Alien Prototype - Tim Waggoner

[The Cruentus]

Crumbs, I didn't want that to be canon    Too far fetched.

Do you know what page it was mentioned on? I had to read Prototype in parts so I may have missed it.

[SM]

 You're welcome.

[Corporal Hicks]

Do you know what page it was mentioned on? I had to read Prototype in parts so I may have missed it.

Not off hand, sorry.

Personally I'm actually quite happy to see it make a resurgence. I've always dug the eggmorphing.

[The Cruentus]

I get why some like it, it is such an alien method of reproduction but scientifically it makes no sense, at least to me. Not really an expert but I know of no animal or insect that can do it either.
Mind you, its not supposed to be eggmorphing, I think someone said it just laid an egg in the dead body and it just consumed it to grow.

[Still Collating...]

I don't find it that far fetched honestly. Supply a dose of genetic information and let the rest transform aka eat the cells of the poor victim as it turns them into the whole egg and hugger. Nothing too strange as far as I'm concerned.

[SM]

I get why some like it, it is such an alien method of reproduction but scientifically it makes no sense, at least to me. Not really an expert but I know of no animal or insect that can do it either.
Mind you, its not supposed to be eggmorphing, I think someone said it just laid an egg in the dead body and it just consumed it to grow.

I don't know of any animals that can go from microscopic to 8' tall in less than 24 hours either.

[The Cruentus]

That didn't happen in the first few films though right? Kane was hugged for quite a few hours if not most of the day. He may have gestated it for longer than we think before he bursts, then we don't know how long it was between chestburster and adult. I agree it still far fetched as well, but I personally think its more plausible than converting a dead body into an egg.

The novel of the second movie states 24hrs for the facehugger and the W-Y report says something similar, like 16hrs or something.
Still insanely fast and unlikely but surely that is more plausible than eggmorping.

[The Old One]

And it takes a full night for the Covenant Alien to grow up.

[SM]

That didn't happen in the first few films though right? Kane was hugged for quite a few hours if not most of the day. He may have gestated it for longer than we think before he bursts, then we don't know how long it was between chestburster and adult. I agree it still far fetched as well, but I personally think its more plausible than converting a dead body into an egg.

The novel of the second movie states 24hrs for the facehugger and the W-Y report says something similar, like 16hrs or something.
Still insanely fast and unlikely but surely that is more plausible than eggmorping.

Gestation is around 16 hours then full size in about 2 hours.

Same level of realism as eggmorphing.  IE not much.

[Still Collating...]

When a creature is created like the Alien is, then it doesn't have to be plausible how would that trait evolve in other animals. Genetic tinkering can do wonders.

[SM]

Just as the gestation cycle is based on wasps using other animals as hosts but taken to an extreme, I liken eggmorphing to a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.

[TC]

I liken eggmorphing to a fungi consuming dead organic material to build a new complex structure out of dissolved nutrients, e.g. a puffball or mushroom. These fungi can spring up remarkably quickly too, sometimes overnight. Maybe the speed of development hints at the rapid growth of chestburster to big-chap (although the magical increase in body mass would take some fancy science to explain). Fungi do this by concealing all the growth material underground in hyphae, all primed and ready to go.

TC

[SM]

That also works.  And can also feed into hive creation (ie. it's its own organism that grows of its own accord after an Alien deposits an initial amount).

[The Cruentus]

Isn't that what eggmorphing was supposed to be as well? Something that just feeding on the bodies and not a literal conversion. I guess one thing going for it is that Ovomorphs are not simply eggs, but an organism in their own right, so it being able to feed can make sense I guess.

[Hudson]

I'm about halfway through this and I'm enjoying it for the most part. Dialogue is a bit explainy as I've come to expect, but I like the single Xenomorph concept up to this point. I'm into the characters for the most part but I want more of Davis. He was--by far--the most interesting character from Defiance. My only real complaints are that I wish Prototype wasn't so dependent on Zula's origin story in Defiance. It's not a fundamental problem, but I don't think Zula realistically thinks enough about the occurrences of Defiance for this book to feel like it's organically connected, rather than kind of forced. For instance, I'm not sure that Dr. Hollis has come up in Zula's interior at all, unless it was quick early on and I zipped past too quickly. Again, I'm only about halfway so I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.