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Aliens vs Fire

TDN, Human, 15 years ago

So this was something that had bugged me for quite a while. For a long time now it's been accepted that fire is a great killing tool against aliens. It's even depicted in the games (the flamethrower being your best weapon against hordes of xenos). The problem with this was it isn't that consistent with Alien 3.

If you remember, the alien in Alien 3 was killed using melted steel poured on it. even after the steel had cooled, they still sensed the alien moving inside. This means it was alive for some time even after being burned by the steel. Now melted steel has a temperature of 1370dC while fire only reaches 760dC and even Napalm will only reach 1250dC.

I wouldn't have been inconsistent had they depict fire killing the aliens after prolong exposure. But people usually think (as well as in the games) that fire kills aliens quickly as soon as it burns them. What do you guys think?

DeathWraith, Human, 15 years ago

Fire and melted steel is not the same thing, sticking your hand in hot water won't have the same effect as sticking yout hand in a flame of the same temperature. The aliens' exoskeleton may be able to resist very high temperatures, but flames are the result of the oxigen in the air and the carbon in the material you are burning combining to form carbon dioxide. So it's not really the same thing. Fire is the result of the substances you are made of being transformed into another substance, while melted steel is simply one substance at a very high temperature. Of what i know at least.

PREDATORv2, Human, 15 years ago

TDN does have a major point: the aliens exoskeleton has to be extremely strong to resist that kind of heat. Whether its an open flame or not if you pour molten steel on most anything organic it will instantly set it ablaze.

Wasn't it molten lead that was poured on the alien, not steel because lead has a much less melting point than steel, or am I mistaken?

TDN, Human, 15 years ago

To DeathWraith: Yes fire and hot water are not the same thing (same to napalm and melted steel), but in the end both will produce burn injuries. Speaking technically, a burn is caused by the heat from the material (fire, hot water, steel etc) being transfered to your body causing damage to your skin, tissue, nerves etc. So the properties of the material isn't what's affecting the burn damage but the temperature and how much heat energy is transferred. At least this is from my understanding.

To Predatorv2:Hmm, I always remembered that it was melted steel. Maybe I need to check the movie again. If it's melted lead then with a temperature of 375dC it certainly would be inferior to napalm used in flamethrowers.

This plus the fact that in either of the other movies we haven't seen any aliens killed by the flamethrowers. In Alien the crew were preparing flamethrowers but they got killed before they got to use it. In Aliens the marine with the flame killed only a chestburster (which has not yet developed any form of protective exoskeleton at all).

alien-drone, Human, 15 years ago

i think it was molten lead they poured on it