Thursday, April 16, 2009

If you really think about it...


...what the hell did the alien queen think she was accomplishing by laying all those eggs in that base when most of the ready food source (hoomans) had already been consumed? I mean, were they going to grow thumbs and fly the spacebug shuttles out to find more organic meat popsicles? It was irresponsible and just plain selfish for her to churn out all them younguns. I mean, what were they going to do-- eat each other?

13 comments:

Christina RN LMT said...

Instinct? Biological imperative? Pheromones? Who knows!

Jay G said...

Obviously she was a liberal, and intended for the government to continue bringing her sources of meat...

Roscoe said...

Instinct. The eggs are probably capable of remaining dormant for decades even if the queen and the rest of her generation die of starvation.

Have you seen the new Wallace & Grommit short film, "A Matter of Loaf and Death"? Nick Park & co. turned the climax into one of the best riffs on "Aliens" I've seen.

They even have their own "Ripley", complete with frizzy hair. Aardman doesn't miss a thing.

Jon said...

Alien WIC? I didn't see no baby daddy.

phlegmfatale said...

Christina - Yeah - and where her babies daddy(s)?

JayG - ...and her mortgage, and her car payment...

Roscoe - Ah! Could be.
Nick Park is brilliant. Love his stuff & will check out Loaf & Death

Jon - me neither. tsk tsk

closed said...

In the original movie, the eggs stayed dormant for damned near forever ... that crashed alien ship they came from was old.

Looks like a plague cycle to me ... when food arrives, consume it all to produce the maximum amount of eggs to send into the future. The current generation hangs around long enough to maximize possible spread opportunities.

phlegmfatale said...

kbarrett - makes sense. I've only seen the original movie once, and I've seen Aliens about a million times, so it makes sense that bit would have escaped my notice.

The funny thing about the dormancy is that I was thinking about where mosquitoes go during the winter - they're not about, and yet their eggs must be dormant somewhere. Blighters.

Jon said...

In the original movie, there was no clear indication of whether the alien intelligence was anything more than the same intelligence of rats, or other rodents. Otherwise, there was only the survival instinct, and no ability to manipulate their environment.

Later movies indicated the aliens were cognizant of their surroundings, and even had technological skills, which doesn't make sense when you consider the long periods without any input for learning after the aliens destroyed their host civilizations. They were portrayed as a smart "virus" which retained detailed knowledge through genetics.

The first movie was the best, and successful, which meant we were "treated" to a plague of science fiction Rocky Balboa sequels. Even worse, Sigourney Weaver went from attractive, to Sea Hag as the sequels were presented.

Blech!

NotClauswitz said...

Queen don't need to starve when she's got such a nice Kelvinator full of bon-bons! Something to return-to when she wanted a snack - some spiders eat their young, she could hardly be much different emotionally.

Vaarok said...

The backstory mythos says the eggs can and do remain dormant for damn near forever.

Anonymous said...

I was taking a navy parasitology course when I saw it. Everything made sense from a parasite's life cycle. It was a perfect parasite except it needed a little gravity.

Laying the eggs was the queen or its job so after she/it starved to death after eating everything available her species had a chance to carry on whenever another host showed up.

Fleas do something similar.

ben

Thomas J Wolfenden said...

The Octomom would understand...

Matt G said...

Recall that a distress signal beacon was being broadcast.

Bait for the trap.