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Ellen Ripley

Origin: The Movie "Alien"

Heroic Values: Caring, Courage, Integrity, Perseverance, Selflessness

Background

As a Warrant Office on the spaceship Nostromo, Ellen Ripley was part of mission to tow ore back to Earth. After responding to a distress call on of the crew members was attacked by an alien creature that attached itself to his face.

Ripley was adamant that quarantine procedures should be followed, but the man was brought back on the ship. The affected man was killed as the spawn of the facehugger exploded from his chest. The alien creature escaped and grew quickly. It terrorized the crew as Ripley tried in vain to kill it. She became commanding officer after the captain died, but she was soon the only survivor. She decided to destroy the entire ship and fled in an escape pod.

She spent 57 years in hypersleep before being rescued. She joined a military group to help rescue colonists from the same aliens she had seen before and barely survived again.

Once again, woken from a hypersleep she found herself on a prison planet. Her escape pod had been infiltrated by a facehugger and she began her final fight against the Aliens. Having had an embryo planted inside her, Ripley sacrificed her own life to prevent the queen from destroying any more life.

Sources

Wikipedia
The online encyclopedia

Internet Movie Database
Ripley's character page

Academic Study
From Louisiana State University