A message that Anne recorded for her mother, later recovered from the ruins of the colony in Aliens: Colonial Marines, gave a different picture of those days. Anne asked her mother for money, because the family had to go home and the company would not pay for a shuttle off-world. She explained that a creature had attacked Russ and had seemed to kill him before it died, and that although he insisted he was fine, something felt wrong. The recording ended when Newt interrupted to say that Dad was waiting in the cafeteria, and Anne promised her mother that she would call back.
Death Of Russ
The doctors were right to worry. A Chestburster tore its way out of Russ's chest in front of Anne and the medical staff, while in Newt's Tale the children watched from the vent, and the creature escaped into the ducts. That evening Anne held her children on the floor of a small exam room. She learned that a dozen or more colonists and Marines had already come back from the ship with creatures on their faces, and she demanded that the colony stop sending people there. She also asked the doctor whether Weyland-Yutani had known what the family would find.
The family was now just the three of them, and Anne knew that she alone had to protect her children. She still loved Russ, but she leaned on Brackett, trusting him to help keep Tim and Newt safe and knowing that he still loved her. In Newt's Tale, as the colonists moved to a safer part of the base, Newt woke from a nightmare about her father and begged her mother to promise never to leave her. Anne promised, and it was a promise that Newt would hold her to and that Anne could not keep.
The Marines Are Coming
Armed colonists led the survivors toward a sublevel storage area, and Anne tried to reassure her children that the men would protect them, while Tim promised to look out for his mother and sister. When she asked one of the guards whether they would really be safe, he admitted that their best chance was to hold a small area until help arrived. Then word came from Earth that the Colonial Marines were on their way, and Anne hurried to share the news with Newt.
River of Pain described the same days through Anne's own fears. The survivors were moved from room to room as the attacks spread, and Anne quietly planned an escape, wondering whether the colony's mining ship, the Onager, was still on Acheron or whether a crawler could carry her family to a distant processor. She gave Newt the same promise not to leave her, and she resolved that if Brackett could not help, she and the children would go it alone. She knew that the monsters killing the colony were the ones her own family had found and brought back to Hadley's Hope.
Jordens Forever
On 26 June Newt was furious that her mother had left her alone, and Anne calmed her with the words "Jordens forever." She then confronted the colony's leaders, who were arguing over whether Simpson, Brackett or the company scientists were in charge, and told them bluntly that people were dying while they fought over power. The colonists cheered her, and even Simpson admitted that she was right. Afterward she confided to her friend Bill Andrews that she was frightened for her children, and she brought Dr. Hidalgo word that the creatures' nest had been found.
The Last Stand
When the creatures broke through the Marines' perimeter that afternoon, Anne took charge. She proposed that the colonists retreat to the surveyors' operations center above the medlab, a room with only one entrance that they could weld shut, and about 20 people followed her there under the protection of Lieutenant Paris and her Marines. Some colonists, among them Nolan Cale, Genevieve Dione and Derrick Russell, had already slipped away, probably hoping to reach the Onager, while the wildcatter Meznick refused to come.
Once the door was sealed, Anne asked the armed colonists for a gun. When Stefan Gruenwald suggested leaving the weapons to those who knew how to use them, she explained herself in words that both Newt's Tale and River of Pain recorded: "The creatures got my husband. If things go bad, I need something to make sure they don't end up the same way." Neela Parvati understood that she meant her children and was horrified. The creatures soon broke in, killing Sergeant Draper and Parvati.
Death Of Anne Jorden
In River of Pain Anne fought calmly to the end. She shot a creature that was attacking Newt's friend Luisa while her children pried open a vent too narrow for the aliens. Tim pushed Newt inside and started to follow, and Anne turned to face another creature, her last thought an apology to Russ before it killed her. When Brackett reached the room, he found her body with Tim's nearby, a gun still in the boy's hand. Believing that Newt had died too, he rescued Luisa, still alive in a cocoon, and escaped with the science team.
Newt's Tale gave a darker version. As the creatures broke through, the weeping Anne nearly turned her pistol on Newt to spare her a worse fate, until the children reminded her of the air ducts. She carried them to a vent and pushed them in, but a creature's tail dragged her back. Tim climbed out to save her and was killed beside her body, while Newt screamed from the vent that her mother had promised never to leave her. It was the promise Anne had made on the night they left their quarters.
In Newt's Memory
Newt survived alone in the ducts for weeks, until Hudson's motion tracker led the Marines to her and Ripley coaxed her out. She would say only that her parents were dead. Later she told Ripley, "My mommy always said there were no monsters, no real ones, but there are." Foster's novel added that Ripley wondered whether the cocooned woman who whispered to Dietrich in the hive had been Newt's mother, and decided that the girl would have been beyond reach if it had been.
Ripley promised never to leave Newt, the same promise Anne had made, and she kept it by going into the hive alone to bring her back. After Ripley saved her from the Queen aboard the Sulaco, Newt clung to her and called her "Mommy." She left LV-426 with Ripley, Hicks and Bishop, but in Alien 3 she drowned in her cryotube when their escape vehicle crashed on Fiorina 161. The air ducts her mother had forbidden were what kept her alive after the rest of the Jordens died.
Personality & Traits
Anne was usually the more cautious half of the partnership. She doubted the find before Russ did, wanted to report it at once, ordered the children to stay in the tractor and sensed the danger inside the derelict while her husband thought about money. Yet she was just as ambitious. In River of Pain it was Anne who chose to go deeper into the ship, because she did not want to spend her life on Acheron, and she climbed down among the eggs herself. Her caution and her daring together carried the Jordens into the egg chamber.
She was fierce in defense of her family. She stood up to her husband when he suspected her of disloyalty, and she told the colony's leaders to their faces that their power struggle was costing lives. Her deepest loyalty was to her children. She hid their father's face from them, made promises she could not keep, took a gun so that the creatures would not take them and died getting them into a vent. Newt carried her mother's words about monsters all the way to Ripley.
Behind The Scenes
Holly De Jong played Anne in Aliens, with Jay Benedict as Russ, Christopher Henn as Tim and Carrie Henn as Newt. James Cameron cut the colony scenes and the Jorden family's expedition from the theatrical release for pacing and length, so Anne did not appear in the 1986 cut at all, and Newt's parents were only mentioned. The full version of about 154 minutes came out on home video in the United Kingdom in April 1990 and in the United States on laserdisc as Aliens: Special Collector's Edition in December 1991.
Cameron's first draft of the script, dated 28 May 1985, already included Anne as Russ's wife and business partner, along with the scenes of her teasing him about the claim, warning the children away from the air ducts and radioing the colony for help. It also had her nervously suggest calling the find a "big weird thing," a line that Foster kept in the novelization. In the draft she told the children "You kids stay inside," while in the restored film she says "You two stay inside."
Golden's Alien: River of Pain made Anne one of its central characters in 2014, adding her history with Brackett, the birth of Newt and her death in the operations center. Audible's audio drama of the novel, directed by Dirk Maggs and released on 26 April 2017, cast Anna Friel as Anne, with Marc Warren as Russ and Colin Salmon as Brackett. Several actors from Aliens returned in the audio drama, including William Hope as Gorman and Mac McDonald as Simpson.
Dark Horse first showed the Jordens in a flashback in Aliens #6 of its 1988 series by Mark Verheiden and Mark A. Nelson, and the recolored Aliens: Outbreak of 1996 renamed the family. Mike Richardson and Jim Somerville's Aliens: Newt's Tale of 1992 followed the outbreak from Newt's side and showed Anne's death in the corridor outside the vent. The Aliens Adventure Game said that the family was flown back to the colony after the attack, while the film and River of Pain had them drive back in the tractor. River of Pain later reused the comic's dialogue about Anne's gun almost word for word, along with her promise to her daughter.
Conclusion
Anne Jorden was the prospector who warned her children to stay in the tractor, followed her husband into the derelict on LV-426 and dragged him back with a Facehugger on his face. Her mayday brought the creature home to Hadley's Hope. Newt's Tale and River of Pain followed her through Russ's death and the fall of the colony, where she took a gun to protect her children and died getting them into the ducts. The daughter she promised never to leave became the only survivor, and her words about monsters followed Newt all the way to Ripley.
Appearances
- Aliens (1986), in scenes restored for the Special Edition
- Aliens novelization by Alan Dean Foster (1986)
- Aliens #6 by Mark Verheiden and Mark A. Nelson (Dark Horse Comics, 1988-1989 series), in flashback, recolored as Aliens: Outbreak (1996) with the family renamed
- Aliens: Newt's Tale #1 by Mike Richardson and Jim Somerville (Dark Horse Comics, 1992), and in Newt's memories in #2
- Alien: River of Pain by Christopher Golden (Titan Books, 2014)
- Alien: River of Pain audio drama by Dirk Maggs (Audible, 2017)
- Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013), voice only, in the audio log "Please Mom..." in the mission "No Hope in Hadley's"
- Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood (Boxtree, 1995), mentioned only, as part of the Jorden family (pp. 154 and 157)
- Aliens Adventure Game (Leading Edge Games, 1991), mentioned only
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Characters | Alien Lore
