Egg on Sulaco

[Local Trouble]

I think you have people buying into the basic principle, but you're losing them with every new variable you introduce.  The devil's in the details, so to speak.

[SM]

I tend to side with 'the path of least making things up'.

[FiorinaFury161]

I've figured it out.

You all ready?

Spoiler

Alternate scene at end of ALIENS:

The Alien Queen had a dozen pre-mature eggs in a carton. The carton was placed deep in the spikes of her back, unseen to human eyes. She offered to make an omelet for Rips, Newt, Hicks and Bishop. Bishop refused, thus causing the queen to rip in half, in anger that he was insulting her cooking skills. Rips and Newt split; as the Queen searches for Newt in the subflooring, the carton opens and one slips into the cracks. The egg proceeds to stick upside down in the flooring, but Newt is terrified at the Queen's cooking skills, I mean anger, that she doesn't notice it and the rest of the movie continues, but with one alternate line:

"Get away from her, you terrible chef." LOL

Oh, the carton can be seen when the airlock sucks out the Queen, as an obscure, grey object.

[close]

[Local Trouble]

I tend to side with 'the path of least making things up'.

As do I.  The fact that you, of all people, are now admitting that the theory has some merit is groundbreaking.

Now we just need to reel you in and we don't do that by embellishing the theory with unnecessary additions.

[PsyKore]

I like to believe there is no egg in reality but that the opening sequence is just images presented from the POV of Ripley's semi-conscience dream state. She's essentially hearing what's going on around her but her mind is inferring the images. Everything in the opening sequence is skewed or different in some way: upside-down egg, different appearance of cryo-chambers and Sulaco, etc. What I think happened is just a couple of facehuggers stowed away. And I know it has no weight, but for what it's worth, you hear a facehugger at the end of Aliens' credits.

[SM]

The fact that you, of all people, are now admitting that the theory has some merit is groundbreaking.

Had merit. 

[Local Trouble]

The fact that you, of all people, are now admitting that the theory has some merit is groundbreaking.

Had merit.

Okay, so which part made it lose merit for you?

[SM]

Artificial gravity angle was a good start, but it lost me with teeny proto-facehuggery things.

[Local Trouble]

Artificial gravity angle was a good start, but it lost me with teeny proto-facehuggery things.

I think that's why he backpedaled to "spores."  They don't need to be ambulatory, just very small and capable of taking root someplace where at least one of them can grow into this.

[Kurai]

Predators wanted something cool to hunt so they broke into the Sulaco and put an Alien egg down whilst giggling to themselves only to realise that they'd messed up the ship while breaking in. They escaped just in time as the Sulaco's cryo-chamber room disengaged itself and began to plummet towards Fiorina 161. The Predator tells his friends down at the Predator pub all about it and so after a little hunt at Area 52, one of his Predator mates decides to go and check it out and finds that WY have made a real mess of things with Aliens on the loose everywhere.

I'm only half joking. XD

[windebieste]

The energy management and conservation aspect in relation to artificial gravity is still valid. 

Even Ripley remarks about reinitialising artificial gravity when the Nostromo is achieving escape velocity.  It makes sense the Sulaco has similar power management systems in place.

Aside from any speculation of the Queen's ability to procreate without an egg sac (which really is as open ended* as you can get), the technical aspect of the Sulaco's power management and reduced gravity when all aboard are asleep not only 'has merit' but it's entirely viable from an engineering and energy conservation stand point.

-Windebieste.

*Pun not intended, but you're welcome to it.

EDiT: When I'm mentioning 'spores' I'm not talking literally about spores, like those that are released by ferns or fungi use to propagate, I'm talking about a not quite fully formed facehugger that consists of little more than its essentials.  Legless. and just the basics - the tail and a sack of organs that needs to find a safe location where it can become an egg.  I'm using the word to describe something where no single word exists. 

These 'spores' wouldn't be microscopic, either, they'd be about a foot or so long.  Small enough for reduced gravity to allow it to crawl where ever it wants to - including walls and ceilings. 

Hell, it's not like 8 foot tall Aliens can't crawl on these surfaces anyway, it's not that unbelievable.

[Local Trouble]

Even if we accept the spidery little proto-facehuggers, we don't need the gravity to be turned off to explain how they crawled up to the "ceiling."  The tiny spider on my wall seems capable of crawling anywhere it wants despite Earth's gravitational pull.

To me, it's just not relevant to the discussion.

These 'spores' wouldn't be microscopic, either, they'd be about a foot or so long.  Small enough for reduced gravity to allow it to crawl where ever it wants to - including walls and ceilings.

And that's where I get lost.  Just to explain why we didn't see them, I think the "spores" (in whatever form they took) need to be tiny.  Not necessarily microscopic, but small enough to escape notice by the characters and the audience.

Hell, it's not like 8 foot tall Aliens can't crawl on these surfaces anyway, it's not that unbelievable.

Agreed, which is why I think gravity is irrelevant.

[windebieste]

Gravity is relevant to the growth of the egg. 

As we know, the eggs need to be on a flat surface, preferably the ground.  Under low gravity conditions, that limit is reduced and surfaces on walls and floors become viable.  Even upside down.  Of course, limitations still exist but the egg would be able to grow to full size before gravity starts to affect it.  The contents of the egg would increase in mass as it grows and eventually, even reduced gravity would be sufficient to influence the egg to releasing its contents onto the floor. 

The fact that the egg is forced to disgorge its contents under these conditions means it does so without the need for a host to approach.

-Windebieste.

EDiT.  As for the spores being dropped, there's ample opportunity for the Queen to drop them from her, um, vulva(?).  How many long shots of the Queen are there compared to her duration on screen?  How often do we see the full floor decking? There's so many close up shots of Ripley operating the loader and the Queen's head, just pick a moment or two.  ...or three.

Of course the characters wouldn't notice...  Ripley was too engaged in avoiding getting her face pulled off.  Bishop was lying on the floor in pieces and Newt was hiding under the grates.

There was no one else to stand back and say "Ooh... what did the Queen just drop?  I guess I'd better go clean up that mess when this fight is finished.  Where's my popcorn?"

[Perfect-Organism]

Artificial gravity angle was a good start, but it lost me with teeny proto-facehuggery things.

I think that's why he backpedaled to "spores."  They don't need to be ambulatory, just very small and capable of taking root someplace where at least one of them can grow into this.

I just took a look at that scene in Aliens where the Queen is chasing the Newt under the floor grating.  You can see the area under the floor quite clearly.  It looks nothing like the image above.

I felt that the idea of egg goo dripping onto the grating made sense.  Well said Local Trouble.  It would have explained why the egg grew upside-down.  But it is a very different place than is shown.  The egg is not positioned under this same floor.  The gravity idea may work, but it all comes across as a real stretch.

[SM]

Bishops watches the Queen while it chases Newt then during the fight with Ripley.  Kinda think he would've noticed the Queen plopping foot long spores.  And those foot spores would've got sucked out.