More explanation to the Alien life cycle in Alien 5?

[pred169]

Or maybe put a lone ultramorph on a deserted planet and because there is no indigenous life the ultramorph goes into a radical change and becomes the first queen. And feeling the urge for self preservation of the species or maybe just the urge to multiply it's forces for the purposes of war and world domination it starts laying eggs and stockpiling them.... then the creature dies from lack of nutrients over thousands of years. But the eggs are left in stasis. Most of the eggs die off from lack of nutrients as well. The nostromo finds the beacon signal. Kane finds the egg depository and drops down in the last track of eggs that have survived. Sensing a host the natural instincts of the facehugger kick in and BAM! The species survives. AND the life cycle could at least be connected together.....just a thought or at least an outcome I wouldn't mind seeing.

[Nightmare Asylum]

I don't think the Ultramorph would come out of an Engineer in regular circumstances, though. It'd have to be a regular Alien, as the Engineers match our DNA perfectly.

[Born Of Cold Light]

I don't think the Ultramorph would come out of an Engineer in regular circumstances, though. It'd have to be a regular Alien, as the Engineers match our DNA perfectly.

It depends on what kind of ultramorph we are talking about.  Based on concept art, there could be at least three different varieties that seem to coincide with what we know about Alien biology and Engineer technology.

The first is the xeno-style ultramorph, which is probably what ate its way out of the Space Jockey.  It retains much of the biology of the traditional xenomorph, though with some different tubes on the back that are possibly due to environment factors, Engineer manipulation of their own DNA, or an adaptation for its size similar to how the runner has no tubes.  Something akin to this is probably hibernating or fossilized in the bowls of the Derelict:



The second is the 'beluga' type of ultramorph which, from what we saw in the movie, is quite possibly the adult form of the Deacon and the result of the combination of the genetic manipulation used to create the embryos in the black goo with Engineer DNA.  From the hieroglyphs we saw on LV-223, the existence of this creature is all but confirmed:




Then there is the third ultramorph that could be the result of black goo infecting Engineers.  If the Engineers were indeed decimated by their own creations, these things might stalk the shadows of former Engineer worlds, as I've postulated on another thread:



It's interesting to note that this design correlates with some unused concept art of a more advanced mutated Fifield, which makes sense due to human and Engineer DNA being identical:



So in reality, there could be at least three separate varieties of ultramorph that are completely in line with what we know about the franchise.  Of course, all three would undoubtedly be as murderous as any Alien, though there might well be cerebral differences.  The first ultramorph would probably be just as intelligent as any xenomorph while the second, due to its enlarged brain, might be more intelligent and crafty.  The third, depending on how much of a being's original intellect is retained when they are infected by the black goo, might actually be able to manipulate some forms of Engineer technology, which is a phenomenally terrifying concept.

[Vrastal]

In River of pain we see an engineer corpse with a queen alien corpse. but we have no idea why there were eggs on the ship, presumably they were headed to earth, but made a pit stop. the facehugger needed to get the SJ would have to be quite large, unless he was taking a nap and a hugger decided to go for a stroll.

[zuzuki]

Or maybe put a lone ultramorph on a deserted planet and because there is no indigenous life the ultramorph goes into a radical change and becomes the first queen. And feeling the urge for self preservation of the species or maybe just the urge to multiply it's forces for the purposes of war and world domination it starts laying eggs and stockpiling them.... then the creature dies from lack of nutrients over thousands of years. But the eggs are left in stasis. Most of the eggs die off from lack of nutrients as well. The nostromo finds the beacon signal. Kane finds the egg depository and drops down in the last track of eggs that have survived. Sensing a host the natural instincts of the facehugger kick in and BAM! The species survives. AND the life cycle could at least be connected together.....just a thought or at least an outcome I wouldn't mind seeing.

The eggs were positioned in relative order in the derelict, not dropped randomly. And the eggs are kept alive in stasis because of that''force field'' that kept the right conditions bellow it for the eggs to survive. The eggs i don't think they can survive on their own in a hostile enviroment. And in Alien when Kane drops in to the giant chamber we see that the only section that had that atmospheric containment field was the one in the centre. All the other sections were dark and the eggs  in them were probably dead. What i'm trying to say i don't think an Ultramorph or a queen could have layed the eggs there and handled the technology to keep them alive.

But the question remains what was with the acid hole that led to the chamber bellow? Did the Ultramorph that came from the Jockey did it and went bellow and for whatever reason transformed into a queen and had eggs? Doubtfull cause when Alien came out they didn't have a queen concept, only egg morphing. Did the ultramorph take the rest of the crew down and made them,morphed them into eggs, thus answering the question in the movie: where is the rest of the crew?. But this doesn't make sense, the part of the ultramorph creating that whole. He would have to be dead, release his acid blood around him to be able to melt the floor like that. So maybe the hole was made from beneath, something crawled from there and impregnated the Jockey. But this doesn't make sense either, the whole was too big for a facehugger.

We all have this questions and think things can make sense, but the truth is when the movies were made a lot of things were made up and put in the script to keep the weird factor high, and each director took creative liberties with the alien mithology, thus creating inconsistencies. It's impossible to come up with a story or answer that ties everything together nicely with a bow. Whenever someone tries to answer something and thinks it does the story justice another inconsistency pops up

[pred169]

Yeah I agree with you about the eggs being placed in the rows too perfectly for them to have just been laid... but I don't buy that out of all the eggs only one row of eggs was alive. And I don't think it was a force field at all. It looked to me like more of a movement detection system. Kind of an early warning system for the engineers to alert them if an egg happens to hatch. Hensel the sound made when Kane breaks the light. Plus if it were a forcefield.....how did Kane pass through it. 

[zuzuki]

Yeah I agree with you about the eggs being placed in the rows too perfectly for them to have just been laid... but I don't buy that out of all the eggs only one row of eggs was alive. And I don't think it was a force field at all. It looked to me like more of a movement detection system. Kind of an early warning system for the engineers to alert them if an egg happens to hatch. Hensel the sound made when Kane breaks the light. Plus if it were a forcefield.....how did Kane pass through it.

Not a native english speaker so my vocabulary is limited. I don't mean a force field in a traditional sense, but the kind of thing that keeps the conditions favoravle for live. Air, humidity,temperature, the right living conditions for the eggs. I don't interpret the sound it made as a warning system, but simply a random effect of something passing through it. And the fact that it was only active in that section, while the other sections with the eggs were dark makes me think that this atmospheric containment field failed there in the time since the ship crash landed and the eggs naturally died, they were subjected to the same atmospheric conditions like the jockey was and ended up being dead and fossilized

[pred169]

Possible......i agree the other eggs were probably dead but it's pretty thin to think that out of all the containment fields only one area survived. And even thinner to think that it just so happened to be where the hole was burned through. Like I said I think the blue mist was an audible warning system. And it was activated by whatever burned through the hull. We already know that the engineers used frequency tones to start their computer systems  (flute from prometheus) so an audible alarm system on precious or dangerous cargo really isn't far fetched at all.

[Born Of Cold Light]

I'd just like to point out that we know from the films that Aliens do actively use their acid as a tool, so the hole in the Derelict's floor could easily have been caused by an Alien from either side.  I'm voting from the bottom; a facehugger used acid similar to what we saw in Alien 3 and latched onto the pilot.  The ship then spun out of control and lander on LV-426 and the pilot used his last few minutes to send out a warning signal.

[zuzuki]

Possible......i agree the other eggs were probably dead but it's pretty thin to think that out of all the containment fields only one area survived. And even thinner to think that it just so happened to be where the hole was burned through. Like I said I think the blue mist was an audible warning system. And it was activated by whatever burned through the hull. We already know that the engineers used frequency tones to start their computer systems  (flute from prometheus) so an audible alarm system on precious or dangerous cargo really isn't far fetched at all.

The sound based technology is something they comed up 4 years ago. When those scenes where conceived in 78 during pre-production they didn't have this kind of backstory. They simply had a weird ass ship, crash landed on a planet, hull was ruptured, systems failed, hundreds or thousands of years passed so naturally some of the tech stopped working, while other systems stayed online. The s.o.s. signal stayed online, the containment field stayed active in that area, and failed over the years in the other. You don't need to come up with other explanations and complicate things.

And like i said, a lot of the things weren't thought out properly. They just put as much creepy and weird things as possible to make things seem alien with no real explanation to back that up. People have asked themselves questions for years what was with the giant cavernous eggchamber that seemed to be bigger than the ship? was it a structure beneath the ship? no cause we know the ship crash landed so inconsistency created because they wanted to make things look cool. How does a little chestburster grow in that big ass xeno without food in a few hours? doesn't matter, it just looked cool. These are just a few examples from the first movie. Then everyone who came into the franchise tried to put their own spin on things and created more questions and inconsistencies. So i won't use in this case the sound tech from Prometheus to answer these old questions. Especially since we don't have enough info about engineer tech and how they use. If they decide in the future to use the tech like you suggested and make it all plausible then it will be ok, but now it's just speculation with no base

I'd just like to point out that we know from the films that Aliens do actively use their acid as a tool, so the hole in the Derelict's floor could easily have been caused by an Alien from either side.  I'm voting from the bottom; a facehugger used acid similar to what we saw in Alien 3 and latched onto the pilot.  The ship then spun out of control and lander on LV-426 and the pilot used his last few minutes to send out a warning signal.

Agreed, even if the movie makes it seem it was the other way around, from above-below. But was it a facehugger or a xeno? cause that hole was pretty big for a small facehugger to make  frakkin questions

[Born Of Cold Light]

Agreed, even if the movie makes it seem it was the other way around, from above-below. But was it a facehugger or a xeno? cause that hole was pretty big for a small facehugger to make  frakkin questions

It's not out of the question.  If the hull had been exceptionally thick, it might have used alot of acid to burn through.  Also, gravity would have caused the hole to bend down regardless.

Another theory is that a facehugger was loose already and that the ultramorph did indeed burn its way down into the the cargo hold.  The reason for this might simply have been as a way to be closer to its own kind.

[razeak]

maybe the engineer shot one before he got in the pilots chair and was already impregnated from being in another area of the ship.

[Born Of Cold Light]

maybe the engineer shot one before he got in the pilots chair and was already impregnated from being in another area of the ship.

But then where is the body?

[CainsSon]

I only had time to read the first few replies to this thread ... But if the question is how does a hive survive in the absence of a Queen, the answer is IMO implied to be some kind if royal jelly - which at one point I thought the black goo was supposed to be... In absence of a queen or if the queen is destroyed, ants and bees will secrete a substance onto an egg or another drone/ regular bee or ant, and transform it into a queen.

[The Cruentus]

I don't think the Ultramorph would come out of an Engineer in regular circumstances, though. It'd have to be a regular Alien, as the Engineers match our DNA perfectly.

Well sure, but that it what they called the Alien that came out of an Engineer, an Ultramorph (As far as I remember, might be wrong) it would or should look like a typical human-spawned Xenomorph but it would be a great deal bigger.

@Born Cold of Night
Beluga-morph is not an ultramorph, it is just a different variant of the Xenomorph-type bio-weapon, the cargo was supposed to be filled with different versions of the bio-weapons though they have similarities such as using hosts and stuff, the Beluga-morph is just one such variant. The Beluga-morph came from a human (holloway or whatever his name was) infected by a octo-facehugger, not a trilobite, and its not a Deacon. Its in the original script.

Would have been interesting to see as well.