How did a Queen egg end up inside the Sulaco?

Yes that would be a interesting idea Gavin...  But could leave us with many Questions... such as why would they use what little Eggs they got to place on the Sulaco and then where did the Special Ops go to would they not want to observe and stay close to the Sulaco and so watch what happens?

Was the Sulaco destroyed, did it have any more Eggs? and would a Special Ops team who would have known about the Potential for a Organism i.e Order 937 have some fail safes and plans to Quarantine a Egg or Face Huger to take back with them...

Which means why bother going after Ripley in Alien 3, unless they knew she was having a Queen?

But i may thrown in a idea to make a Special Ops work.... that is what if Micheal Bishop was a Android too and what if prior to Alien 3 he was either on the Sulaco, or on a mission just after it. 

He and the Sulaco's Computer doing a Ash/Mother

Could this other Bishop had even managed to get to and past other Marines if they thought he was the Bishop assigned to them?

I dont understand if another ship or hidden crew obtained Eggs from the Derelict then how did they do this and then would they not want to take some back and not place them all on the Sulaco with the hope to infect Ripley, Hicks and Newt.

I think the SMOKING GUN has to be how the Egg was stuck upside down and why?  To me this seems more like a Plan that the Queen would do... or another Xenomorph that had got on board with a Egg.

When it comes to specific types of eggs being laid to denote what type of Xeno is produced, that's been explored in AvP comics but I very much like the idea that was laid down in the RTS game AvP:Extinction. Because Xenomorphs are constantly evolving in line with their environment (taking key genetic traits from their host for maximum chances of survival for example) the queens constantly produce an inhibitive hormone/pheromone preventing further evolution of the hive. If for some reason the queen dies or is killed by a rival then the hive goes into a frenzy as warrior drones go into an accelerated state of evolution and develop into Pretorians (first 3 to revolve win where those that fail to complete the transition stop and die of their mutations if far enough along) and start emitting a pheromone of their own driving every drone into a bloodlust and preventing the rest of the hive evolving. Not only are they fighting against potentially thousands of drones but they're also trying to kill each other. Once one emerges victorious and only one of them is emitting this pheromone the levels of said pheromone drop to a level where the hive calms down and the Pretorian now develops into a queen further strengthening the hive as the strongest emerges victorious and any weakness from the drones has been weeded out in the fracas.

I've always LOVED the life cycle of the Xenomorphs. It's always fascinated me. Ever since I was a kid. Right from the egg right round to the queen and (in female war novel/comic) queen mothers and queen-sized drone on their "origin" planet.

As for the egg? WY build and program the "artificial persons" so wether or not they are "third-lawed" or not takes a back seat when it comes to secret overrides. A specific set of circumstances present themselves and the protocol kicks in. Bishop is totally unaware almost like split personality syndrome where a limited facet of his programming takes over, does what it dose, returns him back to whatever and wherever he was and then goes dormant again just erases not only itself but any trace of his movements placing eggs, disabling bio scans for contraband and wotnot. 

OR....It's a alternate timeline....and I think this is what  A L I E N 5 is going for.

We don't understand the egg on the Sulaco because it's a separate reality?

In the Alien3 universe the Queen didn't announce herself, instead she waited for the crew to enter cryo-sleep....... killing Ripley would have been senseless, better to use her body and the warm bodies of the crew?

Wow everyone has brought amazing theories! alot of new info for me as far as android intentions with other characters, also stowaway company androids and teams on standby, theory of the egg, Dreams, the comic books, and canons etc... Amazing stuff everyone! I feel like watching aliens and aliens 3 again now with the new theories in mind. Thanks for feeding the discussion. ;)

 Wow have we forgotten what happened in Aliens, and what Bishop says to Ripley?

"Mr. Burke gave specific instructions that the specimens be preserved to be returned to the company labs.

He was very specific about that."

So Bishop being the good android that he was followed company orders, and snuck some eggs on board. Did we ever see or hear that Bishop destroyed them? Nope.

 Wow have we forgotten what happened in Aliens, and what Bishop says to Ripley?

"Mr. Burke gave instructions that the specimens be preserved to be returned to the company labs.

He was very specific about that."

So Bishop being the good android that he was followed company orders, and snuck some eggs on board. Did we ever see or hear that Bishop destroyed them? Nope.

@Arrgy; Hello and welcome to Scified. The two specimens were released by Burke into the room where Ripley and Newt were sleeping under the bed, Remember?

Those facehuggers were killed by Hudson and Vasquese I think.

Indeed. Hudson and Vasquez shot them.

@Monster Zero - How did the Queen know they were going to enter hypersleep?

@S.M

The Queen survived a trip in a vacuum, exposed to space in the landing gear of a drop ship....She took some time to recover...Thawed out and explored her new surrounding...Maybe 'smelled' Ripley down...Found her sleeping and left Eggs for the remaining crew. She died from her exposure to space..Sulaco was programmed to find the nearest star base.

No one talks about the Queen surviving the vacuum of space...not to mention a blast of radiation.

I've been talking about that for years personally, but that's by the by.

How could she know they would go into hypersleep? At that point she was out for revenge rather than survival.

Ripley entered hypersleep probably 2 hours after they boarded the Sulaco.....Queen probably took hours to recover...((I keep seeing the image of the Xeno aboard the narcissus...how slow and lethargic it was....I see the Queen the same way...))... more than enough time for Ripley to enter hypersleep...Queen finally recovered .....limited around the Sulaco looking for Ripley....Too late to 'goo' her to a wall, had to settle for a facehugger death.

Queen didn't know they were headed for hypersleep...Queen recovered from her exposure to space....she lost the scent at the hypersleep chamber. Probably couldn't find Ripley without her smell......gave up, layed a bunch of eggs then when into some long term coma.

What does the Queen eat anyway?

Whatever the hell she wants I suspect.

Okay so you're assuming she needs to recover from exposure.

Lol!

Yes, exposure would have been rough.....Like to see a half eaten mortally wounded Queen...acid dripping, half her face gone...though I doubt they could have made her look anymore terrifying.

But knowing that the facehuggers came from the egg, etc. Bishop would have taken those orders from Burke strictly. Bishop also knows Ripley would flip out, etc. So the best thing to do, sneak an egg or two on board without Ripley knowing about it. That way his orders from Burke are carried out, and Ripley isn't tipped off.

And again, we never see Bishop carry out Ripley's orders, so Burke's orders (as the company rep) are probably the most relevant to him. 

Ripley's orders contradict Burke's so Bishop would need them to sort that out before he could action one.

Bishop is unable to carry out either order because he's at the uplink tower when Burke releases the huggers and Hudson and Vasquez shoot them.

How is Bishop going to "sneak an egg or two on board without Ripley knowing about it"? And if he did so, why did he risk his 'mission' to wait around for Ripley and Newt when the sensible thing to do would be fly off back to the Sulaco and sic a hugger on the comatose Hicks.

@S.M.  -  You make a really strong point:  Bishop has no real reason to hang around and wait for Ripley if he's already got what the company needs.  

After thinking about it more, the timing of everything makes it very unlikely for Bishop to be part of how the egg got there.  Especially if he's acting alone.

My hypothetical team of stealthy Marines would probably run into problems sneaking into the hive, somehow carrying the egg out, and then placing it there.

I'm thinking that whatever put it there needed to be able to carry the egg without being facehugged.  

A lot of these conspiracy ideas are pretty shaky simply because - why would anyone risk something that important to chance by sticking it on the Sulaco unsupervised?  Best idea is to leg it back to somewhere it can be contained and studied properly.

We've seen what the Company does when they want the Alien - they send scientists and commandoes.  Leaving things to chance results in fires, lifeboat ejections, potential hosts resisting, big explosions and ultimately losing the prize.

Not withstanding expecting the wonderful Alien 3 to be a Cryo-Dream/Nightmare I suspect that Bishop placed at least one egg on the Sulaco and or within the undercarriage of the drop ship. Why upside down I don't know. I don't like the idea of an emergency egg within the Queen.

How did Bishop get an egg?

And once he had one, why risk hanging around?

@SM

Yes very few good points especially of Bishop was following company orders and he had a Hicks on board and then he had Eggs, why wait for Ripley... very good point.

Maybe if he had 2 Eggs he would need 2 hosts, but i would be sure he would not risk his objective if that was the case and surely the company would preferred one Egg for Study and other for infecting a Host.

Indeed there is many plot holes in theories we can come up with, another would be are we to assume Eggs only Activated and Release their Face Hugers when a Host is in close Proximity...

So we have to ask how does the Face Huger escape while the Survivors are in Cryo-Sleep.... i think its just going to be one of those things that will never be covered.

Also the theory that the Queen managed to survive and get back on board is one i overlooked and it could work...  But then how would the Queen get back inside?  and how far was she blasted away and then how far did the Sulaco manage to get prior to any chance of the Queen catching up with the Ship.

Also if the Ship had a Queen on board then why need Ripley, unless the Sulaco is destroyed by the Fire.

The Queen would most likely had been attracted to the nearest source of gravity, which, once being ejected, would be LV-426.

Assuming Bishop was guilty, he wouldn't need hosts; just the egg(s). Hosts would be a bonus, but not essential.

I figure the Queen had an egg or two stashed under one of her extra arms or else still in her body.  The Queen is always shown as being more crafty than the drones and warriors.    But then again, the Company is always looking after stuff for their weapons divisions.  

She could easily have stuck one behind back between the spines.

Just my guess but my guess is that when the queen pulled herself from ovipositor it triggers her last eggs to morph into a pretorian queen and a worker drone then her sole purpose is to find a safe place to lay them. We know that when the drop ship collided with the gangway is when the queen climbed onto the strut and made it back to the sulaco. what the movie does not explain is how long they spend after the have made it back to the sulaco patching up Hicks and what-not. so lets assume they spend 20mins before they exit the dropship that would give the queen a reasonable time to go lay her last eggs somewhere in the ship bay and make it back to her hidey hole. If you look at the blueprints for the sulaco(link at the bottom) you can clearly see the the EEVs and orbital drop pods are right next to the ship bay which are in range for the queen to lay her eggs. this is where it gets a bit confusing as the most likely place for the queen to lay her eggs is near the reactor or the cooling tower in the rear of the ship which happens to be through several bulkheads not too mention she would have had to go through several narrow hallways and up a lift shaft which would have taken way longer than 20 mins. So my guess is that she layed her eggs in the shipbay somewhere then then went and laid in wait for Ripley the whole VS scene played out and then Ripley Hicks and Newt go into cryo then some time into the return journey there is an electrical fire which triggers the eggs to hatch and the Facehuggers to look for a host at which point the EEV starts to prep itself to receive the cryo tubes at which point the tubes are loaded onto the EEV and the huggers senses the hosts and boards and one impregnates Ripley. but again we know it takes days for the facehugger to finish the job. Here is my guess for that because the nature of the embryo being a queen it does not need to assimilate any of the hosts traits so it is born pure and at an accelerated rate as for where the hugger that impregnates ripley is bishop mentions that the Acid in the huggers oxidizes after death so my guess is the EEV does not need to be pressurized due to the pods having there own life support and the hugger was consumed by the acid given there is no oxygen present in the EEV when they opened the pod at the beginning that's when the acid oxidised.

Sulaco blueprints: https://lcarsgfx.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/sulaco.png

Anyway that's my theory sorry about going on for so long and thanks for listening :)                                               

We see Bishop coming from the cockpit, removing a headset and Newt getting up from the chair she was sitting on. Why would they wait 20 minutes to disembark?

And as cool as that blueprint is - it's not exactly official.

"Assuming Bishop was guilty, he wouldn't need hosts; just the egg(s). Hosts would be a bonus, but not essential"

Well this is where we have to use a bit of Logic..

1) Are the Xeno Eggs Dangerous?  Erm not really, only Danger is when they release the Face Huger.

2) Are Face Hugers Dangerous, yes to a degree, but we have to assume if you can wait until it has done its job and fallen off a victim you could attempt to remove the Organism, and Destroy it.... or Cryo Freeze it.

3) Would a Chest Buster be Dangerous, very much so they can easily escape and when they grow you have a Deadly Xenomorph that is harder to contain.

So if the Company wanted a Organism Specimen and Bishop was the Bad Guy, and he had the Eggs, then why would he bother going back for Ripley?

The company would have had contingency plans to maybe Quarantine and Store the Xeno Eggs to be taken to Company Labs...

We have to assume Bishop could do that without the Egg opening, because how else did he get them on the Ship. So why not put them in some place Secure or infect just Hicks and Leave Ripley on LV-426.

Its for that reason that i find it doubtful Bishop had anything directly to do with the Eggs, but if the Eggs got on board by other means than a Queen, then maybe Bishop knew about this?

I still say the Logical Answer has to be the Queen.

If the Queen was laying Eggs we have to look at how this happens, and how the ovipositor functions.

For this we can only assume, but if we look at it like a Termite then Eggs are produced here and mature to the size needed to then be laid and collected by workers.

But a Termites ovipositor is part of its body and is actually its abdomen that swells due to the swelling of her many ovaries that contain thousands of Eggs.

The Xenomorph Queen can detach from her ovipositor and so we have to ask are Eggs Produced inside the ovipositor, or does the ovipositor act like a Female Mamals Womb where the Eggs grow.

Therefor how do we know a Queen does not produce the early stage Eggs  that go into the ovipositor where they grow.

If this is the case, but we have no proof.  Then maybe she can have some not matured smaller Eggs inside her?

What about......Ripley and crew could have been awoken a little bit after Aliens ended.  10 minutes or 10 months(?)....had another nasty adventure....(a battle with David or the Engineers?)...defeated the baddy...then returned to hypersleep(explaining the new hypersleep coffins).

There is nothing to indicate Alien 3 started the second Aliens ended?

The Sulaco could have been boarded the very second Aliens ended.

@MonsterZero - If you take the Colonial Marines game into account, that's exactly what happened. Less said about that the better.  There's about 10 days between the end of Alien and the start of Alien3, and the first frames of Alien3 mirroring the final frames of Aliens are supposed to indicate we're picking up where we left off (different cryotubes aside).

@BigDave - One script draft (or perhaps the novelisation) said tiny dots (ie. eggs)could be seen on Ripley's bioscan indicating that the embryo was Queen. In that regard an Alien Queen would be the same as a human female in that they're born with every egg they'll ever produce.