Weyland-Yutani Corporation BioWeapons Division report of alien species
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Weyland-Yutani Corporation: BioWeapons Division
Report of alien species.
Confidentiality Rating: Level 6
Release approved by: M. V. A. Williams, Chief of Sciences Division
Rank: Lieutenant Commander, BioWeapons Wing
ALL39-YOUR899-26BASE43
All persons issued this report are reminded that any disclosure of the contents herein to any persons not issued with this report is a breach of company contract and of law and can be punishable by fine, incarceration or death. The contents of this file are belong to us.
File Begins:
Overview:
After the shocking events on LV-426, followed by the events on LV-1201, this file has been composed, relating all scientific information attached to the captured species referred to simply as the xenomorph. What follows is thoughts on their evolution and society.
Society - reproduction:
I think that the alien life cycle is a very wasteful and ridiculous cycle in some aspects, but amazing in others. One queen spawning eggs containing face huggers seems to be unjustified, since these face huggers seem to be fairly unintelligent, completely unarmoured, and quite slow, so infecting anything outside of a few kilometres from the hive, or anything able to defend itself moderately well, would be impossible. The fact that the face huggers die after implantation also seems wasteful. Why do they not carry two or three alien embryos per face hugger, or several face huggers per egg?
Another aspect of their reproductive cycle, the most horrifying part, is the stage that, I believe, will eventually lead to the extinction of the aliens, unless they evolve out of it. This is the implantation of animals with embryos. Since the ‘birth’ of the embryo kills the host, there will come a time when there are no hosts left, or at the very least none left that are big enough to sustain an embryo properly. If there were no more hosts would it kill the alien species? If it meant no food then probably yes, and this would lead to the death of the entire colony. If this were to happen on every planet then the aliens would cease to exist. So, the weakest link in the alien life cycle is their implantation and ‘birth’ stages, involving the host.
A surprising stage in the alien life cycle is what occurs when the queen dies. Should the queen die, it puts the future of the colony in jeopardy, and to combat this any face huggers that are left create a special queen embryo.
Even more surprising is if there are no face huggers left. Should this be the case, any alien drone can evolve within a matter of days to replace the queen. How this is possible is unknown, although it is possible that all aliens carry some type of hormone that they store yet never use. Since the drones seem to be telepathically connected to the queen and each other, they must be able to sense when she dies, and one of them releases this hormone to evolve.
Society – place of the Queen:
The Queen IS the colony. If the queen dies then the colony cannot continue. She lays eggs from a giant abdomen. Drone aliens move the eggs and place them next to cocooned victims, ready for the face hugger to emerge.
Should the queen need to move, most likely for safety reasons, the abdomen can be detached, although, as far as can be told, it cannot be reattached, meaning egg production is suspended until she can grow a new one.
This format of hierarchy can be instantly likened to that of an insect colony, namely ants or termites. The reliance of a single queen for the continuation of the colony is the link and so the aliens can be classified as insects or insect related.
When the queen dies any drone can evolve to be a queen alien, and the closest creature on the Earth that does similar things is certain types of frogs. These frogs can change sex when the need arises, although this is nothing like the change that evolves aliens within hours to be ten times bigger.
Adaptation to home planet – body, exterior:
The alien’s adaptation to the landscape is fairly standard. The aliens seem fragile but instead are highly versatile. They have powerful arms and legs for crawling, and have also evolved a tail to help with balance. This is common among many of the mammals on Earth, namely the feline animals. The common cat, without a tail, will be falling all over the place should it try to run, since the tail is used for balance. Some cats have evolved with no tails however, and it could be that at one point the xenomorphs in fact did have tails.
The aliens are in a very advanced stage of evolution, since they are able to walk upright, although this is not their preferred method of movement, since it is harder for them to balance.
The claws the aliens have is for attacking animals, but also for support while navigating the vast mountain ranges on their home planet.
Adaptation to home planet – body, interior:
The aliens’ home planet is a rugged, scarred planet with rocky mountainous areas as well as tropical forests. The majority of the planet, however, is made up of sea.
The atmosphere is around 40% oxygen, 40% methane and 20% carbon dioxide, as well as small amounts of other assorted gasses.
The amount of oxygen, although plentiful, is unable to support much animal life due to the high concentrations of methane. This methane would poison any oxygen-breathing animal, so therefore the aliens cannot breathe oxygen to survive.
The amount of carbon dioxide also means there is too little for them to act like moving plants, breathing in carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. This rules out carbon dioxide.
The amount of methane in the atmosphere would indicate it was the only remaining source of life, unless the aliens are so complex as to not breathe at all. This would prove quite intriguing, as this then poses the question, ‘How do they create energy?’ The human body creates energy through respiration, converting this into energy in the blood stream. The alien blood is acidic, destroying energy that may be pumped into it.
So, how DO they get their massive mounts of energy needed to move their huge bodies? Ranging in size from 1ft (baby) to 10ft (fully grown) there is no real answer to this question.
A source of energy also needed to maintain the body is food. What do the aliens hunt? Well, the aliens are in fact not the dominant species on their home planet. Flying creatures roam the planet, huge beasts that kill wandering aliens, presumably for food, but this poses yet another question, ‘How do they eat them, with acid blood?’ The answer is also part of the alien’s defence. How does their blood not melt them when they are injured?
The aliens are covered in saliva, excreted from their mouth, which freely flows down their body. As events have shown, when shot an alien will melt everything around it, but not itself or other aliens. Their saliva could be the key. If their saliva had extremely densely packed atoms, although with weak enough bonds to keep it in a liquid form, then it could withstand their acid. Their acid is, in the first place, only a moderately weak one, so a dense coating of saliva would be enough to withstand it. This saliva is also most likely packed into the alien’s body around the organs, filling all available space so that, when injured, the alien will not melt itself from the inside out.
So, back to the flying creatures. The creatures probably have a same, or similar, type of saliva in their mouths for protection. This is assuming that the flying creatures do in fact eat the aliens. There could be a third species on the planet, which the flying creatures eat, and they might only kill the aliens as a form of primal instinct, to protect their home turf.
So, what do the aliens do for food? Well, most likely, they also eat the third species, but also the flying creatures. The aliens seem to eat brains, as the secondary, piston like jaws they possess aim for the head. These jaws seem to suck out the brain of a victim. So, do the aliens only eat brains, or do they simply eat anything but consider brains especially nice? Since they seem to attack anything and not just pull out the brains, it would seem that they are simple carnivores.
The overruling problem with their eating habits is that to change food into energy you need to respire. Although this is certainly true in humans, the aliens may have adapted to the high concentrations of methane by cutting out respiration from their body system altogether, although this seems a little strange, as food is useless without respiration. This is, of course, the case in any animal on Earth, but these aliens are so evolved and distinguished, shaped by their landscape and planet, that they could quite easily be completely different genetically.
File ends.
MOVE28476-124ZIG8110
Again, all employees of Weyland-Yutani having received this file are under strict company policy, and it is repeated that the maximum penalty for contravention of company policy is death.
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