Xenomorph

Alien Adult

The Xenomorph is an alien race from the Alien Franchise. First appearing in Ridley Scott's Alien, the Xenomorph (more commonly known as Alien) has become one of the most iconic images in Horror, modern and everyday culture, with it's design used for billions of creature designs through the years.

With one of the most original life span and appearences in film, the Xenomorph has since been featured in 3 sequels, 2 crossovers and even a spin off/prequel. Appearing countless comics and video games, the Xenomorph is commonly known for doing battle with fellow alien "monster" the Yautja from the Predator Franchise.

Appearance

When standing upright, the Aliens are vaguely bipedal in form, though they adopt a more hunched, quadrupedal stance when walking or sprinting. They have a skeletal, biomechanical appearance and are usually colored in muted shades of black, blue or bronze. Aliens do not radiate heat, as their body heat matches the ambient temperature of the environment in which they are found. In most of the films, adult Aliens have the ability of running and crawling along ceilings and walls. They have great physical strength, having been shown to be capable of breaking through welded steel doors.

A Aliens "Warrior"

Aliens have segmented, blade-tipped tails. The sharp tip was initially a small, scorpion-like barb, but from Aliens onwards the blade design increased in size and changed in appearance to more closely resemble a slashing weapon. From Alien Resurrection onwards, the tails have a flat ridge of spines at the base of the blade. This was introduced to help them swim convincingly, and was left intact in the subsequent cross-overs. The original shooting script for Aliens and the novelization both featured a scene in which Lieutenant Gorman is "stung" by the barb tail and rendered unconscious. In the final cut of the movie, Gorman is knocked out by falling crates. As a weapon, the strength of the tail is very effective, having been shown to be strong enough to impale and lift a Predator with seemingly little effort. They are also adept at using their tails as blunt weapons, sometimes to deadly effect, as seen in Alien.

They have elongated, cylindrical skulls, but possess no visible eyes, though in the original Alien film, the top of the creature's head was translucent, with empty eye sockets of human appearance visible within. This element was re-used for the "Predalien" 29 years later. How the creatures see is uncertain. In Alien 3, a fisheye lens was used to illustrate the Alien's point of view. In the novelization of the movie Alien, the creature is held mesmerized by a spinning green light for several minutes. In Aliens, the adult creatures have a more textured head rather than a smooth carapace. In the commentary for Aliens, it was speculated that this was part of the maturation of the creatures, as they had been alive far longer than the original Alien. The smooth design of the carapace would be used again in Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, although made narrower with a longer muzzle and more prominent chin. This design would be kept in Alien versus Predator, and abandoned in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in favor of the ribbed design. The Aliens' inner jaws are powerful enough to smash through bone and metal.

Throughout their appearances, human-spawned Aliens have been shown to have a fluctuating number of fingers. In Alien, the creature has webbed, six fingered hands. The number of fingers is reduced to three in Aliens, and

are shown to be much longer and more skeletal. In Alien 3, the number of digits is increased to four, with two long middle fingers and a pair of thumbs. This design carried over into Alien Resurrection although more slender. This design returns once again in the Alien vs. Predator films, though the hands were made bulkier in order to make the Aliens seem more formidable against the Predators.

Aliens have been alternately portrayed as both plantigrade and digitigrade organisms, usually in accordance to their host. Human-spawned Aliens were usually portrayed as having humanoid hind limbs, while in Alien 3, the featured Alien (which was spawned from a quadrupedal animal) sported double-jointed legs due to its quadrupedal host. This characteristic would be continued in Alien Resurrection for the human-spawned Aliens. Tom Woodruff, who had previously played the "dog-alien" in Alien 3, described the human-spawned Aliens in Resurrection as feeling more like a dog than the previous creature, despite having been born from human hosts. The human spawned Alien warriors would revert back to a plantigrade posture in Alien vs. Predator.

Blood and secretions

Alien blood is an extremely potent acid and is capable of corroding on contact almost any substance with alarming speed. It is dull yellowish-green in color, and seems to be pressurized inside the body so that it spurts out when punctured. Shusett suggested the idea that the creature have acid blood as a plausible means to make the creature "unkillable"; if one were to use traditional firearms or explosives to attack it, its blood would eat through the hull of the ship. The Alien novelization suggests that, at least at the "facehugger" stage, the acid is not blood but a fluid maintained under pressure between a double layer of skin. In later films in the series, the Aliens are shown to be conscious of the effects of the

ir acidic blood, and even use it to their advantage: In Alien Resurrection, two Aliens escape a cage by killing a fellow Alien so its acid eats through the cage floor; in Aliens vs. Predator a queen being held by chains apparently instructs several Aliens to slash and cut her, thus corroding the chains.

In the Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem documentary: "Science of the Alien", it is theorized that the Aliens' acid blood could be some type of "hydrosulfuric" or hydrochloric acid composition due to its corrosiveness and the conspicuously toxic effects on living human tissue. The documentary also speculates that Aliens are immune to their own acidic and toxic liquids due to a endobiological build-up similar to the human stomach's ability to protect itself from its digestive fluids. The documentary takes this theory one step further and speculates that the Alien organisms' protection system against its own toxic hydrofluoric acid is protecting the rest of the organism with what is basically a bio-organically produced Teflon isolation, since polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, or teflon), being a fluorine-based compound, does not react with hydrofluoric acid. In the film Alien vs. Predator this is shown to be the case, as a Predator uses Alien chitin to make armor for Alexa that protects her from their blood.

Aliens can produce a thick, strong resin (secreted from their jaws, giving them the look of a slavering beast) that they use to build their hives and to cocoon their victims, and they can use the walls of their hives as camouflage. In the original Alien, the facehugger is shown to be able to "spit" acid, melting the faceplate of Kane's helmet and allowing the creature immediate access to the inside. This ability is also exhibited by adult Aliens in Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection; much like a spitting cobra, they use it to blind and immobilize their victims.

Intelligence and communication

Events on the LV-426 colony and the USM Auriga showed that the species excels at observational learning and problem solving. In both cases, the Aliens managed to learn how to operate the machinery of their mechanized environments at a very basic level. On LV-426, the Aliens were able to cut the power from a section of the complex to allow themselves access to the humans. The Queen was able to learn how to operate an elevator

simply by observing it once. The novelization of Aliens notes that the Queen establishing her "nest" at the base's main power plant could equally be the result of her selecting the warmest part of the base to make her nest or her deliberately selecting a location where any attackers would be unable to destroy her without destroying the entire facility. In the director's commentary for Aliens, James Cameron noted that the creatures in Aliens had been alive for far longer than the Alien in the first film, and so had more time to learn how to manipulate machinery.

On the USM Auriga, they were able to use blood from another Alien to melt through their enclosure and escape, with the Aliens in the Antarctic temple using a similar strategy to free their Queen from her chains. With the exception of the "Newborn", Aliens have demonstrated little actual emotion, save for self preservation and maternal instincts toward their eggs.

Life cycle

Aliens are depicted as eusocial life-forms with a defined caste system which is ruled over by a queen. Their life cycle comprises several distinct stages: they begin their lives as an egg, which hatches a parasitoid larval form known as a facehugger, which then attaches itself to a living host by, as its name suggests, latching onto its face. In the Alien 3 novelization, Ripley commented that this parasitoid would not likely be able to use a host any smaller than a cat, or as large as an elephant.

The facehugger then "impregnates" the host with an embryo known as a "chestburster," which, after a gestation period of several hours, erupts violently from the host's chest, resulting in the death of the host.

The chestburster then matures to an adult phase within a few hours, shedding its skin and replacing its cells with polarized silicon. Due to horizontal gene transfer during the gestation period, the Alien also takes on some of the basic physical attributes of the host from which it was born, allowing the individual Alien to adapt to the host's environment.

Queen

Ripley's first encounter with the Queen.

Queen Aliens are significantly larger and stronger than the Warriors, and other casts of Xenomorphs. They are approximately 20 feet tall at the hip and 53 feet in length. Their body structure differs also, having two pairs of arms, one large and one small. The Queen's head is larger than other adult Aliens and is protected by a large, flat crest, like a crown, and they vary from Queen-to-Queen. Unlike other Aliens, the queen also has high heel protrusions from its feet.

Egg-laying Alien Queens possess an immense ovipositor on their lower torso, similar to a queen termite's. Unlike insect queens, there appears to be no need for drones. When attached to its ovipositor, the Queen is supported by a "biomechanical throne" that consists of a lattice of struts resembling massive insect legs.

In the initial cut of Alien, the Alien possessed a complete life cycle, with the still-living bodies of its victims converted into eggs. However, the scene showing this final stage was cut for reasons of pacing, leaving the ultimate origin of the eggs obscure. This allowed Aliens director James Cameron to introduce a concept he had initially conceived for a spec script called Mother, a massive mother Alien which laid the eggs and formed the basis for the Aliens' life cycle. Cameron conceived the Queen as a monstrous analogue to Ripley's own maternal role in the film. In that vein, some critics have compared it to Grendel's mother.

The design of the queen was created by Cameron in collaboration with special effects artist Stan Winston, based upon an initial painting Cameron had done at the start of the project. The Winston Studio created a test foam core queen before constructing the full hydraulic puppet which was used for most of the scenes involving the large Alien. Two people were inside working the twin sets of arms and puppeteers off-screen worked its jaws and head. Although at the end of the film the Queen was presented full-body fighting the power-loader, the audience never sees the legs of the queen, save those of the small-scale puppet that appears only briefly. In Aliens, Cameron used very selective camera-angles on the queen, using the "less is more" style of photography. Subsequently the movie won an Oscar for Visual Effects.

An adult Queen was to reappear in Alien Resurrection. The original mechanical head previously used in Aliens was provided by Bob Burns. It was repainted with a blend of green and brown, giving it a shimmering, insect-like quality. This color concept would be abandoned in Alien versus Predator in favor of the original black color scheme.

In the climax of the 2004 film Alien vs. Predator, the Queen's basic design was altered to make it more "streamlined" in appearance and its overall size was increased to 6 meters (20 feet) tall. Other changes include the removal of the "high-heel" protrusions on its legs, including additional spines on its head and making its waist thinner because there was no need for puppeteers inside its chest. The animatronic laying queen had 47 points of hydraulic motion.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem introduced a younger form of the full grown Queen, albeit with traits inherited from its Predator host. Recalling the facehugger's method of embryo implantation, the Predalien uses its inner mouth to directly deposit multiple chestburster embryos into pregnant female hosts. This is explained by the Brothers Strause as a means of quickly building an army of Aliens before the young queen evolves into its sedentary, egg-laying state.

Egg

The eggs (Ovamorph) laid by the Queen are large, ellipsoidal leathery objects between two to three feet high with a four-lobed opening at the top. As a potential host approaches, the egg's lobes unfold like flower petals, and the parasitic facehugger extracts itself from the egg and attaches itself to the potential host. Giger initially designed the eggs with a much more obviously vaginal appearance, complete with an "inner and outer vulva". The producers complained that Catholic countries would ban the film if the allusion was too strong, so Giger doubled the lobes to four, so that, in his words, "seen from above, they would form the cross that people in Catholic countries are so fond of looking at." The interior of the original egg was composed of "Nottingham lace", which is the lining of a cow's stomach. In the first film, the quick shot of the facehugger erupting from the egg was done with sheep's intestine. Initially the egg remained totally stationary save for the hydraulic movement of the lobes; however, by Alien Resurrection the entire egg was made to ripple as it opened.

Facehugger

The facehugger seen in Alien.

A facehugger is the second stage in the Alien's life cycle. It has eight long finger-like legs which allow it to crawl rapidly, and a long tail adapted for making great leaps. These particular appendages give it an appearance somewhat comparable to chelicerate arthropods such as arachnids and horseshoe crabs. The lower part of the facehugger, the one that touches the victim's face, and its orifice (which is the end of a proboscis used for delivering alien embryo) is shown in the films only briefly and noticeably resembles a vagina, thus adding to the general sexual look of the Xenomorphs.

The facehugger is a parasitoid; its only purpose is to make contact with the host's mouth for the implantation process, by gripping its legs around the victim's head and wrapping its tail around the host's neck. Upon making contact, the facehugger tightens its tail around the host's neck in order to render it unconscious through oxygen deprivation. The facehugger then inserts a proboscis down the host's throat, supplying it with oxygen whilst simultaneously implanting an embryo. Attempts to remove facehuggers generally prove fatal, as the parasitoid will respond by tightening its grip, and the facehugger's acidic blood prevents it from being safely cut away. Once the Alien embryo is safely implanted, the facehugger detaches and dies.

Giger's original design for the facehugger was a much larger creature with eyes and a spring-loaded tail. Later, in response to comments from the filmmakers, Giger reduced the creature's size substantially. At first Giger assumed that the facehugger would wrap around the outside of Kane's helmet, but Scott decided that it would have far more impact if the facehugger were revealed once the helmet was removed. Scott and Giger realised that the facehugger could burn through the helmet's faceplate with its acid blood; subsequent redesigns of the space helmet included a far larger faceplate to allow for this. Dan O'Bannon initially conceived the facehugger as somewhat resembling an octopus, possessing tentacles. However, when he received H. R. Giger's designs, which substituted tentacles with fingerlike digits, he thought Giger's design concept superior. Since no one was available at the time, O'Bannon decided to design the facehugger prop himself. The technical elements of the musculature and bone were added by Ron Cobb. Giger's initial design for the smaller facehugger had the fingers facing forward, but O'Bannon's redesign shifted the legs to the side. When the foam rubber sculpture of the facehugger was produced, O'Bannon asked that it should remain unpainted, believing the rubber, which resembled human skin, was more plausible.

In Alien 3, another addition, a "Royal Facehugger" that would carry the embryo of a Queen Alien, was planned but ultimately dropped. The Royal Facehugger is briefly glimpsed in the assembly cut of Alien 3, but not identified as such.

Chestburster

The chestburster that grew to be the adult in Alien.

After implantation, facehuggers die and the embryo's host wakes up afterwards showing no considerable outward negative symptoms. Symptoms build acutely after detachment of the facehugger, the most common being sore throat, slight nausea, increased congestion and moderate to extreme hunger. In later stages where the incubation period is extended in preparation of a Queen birth, symptoms will include a shortness of breath, exhaustion, and hemorrhaging (detectable through biological scanners and present in nosebleeds or other seemingly random bleeding incidents), as well as chest pains inflicted either in lack of chest space due to the chestburster's presence, or even premature attempts to escape the host. The incubating embryo takes on some of the host's DNA or traits, such as bipedalism, quadrupedalism or possessing the mandibles of a Predator and other body structure changes. Over the course of 1–24 hours, indeterminable in some cases, and sometimes up to a week, in the case of some queens, the embryo develops into a chestburster, at which point it emerges, violently ripping open the chest of the host, killing it.

The chestburster was designed by Alien director Ridley Scott and constructed by special effects artist Roger Dicken. Giger had produced a model of a chestburster that resembled a "degenerate plucked turkey" and was far too large to fit inside a ribcage. Much to Giger's chagrin, his model reduced the production team to fits of laughter on sight. Scott drafted a series of alternate designs for the chestburster based on the philosophy of working "back [from the adult] to the child" and ultimately produced "something phallic." The chestburster in the original Alien was armless but arms were added in Aliens to facilitate the creature crawling its way out of its host's corpse. This concept would be abandoned in Alien Resurrection and subsequent films.

Growth and maturity

When a chestburster erupts from the body of its host, it is less than a foot tall. However, it soon undergoes a dramatic growth spurt, reaching adult size in a matter of hours; in Alien the chestburster had grown to 2 metres in height by the time the Nostromo crew located it again. The chestburster is shown to have molted before reaching maturity. In Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Alien warriors are shown who are still growing, showing shedding skin. In the unrated cut, the Predalien is shown actively wiping off its final molted skin at the film's start. A shed skin of a growing chestburster is also shown, showing that the creature's final limbs do not grow in the earliest stages.

Alternative forms

A Drone

Aliens take on various forms depending on the characteristics of their hosts. Most of the Aliens seen to date have been human-spawned, but a number of Aliens born from other hosts have also been seen.

Drone

The Drone is the most basic and common form of Xenomorph found in the hive; the drone form acts much like worker bees or ants. The Drones main function is to keep the hive functioning properly and to gather new hosts for impregnation. The Drones stand 6 feet tall and 12 feet in length. They look almost identical to Warriors in appearance with the exception that they have a smooth dome shaped skull and instead of having a large blade on their tall they have a stinger like barb. They are also smaller and of slighter build then the Warriors. Like all their brethren they posses Acid for bodily fluids. They also have the unique ability to spit acid over short distances.

Warrior

The Warrior (or Hunter) is one of the primary assault organisms of the Xenomorphs. It is fast, reasonably tough, and a savage combatant. Even in death the Warrior is dangerous, bursting apart when killed and drenching nearby enemies in acid. These types of Warriors are created by infecting humans (though doing so could also produce a Drone).

Runner

The "Dog Alien" (also jokingly referred to as the "Bambi burster", or "Runner Alien" in the expanded universe stories), was introduced in Alien 3. The creature itself shares the same basic physical conformation and instincts as the other Aliens shown in the previous films, although there are several differences due to the host it was spawned from (a dog in the theatrical cut, an ox in the DVD assembly cut). The Dog Alien in its Chestburster form is a miniature version of the adult, unlike the larva-like human spawned chestbursters. The adult is primarily quadrupedal, has digitigrade hind legs and lacks the dorsal tubes of the human-spawned variety.

Predalien

A Predalien.

This variation is the result of a facehugger impregnating a Predator. The "Predalien" was first depicted in a painting by Dave Dorman, and subsequently featured in the Aliens versus Predator comics and games. A Predalien chestburster debuts in the final scene of Alien vs. Predator, but it is not until Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem that an adult hybrid makes its first movie appearance.

The Predalien is much stronger and agile than either the Xenomorph or Predator. The Predalien is a mixture of black and green or brown. They also change their characteristics of it host aka: if the Predalien fetus came from a clan leader then it's characteristics will evolve into a much stronger host.

The Predalien shares many characteristics with its host, such as long hair-like appendages, mandibles, skin color and similar vocalizations. It is a large, bulky creature, and possesses physical strength greater than that of human-spawned Aliens. Like human-born Aliens, it is also shown to be stronger than its host species, as evidenced by its ability to pin, push, and knock a Predator away with ease. It also possessed the ability to impregnate human hosts with multiple Alien embryos.

It is also to be noted that the Predalien was in the process of evolving into a Queen towards the end of the film. Although not physically, the pregnation of several embryos into one female host may be a characteristic of any xenomorph in the status of evolving. In this case, any Xenomorph that is evolving into a Queen may hold the same ability.

Mutated forms

Genetic Xenomorphs

Genetic Xenomorphs

The Genetic Xenomorphs are a mutated Xenomorph breed that were spawned from the Queen that was extracted from the cloned Ellen Ripley, Ripley 8. Due to the cloning process, the Genetic Xenomorph Drones are slightly altered with human DNA.

The Genetic Xenomorphs bear a strong resemblance to normal, human-spawned Xenomorphs, but the neck area around the average Genetic Drone is much fleshier than the biomechanical neck design seen in normal Xenomorphs, presumably due to the imbalance of human DNA. Their body is more quadrupedal like the Runner rather than bipedal like the Xenomorphs on LV-426, and their tail has a flat ridge of spines at the base of the tail's blade. Both the Genetic Queen and her Drones had a blend of green and brown coloring unlike their normal counterparts, giving them a shimmering, insect-like quality.

Newborn

The Newborn.

In Alien Resurrection, due to significant genetic tampering in an attempt to recover DNA from the deceased Ellen Ripley and the Alien Queen within her, the resulting cloned Aliens show a number of minor human traits. The cloned Queen inherits a womb, and as a result it ceases to lay eggs and gives birth to a humanoid mutant. Physically, the human-Alien Newborn is very different from its brethren, being larger, with pale, translucent skin, a skull-shaped face with eyes, a human tongue and complete absence of a tail. The Newborn fails to bond with its Alien Queen mother, and kills it. Instead, the Newborn sees the Ripley clone as a surrogate parent.

The Newborn creature was originally scripted by Joss Whedon as being an eyeless, ivory-white quadruped with red veins running along the sides of its head. It had an inner jaw, with the addition of a pair of pincers on the sides of its head. These pincers would have been used to immobilise its prey as it drained it of blood through the inner jaw. The creature was also meant to rival the Queen in size. Jean-Pierre Jeunet later asked ADI to lean towards making the human-Alien hybrid, known as the Newborn, more human than Alien. The Newborn's eyes and nose were added to improve its expressions to make it a character, rather than just a "killing machine", and give it depth as a character. Jeunet was adamant about the Newborn having genitalia, a mix of both sexes. However, Fox was uncomfortable and even Jeunet felt "even for a Frenchman, it's too much." The genitalia were digitally removed in post-production. The Newborn animatronic required nine puppeteers and was the most complex animatronic in the film.

Trilobite

During the Prometheus mission to LV-223 in 2093, after Charles Holloway is infected by the Black Liquid pathogen, he unknowingly impregnates Elizabeth Shaw with a Trilobite when the two sleep together. Later, when Shaw is about to give birth to the Trilobite, she uses Vickers' medpod to remove it from herself.

The immature Trilobite resembles a four-armed squid, however it is extremely aggressive and grows to an incredible size, with no biomass to take in, in very little time. Although Shaw attempts to decontaminate the medpod and kill the infant creature, it is merely rendered unconscious and later grows to an enormous size. When Vickers' lifeboat is jettisoned down onto LV-223 with the Trilobite onboard, Shaw releases the Trilobite from the medpod room onto the Engineer attacking her. After a brief struggle, the Trilobite is able to subdue and impregnate the Engineer with a Deacon.

The Trilobite dies a short time later and the Engineer births a Deacon.

Biology

As an adult, it resembles an extremely large Facehugger (even larger than Engineers), but with many differences. It is comprised of many large tentacles which are strong enough to subdue the 7-foot engineer and also has six smaller tentacles that shoot out around its mouth. Unlike a facehugger, it does not leap onto a victim's face but instead grabs it with its tentacles and attempts to subdue it long enough to impregnate it, after which it settles its considerable body mass on top of the host's body. At the centre of its body is a large toothed mouth inside which resides a large feeding tube used to impregnate its host.

During impregnation, hosts lose strength and fall unconscious, like normal facehugger victims. The impregnation process seems to be the same as the facehugger's, but when a Trilobite impregnates a host, it results in a Deacon. The Trilobite also dies after it impregnates a host, much like facehuggers. The Trilobite lacks a tri-lobed body and bears no resemblance to the prehistoric creature of the same name.

Deacon

The Deacon was an accidental result of the Engineers' Black Liquid that was originally used as a bio weapon as well as presumably creating life. The Liquid infected Holloway, who impregnated Elizabeth Shaw with a Trilobite. That Trilobite eventually matured and impregnated an Engineer on LV-223. The Deacon developed and burst from the Engineer's chest.

Differences from Xenomorphs

It is important to note how the birth of this creature is different from the majority of Xenomorph births, as it appears to be a very basic yet humanoid form of the human-spawned Xenomorph.

The fact that it spawns almost fully developed makes it quite unique compared to Xenomorphs seen in the series - though the Dog Alien chestburster had arms and legs upon bursting. Unlike Xenomorph chestbursters, which "punch" their way out using the front or top of their heads, this creature used the sharp back end of its head to tear a way out.

Also unlike Xenomorphs, it does not have an inner jaw and instead has a human/Engineer tooth structure and gums. Its "inner jaw" is merely an extra jaw that protrudes a short distance but is much larger and more unwieldy than a Xenomorph's inner jaw. Whether or not this "inner jaw" can be used as a weapon is unknown.

Antartica, 1904 and 2004

The film begins near Antarctica in 1904. A whaler is running through the Razorback Point whaling station. He goes inside an empty building seeking shelter. He hears a noise behind him, and sees the cloaked outline of a

Predator. The whaler stumbles back in fear, when a Xenomorph steps out of the shadows behind the man. The Alien and the Predator lunge at each other, with the whaler caught in between them.

One hundred years later in 2004, a satellite detects a mysterious heat bloom beneath Bouvetøya, an island about one thousand miles north of Antarctica. Billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland assembles a team of scientists to investigate the heat source and claim it for his multinational communications company Weyland Industries. The team includes paleontologists, archaeologists, linguistic experts, drillers, mercenaries, and a female guide named Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan).

As a Predator ship, reaches Earth's orbit, it blasts a hole through the ice towards the source of the heat bloom. When the humans arrive at the site above the heat source, an abandoned whaling station, they find a hole and descend beneath the ice. They discover a mysterious pyramid and begin to explore it, finding evidence of a civilization predating written history and what appears to be a sacrificial chamber filled with human skeletons with ruptured rib cages.

Meanwhile, three Predators land and kill the humans on the surface, making their way down to the pyramid and arrive just as the team unwittingly powers up the structure. An Alien queen awakens from cryogenic stasis and begins to produce eggs, from which facehuggers hatch and attach to several humans trapped in the sacrificial chamber. Chestbursters emerge from the humans and quickly grow into adult Aliens. The Alien known as Grid kills two Predators easily. The last remaining Predator, Scar, kills one alien and a facehugger. After this and unbeknownst to the others, Scar is implanted with an Alien embryo.

Through translation of the pyramid's hieroglyphs the explorers learn, that the Predators have been visiting Earth for thousands of years. It was they who taught early human civilizations how to build pyramids, and were worshipped as gods. Every 100 years they would visit Earth to take part in a right of passage in which several humans would sacrifice themselves as hosts for the Aliens, creating the "ultimate prey" for the Predators to hunt. If overwhelmed, the Predators would activate their self-destruct weapons to eliminate the Aliens and themselves. The explorers deduce that this is why the current Predators are at the pyramid, and that the heat bloom was to attract humans for the purpose of making new Aliens to hunt.

The remaining humans, decide that the Predators must be allowed to succeed in their hunt so the Aliens don't reach the surface. As the battle continues most of the characters are killed, leaving only Alexa and a single Predator to fight against the Aliens. The two form an alliance and use the Predator’s self-destruct device to destroy the pyramid and the remaining Aliens. Alexa and the Predator reach the surface, where they battle the escaped Alien queen. They defeat the queen by attaching its chain to a water tower and pushing it over a cliff into the water, dragging the queen to the ocean floor. The Predator; however, dies from its wounds.

A Predator ship uncloaks and several Predators appear. They collect their fallen comrade and present Alexa with one of their spear weapons in recognition of her skill as a warrior. As they retreat into space, a chestburster erupts from the dead Predator. It appears to be an Alien/Predator hybrid (the predalien), as it has the characteristic mandibles of both creatures.

The Xenomorphs featured are Dome Headed Warriors and a Queen.

Gunninson, Colorado, 2004

The film begins immediately following the events of Alien vs. Predator, aboard the Predator mother ship which is leaving Earth carrying dead Aliens, living facehuggers, and the body of the Predator Scar who defeated the Alien queen. A chestburster erupts from Scar's body; it is a new creature that is a hybrid of Alien and Predator characteristics (referred to by the production team as the "Predalien"). It sneaks onto a scout ship which soon leaves the mother ship, quickly matures into an adult, and begins killing Predators throughout the ship. One Predator fires at it, puncturing the hull and causing the ship to crash in the forest outside of Gunnison, Colorado. With the Predators dead, the Predalien and several facehuggers escape into the forest and implant embryos into a father and son who are on a hunting trip and into several homeless people living in the sewers.

A distress signal from the wrecked ship reaches the Predator home world and a lone Predator called Wolf responds, traveling to Earth and using his advanced technology to observe the cause of the crash and track the facehuggers. He begins to erase the evidence of the Aliens' presence by destroying the crashed ship and using a blue liquid to dissolve the bodies of the facehuggers and their victims.

Meanwhile, in Gunnison, ex-convict Dallas Howard has just returned to town after serving time in prison. He is greeted by Sheriff Eddie Morales and reunites with his younger brother Ricky. Ricky has a romantic interest in his more affluent classmate Jesse and is being harassed by her boyfriend Dale and two of his friends. Dale throws Ricky's car keys down a storm drain and, while searching for them, Dallas and Ricky hear noises and see evidence of something strange in the sewers. Nearby, Kelly O'Brien—also returning to Gunnison from service in the Army—is reunited with her husband Tim and daughter Molly.

Sheriff Morales leads a search party into the forest looking for the missing father and son. One of his deputies is killed by Wolf, who makes its way into the sewers and fights a number of adult Aliens. As the battle reaches the surface, several Aliens disperse into the town. Wolf pursues some of them to the power plant, where collateral damage from his weaponry causes a city-wide power outage. Ricky and Jesse meet at the high school swimming pool but are interrupted by Dale and his cohorts just as the power fails. An Alien enters the building and kills both of Dale's companions. Another Alien invades the O'Brien home, killing Tim while Kelly escapes

with Molly.

Kelly and Molly meet Ricky, Jesse, Dale, Dallas, and Sheriff Morales at a sporting goods store to gather weapons. National Guard troops arrive but are quickly killed by the Aliens. The battle between the Wolf and the Aliens enters the sporting goods store, where Dale is killed. The Predator's Plasma Casters are damaged, but he is able to modify one into a hand-held Plasma Burner.

As the survivors attempt to escape Gunnison they make radio contact with Colonel Stevens, who indicates that an air evacuation is being staged at the center of town. Kelly is suspicious of the military's intentions, convincing a small group to go to the hospital where they hope to escape by helicopter while Sheriff Morales heads to the evacuation area with the rest of the surviving citizens. The hospital, however, has been invaded by Aliens, with the Predalien reproducing by implanting embryos directly into the belly of a pregnant woman. Wolf also arrives at the hospital and in the ensuing battle Jesse is killed, Ricky is injured, and Dallas takes possession of the Wolf's Plasma cannon.

As the battle reaches the rooftop Dallas, Ricky, Kelly, and Molly escape in the helicopter while Wolf and the Predalien battle hand-to-hand. The two creatures mortally wound each other just as a military jet arrives and is revealed not to be a rescue airlift but rather a bomber; it executes a tactical nuclear strike that destroys the rest

Wolf in battle with a Predalien

of the city, killing the Predator, Aliens, Predalien, and remaining citizens. The shock wave from the explosion causes the fleeing helicopter to crash in a clearing, where the survivors are rescued by the military and the Wolf's Plasma cannon is confiscated. Colonel Stevens presents the blaster to a Ms. Yutani, who remarks that the world is not ready for this technology. Colonel Stevens replies that the technology is not for our world.

The Xenomorphs featured are Ridged Headed Warriors and a Predalien Hybrid.

LV-426, The Nostromo, 2122

In the future, the seven crew members of an interstellar freighter are woken ahead of time from their cryosleep when they receive a distress beacon from an uninhabited planet. Some of the crew are initially reluctant to investigate, but company policy forces them to. They land on the planet LV-426 where the distress beacon came from. They came across a crashed space ship and investigate it. Upon investigation, they discover a dead Engineer in the cockpit and a vicious parasite that attaches itself to the face of one of the crew members (Kane), and they return to space with him in a coma. Eventually, the parasite removes itself and he appears to have returned to normal, but a short while later, while the crew are eating, a small creature bursts from his chest, killing him.

It soon grows larger and begins killing the crew, starting with Brett. As soon as the first crew member is lost, they decide to fight back, making flamethrowers and attempting to hunt it down in the air ducts. The only result of the counterattack is that Captain Dallas is ambushed and killed.

Lambert, the only other female crewmember besides Ripley, panics and starts arguing that they should run, but before they can discuss the course of action any further, Ripley elects to ask the ship's computer for advice. It reveals that they were considered expendable in the course of bringing the creature back to Earth. Ash, the ship's science officer, is revealed to be an android and to have deliberately woken the crew so that they would discover the beacon. Ripley confronts him on this, and in response Ash attacks Ripley.

Parker and Lambert save Ripley before Ash can kill her, however, and the three attempt to make an escape in the lifeboat. Before they can escape, the alien attacks again, killing Parker and Lambert. Ripley retrieves her cat

and makes a run for the lifeboat herself after setting the ship to self-destruct; on the way she finds the cocooned bodies of Dallas and Brett, and destroys them (only in the director's cut, however.).

She makes her way to the lifeboat and sets off as the ship detonates behind her, but finds that the alien has taken refuge in the lifeboat. She dons a spacesuit and decompresses the lifeboat, throwing the alien into space, and activates the lifeboat's engines as the alien is in the path of the exhaust, killing it.

As the movie ends, she returns to cryosleep with her cat.

The only Xenomorph featured is a Drone.

LV-426, 2179

Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the space freighter Nostromo, is rescued and revived after drifting for fifty-seven years in hypersleep. At an interview before a panel of executives from her employer, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, her testimony regarding the Alien she encountered is met with extreme skepticism as no physical evidence of the creature survived the destruction of the Nostromo. Ripley loses her space flight license as a result of her "questionable judgment" and learns that LV-426, the planet where her crew first encountered the

Alien eggs, is now home to a terraforming colony. Some time later, Ripley is visited by Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke and Lieutenant Gorman of the Colonial Marines, who inform her that contact has been lost with the colony on LV-426. The company decides to dispatch Burke and a unit of marines to investigate, and offers to restore Ripley's flight status and pick up her contract if she will accompany them as a consultant. Traumatized by her previous encounter with the Alien, Ripley initially refuses to join, but accepts when she realizes that the mission will allow her to face her fears, which had been plaguing her since her first encounter. Aboard the warship , she is introduced to the Colonial Marines, including Sergeant Apone, Corporal Hicks, Privates Vasquez and Hudson, and the android Bishop, toward whom Ripley is initially hostile due to her previous experience with the android Ash aboard the Nostromo.

The heavily-armed expedition descends to the surface of LV-426 via dropship, where they find the colony seemingly abandoned. Two living Alien facehuggers are found in containment tanks in the medical lab, and the only colonist found is a traumatized young girl nicknamed Newt. The marines determine that the colonists are clustered in the nuclear-powered atmosphere processing station. There they find a large Alien nest filled with the cocooned colonists. The Aliens attack and kill most of the unit, but Ripley rescues Hicks, Vasquez, and Hudson. With Gorman knocked unconscious during the rescue, Hicks assumes command and orders the dropship to recover the survivors, intending to return to the Sulaco and destroy the colony from orbit. However, a stowaway Alien kills the dropship pilots Spunkmeyer and Ferro in flight, causing the vessel to crash into the processing station; subsequently, the surviving humans barricade themselves inside the colony complex.

Ripley discovers that it was Burke who ordered the colonists to investigate the Derelict spaceship where the

Nostromo crew first encountered the Alien eggs, and that he hoped to return Alien specimens to the company laboratories where he could profit from their use as biological weapons. She threatens to expose him, but Bishop soon informs the group of a greater threat: the damaged processing station has become unstable and will soon detonate with the force of a thermonuclear weapon. He volunteers to use the colony's transmitter to pilot the Sulaco's remaining dropship to the surface by remote control so that the group can escape. Ripley and Newt fall asleep in the medical laboratory, awakening to find themselves locked in the room with the two facehuggers, which have been released from their tanks. Ripley is able to alert the marines, who rescue them and kill the creatures. Ripley accuses Burke of attempting to smuggle implanted Alien embryos past Earth's quarantine inside her and Newt, and of planning to kill the rest of the marines in hypersleep during the return trip. The electricity is suddenly cut off and numerous Aliens attack through the ceiling; Hudson, Burke, Gorman, and Vasquez are killed and Newt is captured by the Aliens.

Ripley and an injured Hicks reach Bishop and the second dropship, but Ripley is unwilling to leave Newt behind. She rescues Newt from the hive in the processing station, where the two encounter the Alien queen and her egg chamber. Ripley destroys most of the eggs, enraging the queen, who escapes by tearing free from her ovipositor. Closely pursued by the Queen, Ripley and Newt rendezvous with Bishop and Hicks on the dropship and escape moments before the colony is consumed by the nuclear blast. Back on the Sulaco, Ripley and Bishop's relief at their narrow escape is interrupted when the Alien queen, stowed away on the dropship's landing gear, impales Bishop and tears him in half. In a famous scene, Ripley battles the Queen using a power loader. The two of them tumble into a large airlock, which Ripley then opens, expelling the queen into space. Ripley clambers to safety and she, Newt, Hicks, and the still-functioning Bishop enter hypersleep for the return to Earth.

The Xenomorphs featured are Ridged Skull Warriors and a Queen.

Fury' 161, 2179

Following the events on LV-426, the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco experiences an onboard fire and launches an escape pod containing Ellen Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop who are all in cryonic stasis. During the launch, the ship's medical scans of the crew's cryotubes show an Alien facehugger attached to one of the crewmembers. The pod then crashes on Fiorina 'Fury' 161, a foundry facility and penal colony inhabited by all-male inmates with "double-Y" chromosome patterns. After some inmates recover the pod and its passengers, an Alien facehugger is seen approaching the prison dog. Ripley is taken in and awakened by Clemens, the prison doctor, and is told she is the only survivor of the crash. Many of the ex-inmates have embraced an apocalyptic, millenarian religion which forbids sexual relations, and Ripley is warned by the prison warden, Harold Andrews, that her presence among them may have extremely disruptive effects.

Suspicious of what caused the escape pod to jettison and what killed her companions, Ripley requests that Clemens perform an autopsy on Newt. She fears that Newt may be carrying an Alien embryo in her body, though she does not share this information. Despite protests from the warden and his assistant, Aaron, the autopsy is conducted and no embryo is found in Newt's body, and Clemens proclaims she simply died in the crash. Meanwhile, Ripley's unusual behavior begins to frustrate the warden and is agitating the prisoners.

A funeral is performed for Newt and Hicks in which their bodies are cremated in the facility's enormous furnace. In another section of the facility, the prison dog enters convulsions, and an Alien bursts from its body. The Alien soon begins to attack members of the colony, killing several and returning an outcast prisoner Golic to his former deranged state. To get answers, Ripley recovers and reactivates the damaged android Bishop, who confirms that there was an Alien on the Sulaco and it came with them to Fiorina in the escape pod. She then informs Andrews of her previous encounters with the Aliens and suggests everyone work together to hunt it down and kill it. Andrews does not believe her story and explains that the facility has no weapons. Their only hope of protection is the rescue ship being sent for Ripley by the Corporation.

Back in the prison infirmary, while talking to Ripley about the situation, Clemens is killed by the Alien, which then approaches Ripley but does not attempt to kill her. She runs to the mess hall to warn the others, only to see the Alien kill the

warden. Ripley rallies the inmates and proposes they pour highly flammable toxic waste, which is stored at the facility, into the ventilation system and ignite it to flush out the creature. An explosion is caused by the creature's premature intervention, resulting in several deaths. Using the medical equipment onboard the Sulaco escape pod, Ripley scans herself and discovers the embryo of an Alien Queen growing inside her. She also finds out that the Corporation truly wants the Queen embryo and the adult Alien, hoping to turn them into biological weapons. Deducing that the mature alien will not kill her because of the embryo she carries, Ripley begs Dillon, the religious leader of the inmates, to kill her, who agrees to do so only if she helps the inmates kill the adult creature first. They form a plan to lure it into the foundry's molding facility and drown it in molten lead. The bait-and-chase style plan results in the death of Dillon and all the remaining prisoners, except Morse, who pours the lead. The Alien, covered in molten metal, escapes the mold and is killed by Ripley when she turns on fire sprinklers and sprays the beast with water, causing its exoskeleton to cool rapidly and shatter via thermal shock. While Ripley battles the Alien, the Weyland-Yutani team arrives, including a man named Michael Bishop who looks identical to the Bishop android, claiming to be its

creator. He tries to persuade Ripley to undergo surgery to remove the Queen embryo, which he claims will be destroyed. Ripley refuses and steps back onto a mobile platform, which Morse positions over the furnace. The company men shoot Morse in the leg, and Aaron picks up a large wrench and strikes Bishop over the head with it, believing him to be an android. Aaron is shot dead and Bishop and his men show their true intentions, begging Ripley to let them have the "magnificent specimen." Ripley defies them by throwing herself into the gigantic furnace, just as the alien Queen begins to erupt from her chest. However, as she is dying from the wound, Ripley grabs the creature and holds on to it as she falls into the fire.

The Xenomorphs featured are a Runner (Drone) Xenomorph and a Baby Queen.

USM Auriga, 2380-2381

200 years after, Ellen Ripley has been cloned on the outer military science vessel USM Auriga using "blood samples from Fiorina 'Fury' 161, on ice." The United Systems Military knows of Ripley carrying the Alien Queen embryo implanted in her in Alien3 and desire to extract the Queen. After the success of the extraction, the scientists then decide to keep the Ripley clone alive for further study. The scientists then raise the Alien Queen and collect her eggs for further use. As a result of the cloning process Ellen Ripley's DNA was mixed with the

Queen's, she has developed different abilities including enhanced strength and reflexes, acidic blood, also an empathic link with the Aliens.

A ship called Betty, full of rogue mercenaries, arrives and delivers several kidnapped humans in hypersleep. The military scientists decide to use them as hosts for the Facehuggers, raising several adult Aliens for study. The soldiers encounter Ripley. The youngest member, Call, recognizes her name, and then attempts to kill the Ripley clone, believing she may be a host for more Aliens. But Call is too late; the adult Aliens had escaped confinement, damaging the ship and killing most of Auriga's crew. Dr. Wren, one of the ships scientists reveals that the Auriga's default command in an emergency situation is to return to Earth. Realizing that if the Auriga returned to Earth it would allow the Aliens to escape, Ripley, the mercenaries, Dr. Wren and a surviving Alien host Purvis then attempt to escape on the Betty and destroy the Auriga.

As the group makes their way through Auriga, several of them are killed by the Aliens. Call is revealed to be a android, after Wren betrays the group. Using Call's ability to interface with the damaged ship's systems, they set

it on a collision course with Earth, hoping the Aliens will be destroyed. Ripley learns the Queen has gained an ability from her DNA as well: the Alien Queen has grown a womb which can give birth to live offspring without the need to lay eggs and a need for human hosts. An offspring called the Newborn is born with human and Alien traits sees Ripley and determines her its mother and kills the Alien Queen.

Ripley and the others arrive at the Betty. As they launch, the Newborn manages to get onto the ship and then attacks Call and Distephano. Ripley kills the Newborn by using her acidic blood to burn a hole through a viewing pane, causing the creature to be sucked through the hole into space. The survivors escape and the Auriga explodes over Earth, killing all the Aliens.

The Xenomorphs featured are Genetic Drones (NOT WARRIORS), a Queen and the Newborn Mutation.

Filmography

• Alien
• Aliens
• Alien 3
• Alien: Resurrection
• Alien vs. Predator
• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
• Prometheus (cameo)