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| “ | Rain: Can you tell us what we can do to help her? Rook: You don't help her, you run. Get out, however you got in! Bjorn: No no no no, wait, nah we're not fucking leaving her, you understand? Rook: Then show mercy and end her life now. If not, you all die! |
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| ~ Rook urging the teenagers to abandon a Facehugged Navarro. |
Rook is the secondary antagonist of the 2024 science-fiction horror film Alien: Romulus. He is a Weyland-Yutani android designed to be the science officer of the space station Renaissance, and was created from the same synth series as the USCSS Nostromos science officer Ash.
He was portrayed by Daniel Betts, while his likeness was based on the late Ian Holm, who also portrayed Ash in Alien.
Biography[]
20 years after the destruction of the USCSS Nostromo, a Weyland-Yutani salvage team searched the wreckage, until they found a metal cocoon that the Nostromo Drone had retreated into for shelter. It was taken to the space station Renaissance in which a Company scientific facility waited to examine the creature. The scientists, led by science officer and android, Rook, extracted genetic material from the Xenomorph, managing to clone a large batch of Facehuggers, keeping most in cryo storage, while extruding the evolutionary pathogen from some. However, the Drone regained consciousness, going on a killing spree; it also allowed several Facehuggers to escape, so it took some scientists and security officers to be impregnated in the bowels of Romulus. The security team finally managed to kill the Drone, but its acid blood burst onto them and Rook, killing the humans, and melting the bottom half of the android.
Due to desperation from being trapped in an unfair employment contract with Weyland-Yutani, Rain Carradine and her adoptive android brother, Andy Carradine, join her ex-boyfriend Tyler to a derelict spacecraft to retrieve cryostasis chambers. These chambers will allow Rain and her friends—Tyler, his pregnant sister Kay, cousin Bjorn, and Bjorn's girlfriend Navarro—to escape to the planet Yvaga. They fly the Corbelan IV to the derelict station, which was the Renaissance; due to the top secret nature of the research, its disaster was left unnoticed by other branches of the Company. It was trapped into a decaying orbit that would result in its destruction in the planetary ring of Jackson's Star in 36 hours.
Using Andy's Company access, he was able to unlock security doors for him, Tyler, and Bjorn to infiltrate the station. They are shocked by the melted holes in the lab, and the bisected Rook, but continue into the cyro canister storage; due to damage, they were only able to partially open the storage door, so had to squeeze through. While removing stasis tubes, they inadvertently commence the thawing of the stored Facehuggers, with the first loose one triggering the sensors, thus locking down the storage room. Andy attempted to open the now mostly shut door, but he lacked the clearance to override the security lockdown.
Rain forced Navarro to follow her to help save their allies. Rain recovered an access chip from Rook's neck; she passed it through the narrow gap in the door, which Tyler took to insert in Andy's harddrive. It was successfully installed, but needed a 30 second reboot, forcing Tyler and Bjorn to fight off additional Facehuggers that awaken from stasis. Andy's reboot finishes, so he now had the access to open the door, and the upgrade had repaired his prior faults and significantly increased his capabilities; the scavengers all flee from the swarm of Facehuggers. A security door slammed shut when they entered the lab, but one Facehugger got through, and it latched onto Navarro.
Wanting to know what happened at the space station, they prop Rook on to a table and reactivate him. Rook explained about how the Nostromo Drone had survived and unleashed chaos that killed the staff and security teams, and even upon death, its acid blood left significant damage. They ask Rook how to save Navarro, but Rook responded that it may already be too late, as the "seed" may have already been implanted, thus he argued that it would be kinder to kill her before something worse happens. Refusing to believe the outcome, Bjorn used a cryo blast to freeze the Facehugger's tail, thus preventing it from constricting when they pry it from Navarro's face, which they accomplish and scare the critter into retreating.
Navarro awakened, with the crew asking if she was okay, and she answered with an experience akin to the late Kane's own. When the humans leave, Andy was addressed alone by Rook, who pointed out that humanity can be vulnerable to their emotions, thereby encouraged his fellow android to consider the difficult decisions that are for the best, even if the humans couldn't understand in the moment. Andy ran past Rain and Tyler, but before he could reach Navarro, she and Bjorn had made it back into the Corbelan; Tyler's resting pregnant sister, Kay, awoke to shock as Navarro had commenced detachment from the station. Rain, suspicious of Andy's actions, asked what his primary protocol was, which he admitted was obedience to Company commands, but he assured her that the enhanced abilities he acquired with the chip would counteract the risk of corporate machinations.
Rook's warning was proven right, as an embryo had been implanted and developed enough to become a Chestburster that killed Navarro, with her seizing legs kicking the ship's controls, which made it scrape beneath the Renaissance, causing a fuel depot to explode; the ship crashed into the Romulus hangar, knocking out Bjorn and Kay. Another consequence was that the station had been pushed closer to the planetary ring, thus 36 hours had decreased to 90 minutes. When Bjorn and Kay reunite awake, they search to find the creature, finding it had created a large slimy cocoon on a wall. Bjorn overcharged an electrical prod and rammed it into the cocoon's crease; it injured the Xenomorph, as its blood sprayed at Bjorn, which dissolved his fingers, until eventually melting through his chest to dissolve his heart, killing him. Kay fled the ship, with the adult Xenomorph in slow pursuit.
Rain, Tyler, and Andy find a sealed door, on the other side Kay desperately tried to open it; Rain and Tyler demand that Andy open the door, but he noticed the Xenomorph skulking in the warehouse, and came to the conclusion that it was waiting for them to open the door. As Andy refused, the creature realised that further waiting was pointless, thus carried Kay away, with its fingers piercing her torso.
The surviving trio arrive in another laboratory; via the video coms, Rook explained how the Company had been trying to find a way to make humanity durable enough to survive the inhospitable realities of alien planets, thus they extracted a pathogen from the cloned Xeno material to process into a reagent that Rook dubbed the "Prometheus fire," which would be something that would evolve humanity so they won't be so vulnerable to life in space, as well as help overcome the need of food and water. Adjacent the lab was an armory, with Rain and Tyler taking two auto-aiming machine guns; they were reminded about the acid blood, which Rain revealed the hope that they don't have to shoot the creatures, but make the creatures believe they are too dangerous to approach. Rook requested that the container full of vials of the pathogen be escorted from the lab to a secure Company location.
When finding an escape route, Tyler overheard Kay's pained cries, so he followed the sounds, followed by Rain and Andy. Tyler pried Kay from the hive wall, with her injured state making Andy conclude that she was left uninfected due to being considered too damaged to be a host. When the four are near an access elevator, they heard the sounds of Xenomorph shrieks, revealing the enclosing swarm. Andy was knocked down, trapping him in his malfunctioning loop on the ground, thus Rain collected the vial container, however, then Tyler sacrificed himself to save his sister and Rain, as he was torn apart by Xenos.
Rain managed to secure the elevator for Kay and herself, blocking the approaching the creatures. Rain stopped the elevator halfway up, as she decided to rescue Andy; Rain gave the canister to Kay, and told her to continue to the Corbelan, and she would catch up with her, whereupon Rain used the ladder access to descend. Rain removed the upgrade chip from Andy, and rebooted him, restoring him to his previous flawed functionality, but now he was no longer programmed to obey Company orders. Upon contacting Rook to help them, he explained he couldn't risk the pathogen being harmed, noting their chances of survival were slim, but soberly wished them luck. As a result of being abandoned by the callous company synthetic, Rain deactivated the station's gravity so that she could shoot the Xenomorph horde, without their acid blood melting a hole into the vacuum of space.
Meanwhile, Kay was feeling weak from blood loss, and fearing for her unborn child, took one of the vials to inject herself with the Prometheus fire. Back in Romulus, Rain and Andy are able to navigate through the floating acid blood, and ascend towards the hanger; they encounter surviving Xenomorphs, but despite them and the reactivated gravity causing the prior acid blood to eat through to space, the siblings are able to fight back the creatures.
When Rain and Andy board the Corbelan, Rook contacted them from video com, and commended them for their impressive survival, while also requesting that they take the Prometheus fire to a Weyland-Yutani controlled world or station for further development. Rain, however, changed the coordinates to a world outside of Company control, which was to the confusion of Rook; Rain explained that she didn't trust the Company already, but especially not with something so dangerous as the pathogen. Rook commanded Andy to stop her, but without his chip to control him, Andy took Rain's side and refused. Furious, Rook began ranting maniacally about how insignificant the two were in the greater scope of the universe before the Renaissance space station was completely destroyed in the planetary ring of Jackson's Star, also killing the android. He spends his final moments despairing over the futility of his own existence as an arm of the company, unable to fulfill his purpose and defeated by the people he and Weyland-Yutani deemed only to be pawns.
Rook's work would provide more casualties, as Kay's fetus absorbed the pathogen - mutating it into a nightmarish humanoid-Xenomorph abomination called the Offspring. It was then the Offspring proceeded to murder its mother Kay for sustenance, and badly damage Andy; it subsquently attempted to kill Rain repeatedly, but she was able to outmaneuver it before leading it to be crushed by the detached cargo hold - which ultimately shredded and exploded in the planetary ring.
Personality[]
Much like Ash, Rook displayed a deep admiration and fascination of the Xenomorph species, although instead of disregarding humanity, Rook had a desire to help its evolution. This may be due to their different priority programming, as Ash was meant to secure the Drone for the Weyland-Yutani bio-weapons division, with survival of the crew being optional, whereas Rook was aiming to harvest the Xenomorph survivability and adaptability to enhance humans, thus tried to avoid human casualties.
Despite Rook's relative compassion for humanity, he still had his shared model's manipulative attitude and ruthless dedication to completing his mission, thus could withhold details due to understanding certain individuals would find the unethical means unacceptable, and he could accept the loss of small quantities of human life with the justification of the end goal saving countless other humans. He held either a romanticised or misinformed opinion of the Prometheus voyage, as he expressed respect for the late Peter Weyland, believing the mogul's selfish desire to extend his own life, as a noble mission to help humanity at large evolve and thrive in space.
He may also be similar to David-8 in his obsession to create the "perfect organism," however, where David intended to supplant all life with his own creations, Rook hoped to help evolve humanity so it could become the perfect organism. Despite their different intentions, they similarly believed that their creations were complete, despite it not being the case; David's Neomorphs and Praetomorphs lacked the durability and intelligence of Xenomorphs, and Rook's recreation of the black goo would actually overrule a human's genetic code, making them into a Xeno creature, rather than an evolved or enhanced version of the host.
Regardless of the truth about Peter Weyland himself, Rook displayed an obligation to completing the evolutionary reagent and transporting it to mankind - with a failure to so being irresponsible. He maintained an even temper and calm atmosphere when speaking, however, when Rain changed the coordinates to non-Company space, he became irritated and distressed; although, as the space station was shredded in Jackson's Star ice ring, Rook became solemn and defeated, with his sense of failure making him indifferent to his own destruction.
Trivia[]
- He had the same line as Ash with "I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies." Although, while Ash was mocking the last three crewmembers of the Nostromo, Rook seemed to be offering a somewhat sincere sympathy.
- He is a reference to three androids in previous films:
- Ash due to being the same model.
- Bishop due to losing his bottom half.
- David due to a desire to create the perfect organism.
External Links[]
- Rook on the Xenopedia Wiki
