We've seen that the implanted alien borrows a portion of the appearance of it's host's species. The canine-like, much more ferocious alien of the third movie showed us that up close. (In "Resurrection" it would've been cool if neo-Ripley had found other Alien-subjects than just botched human one's)

We've also seen how, despite the aliens different terrain and timeframe, they turn out basically the same, with the same form of communication, same respiratory-system (ie. huh?) and the same set of directives: Protect alien-infants, coordinate with the hive, exterminate life. (Why it didn't do Ripley's cat in I don't know, perhaps it was too darn cute).

The general thought, if you'd ask anyone that cared enough to contemplate the background of the movie, is that the original aliens from the first movie had killed the crew of the unknown vessel, waited until a queen came out of one of the unlucky bastards and then, in shortage of more subjects (equalling a halt in hive-size) they prepped for immortality by laying eggs.

Since there were no alien welcome-committee in the first movie my guess is that the aliens do come with an expiration-date after all. Or they were simply smashed against bulkheads in the crash. But then, why didn't the eggs fall out of whack?

Now, I'd like to go deeper. What if the unknown aliens that flew the ship weren't just the xenomorphs unlucky victims, but their inventors!

I think the aliens were an ingeniously artificial form of biological warfare from the beginning, biological "Cyborgs" if you will, not just an appealing notion thought of by Carter Burke, although he caught on pretty quick.

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Theory 1:

The vessel in "Alien" carried the inventors and users, that probably were on their way to drop their latest shipment from the lab-factories to their navy.
The security broke down, perhaps by some tired dog-shift guard that "leaned too close to the glass".

But IF they were the inventors they should've had procedures for that, so there must've been a far more widespread catastrophy for them to lose control of their own ship.

Exhibit A:
The storage bays.
They were filled with eggs put there in such an orderly fashion that they probably were put there by the crew. A queen somewhere (perhaps on a space-station, so that it could be blown to bits if taken over) was milked on eggs and they were shipped out.
The storage bays also had a form of chemical or electrical force-field that warned the eggs of prospects in the vicinity, or just booted them up so they could judge for themselves. Since the field didn't seem present in "Aliens" it suggests it was installed by the inventors.

Exhibit B:
No independent biology.
The biology and chemistry of the aliens suggest that they have little room left in their DNA for more evolution. They have already been 99% sreamlined. And yet they need a host to borrow the "boot-files" from...

Humans have 28 (is it?) chromosomes, some insects have three or four. Evidence of a loong, grooming evolution that peeled away all the other could-be forms of the insect, leaving it with very thought-through biology and purpose.
The aliens probably have just one chromosome, maybe in the form of a virus that attaches to the DNA of the host.

Exhibit C:
Time and aging.
The beacon in the ship played on even after the time the space-cannon alien had been fossilized, obviously due to some sort of self-sufficient energy-source.
The fact that the eggs didn't have a short expiration-date suggests that they too fed from the energy-matrix in the few surviving ships-systems after the crash, evidence of the inventors caring for their cargo. Although some insects can stay frozen indefinately and come out alive after thawing, the eggs weren't frozen.

Exhibit D:
Silicon.
The organisms are silicon-based, a fact that should've startled the witnesses in the sickbay of the Nostromo more pronounced, I think.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here. Maybe the aliens aren't even based on biological matter at all, maybe they are a self-replicating, assimilating computer-program so advanced that it assumes the characteristics of a living being. It would be much easier to control by the inventors if they built the DNA from scratch, so it couldn't go wrong every thousand generations, like in Jurassic Park. "Life finds a way".
Well not if you have the copyright and FAQ on this particular lifeform, it won't!

Aargh! There's so much more I want to write, I get new ideas by the minute!!!
But I can't fit it in without boring you to death, so that's all for now. It's enough hell trying to edit this text readable.

Now let's hear some spicy arguments! For or against, whatever brings light to these oh so delightfully unexplored topics.

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Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

I never thought of it THAT way. Seems the evidence in the alien ship on LV-486 does fit the theory you propose. I've always thought the xenomorphs had a planet of origin. They might still but what if the aliens who was tinkering with the xenomorphs found them in their original habitat, whatever that might be and thought "Gee, lets mess around with these things." and then it all blows up in their faces, just like it did some many years later on the USM Auriga.

In fact, you could delve deeper and come to the conclusion that the Aliens saga is a cautionary tale about genetic engereering and it's concequences.

Quatre.

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"Omae o korusu..." - Heero Yuy

Originally, the U-shaped alien vessel with Pilot interior and the vast cavern in to which Kane descends were to be two different locations: the cavern was inside a large alien pyramid or other ancient complex. The Pilot was a victim just as much as the Nostromo crew. On the wall of the pyramid were hieroglyphic images of the Alien lifecycle-- a warning not heeded.

This two-location idea was dropped because of budget and time restrictions, thus linking the Pilot with the cavern and suggesting that the Pilot's race were connected to the Aliens directly (designed by, captured by and bred for war, transported as scientific samples, or being taken away for disposal?)

one of the non-cannon Aliens sequel paperbacks says that the Alien species arose naturally and were discovered by the Pilot's race, who are collectors, that one U-shaped ship having had a little cargo problem while traveling.

Quatre.

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"Omae o korusu..." - Heero Yuy

In fact, there is an Alien skull in the ship in Predator 2. This may suggest that several species have had similar thoughts about harnessing the Aliens for various uses.

As for the first movie, I was always under the impression that the Pilot had crashed on the surface and his crew was "infected" afterwards. Which would mean that the Aliens were already there. Perhaps the mist field is a naturally occuring biologic result of the eggs' hybernation.

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Quatre.

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"Omae o korusu..." - Heero Yuy

And since the "lil bugger" more than tripled its size and shed it's skin, after birth but before killing Harry Dean, it goes to prove it doesn't need much help or nourishment to develop, that came with the package.

This is another parallel to evolutionized species. Human babies need very much help after being born and it takes a long time before they can walk, whereas foals and kids just need a couple of hours to get their shit together.
So IF the aliens were engineered genetically they could've been designed with extremely accelerated growth and metabolism to quickly get battle-ready. The side effects being many waste-products, like acids and drool.

It's very interesting that Giger designed them without eyes, much food for thought.

I've always thought that the "acid-for-blood" thing was a nice touch. Think of it like this. Since everything about the "aliens" is hard, sturdy and lethal, it's only fitting that the body-chemistry of them is extremely advanced and concentrated.

Ahh! Theory 2:
Battery acid or gasoline?

Here's another item in favor of aliens being very fine, sophisticated cyborgs.
In Fox Entertainment's first-person-shooter "Aliens Versus Predator" the predator had multiple filters in which his visor could display different spectrums of light, an idea hatched from the events in "Predator II".
Now, the aliens are best visible in the game when the predator accesses the "electro-magnetic" spectrum, concluding that aliens have a high body-electricity.
This got me thinking. It's obvious that the alien chemistry is very different.
But just how different?
The alien body could be compared to an automobile and it's feisty battery, providing power for all the systems. Maybe the acid is not blood but fuel, and the exhaust-fumes are the drool?

Now, exactly how it goes by gathering MORE energy is in the shadows, as we've never seen it feed.
The groce scene in "Alien III", where the dog-alien is frenetically emptying the inside of a poor inmate, was in my opinion not feeding but a standard way for making sure the prey was dead.
Kinda like wild dogs do when they've laid down a beast, they keep biting and ripping and such.

In many non-canon books, emphasis has been put on their sense of smell. When a face-hugger has been killed it secretes stress-hormones and other chemicals, alerting other aliens within a kilometre of an attack or fatality. This can also explain to some extent why aliens seem so coordinated, like cattle-herds that move as one, like in the first battle-scene of "Aliens", where aliens started hissing mere seconds after the little alien-infant had been toasted.

Appendix: Maybe aliens attack people's foreheads because they "see" the electromagnetic signatures in our brains, the most electrically concentrated part of the body, thus concluding that it's the most critical system in our bodies, and therefore the best spot to attack. Very effective...

------------------
Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

Get ready, this'll be a bit unordered and patch worked. I can give a more detailed theory later.

Ok, if you go by the books, their origin is still a mystery and only speculated. The Predators do use them for hunting, but they only discovered them, they didn't create or breed them to what they are today anymore than they bred humans for hunting.

Their procreation is obviously bizzare but not unheard of here. Several insect species infect other insects with their eggs and those eat and grow out of the host.

The use of a face-hugger as the transportation mode of the embryo of the aliens is a smart evolutionary move too. Instead of having the egg sit there waiting for a host, the embryo goes on the hunt for a host to use. This would help in a sparsely populated area.

Of course the speed to which they grow is phenomenal. That would suggest they either have some other form of feeding (like they use some gas as a fuel, oxygen, nitrogen, something common) or they have to feed soon afterwards after using so much mass to grow (explaining their ferocious and messy eating habits [wouldn't you slaughter a pig if you were starving to death too? .

Now onto the drones. Those are some tough fuckers we've seen, which suggests their homeworld is a tough and dangerous world. Imagine if they were only the equivalent of ants on their homeworld. How they exist and are structured, a Queen, drones/food gatherers, warriors and egg tenders suggests this as a possibility. It would make sense if they weren't the top of the food chain, they'd need some heavy armorment and protection against other predators.

The hive itself is made of their secretions, suggesting again they use something less obvious to us as a fuel/food source. They may require only organic mass of some form, or they don't require food at all, only building materials (again much like bees, wasps or some ant species) to construct their hive and incubate their young.

There's a few sites out there that better fully explain the species and life cycles.

I'll look one of the best ones up and post it later.

Those Yahoo bastards are buying everything. The webring I was looking for, they bought them

I found the page, The Anchor Point Essays finally.

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[6th Sense] I see dumbass people [/6th Sense]

I do have a reply for you, but it'll have to wait until lunch or my boss will string my balls up for all to see.

Cheerio!

------------------
Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

Quatre.

------------------
"Omae o korusu..." - Heero Yuy

Actually, I think in the future, we could gentically create one, but not for centuries still. I doubt anyone would be so crazy though.

Truly awesome creatures, but the best thing is that, like, 80% of the interesting facts about the alien was conceived for the first movie, but you didn't get all of it until you had really analyzed it.

------------------
Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

The second film established that the species can't be seen on infrared. This might suggest the species doesn't radiate heat like humans.

I don't see the last two films as 'canonical'. The first two films establish that an egg needs to be near a host for the egg to open and release the 'face-hugger'. The egg in the third film wasn't near the host, yet open. This is in direct contradiction of the first two films.

I consider the first film and the second film to be very good science fiction. I especially see the first film as being perceptive to a possible future.

Corporations will be the entities to get humans into space to search and locate valuable resources to return to earth for processing and distribution. The spaceships owned by the corporations will not be pretty. They will be very utilarian and could be quite ugly aesthically speaking. Nostromo is in my opinion one of the best designed and conceived spaceships ever built.