Having just watched Prometheus I seem to be in agreement with alot of you about the many unanswered questions the film throws up. But for me one question the film did answer in relation to the Alien franchise was how the alien reproduces.
In the Alien films thread of this site there is a whole discussion regarding egg morphing (thought about posting this there but didn't want to reveal Prometheus spoilers in an alien thread) and in the discussion we have debated how the Xeno is able to egg morph despite the role of the Queen being the main egg layer.
Well lets look at the reproduction in Prometheus before we get to the Xeno-like creature at the end.
1. Holloway is infected with the black goo and his biological make-up begins to mutate.
2. Whilst this mutation is taking place he impregnates Shaw, someone who is apparently infertile.
3. The fetus is able to grow to the stage of a 3month human fetus in less than a day.
4. Shaw (very prematuerely) surgically removes the fetus the "decontaminates" it which she presumes to kill it.
5. The squid hugger survives the decontamination and begins to grow at an exceptionally fast rate.
6. The squid hugger impregnates the engineer and a "mature" Xeno-like creature is spawned from him.
So to get to the Xeno-like creature we have a biological mutation then two very different types of direct impregnantion. These varried forms of reproduction, for me, show perfectly how the xenomorph is able to have such a flexible reproductive system and shows how egg morphing, egg laying and even egg barfing are all able to coexist amoung the Xeno species. It also makes perfect sense from the engineers point of view to use such a substance that has varied results. They either use the goo to create life in which case it would need to be so flexible to create eco systems on different planets with diferent atmospheres and solar systems. Or they use it as a bio-mechanical weapon in which case it would again need to be so flexible in order to mutate/impregnate different species from different planets.
