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Xenopedia

Gunnison was a small town located in the state of Colorado in the United States of America.

In 2004, Gunnison became the site of a Xenomorph outbreak, following the crash of a Yautja Scout Ship in the nearby woods. The town was ultimately destroyed when a nuclear weapon was dropped on it in an attempt to contain the Alien threat.

History[]

Founding and Pre-Destruction[]

The historic City of Gunnison is a Colorado Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Gunnison County, Colorado, United States. As of the U.S. Census 2000, the city had a total population of 5,409. The city was named in honor of John W. Gunnison, a United States Army officer who surveyed for the transcontinental railroad in 1853.

After the killing of Curley Bill, the Earps left Arizona and headed to Colorado. In a stop over in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Wyatt and Holliday had a falling out but remained on fairly good terms. The group split up after that with Holliday heading to Pueblo and then Denver. The Earps and Texas Jack set up camp on the outskirts of Gunnison, Colorado, where they remained quiet at first, rarely going into town for supplies. Eventually, Wyatt took over a faro game at a local saloon.

Slowly all of the Earp assets in Tombstone were sold to pay for taxes, and the stake the family had amassed eroded. Wyatt and Warren joined Virgil in San Francisco in late 1882. While there, Wyatt rekindled a romance with Josie Marcus, Behan's one-time fiancée. His common-law wife, Mattie waited for him in Colton but eventually realized Wyatt was not coming back (Wyatt had left Mattie the house when he left Tombstone). Earp left San Francisco with Josie in 1883 and she became his companion for the next forty-six years (no marriage certificate has been found). Earp and Marcus returned to Gunnison where they settled down, where that state’s governor refused to extradite Wyatt back to Arizona on the grounds that he could not get a fair trial, and Earp continued to run a faro bank.

Gunnison residents isolated themselves from the surrounding area during the Spanish Influenza epidemic for two months at the end of 1918. All highways were barricaded near the county lines. Train conductors warned all passengers that if they stepped outside of the train in Gunnison, they would be arrested and quarantined for five days. As a result of the isolation, no one died of influenza in Gunnison during the epidemic. This served as partial inspiration for the novel The Last Town on Earth.

Xenomorph Outbreak[]

In October of 2004, Gunnison would become the location of a gruelling Xenomorph infestation that eventually led to the town's destruction. A few days prior to the beginning of the crisis, Charles Bishop Weyland, CEO of Weyland Industries, led an expedition to Bouvet Island near Antarctica to investigate a Yautja Pyramid located there. The structure was built by the Yautja to breed Xenomorphs for Yautja initiates to hunt, but due to the actions of Weyland's team, the hunt went awry and the Xenomorphs spread out of control. The pyramid was destroyed, but a single Predalien spawned from the incident made its way aboard a departing Yautja Scout Ship. Killing the two Yautja manning it, the Predalien forced the vessel to crash land in the wooded area outside of Gunnison, escaping into the wilderness with several facehugger specimens kept aboard the ship.

A distress call from the Scout Ship reached Yautja Prime and the elite hunter Wolf responded. He arrived in Gunnison to hunt the Predalien and the facehuggers, which by that point had spawned multiple Xenomorphs by impregnating some of the native townsfolk. Wolf tracked the Xenomorphs to a small Hive constructed in the city's sewers, where the battle between the two resulted in the Xenomorphs spreading further into the town. While the Xenomorphs ravaged the city, killing countless civilians, the Predalien invaded the local hospital and established another Hive there by impregnating women in the maternity ward. Wolf's attempts to quell the growing outbreak only made the situation worse, as a battle between him and a single Xenomorph at the local power plant resulted in a city-wide power blackout.

In response to the outbreak, the United States National Guard was dispatched to help, but they were quickly slaughtered by the Xenomorphs. With the situation spiraling out of control, a military movement headed by a Colonel Stevens was enacted. Through false promises of an air evacuation, Stevens had many of the surviving townsfolk gather in Gunnison's epicenter in order to draw the Xenomorphs to a single area. Then, a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor was dispatched, dropping a tactical nuclear weapon with a yield of 200 kilotons on the area. The resultant explosion completely decimated Gunnison and its remaining human populace, but it did succeed in wiping out the Xenomorphs.

Only four people survived the incident: ex-convict Dallas Howard, his delinquent brother, Ricky, United States Army veteran Kelly O'Brien, and her daughter Molly. The four escaped the town prior to the explosion aboard a helicopter stationed at the hospital, and shortly before their escape, they acquired a Plasma Pistol from Wolf. The Yautja had been grievously wounded battling the Predalien at the hospital before perishing in the blast. His Plasma Pistol was confiscated by the military and given to the Yutani Corporation, a Japanese technology and cybernetic company.

Trivia[]

  • Gunnison County is the setting of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, although the film was actually shot in the towns of Port Coquitlam and Port Moody, British Columbia.[1][2] Gunnison is also the setting of the 1960-1961 syndicated western television series Two Faces West.
  • In 2009, Gunnison served as a launch site and mission control facility in Stephen Baxter's post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, Ark.

External links[]

References[]

  1. "Alien vs. Predator Sequel's R-rated Secrets Revealed". MTV.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-14.
  2. "Oh, the places she's been". The Block. Retrieved on 2007-12-14.
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