Xenomorphs - ruthless killing machines or just misunderstood?

[Abomination]

They're perfectly understood as ruthless killing machines.

First they face-rape an unwilling human, then when the rape-baby is born it kills its mother and then it needs to kill something else to grow into a proper sized xeno.

When it is a full sized xeno it focuses on capturing more humans to drag in front of the face-rapers to die to rape-baby birth OR it just kills things.

Repeat until planet has no more mammals.

 

[Lieju]

You'd need to look on how the xenomorphs act with each other.

Well, they certainly have problem solving skills, but they are not empathetic towards one another. In Alien 4, they gang up on one of their own and viciously slaughter it to use its acid blood to escape their cages. That's smart in a gruesome "for the greater good"-kind of way, but not really indicative of particularly social behaviour.

I would disagree with that. It's been a long time since I saw that movie, so I don't remember exactly how that scene went, but if they will work together to kill one of their own, it indicates social behaviour and hierarchy. They had a plan and acted it out, choosing the one being sacrificed. And sacrificing someone for the greater good doesn't mean they have no empathy. It's difficult to speculate on this kind of thing, but it's possible they'd view the sacrifice as something the sacrificed one wants. Humans are empathic, but have done horrible things and justified them with 'if they knew how it would help us, they would have agreed', or 'we are doing them a favor by killing them because this way they don't go to hell'.

I can see humans doing something similar. If you have humans in a situation where killing one would help others escape (especially if one person is someone others or the leader doesn't like)

BTW, ants are eusocial animals.

 

[Dryk]

And they believe that some birds learn how to use tools. Not just actions passed down through evolution, but actual no foolin' learning. I think most interesting actions by the aliens can be chalked up to either this, or just lazy writing.

They've done tests with crows where they'll put two in cages in sight of each other, and give each a test tube with food at the bottom. They then give one a length of wire and the other a length of wire bent into a tool, after the one with the straight wire sees that the tool can be used to get the food it will bend its wire into the same shape and use it.

 

[Skeleon]

I would disagree with that. It's been a long time since I saw that movie, so I don't remember exactly how that scene went, but if they will work together to kill one of their own, it indicates social behaviour and hierarchy. They had a plan and acted it out, choosing the one being sacrificed. And sacrificing someone for the greater good doesn't mean they have no empathy. It's difficult to speculate on this kind of thing, but it's possible they'd view the sacrifice as something the sacrificed one wants.

Especially regarding the last sentence: Do watch it again. It's hard to evaluate since most of their interactions are hissing, but it certainly doesn't seem like the creature in question wanted to be sacrificed. It fights back, hisses at them and is then ganged up on and torn apart. As for hierarchy, maybe, but I doubt it. All hierarchical behaviour I'm aware of is tied to the form of xenomorph in question (so the lesser creatures in Aliens (2) are used as cannon fodder, whereas the queen remains behind with the eggs, obviously), and the ones in that cage in Alien 4 were all of the same subtype. Obviously I couldn't tell you why they decided to kill it rather than another one, but frankly it didn't seem to be due to any particular reasoning. One of them had to be killed. Perhaps the animal that figured that fact out simply picked one of the others at random and the other ones, seeing what was happening, chimed in. At least that's how I interpreted it, but it's obviously hard to determine. But considering their basic self-preservation drive, it would make sense that whichever animal first planned it would choose one of the others and the remaining ones - not particularly desiring to be killed themselves - joined in rather than risk being attacked. But it's all mere guesswork anyway since we can't look into their heads and determine what they thought, what (if anything) they communicated among each other etc., so...

 

[Lieju]

it would make sense that whichever animal first planned it would choose one of the others and the remaining ones - not particularly desiring to be killed themselves - joined in rather than risk being attacked.

That's definitely social behaviour, then. They saw a conflict and picked a side. Their reason might have been self-preservation, but they chose to work together to achieve this.

All hierarchical behaviour I'm aware of is tied to the form of xenomorph in question (so the lesser creatures in Aliens (2) are used as cannon fodder, whereas the queen remains behind with the eggs, obviously), and the ones in that cage in Alien 4 were all of the same subtype.

So, they are eusocial, then? (like ants)
Although, it doesn't make much sense they'd abandon their young. And that kind of behaviour limits their intelligence in general, because they don't have older members teaching them, all they have to go on are their instincts.

I haven't seen the later movies, even the ones I have seen, I have forgotten the details of, but how does rearing the young work, exactly? It would make sense if they'd usually capture their prey, use them to lay their eggs and take the hatched youngling to their group. Abandoning your young works against hieharchical structure.

Even if they were engineered to be like that, they still survived, and evolved further.

.. Well actually in Aliens, one of them took a little girl and placed her in the hive so she could give birth to more xenomorphs.

Well, that makes sense.

It seems to me like an animal that originally was solitary and laid eggs and abandoned them, but evolved into an eusocial species.

It simply didn't make any sense for an animal to be that deadly as a consequence of evolution - especially when they go into hybernation as soon as they've exterminated all other life in their area.

I don't see anything in that that doesn't make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Except that in general an animal could kill all other life.

And they believe that some birds learn how to use tools. Not just actions passed down through evolution, but actual no foolin' learning. I think most interesting actions by the aliens can be chalked up to either this, or just lazy writing.

Much more than just birds can learn things. Even spiders have been observed to learn, nothing complex, but they can remember things and change their behaviour.

 

[Skeleon]

So, they are eusocial, then? (like ants)

I think so. I guess that is social behaviour; I misused "social behaviour" to mean "empathic behaviour" earlier. They don't display any empathy including towards their own, but they do portray social behaviour; just nothing human- or mammal-like. They will protect the queen, but they don't care about non-spawning individuals from what I can tell. There is something along the lines of caring/motherly/child-like behaviour in Alien 4 (including caressing and the like), but that only happens with the human-alien hybrid[footnote]Kind of a misnomer considering all xenomorphs supposedly adapt some of the hosts' genetic material anyway; that's why the so-called Predaliens (xenomorphs spawned from Predator-hosts) have the Predator-like mouth structure; but you know which creature I mean, the fleshy alien monster thing...[/footnote]; so arguably that behaviour could be due to the mammal-aspects of that particular creature. I'm not aware of anything of the sort happening with the xenomorphs themselves.

Although, it doesn't make much sense they'd abandon their young.

Now, some of this stuff comes from additional sources (that are of questionable canon), but the "lesser creatures" didn't refer to young animals. To my understanding, the cannon fodder aliens in Aliens (2) are fully grown, they are just of a different type. Kind of like the differences between worker and soldier ants.
Or are you referring to leaving the hive behind? I'd imagine some animals remained there to help guard the queen and eggs, but we don't see that in the movie as it is focused on the marines' actions at the time.

And that kind of behaviour limits their intelligence in general, because they don't have older members teaching them, all they have to go on are their instincts.

Instincts and a rather outlandish concept: Genetic memory. Supposedly they can inherit some sort of memory from their queens. But no, they don't have older animals teach younger ones, to my knowledge.

I haven't seen the later movies, even the ones I have seen, I have forgotten the details of, but how does rearing the young work, exactly? It would make sense if they'd usually capture their prey, use them to lay their eggs and take the hatched youngling to their group. Abandoning your young works against hieharchical structure.

We first see that in Aliens (2), since there's no hive of any sort in Alien. They capture prey, stick them to their hive's wall and place eggs near them. When the facehugger hatches, it latches onto the victim, infects them and dies. The spawning chestburster (killing the host in the process) is the actual new member of the hive, the creature that will actually grow into a new xenomorph; the facehugger is just a vector, an impregnator. From there it gets hazy: We know that the chestburster grows in size, sheds its skin a couple of times doing so and then has it harden into the chitin-like armored shell. Presumably, they have to eat in order to grow in size, although we never actually see them eat, only kill. Since we never see chestbursters just running around looking for food and chestbursters aren't really seen outside of the hive, unless a facehugger somehow was taken away from the hive (like happened in the first movie), I'd assume that in a proper hive they will feed on the remains of the spawning victims in order to grow to their designated size and subtype. But this is speculation; again, I don't think we ever see the xenomorphs use their mouths to actually eat, nor do we see them eat the victims they killed. But where else is the additional mass supposed to come from as they grow into the various adult forms? Especially new queens would take tons of food, one would imagine.

 

[CriticalX13]

snip

I understand that. I'm not saying the crew had much choice in the matter either and neither am I saying that what they did was wrong, given the circumstances.

What I'm trying to say is that what the alien did wasn't strictly speaking 'wrong' either. There's a difference (to me at least) between killing because I'm programmed to or because I want to and killing because I'm trying to survive.

What I'm doing here is trying to challenge the notion of the alien being a programmed killing machine with no other purpose than to wipe out everything that moves.

I get the idea that you are putting forward that the alien is a survivor, does what it can to keep living and only attacked the humans cause it was threatened. You also put forward it had to kill in order to survive. This is not true, all animals have the fight or flight response. The Xenomorph has speed and agility over humans. The creature could of simply gone to the furthest reaches of the spaceship and hid from the humans. Thus surviving and not killing anyone (think of newt from aliens). Running and hiding is the most efficient way to survive (if you pick a good spot to start with) as you are not expending energy engaging in hand to claw combat.

But this is not what happened. The Xenomorph when consistently faced with fight or flight response, always chose to fight. This is what makes it a programed killing machine, it is programed to always pick the fight response and it makes light work at killing humans and has no remorse/feelings about it.

There is always a choice when it comes to killing something. (There is something odd about applying human/animal behaviors to creature that is supposed to be utterly alien to us and there is an argument to be had about validity of applying these behaviors to the Xenomorph)

 

[Lieju]

Although, it doesn't make much sense they'd abandon their young.

Now, some of this stuff comes from additional sources (that are of questionable canon), but the "lesser creatures" didn't refer to young animals. To my understanding, the cannon fodder aliens in Aliens (2) are fully grown, they are just of a different type. Kind of like the differences between worker and soldier ants.
Or are you referring to leaving the hive behind? I'd imagine some animals remained there to help guard the queen and eggs, but we don't see that in the movie as it is focused on the marines' actions at the time.

I meant their young that hatch outside the hive without any adults around.

I guess they could have some kind of 'homing instinct', so they'd seek out the hive, but then why send them out in the first place?

And that kind of behaviour limits their intelligence in general, because they don't have older members teaching them, all they have to go on are their instincts.

Instincts and a rather outlandish concept: Genetic memory. Supposedly they can inherit some sort of memory from their queens. But no, they don't have older animals teach younger ones, to my knowledge.

This 'teaching' could be just the young ones following what the older ones do, and learning by example. If there is social contact, they are learning by example.

When the facehugger hatches, it latches onto the victim, infects them and dies. The spawning chestburster (killing the host in the process) is the actual new member of the hive, the creature that will actually grow into a new xenomorph; the facehugger is just a vector, an impregnator.

Why have facehuggers at all? I never understood that. They seem like a waste, why not have just the chestburster dig directly into the victim? Or lay eggs into the animal you use to grow the eggs? That's what animals like wasps that breed like that do.

If the facehuggers are engineered, then why?
If they naturally evolved, what are they an adaptation for? It's possible they originally were an adaptation for something else, and now just a remnant.

 

[Skeleon]

...but then why send them out in the first place?

I don't think they do.
Again, in Aliens (2) they brought the victims into the hive.
In Alien, no hive existed and it was the humans who took Cain back into their ship. If they hadn't done that, the chestburster would've spawned pretty close to the egg, where Cain had fallen.
Similarly, in Alien 4 the chestburster spawned far away from the hive only because the victim wasn't restrained as they normally are; he wasn't stuck to the hive's wall since he was artifically infected by the scientists; he could move around, which would've been impossible in a hive like the one in Aliens (2).

The only time when they are sent out normally would presumably be when the eggs are first deployed by the Space Jockeys. After that, the xenomorphs will establish a hive and drag victims there.

Young xenomorphs appear to hatch outside the hive by accident rather than by design (apart from the first batch that would spawn when the eggs are first deployed before a hive is even established of course).

This 'teaching' could be just the young ones following what the older ones do, and learning by example. If there is social contact, they are learning by example.

It could be, but we never see that actually happening, at least as far as I'm aware.

Why have facehuggers at all? I never understood that. They seem like a waste, why not have just the chestburster dig directly into the victim? Or lay eggs into the animal you use to grow the eggs? That's what animals like wasps that breed like that do.

Heh, I think that's where the whole meta-aspect of it comes in. Outside the universe, the idea was apparently to create what is basically a "face-raping" monster. Most of the xenomorph-stuff is quite sexual, at least according to some interpretations; like the shape of the xenomorphs' heads. H. R. Giger is apparently known for that kind of style.

If the facehuggers are engineered, then why?
If they naturally evolved, what are they an adaptation for? It's possible they originally were an adaptation for something else, and now just a remnant.

I'm not sure why they would've been engineered like that. Maybe it's just - resource- and nutrient-wise - cheaper to create a carrier, a vector, that brings the actual weapon into a nutrient-rich environment: A host.
Although one could argue that if that's the consideration, then why not just engineer eggs that can hold more nutrients directly?
Another idea might be that facehuggers at least have the capability of moving around and infiltrating enemy strongholds rather than having to plant the eggs directly where the enemy is?

But honestly, I dunno whether this is ever explained anywhere.
A lot of the xenomorphs' biology, lifecycle and motivation are left intentionally vague so that it remains a suitably alien creature. And much of the additional information about them is from sources of questionable canon-status (like AvP books, games, movies and other "extended universe"- and "crossover"-stuff). *shrug*

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

I've gotta say that's a pretty silly way to look at things, silly as in humorous. It's essentially the same type of argument the Wolf gives in the childrens book that tells the Wolf's side of the story in the fable of the 3 Little Pigs. "I wasn't going around blowing down houses and gobbling up piggies. No, I was trying to bake a cake for my dear sweet grandmother but I needed to borrow some sugar. I had a mighty bad cold at the time, prone to big sneezes. And a couple of my sneezes knocked down a couple houses. It'd be a waste to leave a half-dead pig laying in a pile of rubble so I gobbled him up."

The point is that you lack context. Taken purely from the first film, you can kinda make the argument that you are: that the Alien is just doing what it does to survive. But you have to think of the Alien life cycle. As you mention, it's very birth requires that a life be sacrificed. It's birth ends with the death of something else. It's an apex predator, most assuredly a carnivore. It has no interest in talking about peace, sorting out some misunderstanding that they could all laugh about later "Yeah, sorry about popping out of that first guy. But ya know, he shouldn't have got so close to my egg. Can we just put this behind us and move on with our friendship?"

Again, you lack context, but this is hinted at in the first movie. The entire reason that Weyland-Yutani Corp. wants to get their hands on one of these things is so they can breed them and start making them into biological weapons. They didn't want to capture and study them because of their marvelous social skills and good manners.

According to lore established in Aliens vs Predator 2 for the PC, an alien drone in the absence of a queen will go into hibernation and begin molting. It's exoskeleton becomes much harder as it goes through a type of mutation that ultimate gives rise to a Praetorian-class Alien. If one of these survives long enough (and if a queen still has yet to rise) then it will eventually morph into a new queen. This is how new hives are established. One piece of lore that the series has always held onto is the fact that if a hive were to be established on Earth, it'd essentially be the end of the world. The Xenomorphs are far too cunning, reproduce far too quickly to be put down if they're allowed to establish a foothold. Based on this lore, the reason the Alien goes into survival mode is the instinctive drive for it to molt into a new queen and establish a new hive...obviously it can't do this once it's dead. And that brings up the notion that you lack context for: a full-blown infestation.

What it comes down to is that, since you haven't seen the other films, you're rooting for what you see as the underdog. 1 Xeno vs a group of mean, nasty humans. Well consider this: the alien is more than adapt at hiding and stealth. If it didn't want to be found, didn't want to kill, it very easily could have avoided the crew on that ship. If you watch Aliens (second movie in the series) it will become clear that by slaughtering everyone in sight, they're just doing what Xenomorphs do. Anything that can be captured is taken to the hive for a good ol' face-hugging (which leads to death), anything that fights back becomes food (which leads to death as well). It's just their lifecycle, they're an insectoid race, after all. When a hive is present, the Xenomorphs will actually launch raids, the way ants in a forest march en-mass to scour the forest floor for food to bring back to their ant-hill, so too does a Xeno hive vacate en-mass to bring more bodies back for food and implantation.

It was a unique thought you had, but like I said: it just lacked context. Trust me, Aliens were specifically designed by whoever thought them up to be an unstoppable horde of death and terror.

Edit: In short, watch the 2nd movie and tell me if you think your theory still holds water.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

Snip.

I've gotta say that's a pretty silly way to look at things, silly as in humorous. It's essentially the same type of argument the Wolf gives in the childrens book that tells the Wolf's side of the story in the fable of the 3 Little Pigs. "I wasn't going around blowing down houses and gobbling up piggies. No, I was trying to bake a cake for my dear sweet grandmother but I needed to borrow some sugar. I had a mighty bad cold at the time, prone to big sneezes. And a couple of my sneezes knocked down a couple houses. It'd be a waste to leave a half-dead pig laying in a pile of rubble so I gobbled him up."

The point is that you lack context. Taken purely from the first film, you can kinda make the argument that you are: that the Alien is just doing what it does to survive. But you have to think of the Alien life cycle. As you mention, it's very birth requires that a life be sacrificed. It's birth ends with the death of something else. It's an apex predator, most assuredly a carnivore. It has no interest in talking about peace, sorting out some misunderstanding that they could all laugh about later "Yeah, sorry about popping out of that first guy. But ya know, he shouldn't have got so close to my egg. Can we just put this behind us and move on with our friendship?"

Again, you lack context, but this is hinted at in the first movie. The entire reason that Weyland-Yutani Corp. wants to get their hands on one of these things is so they can breed them and start making them into biological weapons. They didn't want to capture and study them because of their marvelous social skills and good manners.

According to lore established in Aliens vs Predator 2 for the PC, an alien drone in the absence of a queen will go into hibernation and begin molting. It's exoskeleton becomes much harder as it goes through a type of mutation that ultimate gives rise to a Praetorian-class Alien. If one of these survives long enough (and if a queen still has yet to rise) then it will eventually morph into a new queen. This is how new hives are established. One piece of lore that the series has always held onto is the fact that if a hive were to be established on Earth, it'd essentially be the end of the world. The Xenomorphs are far too cunning, reproduce far too quickly to be put down if they're allowed to establish a foothold. Based on this lore, the reason the Alien goes into survival mode is the instinctive drive for it to molt into a new queen and establish a new hive...obviously it can't do this once it's dead. And that brings up the notion that you lack context for: a full-blown infestation.

What it comes down to is that, since you haven't seen the other films, you're rooting for what you see as the underdog. 1 Xeno vs a group of mean, nasty humans. Well consider this: the alien is more than adapt at hiding and stealth. If it didn't want to be found, didn't want to kill, it very easily could have avoided the crew on that ship. If you watch Aliens (second movie in the series) it will become clear that by slaughtering everyone in sight, they're just doing what Xenomorphs do. Anything that can be captured is taken to the hive for a good ol' face-hugging (which leads to death), anything that fights back becomes food (which leads to death as well). It's just their lifecycle, they're an insectoid race, after all. When a hive is present, the Xenomorphs will actually launch raids, the way ants in a forest march en-mass to scour the forest floor for food to bring back to their ant-hill, so too does a Xeno hive vacate en-mass to bring more bodies back for food and implantation.

It was a unique thought you had, but like I said: it just lacked context. Trust me, Aliens were specifically designed by whoever thought them up to be an unstoppable horde of death and terror.

Edit: In short, watch the 2nd movie and tell me if you think your theory still holds water.

Yes, I do lack context and I'm fairly certain that my entire theory will crumble to dust after watching the rest of the movies, however, based on the first movie alone, it's actually quite simple to make that assumption and back it up. And yes, I kind of came up with the idea just for the kicks. It's interesting how everyone takes he topic so seriously though. I just wanted to see what it would be like to look at the xenomorph from the first film through a different set of spectacles.

 

[RJ 17]

Yes, I do lack context and I'm fairly certain that my entire theory will crumble to dust after watching the rest of the movies, however, based on the first movie alone, it's actually quite simple to make that assumption and back it up. And yes, I kind of came up with the idea just for the kicks. It's interesting how everyone takes he topic so seriously though. I just wanted to see what it would be like to look at the xenomorph from the first film through a different set of spectacles.

You were bound to get a strong reaction seeing as how you posed a statement that was contrary to what is essentially established canon. But really Xenomorphs are what they are, there really aren't very many ways you can look at them. Everything about their lifecycle requires killing other species, they're apex predatosr.

Still, it's funny to think of the Xenomorph from the first movie as just being an innocent animal trying to survive in a hostile environment.

 

[dmase]

Prometheus indicates they are more like accidents and are really meant to cause death. I wont go farther than that, but of course aliens canon, like all story canon, is subjective in how people can apply it.

 

[AgentNein]

If I'm not mistaken, the xenomorphs are actually genetically engineered weapons of a sort.
As in, they were deliberately created to be literal ruthless killing machines, going above and beyond the call for brutality that a simple beast struggling for survival would operate by.

Can we all just pretend that Prometheus never happened?

I'm pretty sure this was a thing a long time before Prometheus was even a shadow of a thought.

Hmm, I don't remember that in any of the movies pre Prometheus, but perhaps I've forgotten.

Pretty sure that was never stated but it was my pet theory from Aliens on. It simply didn't make any sense for an animal to be that deadly as a consequence of evolution - especially when they go into hybernation as soon as they've exterminated all other life in their area.

I'm intrigued. Why doesn't it make sense to you that they'd be so deadly as a consequence of evolution? I mean, if they were an alien animal that came about naturally, we know nothing of their environment and ecosystem to say what they've delt with on a normal day in their world. Maybe wherever they're from they're that worlds analogue of a lion, or even a house cat. Of course you could be talking about the fact that they seem perfectly suited to use humans as a food source/incubation system. Which IS exceedingly unlikely for an animal that's had no contact with humans throughout its evolutionary history. I've always just chalked that up to writers who've got no clue, but bio weapons made specifically to target humanity (or maybe just bio weapons designed around the idea of being extraordinarilly adaptive with it's food sources/ procreation sources) makes a certain sense. Imagine the need to quickly wipe out a planet's life, for whatever silly reason, send in a species that can essentially convert everything to itself, and as long as you've got a rock solid kill switch/removal system for them then bam, shiny new planet freshly scrubbed of all that messy global ecosystem.

 

[AgentNein]

Yes, I do lack context and I'm fairly certain that my entire theory will crumble to dust after watching the rest of the movies, however, based on the first movie alone, it's actually quite simple to make that assumption and back it up. And yes, I kind of came up with the idea just for the kicks. It's interesting how everyone takes he topic so seriously though. I just wanted to see what it would be like to look at the xenomorph from the first film through a different set of spectacles.

You were bound to get a strong reaction seeing as how you posed a statement that was contrary to what is essentially established canon. But really Xenomorphs are what they are, there really aren't very many ways you can look at them. Everything about their lifecycle requires killing other species, they're apex predatosr.

Still, it's funny to think of the Xenomorph from the first movie as just being an innocent animal trying to survive in a hostile environment.

I mean really though, that's what it is innit? It's both this apex predator and this lost kitty doing its best to survive in an unfamiliar and hostile environment! And in the mean time he's got all these damned intelligent mice trying to fuck with him. Poor fella.

 

[RJ 17]

Yes, I do lack context and I'm fairly certain that my entire theory will crumble to dust after watching the rest of the movies, however, based on the first movie alone, it's actually quite simple to make that assumption and back it up. And yes, I kind of came up with the idea just for the kicks. It's interesting how everyone takes he topic so seriously though. I just wanted to see what it would be like to look at the xenomorph from the first film through a different set of spectacles.

You were bound to get a strong reaction seeing as how you posed a statement that was contrary to what is essentially established canon. But really Xenomorphs are what they are, there really aren't very many ways you can look at them. Everything about their lifecycle requires killing other species, they're apex predatosr.

Still, it's funny to think of the Xenomorph from the first movie as just being an innocent animal trying to survive in a hostile environment.

I mean really though, that's what it is innit? It's both this apex predator and this lost kitty doing its best to survive in an unfamiliar and hostile environment! And in the mean time he's got all these damned intelligent mice trying to fuck with him. Poor fella.

By definition an apex predator has nothing to fear from anything beneath it. Xenos kill things because that's just what they do, pretty sure the history of the series shows that.

 

[AgentNein]

Yes, I do lack context and I'm fairly certain that my entire theory will crumble to dust after watching the rest of the movies, however, based on the first movie alone, it's actually quite simple to make that assumption and back it up. And yes, I kind of came up with the idea just for the kicks. It's interesting how everyone takes he topic so seriously though. I just wanted to see what it would be like to look at the xenomorph from the first film through a different set of spectacles.

You were bound to get a strong reaction seeing as how you posed a statement that was contrary to what is essentially established canon. But really Xenomorphs are what they are, there really aren't very many ways you can look at them. Everything about their lifecycle requires killing other species, they're apex predatosr.

Still, it's funny to think of the Xenomorph from the first movie as just being an innocent animal trying to survive in a hostile environment.

I mean really though, that's what it is innit? It's both this apex predator and this lost kitty doing its best to survive in an unfamiliar and hostile environment! And in the mean time he's got all these damned intelligent mice trying to fuck with him. Poor fella.

By definition an apex predator has nothing to fear from anything beneath it. Xenos kill things because that's just what they do, pretty sure the history of the series shows that.

Correct me if I'm wrong but human beings are defined as apex predators too yes?

 

[Machine Man 1992]

It's both. A relentless killing machine that's also misunderstood.

It's also happens to be the ultimate life-form, at least according to Charles Darwin. A creature is considered a failure if cannot pass it's genes, and do it fast enough to prevent competing organisms from driving it extinct.

Xenomorphs can reproduce with just about any oxygen breathing organism of sufficient mass to support a chestburster, facehugger eggs can remain viable, even after millennia in a hostile atmosphere, and a planet can go from "no Xenomorphs" to "absolutely bloody infested" in the span of a week, something only certain microorganisms can achieve, if that.

We aren't used to something that can outcompete us biologically, so of course we regard it with terror and disgust (the deadly parasitoid part certainly helped, though).

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Also watch the sequel 'Aliens'. This will support all that 'remorseless predator' lore you have picked up over the years.

I think James Cameron's Aliens completely altered what Alien was about. It turned it into a space shooter...some 15 year old Michael Bay fantasy where someone would think up 'what would happen if the xenomorphs were fighting soldiers!'..and then actually made the movie.

It's one way to look at it, assured. But I think it was a good shake up to the psyche that most people need.

A lot of us don't even consider ourselves animals any more. Our computers, our beds, our language, we're so removed from what we believe to be the animal kingdom because of our intelligence. I'm sure a lot of proud males came away from the Original Aliens and say "Give me a shotgun and it wouldn't be a problem."

But for all of our advanced weaponry, all of our fancy machines, the Aliens rolled over the big and tough Marines with really little problem. There where guns in space, sure. A lot of Aliens fell. But the marines knew they didn't have a chance after contact one. The biggest bad asses of the supposedly 'superior species' went from over brimming Machismo to running with their tail between their legs, hoping for the next plane off the rock so they can hug their mommies.

It was humbling to a kid like me who grew up on G.I. Joe and the best gun solves everything. I quickly learned that wasn't the case the first time I saw that.

 

[cerebreturns]

The novels are pretty clear that the aliens prefer to drag their prey back alive to use as host for their children. They only kill when they feel they have to or it's a iminit threat.

But they are ruthless killing machines, in a very real sense. They are functionally ants in a hive mind, perfectly willing to be sacrificed, and serve as little more then worker bees.


The race as a whole is very insect like, and in general they show little intelligence, though in one of the books they were taught to use guns...and as soon as they could threw them down and went back to just being aliens.


I think there is a lot more open for debate when dealing with predators as they are actual intelligent humanoids, where as the aliens are...bugs.