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Queen-The Alien Queen is the sole proprietor of the hive. She is responsible for laying eggs and continuing the alien species. It is not known how the Queen produces these eggs. The egg laying process is a long and arduos one. The Queen can lay many (possibly thousands) of eggs at a time, similar to a queen ant. All reproductive tasks are taken care of by her and she directs the other aliens in the hive and the tasks that go on there. The Queen lays eggs through the use of a clear liquid filled egg sack, a biomechanical birth factory of sorts. The egg sack is supported by many strands of resin, presumably the same resin that is used by the adult aliens to cocoon hosts.The egg sack also suspends the Queen several feet in the air, as she is attatched to it and sits on top of it. The eggs are placed in front of hosts by the adult aliens.It is believed that the Queen communicates with the other aliens through a telepathic link which seems to have been demonstrated in Aliens. It would also seem that an adult alien can detect when a Queen embryo and possibly any alien embryo is within the body of a host. This unique sense seems to have been demonstrated in Alien 3 when the alien did not kill Ripley and later seemed to protect her from danger when it detected the Queen embryo she was carrying.
The Queen can be distinguished from the other aliens very easily. She is much larger in size and has a crown. She also has four arms instead of two like the others. Due to the importance of the Queen to the survival of the hive and the alien race, there is a theory that a Queen Alien comes from a larger, more powerful, armored facehugger.
The Queen wants to insure the safety of future generations of aliens, and therefore will sacrafice her children to protect her unborn brood. The Queen will even sacrafice herself to protect future generations if she has to, as we saw in Aliens.
"If each of these comes from an egg, there would have to be one for each of the colonists. That's over a hundred at least. So who's laying these eggs?"-Ripley (Aliens) "I don't know. It must be something we haven't seen yet"-Bishop (Aliens) OTHER NOTES:
In Aliens, Bishop originally speculated that the alien eggs came from another type of alien (which was later discovered to be a Queen). He said that perhaps it was very similar to a queen ant or bee. This part of the conversation between Bishop, Ripley, and the marines, was cut out of the theatrical release and was replaced with the line "It must be something we haven't seen yet." It is stated in the Aliens comic books and novels that an adult alien can act as a Queen alien (at least as far as laying eggs goes) when there is no longer a Queen around (i.e. the Queen dies or gets killed). This is not necessarily true, as we cannot take anything stated outside of the movies to be part of Aliens' continuity. This would be an interesting idea however, seeing as that it would only serve to make the aliens an even more perfect organism.
Adult alien-The adult alien is the fifth and final stage of the alien life cycle. The adult alien is the mature form of the chestburster and is the most dangerous and most deadly stage of the alien. The adult alien is biomechanical looking (the human form combined with mechanical parts) and grows a long, banana shaped head, an exoskeleton, sharp claws, a spiked tail, a second jaw complete with sharp teeth (or a tongue with teeth as H.R. Giger calls it), and are about eight feet tall. The adult aliens have concentrated acid for blood, and it is believed that this acid is so cold that the aliens do not show up on infared. The aliens have no visible eyes and it is possible that they may not breathe, making it possible that they can survive in a vacuum.
"Whatever it was- -it was big"-Parker (Alien)
"A creature that gestates inside a living human host- -these are your words- -and has concentrated acid for blood"-Company Representative- (Aliens)
GENETIC VARIATIONS:
Not all adult aliens are the same, at least not physically. While the majority of the ones we have seen so far have had ridges in their head (which could be sensory organs) and walk on two feet, there has been genetic variations. One specimen, found on Fiorina "Fury" 161, walked on four feet and had a smooth head. It was also missing the tubes on it's back. These differences may have been due to the host which it was incubating in (a dog), or may have been due to the environment in which the chestburster was born in. Another theory states that adult aliens inherit certain physical characteristics from it's host. Yet another theory states that during the embryo stage of development, the alien consults it's host's DNA so that it may develop in a way that will make it adaptable to the environment that it will be living in. The adult alien seen in Alien also had a smooth head as opposed to a riged one. "...different than any that I've ever seen before..."-Ripley (Alien 3) ROLES IN THE HIVE:
The adult aliens main purpose is to serve and protect the Queen. They also find and cocoon suitable hosts for impregnation by facehuggers, and are responsible for building the hive. They cocoon hosts by using a secreted resin, or so it is believed. What it is secreted from is unknown, and what the resin is made of is also unknown. An adult alien will capture a potential host before it would kill one (unless directly theatened), because it is more valuable as a living incubator than it is dead.
"Looks like some kind of secreted resin."-Dietrich (Aliens)
"Yeah, but secreted from what?"-Hicks (Aliens)
The aliens remain a valuable commodity to Weyland-Yutani, who wants to use them as a biological weapon, regardless of the fact that time and time again, it has been proven that they cannot be contained.
OTHER NOTES:
It is speculated that adult aliens can survive in vacuum such as space. This theory is supported in the unused Alien 3 script by William Gibson. However, since this script was never used, and this theory has not been supported in any of the other movies (unless the fact that the alien in Alien and the Queen alien in Aliens did not explode when they were thrown into space like any other known creature would have) then we cannot definitely say that this theory is true. The adult alien in Alien was played by Bolaji Badejo.
The Egg-The first stage of the Alien life cycle is the egg. The egg is home to the facehugger, the second stage of the Alien life cycle. Eggs are created and laid by a Queen Alien via a long tube that extends from her abdomen. The eggs are approximately 2.5 feet tall, have a leathery texture, and appear transluscent, especially when light is shined on it. ". . .it's full of leathery objects; like eggs or something."-Kane(Alien) The eggs can survive in various environments for an undetermined period of time. It is speculated that the egg can determine when a potential host is near and that it can then awaken the facehugger (possibly via an electrical signal). The egg then opens like a blossoming flower, allowing the facehugger to attack its host. In a hive setting, the eggs are moved by the drone Aliens to areas containing cocooned hosts and are then protected by the drones.
There are two important factors to note about eggs. The first is that the egg seen in Alien 3 was different looking than the one in Alien or the ones in Aliens. This egg was smaller and more round. The Alien in Alien 3 was also different than the ones in the first two movies, and this may have been due to the difference in the egg, the host, the environment, or any number of factors. The second factor to notice is this.
In Alien, there was a scene that was cut out that depicted how the Alien reproduced. After immobilizing a victim, the Alien would cocoon them and they would then undergo a metamorphosis that transformed them into an Alien egg. However, in Aliens, we can see that eggs are laid by the Queen. Since the scene was cut from the theatrical release, but is available in the Director's Cut version, we can neither confirm nor deny that eggs can also be produced by this method.
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