Karen Sneddon: Marion Science Officer

Full name: Karen Sneddon
Species: Human
Affiliation: Kelland Mining Company
Role: Science officer
Known for: Facehugged in the LV-178 derelict, then destroyed the last adult Xenomorph on the Marion
Setting: DSMO Marion and LV-178, 2159
First appearance: Alien: Out of the Shadows (2014)
Injuries: Facehugger implant
Kills: Adult Xenomorph and Chestburster in Marion Hold 2
Status: Dead, Chestburster and charge detonation in Marion Hold 2, 2159

Karen Sneddon was science officer of the Kelland Mining Company freighter DSMO Marion in Tim Lebbon's Alien: Out of the Shadows. She was a biologist who had apprenticed with Weyland-Yutani on Mars and later worked at a company research station orbiting Proxima Centauri. After the LV-178 outbreak she wrote the record, planned a stasis rotation on Ellen Ripley's shuttle, and was taken by a Facehugger in the buried derelict. She died in Hold 2 when her Chestburster tore free as she detonated a crate of charge-thumper bolts under the last adult Xenomorph.

Biography

Kelland Science Officer

Sneddon trained in biology. She served a Weyland-Yutani apprenticeship on Mars, then worked for the company on a research station in orbit around Proxima Centauri. By the Marion posting she was no longer a direct company employee. Kelland appointed her science officer, while Weyland-Yutani continued to fund science officers on many ships, including vessels owned by companies beneath it. Chief engineer Chris Hooper knew her as a quiet woman who treated the work as a chance to find life no catalogue had listed. She distrusted androids and called them unnatural.

The Delilah Crash

When the overrun dropship Delilah struck the Marion's port docking arm over LV-178, Sneddon was on the bridge with Hoop, communications officer Josh Baxter, and the medical team. After the second dropship, Samson, came in damaged, she directed the bridge to the cameras in Bay Three. She suited up with Hoop and engineer Welford and went down to the wreck. She did not recognize the creatures. She had read the official accounts of alien life found across more than eighty years of missions, and nothing in that record matched what had broken out of the miners. She began a written record while they were in the suits, and she counted anyone left in the mine as implanted once the face attachments and the chest eruptions were clear.

The Narcissus Plan

For the next eleven weeks the Samson stayed sealed in Bay Three while the Marion's orbit decayed. Sneddon spent most of that time in the science lab, going back over the dropship images. When the Narcissus docked, she treated Ripley's shuttle as a lifeboat with one stasis pod for nine people. Her plan was to pack it with supplies, burn the fuel toward Earth or the outer rim, and rotate the crew through the pod for about six months at a time. She put the run to the outer rim at roughly three years and backed the idea with older stranding cases from ships and sea disasters. Hoop called the rotation impossible, then agreed to ask Ripley for the access codes. A later systems check showed the shuttle's fuel cell was spent, so the rotation never left the Marion.

Opening The Samson

Sneddon wanted the four creatures inside the Samson held, not cut open. Plasma, sand picks, and charge thumpers would spill acid through the hull if Ripley's account of the Nostromo creature was right. She proposed cargo netting with a twisted steel core, the same netting used to pack tons of equipment in the holds, long enough to decide what to do with anything that came through the hatch. Ripley heard a company attempt to collect specimens and pressed her on the Kelland appointment and the Mars apprenticeship. Sneddon nicked her thumb with a scalpel and smeared blood on the bench to show she was human. Garcia and Sneddon then rigged the netting around the door from the airlock into the vestibule, with one side left loose so the engineers could pass. When the bay opened, the creatures came out together, and the fight moved past the net.

The Derelict Eggs

Ash, surviving as code, dropped the mine elevator to Level 9. In the buried ship Sneddon read the hull as grown rather than plated, with curved decks and tubing like veins. An older chamber held cocooned dog-aliens with burst chests, and the eggs there were dry and open. In a second chamber she photographed a wetter, newer egg among older ones while Hoop looked for a way out. A Facehugger leapt from that egg, wrapped her face, and coiled its tail around her throat. She dropped the camera, and it went on flashing. Lachance and Ripley dragged her clear while doctor Kasyanov burned the rest of the clutch with a plasma torch. Lachance carried her through the tunnels. The Facehugger later dropped away and died, and they left it behind. She could walk again and took the acid spray gun back.

The Samson Airlock

Sneddon understood the implant. She had seen miners torn open on the Delilah cameras, and she treated the waking as the start of that same process. On the surface tunnel to the Samson pad, Ripley aimed a plasma torch at her back and refused to carry a host on a dropship where plasma and acid could burn through the hull. Sneddon would not die on the pad. She offered to ride in the airlock and blow herself into space if the embryo started to move, and she offered to meet the adult Xenomorph loose on the Marion, on the chance a host would not be attacked. Hoop took her aboard. She spent the climb with her back against the airlock's outer door, pale and sweating, and stepped out only after the Samson had docked with the Marion.

Death In Hold 2

Ash had copied himself into the Marion's computers and treated a host as someone the remaining adult Xenomorph would spare, so that she could be brought to him. The adult killed Lachance. Sneddon followed it with the acid spray gun, caught one leg, and chased it away from the fuel-cell work while she shouted for the others to finish. In Hold 2 the adult closed on her and broke her. The Chestburster clawed out of her chest. She had counted two seconds and detonated a crate of charge-thumper bolts. The blast killed her, the adult Xenomorph, and the newborn together.

Personality And Traits

Sneddon was quiet, and Hoop treated that quiet as steadiness rather than distance. She liked the work and talked about deep space as a place where undescribed life might turn up, until the Marion outbreak took the pleasure out of that curiosity. She hoped the miners had died quickly. When Ripley accused her of collecting specimens for Weyland-Yutani, she stayed calm, cut her own thumb, and let the blood answer. She distrusted androids and found them unnatural, which came from her biology training rather than from Ripley's warning.

She was a practical thinker. She worked numbers, looked for a way to hold a creature without opening its acid blood, and understood what an implant meant because that was her field. The creatures fascinated her after they had horrified everyone else, and she did not treat that interest as a reason to bring one home. Once she knew she would die, she said so in plain words and asked to be useful for as long as she could, instead of asking the others to spare her or to shoot her on the spot.

Behind The Scenes

Tim Lebbon wrote Alien: Out of the Shadows for Titan Books. The mass-market paperback went on sale on 28 January 2014. The 1979 film Alien does not mention Sneddon, the Marion, or LV-178. On 26 April 2016, Audible released a full-cast audio drama of the same novel, directed by Dirk Maggs, with Kathryn Drysdale as Sneddon. A separate narration by Jeff Harding followed on 9 June 2016.

Conclusion

Karen Sneddon was Kelland's science officer on the Marion, the biologist who wrote the notes from the first Delilah images through the grown ship under LV-178. A Facehugger implanted her while she was photographing eggs, and she came back to the freighter knowing the embryo would kill her. She used that time to draw the last adult Xenomorph into Hold 2 and detonated the charge crate as the Chestburster tore free, dying with both creatures.