Xenomorph Origin

[SM]

And since they are quite capable or coping just fine without a Queen, and since there's no evidence of telepathic activity - Queen mind control is fanciful in the extreme.

[Xenomrph]

...but there is evidence of telepathic ability, it's in the movie novelizations for AvP and A:R, and it's in the EU. Like, in the video games and comics and novels, Alien telepathy is pretty much an established fact.
Not to mention Ripley8 talks about hearing the Aliens "behind her eyes" in Alien Resurrection.

As for coping just fine without a Queen, the Aliens seem to do more intelligent things when Queens are around.
Like SiL said, Cameron felt the Alien didn't do anything intelligent in 'Alien', so had them do smarter stuff in 'Aliens' (...in the presence of a Queen).

[SiL]

Presence of a Queen didn't factor into it.

He wanted to show the normal Aliens as more blatantly intelligent than was shown previously, so he had them cut the power.

Within the movies there's no precedence for telepathy - Any communication between Queen and drones has been verbal or visual.

[SM]

Yep, yep and yep.

Not to mention Ripley8 talks about hearing the Aliens "behind her eyes" in Alien Resurrection.

Which could just as easily be ultrasonic or metaphor.

[SiL]

Didn't the original AR script and novel have them communicating with ultrasound?

[Xenomrph]

Just sayin', in the EU they're telepathic. If you go movies-only you can go either way on it (the films aren't conclusive that they're not telepathic, either ).

Didn't the original AR script and novel have them communicating with ultrasound?

You mean the novelization by A.C.Crispin? It's telepathy.

[SiL]

The films don't even begin to hint telepathy, except for Ripley's "behind my eyes" comment, which is hardly proof of anything.

But this is getting waaaay off topic.

[Xenomrph]

Hey this thread has been all over the map already. Alien origins, Alien intelligence, telepathy, Queen dependence, validity of EU characters, all kinds of shit.
For a topic that started with such a terrible first post, it sure spawned a lot of interesting discussion.