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Whether it's in the Alien movies, the books, or the countless video game adaptations, the franchise's titular monsters, the Xenomorphs, will always be scary. There’s something deeply unsettling about these glistening, eye-less, velvety sleek monsters from another world and it doesn’t help that on top of that they’re a near unstoppable force of nature.
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Since their first appearance in the Ridley Scott movie Alien, where they were based on the biomechanical fever-dream designs of H.R. Giger, Xenomorphs have become a core pop-culture touchstone that will never be forgotten.With so much of their backstory filled out over the years, you can now know pretty much every minute detail about these nightmari🎃sh creatures. So why not take a deep dive into what makes these drooling monsters tick with this handy guide on the Xenomorph life cycle.
Updated August 17, 2024 By Matthew Mckeown: One sci-fi monster that never gets old and is routinely pulled out of retirement is the Xenomorph. From its humble origins as a rubber suit sci-fi movie monster, it’s become almost a mainstay for modern horror culture.
We’ve had countless spin-offs, shows, shorts, films, games, books, toys, and more with this iconic creature and there’s always more just around the corner. Likewise, the lore is always getting tweaked with new minor changes, so it’s worth catching up on the latest bits and bobs about this beast with an updated look at the Xenomorph life cycle.
What Are Xenomorphs?
Xenomorphs are deadly, highly intelligent, predatorial monsters that have only one purpose in mind: to sustain their Hive. They’re durable to most small arms fire and blunt weapons, and they can survive in the vacuum of space or the deep ocean with🅷out breaking an acidic drop of sweat.
Large caliber weapons such as Pulse Rifles and Smart Guns, or heat-based deterrents such as blowtorches or🦩 Flamethrowers, can seriously wound, kill or drive them off for a time. But they will alw🧜ays be back, and in greater numbers.
How Do Xenomorphs Reproduce?
The method by which Xenomorphs reproduce is appropriately brutal. Their young burst their way out of living hosts whilst they're still conscious and in agonizing pain.
It’s a rough time for anyone dragged off to a Xenomorph Hive, with most new hive hosts begging for death the moment they’re strung up. Even more so after embryo implantation. With their numbers rapidly and easily replenished by having just one egg left behind inside a purged nest, Xenomorphs are a resilient and🌃 difficult pest to put down.
The Xenomorph Life Cycle
The life cycle of Xenomorphs is equal parts fascinating and disgusting. They have a hierarchy in place similar to ants, with one larger female protected by the smaller males. The average life cycle from egg to fully grown Xenomorph also varies as it can be altered by external factors as the species can🦹 adapt worryingly quickly to sudden changes in their environment.
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For example, depending on the size, location, or incoming threat to the Hive, Xenomorphs may suddenly begin to mature faster to deal with the invaders. Or in times of food scarcity, they may stop producing eggs, with the Hive cannibalizing itself before going into extended hibernation. It’s a nasty little evolutionary trick that allows these critters to last through the most extreme droughts or sud🦩den largeꦯ attacks.
Facehugger Egg
Though most Xenomorphs have a humanoid appearance, they're as far from mammals as you can get. They have a lot more in common with insects. Instead of giving birth to little bouncing, biting, baby Xenos, eggs are laid en masse by the queen.
Inside these eggs are small creatures known as Facehuggers. A larval stage of the Xenomorph. These small spider-like creatures are not as resilient as their older siblings, but they are fast. However, their lifespan is very short. When they emerge from an egg a Facehugger's first instinct is to hunt down a Host.
Chestburster Impregnation
Once a host is found, Facehuggers take hold of their target by using their long, finger-like appendages to wrap around the head, whilst holding the throat of their would-be Host in a vice-like grip with their tentacular tail. They then hijack their target's breathing by covering their entire face, providing them with a continual airflow, whilst parasite implantation takes place.
They then insert a small tube-like appendage down the esophagus of their victim, implanting an embryo within the chest cavity before dropping off dead a few hours later. Their role in the Xen🔯omorph life cycle complete.
From start to finish, it's a traumatic experience for those who become hosts for these creatures. Also, once the implantation process begins, it's impossible to stop. When a Facehugger latches on, it can tighten its grip to strangle its Host when it feels threatened. Plus, ꦡits acid blood acts as a deterrent to cutting it off.
In cut footage from the first Alien movie, humans or other victims can be converted into eggs. T💙heir organs liquifying and forming a Facehugger.
The Gestation Period
After embryo impregnation occurs the individual implanted has🎃 an unspecified time until a larval Xenomorph will emerge. The reason it’s unspecific ♊is the actual time it takes can vary on a number of factors.
Such as the strain of the Xenomorph, and the relative health of the Host. Maturation is reached in some cases within a few hours, whilst others can take days like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ripley's Queen Embryo in Alien 3.
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Post-implantation outside of a Hive is difficult to spot as after infection, a Host can feel like nothing is wrong, and in some cases they may be better than ever. Though this is down to the extremely high levels of endorphins and adrenaline still coursing around their system because of the body's original fear response during implantation. An incident implanted individuals always seem to conveniently forget.
Thankfully in these situations, there are tell-tale symptoms to ke🗹ep an eye out for if someone is suspected of undergoing implantation without their knowledge. They are the following:
- Short-term memory loss and confusion.
- Increased appetite.
- Suspiciously improved health and wellbeing.
- Sudden feelings of physical weakness.
- Shortness of breath.
- Dizziness.
- Prolonged coughing.
- Mild to moderate abdominal and chest pain.
- Sudden seizures or involuntary spasming.
- Extreme chest pain, followed by agonized screaming and then violent death.
Though the embryos can be removed with surgery by a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:well-trained doctor or robotic medical bed. Unless a patient is immediately put into cryo-stasis within a short time af🐎ter impregnation, then it might already be too late.
In those cases, euthanizing the Host as painlessly and qu🙈ickl🥂y as possible is preferred.
Chestburster Emergence
The emergence of the larval form of a Xenomorph is a harrowing, traumatic, and extremely painful affair for anyone involved.
Upon reaching maturity, the implanted embryo will attempt to “Breach” from its Host. Either by smashing through the rib cage, the ba🔯ck, or softer spots in the tissue where there’s less bone.
Victims are alive when this happens and it’s not always a “one and done” attempt by the Larva, as it often takes multiple tries for it to break free. Once it does, it will then escape to a safe spot to quickly molt, g🌟row, and return in a deadlier form.
The Parasites Growth Cycle
After the parasite larva has escaped, it will immediately run to a dark and damp location where it feels safe. This is because it's incredibly vulnerable to harm since most larvae when born are pretty tiny.
Their only option is to run away, so the species has evolved to become extremely nimble, slippery, and deadly from a young age in order to give th༺eir young ample time to reach maturity.
Larval Maturation
After a few hours, the larval Xenomorph will have grown in size in its hidden lair through a process of molting and shedding its skin. At this point, it will be fully grown and equipped with razor-sharp claws, an armor piercing second mouth, molecular acid blood and spider-like surface grip. Plus, enough strength to toss a Colonial Marine like an angry Football.
They’re incredibly lethal on their own, but in a horde, they are absolutely unstoppable. Each member of the swarm will mindlessly throws itself in harm's way to tear apart victims, or dꦍrag them screaming into the depths of t🐈he nearest Hive.
Late-Stage Mutation
An interesting feature of the Xenomorphs is that they don’t all stay as Drones. Quite often they will mutate or evolve to fill other roles within the Hive. In most cases, this occurs either when the Hive requires it, or when a Drone reaches a certain age it will cocoon itself. When this happens it will become larger, its carapace thickening with extra armor as it turns into a Warrior or Praetorian.
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In some extremely rare examples, Drones have been known to turn into Queens. However, this has only been seen in some very extreme situations. But it seems that when there is no Queen present, the Hive will produce a Queen embryo. Or a lower caste such as a Drone or Praetorian will cocoon itself a♔nd grow into a Queen in order to fi❀ll the role.
It's a self-managing system that makes Xenomorph infestations parꦕticularly pesky to put down.
Xenomorph Species Variation
Another interesting survival aspect of the Xenomorph species is their ability to adopt the DNA of their original host animal to create the perfect killing machine. Regardless of the original host creatures nature.
For example, the most common bi-pedal Drones are sourced from humans, whilst the four-legged Runners are usually dogs or other small animals. In the books, there are also variants based on monkeys, birds, dinosaurs, and in one particularly gruesome encounter involving the crew of a crashed starship, gigantic two-mouthed sharks in large shoals.
It’s a neat evolutionary adaptation that allows them to survive better on any planet whislt also quickly crawling to the top of the food ch𝔉ain as the new apex predator.
Xenomorph Strains
There have been a lot of exceptionally lethal strains of Xenomorph to appear in the canon, with some becoming fan favorites. So with that in mind, here are some of them, plus a few fun and weird ones.
|
Drones |
The standar𒁏d Xenomorph. Relatively mindless, they take on the main role of basic warriors, workers, and runners for ꦆthe Hive. |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Praetorian |
Praetorians are the apex warrior caste within the Hive. Though their numbers are smaller, their𒅌 job is to defend the Queenꩵ and crucial areas such as hatcheries. |
|
|
Crusher |
Crushers are absolutely m♏assive monsters composed of layers of muscle and thick armor plating that can shrug off most Pulse Rifle and High Calibre weapons. |
|
|
Queen |
The big bad matriarch herself, the Queens are the biggest threat in the Xenomorph bestiary. The “leader” of a Hive🎃, Que♌ens are highly resilient, extremely tall and they’re the most intelligent strain. |
|
|
Deacon Sharks |
These huge carnivorous fish have all the same features as their land🦄-based brethren and are just as deadly. Incredibly 💝fast and capable of swarming in great numbers. |
|
|
Preda-Alien |
A ruthless abomination that has all the resilience of a Xenomorph, aꩲnd the tactical intelligence and hunting skills of the Predator. |
|
These are just a few notable strains of Xenomorphs that have popped up over the years. New games, books, and movies constantly alter and add to the legions of snarling, spitting alien monsters and there's always something weird about to burst out of someones chest just around the corner.
Ridley Scott's Changes To The Canon
So a lot of time has passed since the Alien movie franchise has been summarily driven into the ground.
Along the way of its steep descent, we picked up some new lore about the origins of the Xenomorph that are꧅ worth checking in on even though the majority of fans consider it non-canon.
How Ridley Ruined It
According to the Alien: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant movies. The Xenomorphs that we all know and love today were invented by a mentally unstable Android with a god complex using an alien bioweapon.
Now that you’ve processed that. Bear with me as I go over how we got there.
Ok, so in the first movie, Alien: Prometheus, we were shown that back before life began on Earth a race of aliens known as the Engineers (Space Jockeys in Alien) sacrificed one of their own to create the organic goop that we all crawled out of bill🦄ions of years ago.
Fun fact: The original creators of the space jockey model hate how their design spurred the concept of the Engineers and fan theory of their origins over t⛎he years. The or𝔍iginal intention was that it was to be alien and unknown.
Fast forward through the plot a little and we’ve got mankind meeting their creators. Whilst also discovering that their creators also have a black goop that’s highly mutative and when combined with 💫an Engineer, this was what originally seeded Earth with life.
The local Yutani Android known as David uses this goop to infect a crewmate, who eventually mutates. However not before impregnating his partner Dr. Elizabeth Shaw first. He dies, but Shaw, through a violent C-section, gives birth to a mu💫tated Cephalopod-looking c♓reature.
This then disappears for the rest of the movie and the plot forgets about it until the finale where Shaw uses it to kill an Engineer. After the credits, we’re shown a sleek Xenomorph-esque creature bursting from the Engineers chest as𝔉 the disembodied head of David helps 💃Shaw fly off to the Engineer homeworld.
Then Alien: Covenant Made It Worse..
In Alien: Covenant, we find out what happened with David and Shaw as they made it to the Engineer homeworld. David at some point murders Shaw and uses the black goop bioweapon to genocide the Engineers. Then through experimentation with a now mutated and very dead Shaw,ꦗ David is able to replicate the classic Xenomorph Egg.
Then a member of the Colony ship David lured to the planet becomes infected by a Facehugger from that clutch of eggs that David was able to create, somehow. After gestation, we also see a tiny Xenomorph skitter away after performing a Christ On The Cross pose. Then later it matures and resembles the iconic Xenomorph that we all know today.
Now where the conflict comes in is that in the original Alien movie, the eggs were on the Engineer ship that the crew of the Nostromo found. But if David made a small clutch of them, and only one got out as he left to go start anew on another human colony, whilst all the Engཧineers are presumed to be 𒅌dead.
So where did the eggs from the original Alien film come from then?
Unfortunately, the majority of Alien fans consider the newer Alien movies to be non-canon as Ridley Scott himself has lost a lot of fan good as he went on a bit of a “best hits tour” with his movies over the last two decades. The majority of which have been 𓆉woeful.
Whilst there were multiple directors for the original movies, including James Cameron. Ridley Scott without external control is what brought us the Engineers and Charlizꦫe Theron running in𝐆 a straight line to her death.
The majority of these revisits to the Alien franchise have absolutely tanked at the box office, and with the director's own appeal hitting rock bottom with fans, most are content to ignore anything involving Xenos that has his name attached. Especially after the Prometheus movies brought such bizarre and unnecessary changes to the origins of the Xenomorphs.
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