ECIU

"Have you tried putting that transmission through ECIU for detailed analysis?"
"Look, I want to know the details as badly as you do. But Mother hasn't identified it yet, so what's the point in my fooling with it?"
"Mind if I give it a shot?"
"Be my guest."

―Ellen Ripley and Ash (from Alien (novel))

ECIU calculating — ECIU software deciphering a transmission received by the USCSS *Nostromo*.

ECIU was a type of computerized interpretation filter^[1] that used binary code to analyze, decipher, and translate radio transmissions, even those of extraterrestrial origin.

History[]

"For if Yutani's new ECIU software is to be trusted, there might be great risk awaiting us on the path to an even greater reward."

―Sir Peter Weyland (from The Peter Weyland Files)

When Dr. Shaw and Holloway initially targeted LV-223 as their site of interest, Weyland's science division secretly detected a faint, almost imperceptible signal, via long range scans, emanating from LV-426, one of the lesser moons in the same system. In private messages that came to be known as The Peter Weyland Files, the magnate pondered over the great risk that might come along with visiting the transmission's point of origin if the Yutani Corporation's new ECIU software was to be trusted.

"It doesn't look like an S.O.S."
"What is it then?"
"Well, it looks a warning."

―Ripley and Ash (from Alien)

In 2122, ten months after departing Thedus, the crew of the USCSS Nostromo was awakened from hypersleep when the ship's AI, a MU/TH/UR 6000 mainframe, intercepted a transmission of unknown origin, an acoustical beacon that repeated at twelve-second intervals, being broadcast from the moon LV-426 in the Zeta Reticuli System. The ECIU interpretation filter deciphered part of the alien transmission, specifically what may have been the phrase "DO NOT," twice repeated.^[1] When Warrant Officer Ripley believed the transmission to be a warning rather than a distress signal, she could not alert the away team who went out on foot to investigate the source of the transmission due to atmospheric conditions.

Trivia[]

Originally mentioned in the 1978 script for the film Alien, and subsequently featured in both the film and its novelization, the acronym ECIU has yet to be defined or expanded upon in an official capacity.