Xenomorph
The xenomorph is a fictional extraterrestrial monster of unknown origin from the Alien universe, designed by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger. The Greek word xenos means "stranger" or "alien" (in the sense of "foreigner")", the common name of the xenomorph (not to be confused with the name of unknown extraterrestrial life) and morphê means "form", a Greek term that should not be confused with the English "morph". In other words, the word xenomorph itself means little more than "alien form" and was coined by a US Colonial Marine in Aliens. This is the only time that the word xenomorph is used canonically, and xenomorph is largely a fan-driven name for a creature that otherwise has been given no specific name or scientific name to use in reference. Within the fiction of the Aliens Universe, the xenomorph is often simply referred to as an Alien, or more derisively, a Bug. The DVD release of the first four films to feature the species identify its proper scientific binomial name to be Internecius raptus.
Characteristics
Xenomorphs are roughly humanoid with a skeletal or insectoid appearance. Typical adults are around two metres in height and have a black, armored skin or exoskeleton. They have an elongated, cylindrical head but lack visible eyes. Throughout the fiction, it has been speculated that xenomorphs "see" through their sense of smell using pheremones, through echolocation, and also through telepathy. No definitive answer to this question has been put forward.
The adult xenomorph is a living weapon. It has strong, sharp claws and a blade-like tip on the end of its prehensile tail. Its mouth contains a secondary jaw at the end of an extendable, piston-like appendage. This appendage can be rigid enough to penetrate a human skull, and has been illustrated to be surprisingly mobile and almost prehensile at the same time. It is often employed as a weapon. Xenomorph blood is a potent molecular acid, and is capable of dissolving almost any substance with alarming speed. The creature also has the ability to spit this acid, though this seems to be a rare behavior seen only in Alien³ and Alien: Resurrection as well as various comic books and video games.
Xenomorphs have an insect-like life cycle, based primarily off of those of the digger wasp, Ichneumon wasp, and of the ant or termite. An Alien queen lays eggs. These eggs release a single parasitic facehugger when a host comes near. The facehugger attacks the host and implants an embryo within the host's chest. This embryo takes on some of the host's traits (such as bipedalism or quadrupedalism), then develops into a parasitoid chestburster, at which point it emerges (usually from the chest of the host), killing the host. Within hours, the chestburster grows to adult size and begins to serve the hive.
Xenomorphs can produce a thick, strong resin, used to build their hives and cocoon victims. The exact nature and source of this resin remains unknown, though it shows amazing heat and moisture-retaining qualities, as seen in the hot, moist atmosphere of the hive in Aliens. Socially, they are hive-minded creatures, with a defined caste system which is ruled by a queen. They reproduce as parasitoids and grow to full size very rapidly.
Adult xenomorphs are quick and agile, and can run along ceilings and walls. They can survive in extreme temperatures, are well-adapted to swimming, and can survive in a vacuum for unknown lengths of time. Their movement tends to be silent, and they do not radiate heat as their exoskeletal temperature matches ambient temperature. They salivate profusely, and are extremely aggressive and persistent, while being totally devoid of fear. They appear to be intelligent (or at least learn quickly through Pavlovian, or classical conditioning,) especially the Queen. The slime that is constantly seen dripping from the creatures is written off by cast and crew as the xenomorph's way of helping it maintain a low body temperature.
Non-Canon Castes
The following castes do not appear in the movies and are thus not considered canon.
Praetorian
A royal elite guard to the Queen. Praetorians are larger than typical adults, but still only about half the size of the queen herself. Praetorians appear in the graphic novel series (and the Millennium/Orion books based on the same), such as Rogue and Female War (originally serialised as Earth War). They are also a playable class in the computer game Aliens Vs Predator 2, in which they cannot "wall-crawl" like the smaller aliens, but have a bullet-resistant exoskeleton. In the game, a background report on the biology of the creatures reveals them to be a mid-point in development between the more numerous smaller xenomorphs, and the Queen. In the video game Aliens Vs Predator: Extinction, they are hatched from "Praetorian Eggs" and can later molt to become a queen if the current queen is killed.
Other ruling classes
Queen Mother
The Queen Mother is the supreme ruling progenitor of the Aliens at least in this part of the Galaxy. She purportedly lives on the Hiveworld (which may be the name of the Space Jockey homeworld,) surrounded by a group of Queen-sized Praetorians that grew larger after eating the royal jelly created by the Queen Mother. The Queen Mother is twice as large as an Alien Queen (80 ft.) According to the comics she appears in, her head is not as wide as that of a simple Queen, and curves up like a blade at the back. In Genocide, after the first Queen Mother has been destroyed by Ellen Ripley in Female War, a new hive forms, which then enters into competition with the old hive, both of which have spawned new queen mothers. The aliens of the new hive are referred to as the reds; although the novels explain there is no visual difference, the graphic novels do show a difference in colour.
Empress
In Aliens vs. Predator 2, a variation of the original Alien Queen, the Alien Empress, was introduced. She, like the Queen, is a female and uses an eggsac to lay eggs. The Empress is sixteen feet larger and she has a differing crown, much like the Queen Mother differs from a simple Queen. The Empress' head curves up to form two large blades and two smaller blades at the rear of the head. She is seen only once, in AvP2, when she is captured by Dr. Eisenberg, who plans to use her in his bizarre experiments to combat the xenomorphs. However, she is released when a lone xenomorph confronts Eisenberg and literally tears him apart. He is later revealed to be a synthetic. It seems that while a regular queen controls only a single hive, an empress controls all xenomorphic activity on a single planet.
PredQueen
In Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction, a bizarre version of the Alien Queen is created, mixing Queen and Yautja Predator DNA. This version is called the "PredQueen". Not much is known about this Predator version of the Alien Queen, except that she is stronger, is four meters bigger than a normal Queen, and that she also uses an eggsac to produce xenomorph eggs. She looks like an Alien Queen with the appearance of a PredAlien. A PredQueen was probably featured in the ending scene of the movie Alien Vs Predator.
Rogue
In the comic Aliens: Rogue, a mad scientist engineered the Rogue: a male alien designed as a weapon to rival the queen caste and thus help rid the Earth of its alien infestation (see Earth Hive, Nightmare Asylum, Female War, and Genocide). However, as befits most cases where mad scientists prove they are every bit as insane as the stereotypes dictate, the Rogue escapes and wreaks havoc until it is torn apart by a Queen.
K-Series
In Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction, a variation of the original xenomorphs are created by Dr. Samuel Kadinsky. This group is called "The K-Series". They are almost identical to normal xenomorphs in ability but have a white pigmentation to their exoskeleton rather than the dark colors usually seen.
Carrier/Ravager
In Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction, a Praetorian can evolve into two other forms of Xenomorph than just the Queen: the Carrier and the Ravager. The Carrier Xenomorph has the ability to carry 6 Facehuggers on spikes coming out of its back, and some can even carry 12. Their vulnerability is their weak armor, but their greatest advantages are the facehuggers they are carrying.
The Ravager Xenomorph's claws have the ability to kill enemies with one swipe. They can slice through metal (Although this is considered nothing particularly unusual in the broader Aliens Universe. Most adult xenomorphs are capable of rending steel.) and their powerful armor makes them impervious to all but the most intense assault. Ravagers can also heal themselves over short periods of time.
Xenoborg
In the first Aliens vs. Predator computer game, there is a special variation of the Xenomorph, a cybernetically modified and enhanced xenomorph called the Xenoborg. It is reminesent of the Star Trek villains the Borg; their physical appearance consists of a mechanical and flesh covered body, 4 spider like legs, a Borg-eqsue face, and can fire laser blasts. Their only weakness appears to be a flashing green light that, when hit, shuts the Xenoborg down. The experiment only appeared in this PC game and its existence and whereabouts in subsequent games is a mystery.
See also
Alien Morphology in the Aliens vs Predator arcade game
Variations
The Alien has been portrayed in noticeably different ways throughout the films. Much of this is due to the technology and techniques used to bring it to life.
Body shape
In the original Alien film, Alien, they were depicted as tall, slender creatures with a roughly human silhouette and a biomechanical design. In later films, like Alien: Resurrection and Alien Vs Predator, they were depicted as being shorter and bulkier creatures, portrayed by either men in suits or computer-generated imagery.
Tail
Originally, the Alien's tail was roughly the length of the creature with a small, almost surgical stinger-like barb on the end. From Alien 3 onwards, however, the tail has grown in length and now features a knife-like blade at the tip. In Alien: Resurrection and Alien Vs Predator, the tails have also sported a fin right before the blade. This was introduced in Alien: Resurrection to help the creatures swim convincingly, and was left on in Aliens Vs Predator as ADI, the company that redesigned the creatures, did not have enough time to alter the designs.
The original shooting script for Aliens features a scene in which Lieutenant Gorman is "stung" by an Alien's stinger. He was not killed, merely stunned, and the barb remained lodged in his shoulder, having torn loose from the Alien's tail, much like a bee stinger. The novelisation also includes this scene, though the movie itself does not.
Head
In Aliens the xenomorph was depicted as having ridges along its cranium, while in all other films the creatures had smooth cowls covering their skull. In Alien: Resurrection and Alien Vs Predator, the head was shortened greatly to approximately half the original thirty-three inches. It was also made flat at the base, with little to no similarity to the original designs.
While it is never explained why the aliens from Aliens are missing the transparent cowl from their heads, a plausible theory exists in the fan community that since these Aliens are weeks older than the ones featured in the other films, they have fully matured and so their exoskeletons had fully hardend.
Fingers
In Alien and Alien 3 the xenomorph had six fingers, with the index & middle fingers conjoined into one digit and ring & pinky fingers also conjoined, and a thumb on both sides. In Aliens the xenomorphs were shown with five fingers, missing the extra thumb. In Alien: Ressurection and AvP, the aliens were shown to have four fingers.
There is no explanation for the fluctuating number of digits; however, if you count the conjoined fingers from each variation as a single finger, each alien had four fingers.
Reproduction
In Alien: Director's Cut, the alien originally had a second method of reproduction, whereby it could transform humans into eggs, as shown when Ellen Ripley discovers two victims of the xenomorph under the landing gear of their ship at the end of the film. This offered an origin for the eggs that did not require a queen, which seems to have been superseded (some would say merely complemented) by the queen in Aliens. None of the other films have continued with this method, and it is mostly considered atypical for the xenomorph life-cycle. Outside of the deleted scenes in recent versions of the film, this method of reproduction has never been seen and is not strictly considered canon.
In Alien 3 another addition was made: that of a "super facehugger" (Another fan term used regularly) that could impregnate two hosts with a Queen and regular embryo and was larger and darker compared to normal. This explains why both Ripley and a dog were impregnated from one egg. The super facehugger was found by some of the inmates, who thought it a type of jellyfish.
Debate
DNA assimilation
Many believe that chestbursters, while still in an embryonic stage, use the host's DNA to augment its own and acquire any useful traits that the host garnered through natural selection. This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, since the host is adapted to its environment, taking on some of its characteristics would further adapt the newborn alien to its new environment. This would essentially make all adult xenomorphs hybrid creatures. This idea was used in some novel and comic book spin-offs. Another explanation could be that since the eggs seem to be produced asexually, the embryo receives some of its chromosomes from its host to allow for biodiversity of the species.
Alien 3 furthered this by having an alien embryo implanted into a dog. The xenomorphs of the first two films were all implanted in humans, and thus could walk in a bipedal fashion; they also had foot-long dulled spines on their backs. The "dog-alien", also known to fans as a 'runner alien' of Alien 3 was visually very different from these, theoretically because it took on some of the DNA of its canine host. It preferred to move in a doglike manner, often running at high speed on all four legs. This new type did not have spines on its back, and was far more streamlined in appearance.
The xenomorphs of the fourth Alien film were something of an exception, because they were far more human-like, to the point that the Alien Queen gave live birth to a "human-alien hybrid": this was because these aliens were the result of cloning experiments by the military, and were not the "true" form of the species, having been spliced with substantial amounts of human DNA. This was not as a result of the normal implantation-DNA-assimilation process.
In various comics and the "Alien vs. Predator" video game series, this is taken a step further when a xenomorph embryo is implanted into a Yautja (Predator); the result is an Alien with Predator characteristics, a "Pred-alien". This hybrid stood on two legs, and had the basic body-outline of a Predator, having lost the elongated head shape. It also lacked the inner set of jaws characteristic of other xenomorphs, but sported a set of mandibles reminiscent of those of the Predator. This motif was also repeated at the end of the recent Aliens vs Predator film, largely based on the comic books and the video game series and written by the director of Resident Evil.
Caste/Cowl
Many fans believe that the difference between the original alien from the first movie and the swarm in the second is that of a soldier alien vs. drone aliens and that the colony contains both. Others believe that there is no soldier/drone caste and that standard adults are suitable to do all needed tasks.
Most of this debate is due to the variances between the two xenomorph designs in the first and second movie, primarily the issue of the cowl. Other popular theories are that the xenomorph sheds its cowl after further maturity (xenomorphs in all movies but the second were less than three days old). Film cast has noted that the cowl was simply skipped in Aliens, as the physical model had a habit of cracking and breaking.
Endoskeleton
Some believe that the xenomorph contains an endoskeleton as well as an exoskeleton. The primary fuel for this debate is the xenomorph skull seen as a trophy in the movie Predator 2. In the Aliens vs. Predator comics the aliens have only an exoskeleton, but this skeleton can be bleached to the color and appearance of bone when left in the sunlight (Such as the queen's head trophy on Machiko Noguchi's roof at the end of Prey).
Genetic Adaptability
Although the 'DNA-theft' theory is popular, the idea of the xenomorphic embryo actually using DNA from the host is a matter of some debate, on the following points:
- Does a silicone-based lifeform like the xenomorph even use DNA? (This is addressed in one of the Aliens novels, where it is revealed that the xenomorph possesses more than the standard four DNA basetypes of A, G, C and T, but still does include those.)
- Can a silicone-based lifeform make some use of carbon-based DNA?
- Borrowing an antire host chromosome seems an unlikely possibility.
- Specialized cells do not contain the entire organism's genome; stem cells would need to be factored into the process somehow. (Or perhaps those certain specialized cells are simply enough for the alien, in that as it has no desire to reproduce the entire host organism, it needs only hints at its traits.)
A more detailed explaination may be that a facehugger or chestburster is capable of deciphering its host's DNA, deciding upon which traits it would like to keep, and re-encoding the DNA of the embryo in order to obtain these "genetic ideas" for the resultant adult creature.
A facehugger's long period of attachment to its host supports that more is occurring than the simple laying of an egg. In the Alien fiction, it has been noted that the very few survivors of the alien impregnation process, are often mentally unbalanced, prone to aggression, and known for feats of inhuman strength. Dr. Paul Church and Ripley 8 exhibit these traits to varying degrees.
Theories
According to the computer game Aliens vs. Predator 2, xenomorphs utilize ultrasound for relatively long-distance communication. Xenomorph hives are built with smooth, rounded edges instead of rough, sharp edges because sound propagates better in such an environment. The skulls of xenomorphs act as sonic amplifiers for both boosting the transmission of messages and ensuring that incoming messages remain audible. This theory correlates with the Queen's massive head, since administrative duties would require greater transmission/receiving strength than normal xenomorphs. Likewise, this correlates with the theory of telepathy amongst the xenomorphs; drones and workers need only basic telepathy organs to receive a queen's signals, while a queen needs a more powerful ability to broadcast. Likewise, in the Earth Hive trilogy of novels, particularly sensitive humans experience strange dreams with the impression that the Queen Mother is calling to them as well, from across the galaxy. However, these theories contradict the Rogue Aliens novel, which describes a portion of the xenomorph's brain that contains telepathic capabilities. In Rogue, it was theorized that xenomorphs that stay further from a queen have a diminished array of telepathic lobes. These lobes are used to communicate specifically with the queen as well as others (but on a lesser basis).
The origins of the xenomorphs have never been fully explained in the films, but the expanded Alien literature has stated that the xenomorphs are bio-weapons genetically engineered by an ancient race called the "Space Jockeys". Little is known of this race except that they are purported to have created the xenomorphs to fight an ancient civil war. Alien eggs would be used as "bombs" on an enemy planet and then the xenomorphs would proceed to kill the entire population as they spawned. The xenomorphs were then genetically designed to die off, however eventually mutated and thrived even after killing their prey. The Space Jockeys were then killed by their own creations until very few remained. A single member of the Space Jockey race escaped in a freighter or warship full of xenomorph eggs, but was himself infected with a xenomorph and killed. This is, presumably, the large humanoid fossilized figure seen by the crew of the Nostromo in the first film. The Yautja discovered the xenomorphs in ancient times, and chose to hunt the creatures for sport. However, the Yautja had no desire to hunt upon a fully infested planet, so would often seed new planets with xenomorph eggs, then descend to hunt the newly hatched adults. Unfortunately, Yautja administration and accounting is less than exact, and xenomorph drones are often inadvertently allowed to escape into the wild after a hunt, resulting in the planet becomming infected. Yautja do quite honestly attempt to prevent this unintended side-effect of their alien hunts, but accidents happen with regularity. This is mentioned in the Aliens vs Predator: War comics as well as the Earth Hive trilogy of novels. This is presumably a major factor in dispersal of the xenomorphs from one planet to another even after their creators became extinct.
