From: 01fortec@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: Re: Alien biology
Date: 13 Nov 92 02:08:00 GMT
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <74478@hydra.gatech.EDU>, ccoprdj@prism.gatech.EDU (Jorge Diaz) writes:
> In article <1992Nov11.212230.5626@tandem.com> Montague_Kevin@Tandem.com (Kevvy Kev) writes:
> 
>>Why?  If she tells them to do something, and they do it, then yes, Virginia,
>>she's controlling them.  Maybe we mean different things when we say "control,"
>>let me be more clear: controls them the way a sarge controls his troops, or a
>>momma her children.  Clear?
> 
> OK, good.  :-)
> 
> Sorry if I'm being anal about it, I just don't like words like "control".
> They imply *way* too much.  So, she rules over them.

How about directs?

> 
>>Again, we have to draw from non-canon materials for "evidence," but that's 
>>okay, for the purposes of this discussion.  In both books, we Do see the 
>>bugs eating.  In the first it eats the ship's stores, in the second, I believe
>>they eat the livestock that they don't use for gestation, as well as food from
>>the colony.  Again, this is a relatively painless assumption, because (a) it 
>>doesn't contradict any of the canonical, or on-screen material, and (b) it 
>>makes sense.
> 
> OK, this is a reasonable assumption.  I don't actually believe that the
> Alien doesn't eat, I was just using that as an example.
> 
>>See above. However, let's bring in that wretched third movie here (oblig. slam)
>>because I think there's a good point to be made: was the Alien at the end 
>>willing to kill Ripley?  Puts a different spin on things.
> 
> When it jumped for her you mean?  I still don't think so.  Why would it?  It
> didn't know that she was about to kill herself.
> 
> UNLESS the Alien sensed that the Queen was ready to come out, and then it
> wouldn't matter if it killed Ripley or not.  So, can the drone tell if the
> Queen is ready to emerge?  If so, this would seriously affect their treatment
> of the Queen's host.
> 
>>And I'm saying, we can do better.  If you think about it, this is a knee-jerk
>>response, that sounds like cheating.  We can do better than say, "Oh, the 
>>numbers don't work out?  Then they must be able to implant multiple embryos."
> 
> Well, sometimes NO amount of "reasonable" rationalization can account for
> bad writing. :-)
> 
> OK, so if they can't plant two embryos, and a single egg can't contain two
> facehuggers, how'd the eggs get on the Sulaco?  (deja vu!)
> 
> Or do we simply not care about that?
> 

There's some implication that the company may have known about the derelict
as far back as A1.

 (the ship was rerouted, in answer to a call it translated. Common sense, as 
far as ships are concerned, would dictate that the crew should have been 
revived for the course change if this were normal procedure, if only to allow 
for course plotting and logging the changes accordingly.  That's what they 
were there for, among other things. It would be extremely difficult to lay
criminal negligence on a captain if he has no actual control on his ship, even
if all he has to do is acknowledge the changes.
Also, nobody knew about Ash, but he seems to know about the alien in detail, 
so maybe their's wasn't the first company ship to find the derelict, or at 
least the signal had been deciphered before.)

>>Shorthand for visible light.  Another obligatory slam at A3, in which our
>>"perfect" killing machine relies on the same perceptual tools we astigmatic 
>>humans use.  Ugh.
> 
> Ah.  Colors of the spectrum.  Got it.  Hmm, yes, again, no way to get around
> that bad writing.  OK, so the Aliens don't have eyes.  How do they see?  Or,
> how do they sense what's around them?
> 

How about if that dome they sport is somekind of photo-sensory apparatus? Even 
if it only fell within normal light range it would have panoramic views in 
+180 degrees by +180 degrees of direction. They may also be sensitive to 
changes in eletromagnetic fields, sensing movement by changes around them.

>>Okay, how's this: the alien in the first was a drone that used whatever means
>>(help me out here) to turn Brett into an egg, and cocooned Dallas as the next
>>host. It then went through the ship, killed the others it ran into, and 
>>crawled into the shuttle to die. . .a consequence of its work on Dallas and
>>Brett.
> 
> OK, sounds good so far.  That's pretty much what the LD says happens.
> 
>>The egg that Brett turned into was Huge, *much* bigger than any other
>>we see.  The superduper queen f'hugger seen in Fangoria and in outtakes from
>                                                 ^^^^^^^^  Huh?
>>A3 was Huge; obviously it came from a Huge pod; obviously from a host that 
>>had been transformed into an egg.
> 
> Or....  From the Space Jockey itself.  Not the big facehugger, but the
> original Queen.  OK, so there's a little problem with the time involved,
> but the Queen is HUGE.  Just like the SJ.  Couldn't she have come from him?
> 
> Say....  What if those eggs weren't in the cargo hold when the ship crashed?
> 
> What if they were put there later?  Every discussion I've seen involved the
> eggs being there already:  Either the SJ's race found them, and was taking
> them for obsevation, when the pilot was infected, or else they created them
> as a weapon, and were transporting them when the pilot was infected.
> 
> What if the Alien that came out of the SJ (say, a Queen) laid all those eggs
> *after* the ship crashed?
> 

I have real problems with that bloody derelict. It's like the TARDIS, bigger on
the inside than the outside.

>>Conclusion: the drones can transform a host
>>into a queen egg, which releases a queen f'hugger; the Only kind that can
>>transform into a queen.  The queen then (remember, queens are bigger faster and
>>meaner than drones) cocoons any number of hosts, and lays eggs, and we're off
>>to the races.  
> 
> Yes, this would make the most sense.  Any drone can produce a Queen, which
> can then get the whole hive going.  A drone can ONLY produce a Queen,
> in case he only gets one chance - better make it a good one.  That makes
> a lot of sense.
> 

Works for me.

>>NOW:
>>What was that blue film over the eggs in the first movie?
> 
> This is what I don't know.  I think that it's a part of the ship itself,
> some kind of a containment field or something.  Hmm....
> 
> OK, let's assume that the SJ knew what he was carrying, and he knew what
> those buggers could do.  The blue field is an alarm of some kind, to let
> him know if a hugger hatches and starts trying to get out.  It breaks the
> field, and he knows that one is loose.
> 
> OK, problems with this theory:
> 
> 1)  It contradicts my theory above that the eggs weren't there before. :-)
> 2)  The jockey shouldn't have gotten infected, then, if he knew what they
>     were and had an alarm.
> 
> But, it does make some kind of sense....  Kane said that the field reacted
> when he broke it.  It was *just* over the tops of the eggs....  It would
> make a good alarm, a good alarm is necessary for that kind of cargo, what
> do you think?
> 

Maybe something much simpler, but not as interesting. This planet may be
very cold, based on the exhaust from the suits. What was at the bottom of
the cavern may have been a gas like what's released from dry ice, which 
is heavier than the surrounding atmosphere. If it holds an electrostatic
charge of some sort, it may simply have discharged when Kane stuck his hand 
in it.

>>What happened to
>>the alien that gestated inside of the pilot?
> 
> Well, my first reaction would be that it died (maybe after laying all the
> eggs?  Depends on if they were there before).  I mean, that thing had been
> there so long that it had fossilized.  I'm sure the Alien would be dead, unless
> it went into hibernation or something.
> 
> Assuming that it can hibernate for extrememly long periods of time, it could
> very well be the Queen from A2.  The size is just about right.
> 
>>And why didn't the colony pick
>>up on the warning beacon from the derelict, either before, or during their 
>>occupancy of Acheron?
> 
> This is the one that bothers me.  Probably poor writing for A2.  But, since
> we can't look at it from that point of view (:-), then I'd say it's possible
> that the company sent someone over there *before* they sent the terraformers
> to shut that thing off.
> 
> Or, the terraformers didn't have the necessary equipment to sense the
> beacon?
> 

I'm still working on the culpable company theme here, so forgive me. If
the company knew it had this creature on the planet, and wanted a sample
without arrousing too much suspicion, it could have shielded the equipment
or computer translators so that the signal was ignored. Then it would depend
on the regular exploration of the area to incite an incident. 
How coincidental was it that the terraformers station was within travel distance
of the derelict?

>>(. . .We're only guessing.  We aren't dealing with reality.)
> 
> Yeah, tell that to Ross. :(
> 

I love speculation. Now that we've gone through all this stuff, let's try to
find a creature that accomodates all three movies.

Joe 
01fortec@ac.dal.ca