Alien Life Cycles

i think i like the first lifecycle, it adds to the mystery of the creature. BUT i must say, that all three of them are creative and horrific.

When James cameron did ALIENS, he probably scrapped ideas developed by Ridley Scott & his team. In ALIEN there is no evidence of a Queen. And as one of the types you suggested, this organism is asexual, an organism that could survive in the most hostile environment must be able to perpetuate without a female partner. Some worm species are asexual and could reproduce without a female.

let's not forget that in the original version of ALIEN, the idea of the human morphing into alien egg was not seen but cut out. The Queen lays egg life cycle is not exactly mentiond in the movies but in the Dark Horse comics it says that one queen lays around 50 to 100 eggs where only one will be the next queen. The so-called Princess life-cycle sounds like you took it from Aliens VS Predator: Reqiem which is non-canon anyway.

dark horse comics are not canon, the AVPR Princess theory is (unfortunately for some) canon until stated otherwise, because the films are canon

Maybe 1 and 2 could go hand in hand possibly. The possibility is that maybe that is why that reporduction cycle is so complex in your first example, because it is meant to produce a queen.....since there is not a functioning nest or queen at the present time. Then once the queen hatches she lays eggs for the hosts and boom thats where we get to Aliens. Just a thought. I dont like example 3 either.

l`m new to the post , and like most others ,,,,,Can`t wait what do you guys think about the idea that the eggs in the opening below the SJ ship , each egg were put in a enclosed capsule to transport out of there area of space , but something happen when they landed ??? . i keep looking at the trailer were the earth crew are walking around the eggs , but the shape of the eggs are not right..

Guys, Look at it from this perspective. 1. The Alien egg conversion process below the ship would not be possible purely based on the lack of organic material, as a stand alone. 2. Queen approach would only work after the crash of the derelict. As all the eggs are upright and the eggs are truly in a "cargo" chamber. This theory I can't agree with because I would have to chalk this up as a design error as the caverns/chambers clearly exceed the size of the derelict. In our biosphere where there is a will there is a way. Frogs have proven this. Frogs in an all male environment can spontaneously change to female to propagate the species. So for lack of a better word, drone should be able to spontaneously change to a queen to further the species..... Hold on a sec......why couldn't there be a Xeno King? A bigger more badass xeno but not a xeno? I'm going to go there with this. Driver Ants......They kill everything they touch. But a Sausage Fly is the male form of the Driver Ant that is like 100 times larger than the ants themselves. They grab him clip his wings and haul him off to the queen as a sperm bank. Translate this to xeno and you got a big badass mofo that looks nothing like the orignal shape. Ridley said there was going to be some form of Alien much larger and different than the orignal form. Just an idea there Snorks. Regards, Rick

Is this discussion still going?

@ Rick I do indeed have an idea for a King Xenomorph, in my own extension of the Alien universe that does, in a sense, fulfill such a reproductive role. I even hinted to its existence in the My Alien 5 thread I did...

As a weapon concept, the Queen Hive cycle like ants and Bees makes a lot of sense. They can reproduce quickly by laying thousands of eggs which create a parasitic form that forms a pupa stage in the host, kills the host, and then grows to adult. The adult form then has different form, workers, warriors, drones, queens again like certain insects. Insects are one of the oldest high life forms on earth. They reproduce and adapt so fast they can embody the definition of infestation. 6' long insects in any form would be an apex predator. The are the fastest, strongest, toughest, and most deadly creatures on earth for their size, without getting into bacterial and viral life forms. Cameron's concept was a good one. But it's not that Alien. It's too based in Earths concept of life. Still, it's possible, and a sound concept especially if one assumes the SJ make Earth. Morphing a host into an egg, and another host into a face hunger recipient just seems really inefficient for a being engineered specifically as a weapon. Is an extra, wasted stage. That doesn't mean it couldn't evolve that way by accident. Lots of mutations in creatures are weird and not efficient, but as long as they don't hinder reproduction too much to become extinct, then the trait can stay. This is why in my opinion, the Xeno humanoid in Rifley's concept isn't the actual "weapon". It's the aftermath of something we haven't seen. The Xeno is the random, or not so random result, of something that could keep evolving, adapting and consuming everything. But there lies another interesting direction. Why would space jockey's engineer a giant insect, bio-mec, cyborg, Xeno creature when a virus, or bacteria would be much more effective at destroying life on a planet? It's particularly disturbing when one ponders the possibility of a micro organism, or nano bot that can mutate anything it touches at genetc, micro, elemental, or even atomic level wether "alive" or not. That is end of days type of stuff. What if there is no alien "life cycle" because it never repeats but constantly mutates. So something we haven't seen creates the eggs. The eggs make face hungers, the huggers make chest bursters, the burster after absorbing the host grows bigger........ (this we have seen)....Then the alien eats brains and absorbs the intelligence of the victim on some level (alternate ending) or impregnates another host by some other means (hinted at) sexual, rape, secretions, which becomes yet another form of Xeno. Why couldn't the host that is cocooned simply transform into the "adult form"? As a weapon if this thing could breed, and infest, by several methods all at the same time (sexual, implantation, secretion of something, etc) by whatever the situation demands....now that is a nasty weapon particularly if it's constantly evolving and absorbing something from the host. So by this method you'd have a dog/bat/human/horse/snake etc etc all mixed together in a very short period of time. That is pretty disturbing.

I think the SJ's "grow" just about whatever they need. The chair grows around the seated pilot. I can inagine the SJ ship itself having grown out of and then detaching from some larger structure, which could itself have either been mechanical or biological. I hope Ridley and Co. come up with something big and disturbing. On a slightly different note, I think it's pretty cool the value we get out of movies like this. I've enjoyed hours and hours revisiting the original Alien, all the bonus features I can stand, not to mention Giger's books, pondering what this movie MIGHT be like, and it doesn't come out for another four MONTHS!