Alien Queen Theory

In response to the original question: THe origin of the xenomorphs is sketchy at best. We know they have a home planet for example but not where. We see results of their infestation but never the process. And we know there is at least one queen on this planet, due to their hive structure it is likely that there is only one queen but due to the fact that with maturity they become larger and more powerful (provided they have the rare hierarch genes) it is likely she is unlike anything ever witnessed, immensly powerful and incredibly massive. The aliens have a basic form, their traits and body structure changes with hosts but they retain most of their own species traits. Minus of course the abomonation created by the queen in Alien: Ressurection but that was only possible because the dominant blood in the mix was Ripley's not the queen's. (all the aliens in that movie were cloned from her infected DNA) In AVP 'Reqeium' (bad spelling) the predalien abomonation was from an infected predator so the Alien Dna was still dominant but with noticable differences. So back to the question, yes the queen was around before the ship crashed. The SJ'S likely captured multiple aliens and isolated them from their queen in space. Without their queens guidance they would breakdown, feeling the loss as seen in some of the video games. However if any of the captured aliens posssessed the rare genes that allow for metamorphosis then the strongest of those would begin the process. The SJ's would have then disposed of the others and secured the soon to be preatorian so it could morph again and become a queen. The movie will likely explain what happened next if not this whole process. Hope this satisfies the insatiable.

(they would have had to settle for normal xenomophs because any attempt to capture their queen on their own planet would have been near impossible unless they had access to an entire army of hunters and even then...)

My guess is that there had to be a Queen or at least other drones about sometime, somewhere in the Derelict because only that would explain the "hive" architecture added to the Derelict's walls. When you see the Nostromo crew first poking around the Derelict's innards, there is obvious "hive-itecture" that is not part of the original ship. The reason I think a Queen may have existed is that even though the drone Alien managed to start a cocooning area in the Nostromo, it is messy and unstructured compared to the very well built up hive-walls found both in the Derelict and in the movie [i]Aliens.[/i] It takes both a Queen and a well established brood to create such things.

In other words, TWO queens involved here, timeline. The SJ's captured a nest guardian or preatorian. Let it evolve to lay eggs. (my first reply explains why) SJ's likely destroy queen. (too much liability) SJ's end up on LV426. Humans end up on LV426. Outbreak. New hive. Now there is a period I can't explain because what happened from outbreak to Nostromo won't be know till Prometheus is out.

Sorry it's taken so long for a response (really busy) good observations, you will also notice however the SJ manning one of the ships cannons is brandishing an ejection sight on his/her chest. This is because there is an outbreak on the ship (likely the humans fault, we are almost never cautious of other species let alone respectful) so like I said, the movie is meant specifically to answer this question and a few others (plus to be badass) so as I said I would assume the jockeys were smart enough (their still functional motion sensors and artificial environment controls abord ship in the egg chamber prove their cation and knowledge... The mist is part of these environment simulators) to vent the queen after the eggs were layed... Dormant egg vs live queen... You get the idea. But somewhere somehow likely due to human involvement there was an outbreak and the rest is history. Hope it helps.