I still like the idea of xenos force-feeding human flesh or other disgusting things to the hosts. Very Aliens: Labyrinth, very tasty.
However, you can definitely have your cake and eat it, too! From Alien 3, we know that the gestation period for a queen chestburster is longer, and that the host has the time and need to take multiple meals. Just force-feed royal hosts.
It would also be a good explanation of why the Aliens have jaws as well as a second mouth if they do not eat: they use the first ones to rip in the meat and the second one to force-feed the captives.
In this perspective, the second mouth skull attack is just an occasional bonus.
Quote from: BigDaddyJohn on Oct 30, 2024, 01:11:11 PMThe thing gotta eat.
Not if it works in a similar way to a car engine, as it was repeatingly theorized with the "acid as battery acid" hypothesis in the previous decades.
In this perspective, the Alien is a kind of pseudo-biological robot, which just needs some kind of fuel (derived from the atmosphere and/or preys? Does it NEED biomass? Is it "chemically omnivorous"?) to keep working and then reproducing.
We do know they aren't part of the animal kingdom. Since Aliens are silicon-based, they aren't even the same
biological domains as terrestrial life.