Stumbled across this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzmZiZaj81o&feature=related

and this (check the last part of the page):
http://www.planetavp.com/al/Alien/DeletedScenes/index.htm

In a very disturbing scene it appears that the alien has the capability of taking a host body, live (Dallas) or dead (Brett) and somehow inject it with something to metamorphosize it into a new facehugger "egg".  In the scene dead Brett is almost completely metamorphosized into an egg and Dallas is about halfway there (though still somewhat conscious and probably in a ton of pain).

Anyway, I was thinking about this and it makes a lot of sense to me.  In the absence of a queen the alien would have to fall back on a secondary, less efficient, means of parasitic-like reproduction.  By creating future face-hugger eggs (which probably have long term storage capacity) the alien sets the stage for a future infestation after its own relatively short lifespan comes to an end.  I'm assuming that the alien has a relatively short lifespan due to it's worker/warrior insect-like characteristics relative to a "queen".  It's also interesting that towards the end of the movie the alien seems much more sluggish when Ripley encounters it, suggesting that it might be approaching the end of its life cycle.

The idea of having an "intermediate host" isn't foreign in nature.  Schistosomes are parasites that spend part of their life cycles in different hosts.
http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v2/n7/box/nri843_BX1.html
So the idea of the aliens using a similar approach in the absence of a queen alien makes sense to me.

With a queen present, living hosts would be taken and cocooned for direct "impregnation" by one of her eggs.  In the absence of a queen, hosts would be themselves turned into eggs to ensure that the infestation could continue at a future time when new hosts present themselves, such as when the crew of the Nostromo went searching into the crashed alien spaceship.

So this is my theory.  Thoughts?  Comments?  Jokes?

That movie still makes me shudder. And that new scene makes me shudder even more.


There were only two movies: Alien and Aliens.

Then there were some garbage follow-ups that buttraped the previously awesome plotline with goofy BS. No Alien fan acknowledges either of those. PtOO!

True.  The real series ended with Aliens.  Everything after that was a disgrace.

Exactly. IMO Alien 3 was like Terminator 3. Once again some amateur with a terrible script comes along and completely undoes and ruins an awesome James Cameron film with a satisfying, cathartic end.

I think that the scene was deleted because of the timing issues it complicates.  I believe it takes place after she activates the auto-destruct on the ship but before she reaches the escape shuttle.

I don't think it eliminates the need for a queen, personally.  A queen would give the "hive" more order and direction.  Also, with a queen the reproductive cycle is more efficient, without the waste of having to use some hosts for an intermediate reproductive step.  With a queen all living hosts are used to create new workers, while without a queen it takes two hosts to create one worker.

It's interesting to note that with hive insects like ants and bees, apparently a "queen" is created when the workers select a larva and feed it special food so it will develop into a sexually mature adult.  Perhaps the worker/warrior aliens do something distinct for the creation of a queen-producing face hugger.

tag

In the books which followed aliens later on its said that any alien can morph into a queen and they can also go into some kind of stasis, all in all the books aliens are some bad motherfuckers who completely wipe out the earth with the help of a cult. Its been a long time since I read them 96ish in highschool.



And the scene was deleted because it didn't mesh with the pacing, and w/o it it left aliens free to come up with the Queen.



 

It was deleted for the time restraints and not sure if he could get a favorable rating if left to what he wanted and Ridley Scott's idea of making another kick ass movie after to make Aliens!  

I saw this in the theater when it came out and just loved it!  

Still waiting for the deleted scenes that scared the shit out of the actors. It has got to be WOW!  There is a mini doc on the making of Alien that kind of explains the WOW!

It makes sense... as kind of a backup in-case a warrior is permanently separated from a queen. Although... I suspect that the makers had no idea a second one would be made, so might not have even intended a queen/hive infrastructure to begin with.

edit: And Alien 3 was MUCH BETTER with the deleted scenes left in, explained a lot of stuff, like the cult forming.

Sounds like Canada.

I've seen that deleted segment before but that's the first time I've read the egg transformation theory.  It's interesting, but I think a simpler explanation is that the alien in the first movie was a drone acting on instinct to cocoon prey for food or as hosts for eggs, even if no eggs were available.

I still say in the original movie the makers had no concept of a queen, and it was added in the second.