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Chestburster food requirement?

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ninXeno426

Legacy MemberMemberPraetorianFebruary 15, 20176927 Views40 Replies
I was reading about a theory that in order to birth,the Chestburster must wait to be triggered by its host eating.Of course Kane was eating when his birthed,also the was echoed in Vincent Ward's Wooden Planet.Now i know there isn't much truth to this,Mary the colonist in Aliens certainly hadn't eaten.Neither had Purvis in Alien Resurrection.But would take food give the Alien more growth and power?The Big Chap was certainly more deadly than the drones in Hadley's Hope,how many of those colonists got to eat.I know it a silly question,but what do you guys think?

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dk
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I found this 7 minute video pretty good. This guy has some interesting theories (Thanks QES). It touches on your question but doesn't seem to outright and definitively answer it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i4IsLEgBHw

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S.M
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With only one recorded instance of someone eating prior to chestbursting, I'm not seeing a connection.

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ninXeno426
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Excellent video.Your right,I definitely have to find the time for those videos.The angle on the chestburster being cancerous was why i posted the chestburster surgical thread.
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ninXeno426
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I almost forgot.Thank you dk.
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ninXeno426
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It's a theory S.M. and I'm not the first to theorize it.
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dk
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nin- he has a video on surgically removing the chestburster too.

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ninXeno426
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I saw that.I'm definitely going to give it a watch!
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dk
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Here it is for convenience. I need to sub this guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR2ILljzeeQ

Sorry if this gets the thread off target- it is still early!

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Assimilated_Xenomorph
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yea I agree I think eating has a part to play in how long it takes for chestbursting to occur. I think it would probably be safe to assume that the alien embryo will feed off of the nutrients of its host and so the more nutrients the host takes in, the more nutrients the alien embryo takes in and thus the less time it takes to chestburst.

 

It probably also depends on the health of the host aswell. If we compare two hosts, one healthy and one unhealthy, which have both taken in the same amount of nutrients, it might take longer for unhealthy host to experience a chestburst because of the strain the alien embryo will have on the host.


Maybe this is why the deacon chestburst out of the engineer that quickly and at that size aswell, due to the fitness and stregnth of the engineer

 

 

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Assimilated_Xenomorph
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This also begs the question, could a host so unhealthy that a facehugger would not allow its self to impregnate the host? that's if the facehugger could tell the health of the host obviously

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ninXeno426
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No problem dk.Thank you!
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ninXeno426
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Intriguing angle Assimilated_xenomorph.Purvis in Resurrection had a thyroid condition that lead to the delayed birth of his Chestburster.
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Assimilated_Xenomorph
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ninXeno426 woahhh, that's definitely why it took long to for the alien embryo to chestburst. If it took in nutrients at a rate which would have caused it to grow at a fast rate, I think it would have caused a large strain on Purvis due to his illness and would have probably caused him to die of stress and whatnot. obviously a dead host is not ideal so it has to control how much nutrients it takes in therefor controlling the rate at which it grows until it is ready to chestburst.

 

clever creatures when they aren't even born yet lol

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Fire_Stream21
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@dk watched that video, great video thanks

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dk
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Fire- QES originally shared and I went down the YT rabbit hole. All good!

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ninXeno426
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All hail Queen Elizabeth Shaw!Thanks for the amazing find!And thank you again dk for the links!
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ninXeno426
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Did a little research on that Assimilated_Xenomorph.Always wanted to know why all his buddies Chestbursted long before he did.Always great to know it wasn't just a plot hole.
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Assimilated_Xenomorph
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Got that right

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ninXeno426
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How about Spike the dog from Alien 3,do you think he ate before it burst?
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dk
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Tough to say. The embryo could have got nutrition from the dog's body- muscle, organs etc.

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ninXeno426
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Yeah good point.How about Babe?How did babe die is an even better question
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dk
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I would imagine a similar fashion to the dog. The interesting difference was Babe was dead and hanging but the burster survived. Either way I think viewers are supposed to just go with it. Back then, those creators probably didn't know their movies would be dissected to such a high level as they are now. That just goes to show how much we love it imo.

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BigDave
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I am going to agree with SM on this...

as far as how healthy a host is?  I think it would not matter to the Xeno it depends on how the Embryo Grows and what does it need and i would assume they would just need Genetic Material off a Host.

But its nice to speculate on health, i think its something to consider if the Host has some disease like Cancer or something maybe the Face Hugger would leave them alone?

But i would think they have a instinct and would be opportunistic 

R.I.P Sox  01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017

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Centauri
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****

 "Must be something we haven't seen yet.."__Bishop

http://www.alien-covenant.com/series/

            

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ninXeno426
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Lol Centauri !Where did you find those
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S.M
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I've watched a bunch of those Alien Theory videos.  They're  well presented, but also a little frustrating in terms of the conclusions, or rather lack thereof.  For all the videos with 'Explained' in the title, stuff that actually gets explained is very rare.  There's a bunch of theories from different sources, which is helpful, but they generally end with 'What do you think?'

 

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ninXeno426
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What's an example S.M.?I haven't watched to many yet.
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S.M
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Pretty much anything with 'blah blah blah - Explained' in the title.

The embryo implantation one linked above is a prime example. And that one even states that 'the most widely held view is the hugger implants a cancerous tumour that becomes the chestburster'.  I've been around this online community for the better part of 20 years, and that ain't a widely held view at all.

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ninXeno426
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Alright thanks S.M. The first i heard about it was Colonial Marines.The wiki too.Now i know you're going to say don't take wikis seriously and Colonial Marines isn't canon,but when i posted the thread about surgical removal of Chestbursters,i was curious how many people thought that,because you're right really i don't hear it very often,but i thought it was worth asking.I take it that's not one covered in The Weyland Yutani report?
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dk
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At least the linked blah blah videos give better theories and research than some posts simply naysaying. It is asked what we think at the end because there is no official answer and invites discussion and debate. If there were official answers there would be no need for debate.

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ninXeno426
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That's why I love posting threads.I love to hear people's theories.In case of one I did on Morse,the facts weren't very interesting.
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S.M
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Then don't put a clickbaity "Explained" in the title, but cheers for that tidbit of snark.  It's been nearly a week since I've had any.

"Alright thanks S.M. The first i heard about it was Colonial Marines.The wiki too.Now i know you're going to say don't take wikis seriously and Colonial Marines isn't canon,but when i posted the thread about surgical removal of Chestbursters,i was curious how many people thought that,because you're right really i don't hear it very often,but i thought it was worth asking.I take it that's not one covered in The Weyland Yutani report?"

I think the cancer thing was theorised prior to Colonial Marines, but that was the first I heard of it too.  It's a theory - just not a widely held one.

I don't see a problem with wikis as long as they're properly referenced.

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ninXeno426
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No one I know is familiar with the cancer angle.I'm not even sure what to think of it.
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S.M
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I don't really care for it based on the fact that they extracted the Queen from Ripley and there was no mention of cancer.  Nor when they talked about removing the burster from Purvis.  Pus there's no obvious tumours on Ripley's scan in Alien3.  There's a couple of caveats with those arguments, but that's the reason I don't find it valid.

As an aside I was re-reading the Steel Egg novel recently and one guy in that cut himself open and pulled his burster out, before dying of blood loss.

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ninXeno426
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That's pretty much why I posted the thread.When i played Colonial Marines,i just kinda found it offensive.Everything thing you mentioned came to mind.
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ninXeno426
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Of course that that's a bit off topic.
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HolyThursday
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These are all interesting theories but I've read and held to the idea that the chestburter births whenever it wants. There is the idea that the "perfection" of the species is seen across all cycles of its life. For example, the eggs can remain in stasis for ages, never decaying, never dying, but waiting. Until someone comes along and shakes it from its hibernation (Kane -- R.I.P. Mr John Hurt). So the chestburster can wait until the opportune time to birth itself. The queen Ripley carried took ages, we know, but it wasn't it convenient that she suddenly decide to erupt when Ripley made up her mind to leap and kill herself? The queen had no choice at that point. And why had she waited prior to that? She could be reacting to the stress Ripley was under and felt it would be unsafe. The colonist Mary as well. Her chestburster could also have felt the stress she was under -- she wanted to be killed -- so it felt the need to flee.

There are other bits about a telepathic connection that the chestburster, and even adult aliens, have with their hosts and human "prey" in general. I feel this is a better explanation tbh. But it's always fun to theorize.

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ali81
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from the ones I have seen almost all say 'I think' or 'this could explain'. that's why they call it a theory. when theres nothing factual they do say its what they think. basically doing what a lot of us on here have done which makes this forum so fascinating. u get MOST people on here coming out at least once saying 'I never thought of it that way' or 'interesting point' which is what I love about here, the open minds of most people

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S.M
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"These are all interesting theories but I've read and held to the idea that the chestburter births whenever it wants. There is the idea that the "perfection" of the species is seen across all cycles of its life. For example, the eggs can remain in stasis for ages, never decaying, never dying, but waiting. Until someone comes along and shakes it from its hibernation (Kane -- R.I.P. Mr John Hurt). So the chestburster can wait until the opportune time to birth itself. The queen Ripley carried took ages, we know, but it wasn't it convenient that she suddenly decide to erupt when Ripley made up her mind to leap and kill herself? The queen had no choice at that point. And why had she waited prior to that? She could be reacting to the stress Ripley was under and felt it would be unsafe. The colonist Mary as well. Her chestburster could also have felt the stress she was under -- she wanted to be killed -- so it felt the need to flee."

There's some merit to this.  It makes sense that a burster would want to abandon the host simply for self preservation. This happened in the comic for Alien3 when the Queen embryo crawled out of the dead Newt's mouth and into Ripley's.

However it's undermined by Ripley's burster not birthing when Dillon was going to kill her.

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suwhited
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@ Assimilated XenoMorph

Your statement "This also begs the question, could a host so unhealthy that a facehugger would not allow its self to impregnate the host? that's if the facehugger could tell the health of the host obviously..."

This  brings up so many angles. Consider that the face-huggers are attuned to living lifeforms. We see that they breach their egg sacks and emerge when a victim/prey/unlucky bastard is in the vicinity. 

In light of this and to bring a little levity (and possibly some discussion), I have prepared a few case studies:

1) One seriously overweight joker, who probably has to be weighed on multiple cattle scales. Subject plods into the the egg chamber (probably thinking it is some exotic all-you can eat buffet), but does the face-hugger take one for the team knowing that the alien he deposits might not be able to burrow his way through that mountain of flesh?  Does the face-hugger do risk analysis of the likelihood of its embryo surviving the "birth"...?

2. The Not-quite-right dude....Yeah, you know the guy at work that when you look him in the eyes, you realize "the lights are on, but nobody's home..." Can the face-hugger sense that it's about to latch itself onto a person who's about as likely to toss himself in front of a city bus as he is to go on a rant about the Bigfoot/UFO connection at the Monday morning meeting? Can it sense psychosis that may present a danger to the spore...?

3. The self-medicated type. And by Self-medicated, I don't mean doctor prescribed. If it has a stupid street-name like "Nuke", "Earthquake", or "Taze Them Testicles", this individual has tried it and even posted reviews on Yahoo. Would a face-hugger find this walking meth lab as a suitable host? Or would it upon realizing that mixing an alien spore with this chemical concoction might result in an explosion that could destroy the universe, and therefore keep it's proboscis where it belongs?.

Things that make you go HHMMMMMM...

Well I hope I didn't offend anyone with my case studies...If I did, blame it on poor home-training. You can, however,email me, and I will spank myself and issue you a half-hearted apology. Love this forum and all of your comments. Everyone have a great night!

 

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