The Aliens single player campaign reveal a new fact (spoiler)

[GrimmReaper666]

I completed the Alien campaign
In the end you can see that a lonely alien with no means to "continue it dynasty" can morph into a queen...
I cant remember seeing that before.. can you?

[InspGadgt]

In AVP2 PH there was a game type where your Alien would morph into a queen if you got a pre-determined amount of kills in a row.

[Ebon Reaper]

The concept of a drone turning into a queen has been around since the novels.

[Trullius]

It's in case all the queens/praetorian die in the colony, the smartest warrior will generally take the spot of queen

[ValentineHeart]

The concept of a drone turning into a queen has been around since the novels.

This.

The Xenomorphs were created by an ancient race of extinct giants to be the perfect organisms. They come with their own ecosystem (that growth stuff doubles as a primary food source when there's nothing else to eat), they evolve extremely rapidly (there are many types, some aquatic, some snake like, some truly gigantic) because they incorporate the DNA of host species, and when there are no host species the eggs never open and they become essentially clone drones. Different types of xenomorphs may also prey on eachother, such as Snake Aliens preying on the more well known Aliens we all love to play.

It wouldn't be a perfect species if the death of the queen could wipe out a colony.

[reaper412]

The concept has been around before. Queens are able to survive for thousands of years (as stated by Weyland that she was locked away for over 100,000 years). It's usually the Praetorian that becomes the Queen, the queen chooses which Xenomorph becomes a Praetorian if she is pleased with it.

[Sifer2]

Alien 3 an AvP2 both suggested it already. With the lone Alien's in those films being described as Queens. Eventually I guess they molt into the bigger form when large numbers of eggs are required.

Actually I just remembered the one in 3 called a Queen was the one in Ripley. So I guess it isn't the best confirmation. But it stands to reason that the one in her knew somehow a Queen was needed an the other one focused on killing an protecting it.

[taylor-madeak]

Alien: Deleted scenes.

[Nuracus]

Actually I just remembered the one in 3 called a Queen was the one in Ripley. So I guess it isn't the best confirmation. But it stands to reason that the one in her knew somehow a Queen was needed an the other one focused on killing an protecting it.

Actually, this is no confirmation at all.
This Queen is just the usual cycle ... egg -> facehugger -> host (Ripley) -> growing chestburster is a Queen

Seeing only the normal movies 1-3 (okay, and 4) you'd have no clue that there might be another possibility to grow a Queen.

But, indeed, there is!
Uhm, it's years ago when I finished the Alien campaign from AvP 2. Didn't it end with a Queen, too? I can't remember if this was the player's alien or the original Queen.

[Pr3d4t0R]

The concept has been around before. Queens are able to survive for thousands of years (as stated by Weyland that she was locked away for over 100,000 years). It's usually the Praetorian that becomes the Queen, the queen chooses which Xenomorph becomes a Praetorian if she is pleased with it.

locked away for 100, 000 years you do know the queen was FROZEN by the Predators don't you? Not bouncin dice off bars =/

[Nerv322]

Well the face hugger in 3 inpregnated twice so maybe when the face hugger is alone they can do something they normally couldn't.

I know the was only one face hugger in Alien but there were loads of eggs and prob was not deemed a neccassary step.

Maybe in extreme circumsatnaces they can create a queen from inpregnation. It would be logical for the face hugger to create a normal alien first to gaurd the queen when she gestates. It would also be logical to not draw attention to the enemy threat humans, So it inpregnated an animal.

[IGingerMadManI]

Well the face hugger in 3 inpregnated twice so maybe when the face hugger is alone they can do something they normally couldn't.

I know the was only one face hugger in Alien but there were loads of eggs and prob was not deemed a neccassary step.

Maybe in extreme circumsatnaces they can create a queen from inpregnation. It would be logical for the face hugger to create a normal alien first to gaurd the queen when she gestates. It would also be logical to not draw attention to the enemy threat humans, So it inpregnated an animal.


I tend to ignore 3. so many plot holes in 3. The only interesting thing that came out of that movie was the possibility of the alien taking different shapes depending on the host.

[Elensar]

I tend to ignore 3. so many plot holes in 3. The only interesting thing that came out of that movie was the possibility of the alien taking different shapes depending on the host.

Agreed 100% alien 3 was a pile of crap.

[Nerv322]

I tend to ignore 3. so many plot holes in 3. The only interesting thing that came out of that movie was the possibility of the alien taking different shapes depending on the host.

I agree, but in AvP Extinction for PS2/X box you could upgrade the face hugger to inpregnate with two embryos so it gives Alien 3 some plausabilty. Does not explain the the lack of an egg sack unless the queen is capabale of laying an egg without the sack, maybe the egg sack is for mass production only, maybe just maybe.

I think I'm just crasping at straws in a fail attempt to give some plausibility to Alien 3. lol

Aliens also has plot holes like how the ♥♥♥♥ did the queen get in the drop ship anyhow?????? I know the drop ship bumps into the side as the landing Gear is going up but it's kinda thin.

[GrimmReaper666]

This.

The Xenomorphs were created by an ancient race of extinct giants to be the perfect organisms. They come with their own ecosystem (that growth stuff doubles as a primary food source when there's nothing else to eat), they evolve extremely rapidly (there are many types, some aquatic, some snake like, some truly gigantic) because they incorporate the DNA of host species, and when there are no host species the eggs never open and they become essentially clone drones. Different types of xenomorphs may also prey on eachother, such as Snake Aliens preying on the more well known Aliens we all love to play.

It wouldn't be a perfect species if the death of the queen could wipe out a colony.

I only saw the movies... and read the comic books and I cant remember that..
I know there are novels and I must say this is very interesting facts..
I wish I had them translated to my language...

[Disabled Option]

I tend to ignore 3. so many plot holes in 3. The only interesting thing that came out of that movie was the possibility of the alien taking different shapes depending on the host.

What was so bad about it ?

I agree, that killing off Hicks and Newt was a mistake, but it didn't make the movie bad.

And what plot holes ?

[Nerv322]

What was so bad about it ?

I agree, that killing off Hicks and Newt was a mistake, but it didn't make the movie bad.

And what plot holes ?

The only plot holes I know of and think are the only ones is how did a queen lay an egg without her sack. The second is how can face hugger lay two embryo's when we know they die after one unless there were two face huggers which the film showed no evidence of. There the only plot holes I can think of.

[wokelly]

The only plot holes I know of and think are the only ones is how did a queen lay an egg without her sack. The second is how can face hugger lay two embryo's when we know they die after one unless there were two face huggers which the film showed no evidence of. There the only plot holes I can think of.

If you remember if Alien the face hugger after it had impregnated the one guy actually got off and went somewhere else to die. It wasn't particularly near the body. Its not inconceivable the one that impregnated Ripley didnt go bugger off and die somewhere hidden, its not like the people who came upon the pod did any detailed look over as they missed the still living face hugger.

[Paddles]

Thinking over it.

How did it get into the POD that Ripley was in?

I know they have Acid for Blood but did it cut itself on something sharp or maybe it threw up acid?

I might have missed something in the movie.

Anyway they are right In Alien 1 Kane got inpregnated by the Face Hugger it then let go after sometime and crawled up into a bunch of rubber tubes, My thought is maybe it got caught in the tubes and died? Or maybe it was trying to get into an Air Vent?

Either way you look at it it had lets say a couple of minutes after letting go of the host to crawl away and find it's next victim.

[GrimmReaper666]

Thinking over it.

How did it get into the POD that Ripley was in?

I know they have Acid for Blood but did it cut itself on something sharp or maybe it threw up acid?

I might have missed something in the movie.

Anyway they are right In Alien 1 Kane got inpregnated by the Face Hugger it then let go after sometime and crawled up into a bunch of rubber tubes, My thought is maybe it got caught in the tubes and died? Or maybe it was trying to get into an Air Vent?

Either way you look at it it had lets say a couple of minutes after letting go of the host to crawl away and find it's next victim.

Alien 3 is pure cr*p - in the comic books Hicks, Newt and Ripley got back to Earth and didnt die on the way - they live to FIGHT another day..

[H E X E N]

In the first Alien movie, if anyone has the version with director commentary, Ridley Scott describes the alien species as a type of biological warfare. They would be launched in pods between space craft to disable the enemy vessel.

He said what "probably" happened was there was an accident on board the ship and one of the eggs cracked and infected the pilot, causing him to crash on LV426.

This is what the actual creator of the "Alien" franchise had in his head about their history and where they came from.

If you have the version with the director commentary, I believe he starts talking about this when they are exploring the derelict spacecraft.

[theRaptor]

This is what the actual creator of the "Alien" franchise had in his head about their history and where they came from.

He was the director not the creator of the franchise. Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett created most of the story but others had input.

The original intention was that the Jockeys (the pilots species) were involved in a war of extermination with another race or a civil war and that the xenomorphs were meant for destroying planetary population centres (a single specimen would be fairly easy to contain on-board a military space craft). The ship on LV-426 was either on its way to attack a planet or was transporting the final stockpiles in the aftermath of the war.

The novels and comics follow a different version of this idea and the AvP franchise in particular is very divergent (with an Alien homeworld and the Predators keeping xenos around for the lols).

[reggit]

Im thinking the drones becoming Queens are based on this idea....

"Question: Why can frogs (some species) change sex?

Answer:
This is a complex subject. Several studies have exposed some of
the answers to this question, but a definitive answer is yet to be
made.

It all boils down to the level of which genes are activated.
Studies have shown that the sex chromosomes are not necessarily the
determining factor. The traditional display of a female is when
an individual has two X chromosomes present. When one of these
genes is a Y, it is a male. This tends to be the case for most
organisms that sport individuals that are different sexes.
However, the Y chromosomes has been almost always a male determining
chromosome, but with molecular biology and genetic engineering
techniques, a male can be made from a XX combination and females
have developed from XY combinations. These are extremely rare, but
they have given insight to the fact that there are other factors
beside X and Y chromosomes that determine sex, probably a gene
found in both chromosomes.

As far as frogs are concerned (and other organisms that display this
Phenomenon), apparently there are chemical triggers that respond to the
number of members in a population that will activate the gene(s)
that will allow for the disintegration of one set of sex organs and
the development of the other. This is an advantage to a species
whereby they have evolved the ability to assure their reproductive
success."

ie - the Queen is the only "female" Alien, all the drones are Males =)

[theRaptor]

ie - the Queen is the only "female" Alien, all the drones are Males =)

There is no evidence Xenomorphs even use sexual reproduction. As a bioweapon it is not needed. And generally they are thought of as insect analogues such as ants or bees in which case females make up the bulk of the population (fertilised eggs turn into females, unfertilised into males). The difference between a female worker and a queen is normally only nutritional (royal jelly).

The general scheme in Alien (until Alien3 invented the super-face hugger which was never seen) was that a lone xeno would morph into a queen or one of a small group of xenos would.

[Trullius]

actually, the drones are female too.

I picture the system to be like that of bees.

All females, except for warriors, which are blokes.

A fertilized egg creates a queen, unfertilized a drone.

[Talvrae]

There is no evidence Xenomorphs even use sexual reproduction. As a bioweapon it is not needed. And generally they are thought of as insect analogues such as ants or bees in which case females make up the bulk of the population (fertilised eggs turn into females, unfertilised into males). The difference between a female worker and a queen is normally only nutritional (royal jelly).

The general scheme in Alien (until Alien3 invented the super-face hugger which was never seen) was that a lone xeno would morph into a queen or one of a small group of xenos would.
There is no real canon on whatever the Xenomorph was bioeginered or not, or that they was designed to be a weapons. At least not yet, Ridley Scott might establish that on the upcoming Alien 5...
On the drone changing into Queen there was no evidence of that in the movie before. Aliens 2 dont say where the Queen come from. And deleted scene of Alien show a way for the drone to create eggs without a Queen...

The novel and comics are not canon, a lot of them contradict themselves

[QuantumBear]

The Xenomorphs were created by an ancient race of extinct giants to be the perfect organisms.

No. Nice made up bit of history though.

[Paddles]

Yeah the Drones are all Female.

I remember hearing something about it in one of the movies can't remember which movie it was.

Think it might have been Aliens. (Alien 2)

[Dulcianos]

The Xenomorphs are (artificial) beings so to speak, if we take the plot of the "first" Alien of course. Even to this day, we don`t know what they actually eat, if they have physical "urges" or the true lenght of their lifespan.

They are, by all means, "alien" to us.

Giger is mostly the "father" of the aberrant child and the whole concept of female/male body is what makes the xenomorph so peculiar, but do not be fooled. It is a feminine entity with urges and very much dangerous so to speak. However, Ridley Scott, of course, will be returning to the root of the creature by further explaining just whom were, those fossilized creatures,(Space Jockey).

But then again, this is the gaming realm and everything is possible.

[Black Jesus]

The head doctor in this game (avp '3' if you will) calls Six 'she'. In addition to that in the first Alien mission in this game, one of the objects is, and I quote "Free your sisters." Now, I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty sure that Six is a warrior and not a drone, though I'm admitedly a bit rusty on alien physical differences. So with that in mind, it would appear that ALL aliens are females, or that at the very least queens, drones, and warriors are. : p

[Elensar]

This.

The Xenomorphs were created by an ancient race of extinct giants to be the perfect organisms. They come with their own ecosystem (that growth stuff doubles as a primary food source when there's nothing else to eat), they evolve extremely rapidly (there are many types, some aquatic, some snake like, some truly gigantic) because they incorporate the DNA of host species, and when there are no host species the eggs never open and they become essentially clone drones. Different types of xenomorphs may also prey on eachother, such as Snake Aliens preying on the more well known Aliens we all love to play.

It wouldn't be a perfect species if the death of the queen could wipe out a colony.


And the source of this information is?


As for the drone moulting thing, yes this has been around since the early books and concept designs etc.

[Bloodycrow]

Old thread is old, but let me try and shed some light on this issue.

All info taken from here (http://aliens.wikia.com/)

There is not one solid fact as to the origins of the xenomorph species. There are many assumptions and theories, mostly taken from various sources such as DVD commentary and the ever-contradictory comics.

The principal theory, which was mentioned briefly by Ridley Scott in his director's commentary for the first Alien DVD, is that the Jockey's ship was a "bomber" and that they used the the aliens as biogenic weapons to fight an ancient war.

This contrasts with Dan O'Bannon's original intention that the derelict ship stumbled upon a cache of xenomorph eggs that already lay dormant on LV-426. For budgetary and story-telling reasons, the pyramid that would have housed these eggs, and its exploration by the crew of the Nostromo, was scrapped from the film.

Of course, then there is the unexplained purpose of the "blue mist" that covers the eggs in the cargo hold. It does not offer direct support for the bio-weapons conclusion, but appears to indicate the possibility that the eggs were intentionally put in stasis, as if stored for later, possibly military use.

It is still possible, however, that the crashed ship found in Alien could have just been the result of a brief encounter between the Space Jockey and the xenomorphs, much the same as what happens to the human protagonists of the film. Some analysts of the first film claim that the egg chamber into which Kane descends is far too deep to be part of the derelict structure as we see it from the outside. It could thus be an underground cavern; however, it more likely represents a part of the derelict that was buried under the ground upon impact.

Alan Dean Foster's novelization states that the Jockey was trying to warn humans away from the aliens, while Mark Verheiden's graphic novel indicates that they planned on invading Earth after the xenomorphs wiped out all the humans (also known as the Earth War books). It should be noted, in respect to that, that according to the comic book The Destroying Angels that the Space Jockey's have been around from long before mankind even came to exist (their civilization having fallen 1.6 million years ago due to the Aliens), and that the warning beacon may have been to warn their own kind.

According to "The Alien Portfolio" by John Mollo and Ron Cobb (an older source than even the DVDs), Cobb tells of Alien creator Dan O'Bannon's back story where the Jockey's race had simply landed on the planet on a course of exploration and had encountered the eggs there. Since the planet was dying, and they didn't realize how dangerous the eggs were, they loaded their cargo hold with the eggs and prepared to lift off. Before they were to take off, one of the crew that was parasitized "gave birth" to an alien. The crew eventually killed the alien, but at the cost of hulling their ship. As they were dying out, one of them had set up a transmission warning other ships not to land there and suffer the same fate. In light of the famous egg-morphing scene deleted from the theatrical release, some explanations have it that a number of eggs in the hold may actually represent the original crew of the derelict; others still claim that there was in fact only one "Pilot" to begin with.

This is mentioned in the novelization of Alien by Alan Dean Foster, during the scene where Ash was telling Ripley, Lambert and Parker about their chances against the alien. Out of all sources, the Portfolio is the only one connected to the film that gives a complete series of events describing the derelict's encounter with the aliens, and the closest to a canonical explanation of the xenomorph's origins.

But honestly, all this information and theories will probably be moot once the prequel film is released.