Xeno life cycle...

Not to mention that all aliens we saw in the movies are not older than a few months and most are only A day old or a few. Maybe they become the space jockey? or they just age and die without further Metamorphose.

That Giger art, the one used as your avatar seems to indicate some kind of higher being/"intelligence" being responsible for the beginning of the Xenomorph life cycle. Hmmm. . .

I never felt there was another stage to the life cycle per se, I think the Xeno is the final product however if you consider the deleted scene from the first film then that hints at another intermediate stage in forming the egg from bio mass and presumably some kind of intervention from the xeno itself. I always sided with the idea that these things were a very well designed weopon but the more and more I dwell on this I am coming to the conclusion that their creation was a complete accident. If you think about it the life cycle is completely inefficient, what is the point in having an egg stage, if the egg does not then hatch the finished article? Surely an efficient killing machine would reproduce much quicker and either give birth directly (ike a mammal) or the egg would produce an infant creature straight away? This raises another interesting question for me - is the facehugger actually the 'big cheese' so to speak as this is what pops from the egg? And if the xeno is capable of producing its own eggs (minus the queen concept) then is the xeno the 'carrier' and not the other way around? Which came first.......? questions, questions

[url=http://www.prometheus-movie.com/community/forums/topic/1077]ClickMe[/url]

@Spartacus, your link discusses what we already know from the films. I think we will see something completely different in Prometheus, given the fact that the xeno does not yet exist. I like the idea of a further stage of development from the adult xeno.

but it does exist, just not in the way you think of it regularly it's cool though, the link I posted was to expand the discussion if possible. it's all good.

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.

Does not really matter to me is it's efficient etc. I just love the fact that whatever it is, it creeps me the h3ll out! That's what the major point is here. Not so much to make sure that it all make 'sense' and is efficient in our eyes. The point is to creep people out - and it did/does! I can't wait until June

I remember one of the Alien Graphic Novels, cant remember which one, explains that the Xeno species (well at least the one we know containing Humanoid DNA) is capable of replicating it self in a number of ways. If the Xeno detects that it is alone with only a handful of possible hosts it can create eggs via cocooning the victim (as in the deleted scene in Alien). If the Xeno is on an inhabited planet/ship a Xeno can enter an extra growth stage and become a egg layer (Queen). Once established as a hive an egg can create a Queen face hugger (or super face hugger) which will produce a new Queen who will either kill the original hives Queen or create a new hive elsewhere, reminicent of Bees. I suppose these points would make the Xenos a virtually indestructible force as a weapon... Not that I find these points Canon, they are however interesting.