- "You know there's a very big chance you're not going to walk away from this, don't you?"
- ―Chad McLaren to Davis (from Alien: Colony War)
Chad McLaren was a former Weyland-Yutani scientist and the husband of Amanda Ripley.
Background[]
Chad spent seven years in college on Earth, then entered the field of biomedical research, which is why he took a position with Weyland-Yutani at the Tark-Weyland station. Chad went into biomedical research to help people, cure diseases, and eradicate illnesses and this career path led him to work with one of the most brilliant biomedical scientists in the Weyland-Yutani Corporation who came very close to several major breakthroughs with regards to a host of conditions, including many cancers before Chad discovered that the research was not entirely ethical. One of his collaborators had even experienced direct contact with Xenomorphs which is what caused Chad to become a Weyland-Yutani whistleblower.
Some years later, Chad McLaren wound up in possession of Davis, a disembodied AI that Chad carried around in little more than a portable hard drive that fit into his pocket, which was entirely frustrating for Davis. During an investigation, Chad found himself out on the fringes on LV-222, nicknamed Las Vegas, where he was looking for the crew of a trading ship that he believed possessed the corpse of a Xenomorph.
When they arrived planet-side, the trail was cold, and Davis was eagerly awaiting a new body, which is when Chad tried his luck at a casino and wound up walking away from a poker game with a new cruiser named the Elvik. When the matriarch of the crime family who ran the underground colony world tried to win the ship back from Chad, Davis talked him into the bet, where he wagered his newly acquired ship against the old woman's synthetic dog, specifically designed to replicate her deceased brown Cockapoo named Jasper. One hand of cards later, Chad walked out of the Casino with the keys to the Elvik in one hand and a leash in the other, on the end of which trotted Davis's brand new synthetic body.
Trivia[]
- The extended Special Edition of Aliens and its novelization are notable for including the first mention of the surname McClaren. It wasn't until the release of the 2014 novel Alien: Sea of Sorrows that the spelling of the name, when mentioned in passing, was altered to McLaren, which then went on to be used in the 2022 novel Alien: Colony War in reference to Chad and his wife, Amanda.
Appearances[]
- Alien: Colony War
- Fallout (mentioned only)