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The Alien; Ripley's nemesis
Topic Started: Sep 7 2009, 05:46 AM (7,860 Views)
sam999
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You know the alien. That face hugging, acid dripping, stomach bursting, cantankerous creature of HR Giger's fantastic imagination. We're talking about Ellen Ripley's nemesis and Ridley Scott's meal ticket.

Terrifying and slightly resembling your boss, she has made an indelible impression on movie-goers for 30 years. Unfortunately that impression has been watered down as this ferocious beast of deep space has never been explaned. For this we want how it works. Is the facehugger, chestbuster, monster a working idea? Could it evolve? What good is it? So here is where to post ANYTHING that has to do with this space monster.
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Ànraich
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I would really love to know more about the Aliens, particularly their reproductive cycle. So they lay eggs with a facehugger in it, which then inserts the developing Alien into a living organism. But what's the purpose of the facehugger? Is it some kind of larva? Is it just a biological tool developed by the Alien's body, like a mermaid purse or sperm? Is it possibly another gender?
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Are you plausible?

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You know the alien.


When I was a kid I was big into the Aliens action figure set. One of my favorite things about them was that each one came with an action-packed little comic book that showed the intrepid humans blasting the latest incarnation of alien. Priceless!

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Unfortunately that impression has been watered down as this ferocious beast of deep space has never been explaned.


I disagree, in the sense that not knowing whether an alien is plausible makes them any less ferocious. Within the conventions of the movie it's believable because, well, there it is eating humans. SCARY! In reference to typical sci-fi aliens, it's as believable as just about anything out there. I do agree, however, that it is interesting to see just how plausible such a ferocious beast is.

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But what's the purpose of the facehugger?


As far as I've understood them, facehuggers were kind of a larval stage of the life cycle, living long enough to deposit a chestbursting embryo. I doubt it's like a mermaid purse, as that would be more like the egg that the facehugger comes out of. I see it more as facehugger = caterpillar that has issues with PDA, 'adult' alien = sneaky, acid-filled killer butterfly, biological host = creature that had better things to do with its life than become a living cocoon.

A google search gave me this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(Alien_franchise)#Life_cycle

One question I have is the feasibility of acid blood. Can something so corrosive provide the alien with what it needs?
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colddigger
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so it's like a fern... one generation is the mighty alien the next generation is the face hugger.

i thought the alien was something made by another alien, but then i was never really into the alien stuff...

it's possible that the acid could be carrying dissolved nutrients.
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i thought the alien was something made by another alien, but then i was never really into the alien stuff...


Alien queen --> Egg --> Facehugger --> Chestburster --> Alien drone

I'm not sure exactly how you make a new queen...

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it's possible that the acid could be carrying dissolved nutrients.


Something acidic would certainly dissolve things, as long as it doesn't dissolve too much. :)
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Ànraich
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Perhaps it's not blood at all. Blood is alive, it's made of cells too. Those cells travel to organs, which break down materials into resources the body needs and the blood carries it to where it's needed. However if you had less complex organs you could simply have something acidic that broke down materials and simply carried the resources around, with cells taking what they needed.

Think of it like this; blood is like the Schwan's man. The different parts of the body place an order, which goes to the brain. The brain then gives you cravings for something that contains what is requested, and you eat it. The stomach breaks it down and the intestines absorb it into the blood. The blood then picks it up and drops it off where it's needed as it goes by.

Now the acid is like the ice cream man. The brain drives you to eat whatever you can (which is why it attacks relentlessly with no obvious signs of intelligence or reason in its hunting) and the acid breaks it down. As the acid flows through the body the cells simply take whatever they need as it passes by. You get what's available and if what you want isn't there that's too bad; maybe next time.

It's much simpler than blood and not exactly the most efficient system. But then again if they're just drones what does it matter how complex they are?
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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colddigger
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that's sorta what i meant, maybe the acid is actually like stomach acid, it collects in a stomach pump and after the food is dissolved in it the stomach pumps it through the body, of course if they breath (not sure if they were ever shown surviving in space) then the stomach acid would need to be continuously pumped through the body to supply oxygen or whatever, which would mean it could have a chambered gut like a cow that rapidly dissolves the food, that could explain why they eat so much too...
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Eat so much? I have not watched all of the films or seen the related media, but I thought we never saw them eat, only kill. My impression was they eat all they need inside the host and then don't eat while adults. Like very scary moths.

Oh and how do the inherit characteristics from the host? The one that used a dog was a quadruped and the ones that infect people come out bipeds.
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they do it by being so cool
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Y'know, the more I think about it, the less I remember the aliens actually eating anybody. They bite, they claw, they tear to pieces, but aside from their parasitic gestation inside the host organism, I don't remember seeing them clearly ingesting anything. I even remember thinking that maybe the 'adult's' only purpose was to incapacitate (but not necessarily kill) and capture them to become hosts as well. It would explain why some characters are snatched away only to be found alive and trapped in some sort of mucus package to await their facehugger.
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sam999
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Sep 7 2009, 03:33 PM
that's sorta what i meant, maybe the acid is actually like stomach acid, it collects in a stomach pump and after the food is dissolved in it the stomach pumps it through the body, of course if they breath (not sure if they were ever shown surviving in space) then the stomach acid would need to be continuously pumped through the body to supply oxygen or whatever, which would mean it could have a chambered gut like a cow that rapidly dissolves the food, that could explain why they eat so much too...
Mabey it's baced on silacon and tge acid is like that from a battery. You probly just thought "but the HOW can it grow in a human" heres how. The chestbuster is not ment to eat the pray but for camaflosh. On it's home planet the alien hunts herd animels. It does so like this: 1. facehugger infests animel 2. animal returns to herd 3. animels chest goes bang 4. the newly hached alien now has lots of food to kill and bring back to the hive. Therefor when in a human the chestbuster can live. When it exits it will try to eat a human or other pray. However as we are baced on carbon and it is not it can't digest the pray. As a resoult it goes into a "killing frenzy" trying to find something it can eat.
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Oh and how do the inherit characteristics from the host? The one that used a dog was a quadruped and the ones that infect people come out bipeds.


Maybe the Chestburster is 'born' from the face-hugger instead of metamorphises. While it's inside you it steals some of your genetic material to create the offspring, and it usually has all it's genes dominant (like those amphibians where they mate with males of another species, but their genes are dominant so they always are of the mother's species), however not always. Sometimes the human genes or dog genes are dominant. Only the Alien genome is passed on, like with supergenes, as a sort of superchromosone.

It makes since until you realize it evolved on another planet. Let's chalke it up to panspermia.
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They seem more like viruses than organisms. They kind of remind me of the Bugs from Starship Troopers or perhaps the Zerg from Starcraft. So my theory is this:

The queen is the producer. It lays eggs, which hatch into facehuggers that then infect the closest organism they kind find. The drone produced by that facehugger will then seek out the optimal host, the host with conditions either closest to the queen's or with the best set of traits to acquire more hosts (in Earth's case it would be humans, with our bilateral stance allowing us near limitless dexterity and agility). The drones then seek out more hosts and food for the queen. Eventually the drones, being merely products/tools of the queen and not designed to acquire their own energy, will die as they use up their energy reserves. The queen must continue to consume food and gain energy in order to produce a new queen to continue the process of survival and preserve the species. Eventually the queen must either go dormant until life evolves again on the planet or die.

I find only one problem with this; given how powerful and successful the Aliens are, they must eventually destroy all the complex life on the planet and end up destroying themselves. So I doubt they evolved naturally somewhere. It seems to me like they were designed by some advanced species as a weapon of war, but ended up destroying them. The scene with the Space Jockey seems to support my theory on their Unnatural Origin. What do you all think?
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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sam999
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Sep 7 2009, 04:49 PM
They seem more like viruses than organisms. They kind of remind me of the Bugs from Starship Troopers or perhaps the Zerg from Starcraft. So my theory is this:

The queen is the producer. It lays eggs, which hatch into facehuggers that then infect the closest organism they kind find. The drone produced by that facehugger will then seek out the optimal host, the host with conditions either closest to the queen's or with the best set of traits to acquire more hosts (in Earth's case it would be humans, with our bilateral stance allowing us near limitless dexterity and agility). The drones then seek out more hosts and food for the queen. Eventually the drones, being merely products/tools of the queen and not designed to acquire their own energy, will die as they use up their energy reserves. The queen must continue to consume food and gain energy in order to produce a new queen to continue the process of survival and preserve the species. Eventually the queen must either go dormant until life evolves again on the planet or die.

I find only one problem with this; given how powerful and successful the Aliens are, they must eventually destroy all the complex life on the planet and end up destroying themselves. So I doubt they evolved naturally somewhere. It seems to me like they were designed by some advanced species as a weapon of war, but ended up destroying them. The scene with the Space Jockey seems to support my theory on their Unnatural Origin. What do you all think?
That might explane why the planet the space jocky ship was found on had no life :)
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I usually say their success is because they are an invading species. On their homeworld organisms would have evolved ways to deal with them, maybe even preyed on them. Here, nothing does that. Look at all the real world invading species and how they take over the new ecosystem.
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