So I'm reading one of the Belisarius books (alternate military-history set during the Byzantine era) and during a scene set in Babylon attention is drawn to the (remains of) the Ishtar Gate. And I stopped and hit the books (rather, hit Wikipedia) to confirm. I've seen the Ishtar Gate. It was reconstructed from salvaged bricks and historic descriptions in the early 20th century and it is at the Pergamon in Berlin and I'd stood within in it. And is pretty durn spectacular, too.
Today I was listening to The Ancient World and was reminded that king Croesus (yes, the "...as rich as..." himself), was the person who had famously been assured by the Oracle in the most Delphic prophesy ever that if he went to war, "A great empire would be destroyed." You probably could have seen that coming, since his opponent on the battlefield was Cyrus of Persia. Yes, that Cyrus, himself prophesied to usurp a king and hidden away as a child (no reed basket for him, though). The man who had saved the child from royal murder, Harpagus, was punished with the death of his own child. But he bid his time well, rose to become an important general in Astyages' forces, and at the right moment took his revenge (not coincidentally handing Cyrus the start of his empire).
The big battle of these two forces was also the one where wily Cyrus put camels at the front of his forces, whose strange smell and presence spooked the horses of Croesus' calvary. Croesus died crying out the name of Solon of Athens, Solon the Lawgiver, who had long ago cautioned Croesus that it was premature for him, or for any man not yet dead, to be described as the happiest man in the world.
Of course this is smack in the middle of Herodotus' favorite feeding grounds, and the rise of Athens, Sparta, and soon enough the Homeric poets. Xenophon wrote of these battles, too. So no wonder a whole bunch of familiar stories are gathered in one place.
(Cyrus also got in a dig that outdid the Laconians in being laconic. The fairly young polis threatened the rising empire-builder with a, "Do not put your eyes towards these territories or you will have to face the Spartans." Cyrus replied by gesturing for his interpreter and local guide, "The who?") It took Sparta a generation to recover from that insult...which they did at a little place called the "Hot Gates." But by that time Cyrus was gone.)
In any case.
I'm still pondering how to write an archaeological adventure story. Fiction based on real archaeology has been done (particular mention here of the Samantha Sutton stories for young readers). Historical fiction also has its attractions (one of the podcasts I follow reviews and discusses in depth the archaeology and anthropology underlying novels set in prehistoric times).
There's even a weird excuse I've only seen employed in basically scientific fantasies of a Victorian setting: to be only restricted to that which was known in the period being described. That is; a story set before the Michelson-Morley experiment can have the luminiferous aether as part of the underlying science. One set before Mariner might have canals on Mars. I've never seen anyone use that excuse to set a story in the time of Pliny the Elder in which there is indeed a land where men have their heads in their torsos, though!
It is a fancy worthy of further contemplation, however. Set a story in the heady years when Archaeology is just starting to develop as a science out of Antiquarianism, and the difference between myths and verified histories has yet to be largely disentangled. In such a world, your hero archaeologist would be less professionally condemned for acting like a genre Tomb Raider, and there might indeed be surprising new civilizations to be discovered. After all, in a time when the biblical Flood is still a matter for professional discussion, Atlantis is a relatively sane conception.
About all I've managed towards a modern-day setting is having the skeptical academically-trained protagonist in the hire of a credulous but filthy rich sponsor. Sponsor sends him to look for a Bosnian Pyramid or Mu Stone or whatever, but whilst on this fruitless search he stumbles into something a lot more interesting.
Thinking about it again, the idea of mysteries unveiled is important. An even better way of looking at it might be secret truths; that what gets discovered is fresh and surprising. There's a hint here of the joys of insider knowledge. The reader wants to share the vicarious pleasure of knowing something the rest of the world doesn't. And it can't be too trivial, or too obscure. Not as much fun finding out a secret about an obscure early Roman playwright -- you want the subject of the revelation to be at least on the scale of a Christopher Marlowe.
I would put in the requirement that the mystery driving a genre adventure needs to be important enough to someone for violence to be offered. But that, sadly, seems all too low a bar. You can get attacked with murderous intent just for wearing the wrong t-shirt. Although I find it a little hard to imagine the person who would resort to murder to cover up the real authorship of Shakespeare's plays.
A last odd bit to throw into the mix. In the back of my head for a couple decades has been the idea of something known to ancient peoples that takes on a new importance in the modern age. Say, a long-term comet of potential threat and the chance that Mayan astronomers had recorded the last pass in sufficient detail to work out the ephemeris. The thought is still largely unformed; the above is not necessarily a good example.
(Actually, Greg Bear did something a bit along the line I think I'm thinking, with a modern physicist investigating a rare bit of physics (a macro-scale object that behaves like a subatomic particle) early Mycenaeans had previously encountered.))
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2017
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
The Forbidden Archaeologist
I am strongly tempted to write again.
That is, to write for publication. Fanfic has kept the tools sharpened, helping me crank out that one million words of crap the apocryphal quote claims you have to work through. Except from what I'm seeing on Amazon et al, more and more of that first million words -- as Sturgeon's Law worthy as they are -- are being published regardless.
In any case.
What has specifically whetted my appetite is the stories. Those bits from history that Evan S. Connel called "pickled plums." The mysteries, but even more, those things that strike me as tantalizing hooks.
Such as: I can't remember the details right now, but a Pharonic library was uncovered during the silver age of archaeology; those heady early days when cuniform were first being translated, Assyria discovered, the Valley of Kings excavated. In any case, the first barge load of scrolls and artifacts was attacked by bandits and sunk in the Nile, never to be recovered. And one wonders what might have been learned from them.
Many are the important finds that have gone astray this way, from Peking Man on. And if you read back into history, there were entire cultures with an antiquarian bent of their own, uncovering everything they could find from a passed culture significant to them, and confounding future archaeologists by decorating their palaces with the treasures of people long gone by.
What I mean to say is there are so many spaces in real known history for an amazing artifact search; to track something from the abandoned royal city of Amarna to collections of Alexandria through the great artifact collection of Napoleon to the similar mass shipment of antiquities into Berlin. At each stop exploring cultures and histories and cities modern and ancient.
But almost opposed to that artifact-centered view, I've also grown in sympathy (though only the vaguest understanding) of modern Archaeological thought and method. And that I also want to talk about even in a work of genre fiction.
So you could say that almost what I want to write is an anti-Lara Croft. An Indiana Jones who understands and honors antiquities protection, a Nathan Drake with an actual academic background. Someone who isn't inclined by skills or nature to whip out a dual pair of pistols at every excuse. A Scully, though possibly in a Mulder universe.
The biggest problem I have is close to the heart of the dichotomy between actual Archaeology and the fictional exploits of pop-culture figures who only carry the name. And that is, in short, I don't believe in aliens.
I find the real world spectacular and surprising. But I'm up against a genre expectation of lost sciences and ancient technologies and sprawling underground complexes. Or, to get to the heart of it, to mysteries uncovered.
After reading through dusty archives and interviewing strange reclusive people in far-off exotic lands and cutting through jungle and fighting off disease and weather and animal attacks, the reader has a legitimate expectation to find something other than that the Moai of Rapa Nui were carved to honor local chiefs and walked into place with a rocking motion with ropes and lots of willing hands.
So what to do?
I could make a convincing case for a view that is minority but otherwise has academic respectability. Such as, for instance, the two waves of prehistoric colonization into the Americas (and, no, the Solutreans are not one of them). I can't do this because this would be mostly of interest to academics, and they are a tough audience. I like research, but I know my limitations!
Another temptation is to go Focoult's Pendulum on it. In Umberto Eco's novel, a small group of far too widely-read publishers made up a far too believable conspiracy theory and got themselves in serious trouble with some true believers. No real Templars were ever involved.
My problems are two; I can't come up with a good Ancient Aliens backstory that doesn't make mainstream Archaeology look like idiots. And I can't come up with any alternative explanation of early technological innovations, worship practices, etc., that isn't an insult to the peoples involved -- some of whom have direct living cultural descendants.
Part of this is what I call in my own notes a "Watt-Evans" problem. In at least one novel, Lawrence Watt-Evans framed a story in genre terms but then had events unfold realistically. Case in point being a certain prison run by an oppressive future society. His protagonist does the usual genre things to escape. All of them fail, usually quickly.
It is easy to say, "Lazy writer" when a genre protagonist gets away with something (like escaping a modern prison). The way I look at it, though, is that there are thousands of people working on that problem right now who have, shall we say, intimate understanding of the situation. Is the writer expected to come up with something none of them have? It's like asking a science fiction writer to out-do everyone in multiple fields of science and come up with the actual physics of faster-than-light travel. (Which they could then patent -- heck, they'd make more on the Nobel than they would with a novel.)
You have to cheat. The character needs an unfair advantage, or the fictional world has forgotten to take a precaution the real world does not forget. Otherwise there's no story. The Great Escape isn't much of a story if Eastwood's character spends a couple weeks thinking about it then gives up.
(Actually, there is a good cheat available to the writer; find something clever someone in the real world already did. Hopefully not one all your readers have also heard of).
So, in short, if there had been an Atlanean civilization -- super-science and all -- that sunk below the waves, the kind of evidence for it wouldn't be hidden in such a way that only an Indiana Jones could find it. If there are writings in ancient manuscripts they'd have been translated and commented on already (probably by the Greeks). If there were underground complexes GPR would have picked them up.
Well, those are bad examples. The big point is anything that's world-changing leaves a footprint. Or put it another way; there is far too much consistent evidence for the world as we understand it. There isn't a gap large enough to stick something the scale that pseudo-archaeology demands.
And the evidence, if it was there, would be diffused. Would be visible in the patterns of trade routes and evolution of cultural artifacts and genetic distributions and word-frequency analysis. In large-scale comparative studies. Not in one convenient 19th-century printing of an obscure Latin translation of a lost Babylonian text found in a bookstall on the bank of the Seine.
That is, to write for publication. Fanfic has kept the tools sharpened, helping me crank out that one million words of crap the apocryphal quote claims you have to work through. Except from what I'm seeing on Amazon et al, more and more of that first million words -- as Sturgeon's Law worthy as they are -- are being published regardless.
In any case.
What has specifically whetted my appetite is the stories. Those bits from history that Evan S. Connel called "pickled plums." The mysteries, but even more, those things that strike me as tantalizing hooks.
Such as: I can't remember the details right now, but a Pharonic library was uncovered during the silver age of archaeology; those heady early days when cuniform were first being translated, Assyria discovered, the Valley of Kings excavated. In any case, the first barge load of scrolls and artifacts was attacked by bandits and sunk in the Nile, never to be recovered. And one wonders what might have been learned from them.
Many are the important finds that have gone astray this way, from Peking Man on. And if you read back into history, there were entire cultures with an antiquarian bent of their own, uncovering everything they could find from a passed culture significant to them, and confounding future archaeologists by decorating their palaces with the treasures of people long gone by.
What I mean to say is there are so many spaces in real known history for an amazing artifact search; to track something from the abandoned royal city of Amarna to collections of Alexandria through the great artifact collection of Napoleon to the similar mass shipment of antiquities into Berlin. At each stop exploring cultures and histories and cities modern and ancient.
But almost opposed to that artifact-centered view, I've also grown in sympathy (though only the vaguest understanding) of modern Archaeological thought and method. And that I also want to talk about even in a work of genre fiction.
So you could say that almost what I want to write is an anti-Lara Croft. An Indiana Jones who understands and honors antiquities protection, a Nathan Drake with an actual academic background. Someone who isn't inclined by skills or nature to whip out a dual pair of pistols at every excuse. A Scully, though possibly in a Mulder universe.
The biggest problem I have is close to the heart of the dichotomy between actual Archaeology and the fictional exploits of pop-culture figures who only carry the name. And that is, in short, I don't believe in aliens.
I find the real world spectacular and surprising. But I'm up against a genre expectation of lost sciences and ancient technologies and sprawling underground complexes. Or, to get to the heart of it, to mysteries uncovered.
After reading through dusty archives and interviewing strange reclusive people in far-off exotic lands and cutting through jungle and fighting off disease and weather and animal attacks, the reader has a legitimate expectation to find something other than that the Moai of Rapa Nui were carved to honor local chiefs and walked into place with a rocking motion with ropes and lots of willing hands.
So what to do?
I could make a convincing case for a view that is minority but otherwise has academic respectability. Such as, for instance, the two waves of prehistoric colonization into the Americas (and, no, the Solutreans are not one of them). I can't do this because this would be mostly of interest to academics, and they are a tough audience. I like research, but I know my limitations!
Another temptation is to go Focoult's Pendulum on it. In Umberto Eco's novel, a small group of far too widely-read publishers made up a far too believable conspiracy theory and got themselves in serious trouble with some true believers. No real Templars were ever involved.
My problems are two; I can't come up with a good Ancient Aliens backstory that doesn't make mainstream Archaeology look like idiots. And I can't come up with any alternative explanation of early technological innovations, worship practices, etc., that isn't an insult to the peoples involved -- some of whom have direct living cultural descendants.
Part of this is what I call in my own notes a "Watt-Evans" problem. In at least one novel, Lawrence Watt-Evans framed a story in genre terms but then had events unfold realistically. Case in point being a certain prison run by an oppressive future society. His protagonist does the usual genre things to escape. All of them fail, usually quickly.
It is easy to say, "Lazy writer" when a genre protagonist gets away with something (like escaping a modern prison). The way I look at it, though, is that there are thousands of people working on that problem right now who have, shall we say, intimate understanding of the situation. Is the writer expected to come up with something none of them have? It's like asking a science fiction writer to out-do everyone in multiple fields of science and come up with the actual physics of faster-than-light travel. (Which they could then patent -- heck, they'd make more on the Nobel than they would with a novel.)
You have to cheat. The character needs an unfair advantage, or the fictional world has forgotten to take a precaution the real world does not forget. Otherwise there's no story. The Great Escape isn't much of a story if Eastwood's character spends a couple weeks thinking about it then gives up.
(Actually, there is a good cheat available to the writer; find something clever someone in the real world already did. Hopefully not one all your readers have also heard of).
So, in short, if there had been an Atlanean civilization -- super-science and all -- that sunk below the waves, the kind of evidence for it wouldn't be hidden in such a way that only an Indiana Jones could find it. If there are writings in ancient manuscripts they'd have been translated and commented on already (probably by the Greeks). If there were underground complexes GPR would have picked them up.
Well, those are bad examples. The big point is anything that's world-changing leaves a footprint. Or put it another way; there is far too much consistent evidence for the world as we understand it. There isn't a gap large enough to stick something the scale that pseudo-archaeology demands.
And the evidence, if it was there, would be diffused. Would be visible in the patterns of trade routes and evolution of cultural artifacts and genetic distributions and word-frequency analysis. In large-scale comparative studies. Not in one convenient 19th-century printing of an obscure Latin translation of a lost Babylonian text found in a bookstall on the bank of the Seine.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
The Wierzbowski Aberration
Got back to the metal lathe yesterday. Took an hour just to find where they had the tooling this time and set up the lathe and dial caliper correctly. There's a lot of little steps even starting from a pre-made grenade body and it wiped out two days of shop time.
In a fit of optimism, though, I worked out how to harmonize the varied sources for the best approximation of what the alternate Pulse Rifle loads look like.
Here's the situation: in the James Cameron SF movie Aliens there appears an iconic weapon which is described on-screen as firing "10mm caseless armor-piercing" and "30mm grenades."
The latter is for all appearances used by Ellen Ripley near the climax, by Lieutenant Gorman in manual mode earlier, and is worn in bandoliers by many of the Colonial Marines. And it is a popular replica prop -- more specifically, it is a necessary prop for Colonial Marine cosplay. And I am one of very few people who have made a machined all-metal version available for sale.
James Cameron admits to Aliens being "his Vietnam movie." There are references in prop and costume design to the American equipment of that war. The grenade attachment itself has similarity to the army M203. Because of both this historical connection, assumed doctrinal/tactical considerations, and some scant evidence from the film, various third parties have assumed there are alternate loads to the red-capped round Ripley is seen loading in the elevator scene (and using against the Alien Queen).
These sources do not quite agree.
To harmonize, I've put the movie first. The only dialog mentions are "30mm grenade launcher" and "M40 grenades." The main leeway I have in the movie references is that the scenes are usually in dim, often colored, light (the Lieutenant Gorman/Private Vasquez scene is monotone red light), and the grenades are rarely in focus.
For instance, this image; the scene is not in white light but it is unlikely the safety cap on this particular grenade is red. Blue is just barely possible. It also appears to have only a single stripe but as the grenade is slightly out of focus there might be two. It also appears quite strongly to have a straight-sided, flat-topped cap, with no curve or taper.
This is a cropped and rotated screen-shot from the elevator scene; identified with high confidence as the standard M40 load.
Of course, it must be pointed out that there were a very small number of "hero" grenades carved from actual aluminium snap-caps by the movie's armorer, Simon Atherton. The majority of what appear in bandoliers on uniforms are likely to be wooden mock-ups painted silver. I have seen images of one such, but insufficient provenience to know if it is screen-used. In several screen-shots the grenades show visible wearing or flaking of the red paint.
In any case, the aggregate data from the film is that at least three cap colors appear, those grenades are otherwise identical, and no other shapes are seen. With the exception of Wierzbowski (I'll get to that).
Next comes organized third-party listings, such as graphics found from various sources (one is tentatively sourced as from the Aliens Legacy Forum. As an example of these secondary sources, The Aliens Technical Manual has sufficient errors right off the bat to remove it from any primacy against other aggregates of alternate designs. It also, perhaps fortunately, has few images and relies on verbal descriptions. There are, fortunately, no real disagreements in nomenclature between these, although no two sources give identical selections. It is in the shape and coloration that the major disagreements lie.
Below this are individual fan-made creations, as most of these lack identification labels and many are guided primarily by technological limitations, not by artistic considerations. They do, however, take primacy in clarifying the kinds of details that a physical prop shows off better than does a stylized graphic.
Lastly, there is reference to real-world analogs and presumptions about mechanism and doctrine. I would love, for instance, to argue from real-world human-machine interface that different loads should be different tactually; the soldier shouldn't have to guess in the dark, or in dim red light, which of several otherwise identically shaped loads she is reaching for. But there is a ready-made answer within the film itself; the film is about the hubris of technological fixes and the real-world failure of all that fancy gear when facing a less technologically sophisticated enemy who is smart, tough, and on their home ground.
So here's the harmonization:
M40: HEDP (high explosive dual purpose), this is an armor-piercing shaped charge with sufficient blast radius to be used in antipersonnel mode. It is dual-triggered, on firing, and manually by removing the safety cap and pressing on the button. It has a specific groove pattern, a "parting zone" that appears to be a crimp, an a red plastic safety cap with one white stripe. There is some argument that "HEDP" is meant to refer to the dual-role as a hand grenade and may have no specific armor-piercing qualities.
M38: HEAP. Presumed optimized towards armor penetration, this might actually be a sabot instead of a shaped charge. It is identical in body pattern; it may be a poor choice for load selection in the dark, but might be justified as interacting with the Pulse Rifle's internal mechanisms. Going by the Newt close-up, this has the same plastic safety cap in green.
Here's where things get interesting. The graphic I found at Aliens Legacy gives all the rounds as having tapered caps. This clearly disagrees with the film. The Aliens Technical Manual only shows the M40 cap, and gives it as tapered. The tendency in other secondary sources is that the M40 cap has straight sides, the M38 tapered, and the M51A has a rounded top to the cap. The tendency is also in secondary sources to show all rounds as having double stripes. Most of this is clearly contradicted by the film. However; almost all secondary sources agree that the first three of the grenade family have an identical groove pattern.
M51A: Bounding anti-personnel. This is a clear analogue of the real-world "Bounding Betty" mine. It seems odd to put in a grenade, but this is consistent enough across third-party sources and fits so well within the milieu of the film we just have to assume some kind of auto-righting mechanism. Same groove pattern, straight-sided blue cap with dome; of the third-party sources that give each of the top three a different safety cap shape, the consistency is that M40 is square, M38 is tapered, and M51A is straight-sided with a rounded top. It isn't required that under every safety cap is an identical button, but given the auto-righting justification above only a sabot round makes absolutely no sense in that kind of dual role. (There are other button inconsistencies later, so even this isn't beyond possibility; perhaps they simply used the same shell with different loads.)
(A different problem with real-world analogs has to do with the specific blue. They appear to be a light blue, far too similar to the distinct "training round" blue standardized in the US Army. I guess we must assume that semiotic standard has changed by the period of the film).
There's a last interesting possibility; the clearly, tactilely distinct caps could be a late innovation. Given the murk of the film I don't think there is any scene showing blue-caps that can't be justified as having domed tops that just aren't properly visible in that shot. The same justification could be used to assume tapered green caps; this would make the "Newt" grenade an aberration explained as old stock from before the change-over (since they were pulling every bit of salvage and hidden-in-pockets ammo for their defense). It is also plausible they were all tapered at some point and the manuals are using outdated images.
For Aliens cosplay, however, straight-side caps is consistent. They are also easy to make. So this is why I say my props above are almost correct; the only change I would make it to add a slight dome to the blue cap.
M108: Canister. Presumably the Sulaco crowd didn't pack any, because they'd certainly have come in handy. The third-party sources are remarkably consistent in showing an identical groove pattern to the "big three," no safety cap, and a broad flat nose with some sort of black plastic disk. This is clearly explainable as some sort of disintegrating cover over the payload. A manual fire button also does not seem to make sense. There is some argument that what gets ejected would be different; does the body of the round fly downrange then a secondary charge kicks out the shot? In any case, this is a straight-forward build. (But also superfluous for straight-up Sulaco marines cosplay).
M60: WP/incendiary. The sources are a little unclear as to the exact weapons action here but white phosphorus is very, very Vietnam. The manual states white markings, all other sources give yellow. The sources (all sources are third-party, with one possible exception to be discussed) seem to converge on it having no safety cap, and a domed top with a wide, flat button. This is quite consistent with secondary employment as a hand grenade. The major disagreement in the sources is whether it shares a groove pattern with the "big three," or whether it has a unique groove pattern and a yellow paint band on the lower third.
And here's the Wierzbowski problem. In some scenes this one character appears to have a grenade with a yellow cap. And it appears to be the same square safety cap as the M40. So here's my explanation; Wierzbowski made a field modification. As issued, the M60 has a yellow plastic ring around a metal button (similar to that of the M40 but wider and less tall). Either Wierzbowski didn't trust this, or the ring functions as a safety and is considered difficult to wrestle with in the field; either way, he has replaced it with a discarded M40 safety cap and dipped it in the same yellow paint other marines have been using to paint slogans on their armor and helmets.
The other issue with the M60 is harder to reconcile. I'd argue against having paint on the sides as that could foul the weapon, but the only third-party depictions of the smoke grenade also show color bands on the grenade body. The tie-breaker has to be the movie; a yellow band should probably have been as visible as the yellow cap, thus, we have to assume this has the same standard body as the M40.
M61A: Smoke. This is the only smoke listed in any of the secondary sources, and in that source is shares a groove and banding pattern with the CS grenade. Doctrinal similarities seem to call for a variety of colors, and those would you would think have different nomenclatures as well, but none of that is provided. It has no safety cap, and a similar rounded top and broad flat button as the M60, lacking the color ring on the top (what I am assuming is a plastic ring that may function as a safety clip). The groove pattern is definitely different from the M40 standard, consisting of two wider grooves creating a defined band which is colored with (one presumes) the color of the smoke. The button may also share the same color.
M67A: CS. This is an odd one; it either shares a banding pattern with the M61A or has the same basic groove pattern as the M40, however, the majority of sources are consistent in giving it two narrow red stripes which may or may not be in shallow grooves. It has a gently domed top, no safety cap, and also lacks a button. For this, I simply have to wave hands in the direction of assumed Colonial Marines doctrine. Since they aren't visibly carrying protective masks, perhaps it was determined that this payload was unsafe to deploy at throwing-arm range.
M72A1: Starshell. The depictions are consistent; this lacks most of the standard groove pattern but has longitudinal grooves running down the length of the body. It like many of the alternate rounds has a domed top and no safety cap. It also has a button. The conservative answer here is that this is a self-righting shell, like the M51A, and thus can be hand activated as well as fired horizontally (instead of requiring the operator to point their weapon at the sky). Other possible answers are that the button is non-functional, or only looks like a button. Lastly, the technical manual claims it is marked with an embossed "S." This is not entirely inconsistent with the nature of the graphic depictions.
M230: Baton round. I didn't notice any depictions on my earlier searches. This has certain practical difficulties, depending on exactly what parts of the round can be and are extracted from the shotgun-like action of the weapon (hurling a metal case down-range would rather contradict the intent of a baton round).
Conclusions:
Oddly enough, the general answer to the question of making alternate loads available for cosplay is a simple one; paint the caps different colors. This even applies to the Wierzbowski; cosplayers are more likely to want to mimic his documented field modification than the hypothesized standard-issue version.
The majority of the alternates lack safety caps, which is mostly to the good, but they also tend towards gently domed tops -- which are hard to machine. They also tend to buttons, which are a known labor issue (as a reminder, my last machining trip took over four hours just to set three buttons). About half of them also involve body colors, which could be an issue (especially if chambering is intended).
Lastly, they just aren't that interesting. Only the star shell is significantly different-looking and requires enough new machining tricks to be really tempting.
Here's the situation: in the James Cameron SF movie Aliens there appears an iconic weapon which is described on-screen as firing "10mm caseless armor-piercing" and "30mm grenades."
The latter is for all appearances used by Ellen Ripley near the climax, by Lieutenant Gorman in manual mode earlier, and is worn in bandoliers by many of the Colonial Marines. And it is a popular replica prop -- more specifically, it is a necessary prop for Colonial Marine cosplay. And I am one of very few people who have made a machined all-metal version available for sale.
James Cameron admits to Aliens being "his Vietnam movie." There are references in prop and costume design to the American equipment of that war. The grenade attachment itself has similarity to the army M203. Because of both this historical connection, assumed doctrinal/tactical considerations, and some scant evidence from the film, various third parties have assumed there are alternate loads to the red-capped round Ripley is seen loading in the elevator scene (and using against the Alien Queen).
These sources do not quite agree.
To harmonize, I've put the movie first. The only dialog mentions are "30mm grenade launcher" and "M40 grenades." The main leeway I have in the movie references is that the scenes are usually in dim, often colored, light (the Lieutenant Gorman/Private Vasquez scene is monotone red light), and the grenades are rarely in focus.
Of course, it must be pointed out that there were a very small number of "hero" grenades carved from actual aluminium snap-caps by the movie's armorer, Simon Atherton. The majority of what appear in bandoliers on uniforms are likely to be wooden mock-ups painted silver. I have seen images of one such, but insufficient provenience to know if it is screen-used. In several screen-shots the grenades show visible wearing or flaking of the red paint.
In any case, the aggregate data from the film is that at least three cap colors appear, those grenades are otherwise identical, and no other shapes are seen. With the exception of Wierzbowski (I'll get to that).
Next comes organized third-party listings, such as graphics found from various sources (one is tentatively sourced as from the Aliens Legacy Forum. As an example of these secondary sources, The Aliens Technical Manual has sufficient errors right off the bat to remove it from any primacy against other aggregates of alternate designs. It also, perhaps fortunately, has few images and relies on verbal descriptions. There are, fortunately, no real disagreements in nomenclature between these, although no two sources give identical selections. It is in the shape and coloration that the major disagreements lie.
Below this are individual fan-made creations, as most of these lack identification labels and many are guided primarily by technological limitations, not by artistic considerations. They do, however, take primacy in clarifying the kinds of details that a physical prop shows off better than does a stylized graphic.
Lastly, there is reference to real-world analogs and presumptions about mechanism and doctrine. I would love, for instance, to argue from real-world human-machine interface that different loads should be different tactually; the soldier shouldn't have to guess in the dark, or in dim red light, which of several otherwise identically shaped loads she is reaching for. But there is a ready-made answer within the film itself; the film is about the hubris of technological fixes and the real-world failure of all that fancy gear when facing a less technologically sophisticated enemy who is smart, tough, and on their home ground.
So here's the harmonization:
M40: HEDP (high explosive dual purpose), this is an armor-piercing shaped charge with sufficient blast radius to be used in antipersonnel mode. It is dual-triggered, on firing, and manually by removing the safety cap and pressing on the button. It has a specific groove pattern, a "parting zone" that appears to be a crimp, an a red plastic safety cap with one white stripe. There is some argument that "HEDP" is meant to refer to the dual-role as a hand grenade and may have no specific armor-piercing qualities.
M38: HEAP. Presumed optimized towards armor penetration, this might actually be a sabot instead of a shaped charge. It is identical in body pattern; it may be a poor choice for load selection in the dark, but might be justified as interacting with the Pulse Rifle's internal mechanisms. Going by the Newt close-up, this has the same plastic safety cap in green.
Here's where things get interesting. The graphic I found at Aliens Legacy gives all the rounds as having tapered caps. This clearly disagrees with the film. The Aliens Technical Manual only shows the M40 cap, and gives it as tapered. The tendency in other secondary sources is that the M40 cap has straight sides, the M38 tapered, and the M51A has a rounded top to the cap. The tendency is also in secondary sources to show all rounds as having double stripes. Most of this is clearly contradicted by the film. However; almost all secondary sources agree that the first three of the grenade family have an identical groove pattern.
M51A: Bounding anti-personnel. This is a clear analogue of the real-world "Bounding Betty" mine. It seems odd to put in a grenade, but this is consistent enough across third-party sources and fits so well within the milieu of the film we just have to assume some kind of auto-righting mechanism. Same groove pattern, straight-sided blue cap with dome; of the third-party sources that give each of the top three a different safety cap shape, the consistency is that M40 is square, M38 is tapered, and M51A is straight-sided with a rounded top. It isn't required that under every safety cap is an identical button, but given the auto-righting justification above only a sabot round makes absolutely no sense in that kind of dual role. (There are other button inconsistencies later, so even this isn't beyond possibility; perhaps they simply used the same shell with different loads.)
(A different problem with real-world analogs has to do with the specific blue. They appear to be a light blue, far too similar to the distinct "training round" blue standardized in the US Army. I guess we must assume that semiotic standard has changed by the period of the film).
There's a last interesting possibility; the clearly, tactilely distinct caps could be a late innovation. Given the murk of the film I don't think there is any scene showing blue-caps that can't be justified as having domed tops that just aren't properly visible in that shot. The same justification could be used to assume tapered green caps; this would make the "Newt" grenade an aberration explained as old stock from before the change-over (since they were pulling every bit of salvage and hidden-in-pockets ammo for their defense). It is also plausible they were all tapered at some point and the manuals are using outdated images.
For Aliens cosplay, however, straight-side caps is consistent. They are also easy to make. So this is why I say my props above are almost correct; the only change I would make it to add a slight dome to the blue cap.
M108: Canister. Presumably the Sulaco crowd didn't pack any, because they'd certainly have come in handy. The third-party sources are remarkably consistent in showing an identical groove pattern to the "big three," no safety cap, and a broad flat nose with some sort of black plastic disk. This is clearly explainable as some sort of disintegrating cover over the payload. A manual fire button also does not seem to make sense. There is some argument that what gets ejected would be different; does the body of the round fly downrange then a secondary charge kicks out the shot? In any case, this is a straight-forward build. (But also superfluous for straight-up Sulaco marines cosplay).
M60: WP/incendiary. The sources are a little unclear as to the exact weapons action here but white phosphorus is very, very Vietnam. The manual states white markings, all other sources give yellow. The sources (all sources are third-party, with one possible exception to be discussed) seem to converge on it having no safety cap, and a domed top with a wide, flat button. This is quite consistent with secondary employment as a hand grenade. The major disagreement in the sources is whether it shares a groove pattern with the "big three," or whether it has a unique groove pattern and a yellow paint band on the lower third.
And here's the Wierzbowski problem. In some scenes this one character appears to have a grenade with a yellow cap. And it appears to be the same square safety cap as the M40. So here's my explanation; Wierzbowski made a field modification. As issued, the M60 has a yellow plastic ring around a metal button (similar to that of the M40 but wider and less tall). Either Wierzbowski didn't trust this, or the ring functions as a safety and is considered difficult to wrestle with in the field; either way, he has replaced it with a discarded M40 safety cap and dipped it in the same yellow paint other marines have been using to paint slogans on their armor and helmets.
The other issue with the M60 is harder to reconcile. I'd argue against having paint on the sides as that could foul the weapon, but the only third-party depictions of the smoke grenade also show color bands on the grenade body. The tie-breaker has to be the movie; a yellow band should probably have been as visible as the yellow cap, thus, we have to assume this has the same standard body as the M40.
M61A: Smoke. This is the only smoke listed in any of the secondary sources, and in that source is shares a groove and banding pattern with the CS grenade. Doctrinal similarities seem to call for a variety of colors, and those would you would think have different nomenclatures as well, but none of that is provided. It has no safety cap, and a similar rounded top and broad flat button as the M60, lacking the color ring on the top (what I am assuming is a plastic ring that may function as a safety clip). The groove pattern is definitely different from the M40 standard, consisting of two wider grooves creating a defined band which is colored with (one presumes) the color of the smoke. The button may also share the same color.
M67A: CS. This is an odd one; it either shares a banding pattern with the M61A or has the same basic groove pattern as the M40, however, the majority of sources are consistent in giving it two narrow red stripes which may or may not be in shallow grooves. It has a gently domed top, no safety cap, and also lacks a button. For this, I simply have to wave hands in the direction of assumed Colonial Marines doctrine. Since they aren't visibly carrying protective masks, perhaps it was determined that this payload was unsafe to deploy at throwing-arm range.
M72A1: Starshell. The depictions are consistent; this lacks most of the standard groove pattern but has longitudinal grooves running down the length of the body. It like many of the alternate rounds has a domed top and no safety cap. It also has a button. The conservative answer here is that this is a self-righting shell, like the M51A, and thus can be hand activated as well as fired horizontally (instead of requiring the operator to point their weapon at the sky). Other possible answers are that the button is non-functional, or only looks like a button. Lastly, the technical manual claims it is marked with an embossed "S." This is not entirely inconsistent with the nature of the graphic depictions.
M230: Baton round. I didn't notice any depictions on my earlier searches. This has certain practical difficulties, depending on exactly what parts of the round can be and are extracted from the shotgun-like action of the weapon (hurling a metal case down-range would rather contradict the intent of a baton round).
Conclusions:
Oddly enough, the general answer to the question of making alternate loads available for cosplay is a simple one; paint the caps different colors. This even applies to the Wierzbowski; cosplayers are more likely to want to mimic his documented field modification than the hypothesized standard-issue version.
The majority of the alternates lack safety caps, which is mostly to the good, but they also tend towards gently domed tops -- which are hard to machine. They also tend to buttons, which are a known labor issue (as a reminder, my last machining trip took over four hours just to set three buttons). About half of them also involve body colors, which could be an issue (especially if chambering is intended).
Lastly, they just aren't that interesting. Only the star shell is significantly different-looking and requires enough new machining tricks to be really tempting.
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