Dorian Sudler: Cold Forge Auditor & Main Villain
Dorian Sudler was a Weyland-Yutani Special Resources auditor and the main villain in Alex White's Alien: The Cold Forge. In 2179 he arrived on the company yacht Athenian to fire scientists and seize assets on station RB-232, the Cold Forge. After a saboteur opened the kennels he herded the remaining crew into the hive, then died as a Facehugger host in his quarters as the station fell toward the dwarf star Kaufmann.
Special Resources And The Shipyard
Dorian worked classified human resources under the title Special Resources. He painted in oils and conté crayon between jobs, smoked, and treated long cryo hauls as a way to leave his parents and his days in Boston behind. The Cold Forge was his twentieth cryo voyage. His father had opposed the painting. Both parents were dead by the time he reached RB-232.
His last stop before the station was a shipyard. Branch manager Alphonse Kanner killed himself after learning Dorian meant to fire him. Kanner still held a two-million-dollar company life policy from age eighteen. Suicide voided the payout, and Dorian treated that voided claim as a gain. Shipyard doctor Jana mistook his interest for a last-night pass. He refused her, then added a termination that blocked unemployment under threat of a harassment charge.
The next classified file listed RB-232 as poor performance on an asset worth billions. An earlier assignment had been a steel-smelting plant outside Johannesburg. He kept a sterling silver matchbox inlaid with rubies in a constellation, Italian calfskin dress shoes, and a fitness habit that later let him jog the station strut in an oxygen mask. He was a ten-time decathlon finisher.
Arrival On RB-232
He arrived on the yacht Athenian with pilot Ken Riley, copilot Susan Spiteri, and navigator Montrell Lupia. Commander Daniel Cardozo and chief of security Anne Wexler met him at the dock. Dorian knew the Governance Board had not trusted junior executive Carter Burke to finish a parallel special project that year, and he treated the Cold Forge as the backup.
He took the observation deck for quarters so he could spread canvases under Kaufmann's light. On the dock he introduced himself as Director Sudler to geneticist Blue Marsalis, who met him in the synthetic body Marcus. He later walked into her hospital room with cigarettes and the silver matchbox, told her the work sat under Special Resources, and passed along that vice president Elise Coto had been arrested. Blue was the scientist he meant to lock down first.
Anne And The Audit
Anne had once been Blue's lover and had ended it because Blue was too close to death. Dorian sketched her and slept with her, then used that access. She pointed him at Blue's unauthorized kennel server. He blackmailed Rose Eagle lead Josep Janos over the Silversmile wipe, then planned to seize Glitter Edifice, put Blue in cold storage, and cycle every name on the roster, Anne included.
A rushed chimp surgery tore off half of lab assistant Kambili Okoro's face. Cardozo locked Blue out of the science wing. Blue hacked Dorian's terminal and found a roster that listed everyone for termination. That night he used Override Epsilon on Marcus, locked her out of the body, and pulled her clearance.
Techs started cracking her quantum-locked research through Rose Eagle. Dorian stayed in the kennels after that. He made an unnamed video tech play old birth tapes, watched a Chestburster come out of a chimpanzee, then fell asleep in a chair while the caged adult Xenomorphs fed.
Kennel Break
Someone opened kennel cells by hand, and someone installed Silversmile on Titus, the station computer, from outside the science wing. When Juno called a kennel evacuation, Dorian woke in that chair, shoved the video tech into an adult Xenomorph, and ran. He found the server camp slaughtered and recognized Josep Janos's severed head. Armory guns were placebos, kept so lab techs would enter the wing. Cardozo's caseless pulse rifle was the real weapon.
Three adult Xenomorphs boarded the Athenian and killed Susan on a tail spike. Ken's pistol flattened on a rib plate, then an adult Xenomorph drove him onto his own control stick and sent the ship into a full-burn spiral. The docking clamp tore a bay wall open. Explosive decompression stripped most of the escape-pod rack. Dorian and Anne reeled survivors in on a fire hose. Unpiloted Marcus hauled people through the gale. About 12 humans then spent five hours in an airlock on hyperbaric treatment.
The crash split the station into a crew-quarters half and a science-wing half, linked by maintenance tubes. Dorian forced technician Javier Paz to bootstrap Titus, then hid and left him for the hive. Blue later found Javier cocooned, hands chewed off, and crushed his throat after he asked her to end it.
Anne And The Last Pod
The station was in a 60 km/h off-axis spin and falling toward Kaufmann. Dorian isolated Anne in a break room with no ration bars, only creamer packets, and asked her to EVA to the last pod and abandon the rest for Gateway Station. She refused, so he beat her with a chair, crushed her hands and legs, and dragged her into a hall as bait. She cut his cheek with a boot knife before an adult Xenomorph took her.
He then smashed Marcus's skull with a fire extinguisher, shut the air and heat in crew quarters, and painted a nav-light trail from the kennels to Blue's room. She jammed an oxygen valve, hid in a vent, and lit his last match. The blast and an alcohol-cabinet fire killed one adult Xenomorph and melted her bed through the deck.
Herding The Crew
From Juno's cage Dorian opened doors and steered adult Xenomorphs with lights and alarms. Stephen Granade went first, and Kay Bryski and T. Sandberg went down soon after. He split C. Hogan from Dawn with a bulkhead. Hogan reached the cage and begged to be let in. Dorian bit through Hogan's throat on the catwalk and threw the body down to the hive.
He then lied to Lucy Biltmore and Nick Harmon that he had come as Seegson extraction. Lucy was Seegson's mole, the author of Silversmile, and she had not expected a massacre. Dorian beat Nick, flash-froze him in the surgical nitrogen booth, and kicked the frozen face in. He and Lucy crossed the hull in Kaufmann's ten-second shadow window. He unsealed her helmet and kicked her into the star.
Blue later hit him with Caterpillar P-5000 CP5000-03 in the science-wing commons, then jammed an opiate injector into his neck in med bay. The chip refused the dose, and an adult Xenomorph pulled him off her. The loader folded that adult Xenomorph in half.
Death
Dorian woke glued in resin with a spent Facehugger beside him, and the hive let the host walk. He went to his observation-deck quarters and painted until the Chestburster came through his ribs. His blood hit the canvas, the newborn fed back into him, and the station fell toward Kaufmann. Marcus, feet beaten to stumps, lifted Blue from an egg crate into a cryo berth. She was the only human who left RB-232. Seegson took her off-station with a praepotens sample after Dorian was dead.
Confirmed Kills
The Cold Forge never gave Dorian an adult Xenomorph body count, because he did not kill any. His confirmed human kills were:
- Solo humans: 3. He bit through C. Hogan's throat and threw the body to the hive. He flash-froze Nick Harmon and kicked the frozen face in. He unsealed Lucy Biltmore's helmet and kicked her into Kaufmann.
- Herded or left for adult Xenomorphs: 7. He shoved an unnamed video tech into one adult Xenomorph, left Javier Paz for the hive, beat Anne Wexler and left her as bait, and opened doors on Stephen Granade, Kay Bryski, T. Sandberg, and Dawn. Blue later crushed Javier's throat after he asked her to end it.
- Adult Xenomorphs / eggs / Queen / Facehuggers: 0. He watched birth tapes and died as a Facehugger host. There was no Queen on RB-232. Every egg on the station was imported.
- Not counted: Alphonse Kanner's suicide after the shipyard firing, and Jana's termination.
Continuity Notes
The Cold Forge was set in 2179, the same year as Aliens. Carter Burke ran a parallel special project that year, and the Governance Board had not trusted him to finish it. Gateway Station was the civilian destination if a pod could be flown from RB-232.
Lucy was a Seegson mole. Seegson is the same company that owned Sevastopol Station in Alien: Isolation, forty-two years earlier. Alien: Into Charybdis later followed Blue after Seegson took her. Dorian does not appear in that novel.
Personality
Dorian was a psychopath who became openly insane after the kennels opened. As a Special Resources auditor he enjoyed firing people and felt little for anyone in front of him, including Anne after he slept with her. The adult Xenomorphs held his attention in a way humans never did, and once the cells were open he ran the survivors as prey from Juno's cage, then left the last escape pod so he could keep going after Blue. When a Facehugger took him he decided the hive would spare a host, pushed past two adult Xenomorphs that hissed at him, and treated the Chestburster as a child that would carry him into their species. He walked back to his quarters and painted until it killed him.
Conclusion
Dorian Sudler was a Weyland-Yutani Special Resources auditor who came to RB-232 to fire the station. After the kennels opened he herded the crew to the hive, killed Hogan, Harmon, and Lucy himself, and died as a Facehugger host in his observation-deck quarters as the Cold Forge fell toward Kaufmann.
Appearances
- Alien: The Cold Forge (novel, Titan Books, 2018)
- Alien: The Cold Forge (audiobook, Blackstone Audio, 2018)
- The Complete Alien Collection: Symphony of Death (omnibus, Titan Books, 2023)
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Characters | Alien Lore
