Acid

Belladonna's conjecture about the Alien having a specialized secretion that could soften the material on the helmet enough for it to enter and do it's business makes the best sense, all things considered, including PLOT!

I agree. Facehugger secretions can be quite foreboding.

thanks! thats the only thing i could think of that made much sense. even human saliva is somewhat digestive, less digestive then our stomach acid. i bet the face hugger has more then one secretion as well.

The face hugger might even detect the chemical composition of the barrier material (e.g. plastic, glass) and synthesize a compound (“acid”) on the fly that will penetrate that material and not harm a biotic. If the hugger is a biomechanical weapon, which has been intentionally engineered for the purpose of impregnating a living host, it is quite logical that that feature may be included. Someone a couple of pages back suggested that the material may have ‘broken’ on impact, but I remember an inside shot from Kane’s perspective that shows the hugger’s ‘throat appendage’ writhing wildly between the helmet faceplate and its body as the visor melts. Did I imagine that? As for the ‘problem’ of supposition and speculation on this board... That's the only reason I'm here, really. The film is in the can. It's going to be what it's going to be and beyond what I'll see in the trailers, I don't [u]want[/u] to know what happens in the film until I see it. I'm glad the shots are out of order. This is a work of FICTION. It is all 100% imagined. But, it is out of these kinds of "fictions made real" (in print and on screen) that humanity ends up deciding our own future, because it is ultimately only our imaginations that motivate us to continue living as members of a eusocial collective. We imagine horrors and then try to avoid them by illegalizing them, etc.. We imagine miracles and then invent the tools to make them real or prove that they are in fact impossibilities. I wouldn't have it any other way.