version 4 - The Alien Encyclopedia

Atlas City: A colony on the planet KOI-314.02. Established in 2059, Atlas City would house almost9 million colonists by the year 2071. Its industry focused on light and heavy manufacturingand mining and refining, the latter exploiting the planet's considerable helium-3 resources. Anotherkey resource was niobium. (PR:WIW)Atmosphere Processor: A machine used to transform the atmosphere of a world into a compositionbreathable for humans. Such a processor is a vital part of the terraforming process used to render inhospitableworlds into environments able to sustain human life. The transformation process basicallyconsists of drawing in the atmosphere, splitting it up into its basic atomic components and releasingthe breathable elements while discarding the non-breathable elements as waste products orstoring them for use as fuel, industrial cleaning supplies or as raw materials for manufacturing.When the transformation of the atmosphere is complete, the processor continues to monitor theplanet's atmosphere and to sustain its composition. Atmosphere Processors are massive structures,and, depending on the initial atmosphere, several of them have to be installed on a world's surfacein order to produce results within a reasonable amount of time.The general concept of an Atmosphere Processor received its first practical application when WeylandIndustries installed a prototype at the polar ice cap to reverse the effect of global warming onEarth. On August 9, 2029, Weyland Industries registered the Atmosphere Processor technology underthe patent number 11,280,599. The first successful transformation of an extraterrestrial atmospherewas completed on May 28, 2039 on the planet GJ 667Cc. During the following decades, thetechnology for terraforming and space travel became advanced enough to make colonization of distantworlds possible, and Atmosphere Processors were installed on a number of worlds, with the terraformingprocess time span between 5 and 20 years depending on the local conditions and at an averageof 8 years by the second half of the 21 st century.A notable example of the deployment of Atmosphere Processors was LV-426. By the middle of the22 nd century, about 30 Atmosphere Processors were installed all over the planetoid and managed tocreate a breathable atmosphere within two decades, although by the time of the Hadley's Hope incidenton LV-426 in 2179, the actual terraforming process was not yet completed. Looking likehuge artificial volcanoes and spanning a height of 1,500 meters, these processors were partially financedand constructed by Weyland-Yutani.One of these Atmosphere Processors, which was located adjacent to the Hadley's Hope colony,played a major role during the Xenomorph infestation of the colony in 2179. When the organismoverran the colony, it set up a hive on Sub-Level 3 of the processor. There may have been severalreasons why this location was chosen, whether it was because it provided a climate of dry heatwhere these creatures could thrive or because it placed them in a position where it would be virtuallyimpossible to destroy them without critically damaging the processor. While the latter possibilitymay attribute an unlikely level of abstract intelligence to the Xenomorph, this was whathappened when the recon mission sent to investigate the communication breakdown with Hadley'sHope was exploring Sub-Level 3 following the discovery of the missing colonists' PDT signals emanatingfrom the Atmospheric Processor. The Marines were ambushed inside the hive, and duringthe ensuing firefight, the cooling system of the fusion reactor was ruptured, setting off a fatal chainreaction which eventually caused the processor to explode with the blasting power of 15 megatons,taking Hadley's Hope and everything else within a radius of 30 kilometers with it. (A2, A:CMTM)Atmospheric Pressurizer: A device used to create an environment on a colony world that correspondsto pressure conditions suitable for humans. Thus, colonists are able to avoid tedious decompressiontreatments and medical care. Weyland Industries sold the Atmospheric Pressurizer in anexclusive bundle with its Atmosphere Processors during the 21 st century. (PR:WIW)ATV NR6: A four-threaded, two-person ground vehicle developed by Weyland Industries. Able tocarry a limited payload, the ATV NR6 was the first of its kind able to traverse nearly vertical surfaces.The vehicle was capable of travelling at speeds of up to 88 miles per hour under normal pres-