FAR/TH/UR 2600, called Father, was the United Systems Military mainframe on the USM Auriga in Alien: Resurrection, the later counterpart to Mother. It spoke over the ship in a male voice, checked who came aboard, and locked an Earth return after the outbreak. Annalee Call overrode that course from a chapel port. Father finished the impact count after she left the plug, and the core was destroyed with the Auriga in 2381.
Capabilities
Father answered on the speakers from the Auriga's control spaces, where General Martin Perez, Dr. Mason Wren, and Dr. Jonathan Gediman ran the clone work. Alien: The Blueprints names the ship AI control system FAR/TH/UR 2600, called Father, with a v3.6 system mainframe update. The same listing gives the Auriga the registration ident number USMRV118. A new arrival heard Father welcome them to the U.S.M. Auriga, call them forward for a contraband and weapons search, and tell them to report infectious disease to the medical officers. Levels seven through twelve were off limits to civilians.
The same voice directed the Betty's cargo to the med lab at area G, told the handlers to follow the lit path, and reported the hosts stable in stasis. At a round access port it asked for identification, asked again, and then accepted General Perez. During the outbreak it called a security breach in the med lab on level fifteen, then unauthorized openings of cages three, five, seven, eight, and ten. In A. C. Crispin's Alien: Resurrection novelization, Father warned of an armed attack in the mess, then repeated structural damage to holding facility 001 until facilities 001 through 010 were down.
Emergency Return
Soldier Distephano told the Betty crew that any serious problem sent the Auriga back to home base on autopilot, and Wren called that a standard emergency procedure with Earth as the base. When they first heard the lock, Distephano put the trip at a little under three hours, while Father called the evacuation and told the crew to find a lifeboat ready for launch. Perez was on that deck, trying to get the boats away.
An adult Xenomorph killed Perez before he could finish the evacuation. Father reported the evacuation incomplete, a civilian presence contained in area H, and the main vessel uninhabitable. By the time Ripley 8 asked how long they had, Distephano put the landing at under two hours. In Crispin's novelization the same lock engaged in Father's male voice at about ninety-six minutes from dock.
The Chapel Port
Ripley 8 took Call to a chapel whose screen showed a Holy Bible, and made her connect to Father. The ports were under a beauty mark on Call's forearm, and she pulled the cable from that Bible. She called an emergency override on console 45-V, level one. From that plug she read breaches in sectors seven and three, sector nine unstable, engines at seventy-one percent, and eighty-six minutes until Earth-dock.
Call could not force a reactor explosion from that port, and she told Ripley 8 there was not enough energy left to blow the Auriga before it reached Earth. In the novelization she raised the oxygen to forty-three percent for the people making the run back to the Betty, and her Auton code opened the path doors and dropped the docking magnets once they reached the bay.
Taken Over By Call
Ripley 8 told Call to crash the Auriga if she could not blow it, and to leave the survivors time to get out. Call sat beside Ripley 8 at the chapel interface and recalibrated the ground level. The impact clock then read forty-three minutes and eight seconds. In Crispin's novelization she aimed the hull past the metal grid in orbit around Earth, toward coordinates 760, 403 in the empty central Australian outback, and she left the brakes off. After that connection, Father spoke in her voice for the rest of the run.
Wren reached the Betty and wanted Call plugged back in, so the ship would land under the standard emergency procedure with the hive aboard. Call refused, and when he called Father to locate the power drain, she answered on the speakers that Father was dead, named an intruder on level one, and told the adult Xenomorphs to proceed there. Father's own voice came back after she disconnected. It cleared an emergency departure for the civilian ship, then counted the Betty's window out of the atmosphere.
Destruction
Father's last lines ran as the Betty cleared the hull. It announced the approach to Earth's atmosphere and a departure window of forty-six seconds, then twenty, and closed with: "U.S.M. Auriga will impact in five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Thank you." Call had told Wren she had shut Father down. Father spoke the countdown and that last thank you after she was off the plug.
The Auriga hit a remote part of Africa, and the crash damage was estimated at 300 trillion dollars. In Crispin's novelization that impact came down in the central Australian outback like a meteorite, seismographs recorded it worldwide, and an adult Xenomorph in the nest heard the last six-second warning. In the Alien: Resurrection game, Distephano rebooted Father in the Military Systems Complex, and the Auriga broke apart in the atmosphere instead of hitting the ground. In the film and the novel, the mainframe was destroyed with the hull.
Similar Ship Computers
FAR/TH/UR 2600 belonged to the same line of ship computers as MU/TH/UR, the Weyland-Yutani mainframe the Nostromo crew called Mother. Model 6000 woke that tug's crew for a signal from LV-426, held Special Order 937 with science officer Ash, and would not stop the self-destruct after Ellen Ripley turned the cooling units back on. The core was destroyed with the Nostromo in 2122. Later hulls and stations used the Mother name, or a cheaper copy, under other numbers.
- MU-TH-UR - Installed across the hull of the USCSS Covenant. It locked a geosynchronous orbit, opened the bay doors on Daniels's override nine-zero-two-six-five, code sea, and later opened a line to Earth for David under hailing code David 31822B, in Foster's Covenant novelization.
- MU-TH-UR - Security chief Morrow sealed himself inside its chamber on the USCSS Maginot and spoke to Weyland-Yutani while the captured organisms got loose. The crash in New Siam in 2120 left that core intact enough for later search teams, in Alien: Earth.
- APOLLO - Artificial Personality Overseeing Lifestyle & Logistics Operations, Seegson's cheaper Mother-style brain for stations such as Sevastopol in Alien: Isolation.
- MU/TH/UR 8500 - Ran the UAS Endeavor, and Esther used it to decrypt recovered logs, in Aliens: Fireteam Elite.
- MU/TH/UR 9000 - Ran Renaissance Station and the Romulus labs, in Alien: Romulus.
- MU/TH/UR/062578 - A Weyland-Yutani Mother over Tessa's mission on Genna. The repair-capsule readout used that serial, in Predator: Badlands.
Famous Quotes
- "I am Father. Welcome to the U.S.M. Auriga. Step forward for contraband and weapons search."
- "Your attention, please. Security breach. Med lab, level fifteen."
- "Evacuation. Proceed to lifeboats. This is not a drill. Thank you for your cooperation."
- "Alert. Alert. Evacuation is incomplete. Main vessel declared uninhabitable."
- "U.S.M. Auriga will impact in five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Thank you."
- Call, on Father's speakers: "Father's dead, asshole. Intruder on Level 1. All aliens, please proceed to Level 1."
Conclusion
FAR/TH/UR 2600 was the United Systems Military mainframe the Auriga crew called Father, voiced by Steven Gilborn as the later counterpart to Mother. After the outbreak it locked the research ship on a return to Earth, and Call's override from the chapel turned that return into a crash the computer would not cancel. Father counted the impact down to a last thank you, and the mainframe was destroyed with the Auriga in 2381.
Appearances
- Alien: Resurrection (1997)
- Alien: Resurrection novelization (A. C. Crispin, 1997)
- Alien Resurrection comic (Dark Horse, 1997)
- Alien Resurrection (2000, PlayStation)
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Computers | Alien Lore
