Xenomorphs vs Human Resistance

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Post by Darth Wong »

Re: a war of attrition. A conventional war of attrition favours the party with greater numbers, but this is not a conventional war of attrition. Due to the aliens' severe combat disadvantages, the Resistance is likely to score at least dozens of enemy kills for each of its own soldiers who goes down.

Re: the urban post-nuclear wasteland. It means no large animals around for the aliens to impregnate, hence no breeding grounds. And if they have to breed by using captured resistance fighters, there will be precious few of them and this war will be over very quickly, because they'll lose far more than one alien for each human incubator they capture.

Re: the range advantage. Yes, the urban wasteland reduces line of sight on the ground. That's why the Resistance fighters would position shooters on the high ground. Hell, even standing on piles of rubble or smashed HKs would allow them to easily hold off hordes of xenos with their weaponry.
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Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Crown wrote:No doubt. But are they able to recoup their losses as quickly as the Alien hive :?: That is what I am asking.
Perhaps not. But can the Aliens, with their melee weaponry, match their recoup rate with the casualties they get? For every guy they catch, they'd have to loose shitloads of their own. Even if they target population centers which are very well defended against HK and Termie incursions(the ones in the frontlines at least).
It was the Special Edition Version, as Galvatron pointed out.
Well, okay then. Is the SE canon or not?
This is ridiculous. Just because they don't do this every, single, time, doesn't mean they can't do this once it has been shown they can.
But if they can do that, why do they have to go the extra mile and harvest living hosts? I'm not just basing this on the movies, but on the books also.
You mentioned 'reprogrammed' Terminators, and asked you what difference does it make what software the Terminators are using on the corrosive affect of the Alien's blood.
I didn't mean the reprogramming would help the Termies withstand the acid. I was just saying that the acid won't be that dangerous to the Terminators which the resistance has (termies which they reprogrammed).
:banghead:

This point of arguement was brought up by you, in an attempt - one assumes - to refute the 'outbreeding' point by me. So what difference does it make if they recruit children, it would still take them at least 8 - 10 years to recoup their losses and are in a poor position for a war of attrition.
Well, it doesn't refute the outbreeding point. But I mentioned it since it gives the Resistance more troops, more troops means more dead xenos and the xenos might not be able to recover from such high amounts of losses.
Aliens have been known to adapt and learn while in combat, so have humans, what is your point?
Connor is smart, the xenos would have a hard time against Connor. I mean, who is the better strategist? Connor or an Alien Queen?
I'll help you out; your 'military genius' 'point' is at best a red herring, or at worst a cop out using a no-limits fallacy. I provided specific examples of the resistance vs Empire, Culture, Xeelee and asked you what fucking difference it would make if they were lead by a 'military genius' or Donald Duck. The answer is jack squat; because the odds are just too damn high.
I never said that just because Connor is a genius, he'd be able to go toe-to-toe with the Green Lantern Corps. I meant that since he's smart, he would handle the aliens effectively.

When you're smart and are leading a force against a foe of equal or lesser or slightly higher caliber, there will be differences. If the military genius is fighting against a vastly superior foe, there won't be any differences.

Look at what happened to the Soviet's offensive into Afghanistan, competent commanders did make a difference, a big ass one. Now if the Imperials were the ones occupying Afghanistan instead of the Ruskies, the Mujahadeen would've been ass fucked from Earth straight to Coruscant.
Do you understand that using 'a military genius' claim is ridiculously poor debating :?: We already assume that both sides are lead by a compatent (or demonstrably equivalent indigenous leader) as default. Get it?
Well, I assumed the Resistance was led by John Connor while the aliens were lead by their standard Queen Alien.
I never saw that in the movie. AFAIK T-800 was rebuilt and repaired from damage battle and reprogrammed. Was this mentioned somewhere that I am not aware of?
That's T3. In T2, Skynet got defeated, they gained access to Skynet's time machine center. They sent Reese to the past. Got Ah-nuld from a fucking huge roomful of Termies, reprogrammed him and tossed him into the time machine.
Where are we getting this from :?: Are we going by on screen or books :?:
Novelizations and novels in the Terminatorverse. And I'm not totally sure, hence I'm asking for confirmation.
I'm sorry, I disagree in the T2 and T3 snippets the urban jungle doesn't exactly look like plain open fields to me, IIRC the battleground looked like a junk yard, not exactly ideal for either side, but hardly a killing ground for the Resistance.
Well, the T3 part with an ugly John Conner rallying his troops did look like a junkyard. But the aerial shot we saw with the T-850s and the Aerial HKs didn't look too crowded with buildings and obstacles. And in T2, the battleground didn't look too crammed either.
No it doesn't and it doesn't also give me any details about the Resistance either so I really don't know their abilities.
Well, the aliens can come in all forms. From a small apartment sized hive to a superhive visible from outerspace to a starship filled with aliens. The OP stated nothing much about the xenos, but it did say the human resistance from the Terminator movies, and their abilities are relatively well documented in the books.
I said I didn't want to be dragged into a debate over this (it is afterall the height of stupidity to argue over something that you only know half of), but for crying out loud why are you replying to points that have already been cleared up by others. it's not as if you missed their replies since you quote me from two different posts. :?:
Well...uhh...I felt obliged to answer your responses since they were directed at me, afterall.
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Post by KhyronTheBackstabber »

I conceed my extintion coment I made earlier, I thought the humans were worse off then they seem to be. Question, are there any good web sites with info on the state of the world in the Terminator future? Some thing that has info on population, and how it's spread out, and the strength of the resistance?
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Post by Admiral Valdemar »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:
Well, okay then. Is the SE canon or not?
Yes, it supercedes the original cut being the director's original vision and cut which was then radically butchered by the studio to produce a crap film. Ironically, the SE of the third film is amazing while the SE of the fourth which originally was tolerable is now just shite.

As for the numbers of xenos, I'm talking about the rest of the nation which most certainly was not turned to oh so much radioactive ash. If there exists an ecosystem, there exists animals and they are the problem given the xenos, sensing a problem with getting the Resistance, may scarper to the country and setup colonies there. That'll be a bitch of a problem even if the humans have superior firepower. A quote about Chinese and Japanese soldiers in WWII springs to mind.
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Post by NecronLord »

How many Aliens do they start with, how quickly do the Resistance learn about them?

And where are the Aliens at first?

And a major point here. We've seen how the Resistance non combattants live. In guarded bunkers. What're the aliens going to do? Knock on the door?

Otherwise, they're reduced to attacking armed patrols on the surface. Good luck there, I get the feeling that the Resistance's soldiers are pretty damn experienced and skilled.

Oh, and yes, they have tacnukes according to the Sterling books. But they're not really the right tool here. Unless the aliens set up hives away from population centres.
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Post by Darth Wong »

Admiral Valdemar wrote:As for the numbers of xenos, I'm talking about the rest of the nation which most certainly was not turned to oh so much radioactive ash. If there exists an ecosystem, there exists animals and they are the problem given the xenos, sensing a problem with getting the Resistance, may scarper to the country and setup colonies there. That'll be a bitch of a problem even if the humans have superior firepower. A quote about Chinese and Japanese soldiers in WWII springs to mind.
Two points:

1) Aliens are biological creatures with biological requirements. In other words, without food and water, they don't have cross-country range. You can't expect face-huggers to travel from burned-out post-apocalyptic Los Angeles to South America on their scrawny little spider-legs in search of food and incubators. And the combat wasteland of the Resistance is simply devoid of free-roaming unarmed people.

2) The Japanese ass-raped the Chinese in WW2. And during the Boer War, 30000 Africans fixed rifle bayonets and charged 3000 British, almost all dying and causing only 100 casualties because of the defenders' heavy machine guns. Ignoring the issue of superior firepower over open ground is absurd. Aliens took place inside a building where the advantages of rifle-armed soldiers are greatly diminished, and the Colonial Marines still had a 10:1 kill ratio.
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Post by Admiral Valdemar »

Darth Wong wrote: Two points:

1) Aliens are biological creatures with biological requirements. In other words, without food and water, they don't have cross-country range. You can't expect face-huggers to travel from burned-out post-apocalyptic Los Angeles to South America on their scrawny little spider-legs in search of food and incubators. And the combat wasteland of the Resistance is simply devoid of free-roaming unarmed people.
Well, to muddy the waters a little, it's not as cut and dry as that. While they'd certainly have to go a long distance if I'm following this rather vague OP right, they're much different to pretty much any other organism on this planet. They seem to be able to stay in stasis for years and use inorganic materials as "food" rather than rely on eating their hosts. If the novels are anything to go by in The Terminator universe, then there are plenty of places for them to build hives and wait until the humans get started on a new life where it's not as easy to defend as people spread out. But that's long term and I can't further this scenario as I don't know what else this thread really sets out.
2) The Japanese ass-raped the Chinese in WW2. And during the Boer War, 30000 Africans fixed rifle bayonets and charged 3000 British, almost all dying and causing only 100 casualties because of the defenders' heavy machine guns. Ignoring the issue of superior firepower over open ground is absurd. Aliens took place inside a building where the advantages of rifle-armed soldiers are greatly diminished, and the Colonial Marines still had a 10:1 kill ratio.
That is true, but again, the opposite happened in the actual Resistance's own war. The Terminators were hard to come by and make and, although they had superior firepower, they still were outcompeted by humans in sheer numbers helping them (to say nothing of their ingenuity though). It is my opinion that, even with the significant firepower advantage, when the ragtag forces start anew, they will have to consider that these alien creatures are still out there and there is still a finite amount of infrastructure and therefore weaponry to cover a regrowing civilisation. While it is the apex of stupidity to assume the xenomorphs could wipe out every human on the planet or even continental United States, it isn't such folly to think they'll remain a threat, albeit a background one. I'd expect more pertinent problems to be attended to first such as moving people out of their little bases and getting food sorted out and diseases and shelter etc. if we assume Skynet is no longer a threat.

I reiterate that I'm thinking longterm here and not "aliens storm Resistance stronghold with a dozen platoons of PPW wielding men and machines still in confined spaces". The xenos may try that at first, but soon tire of being plinked from afar and go elsewhere.
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Post by Darth Wong »

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Well, to muddy the waters a little, it's not as cut and dry as that. While they'd certainly have to go a long distance if I'm following this rather vague OP right, they're much different to pretty much any other organism on this planet. They seem to be able to stay in stasis for years and use inorganic materials as "food" rather than rely on eating their hosts.
Where the hell do you get the idea that they can use inorganic materials as food? Are you seriously suggesting that they would feed off scraps of metal and garbage in the post-apocalyptic wasteland? As for going into stasis, yes, it is shown that they can do that. Too bad it won't help them create this hyper-breeding program that you propose.
That is true, but again, the opposite happened in the actual Resistance's own war. The Terminators were hard to come by and make and, although they had superior firepower, they still were outcompeted by humans in sheer numbers helping them (to say nothing of their ingenuity though).
WTF? Did you even get my point at all? The humans had fucking plasma weapons, just like the terminators! This is not remotely analogous to one side having ranged high-ROF weapons while the other does not.
It is my opinion that, even with the significant firepower advantage, when the ragtag forces start anew, they will have to consider that these alien creatures are still out there and there is still a finite amount of infrastructure and therefore weaponry to cover a regrowing civilisation. While it is the apex of stupidity to assume the xenomorphs could wipe out every human on the planet or even continental United States, it isn't such folly to think they'll remain a threat, albeit a background one.
They would be an annoyance, but not a serious military threat. Postwar mine-clearing and unexploded-ordnance accidents would probably kill as many Resistance fighters as xenomorphs, if not more.
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Post by Galvatron »

Darth Wong wrote:Where the hell do you get the idea that they can use inorganic materials as food? Are you seriously suggesting that they would feed off scraps of metal and garbage in the post-apocalyptic wasteland? As for going into stasis, yes, it is shown that they can do that. Too bad it won't help them create this hyper-breeding program that you propose.
Why not? They didn't eat their hosts in Aliens. Wouldn't the extreme acidity of their blood indicate that they can metabolize virtually anything?
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Post by Darth Wong »

Galvatron wrote:Why not? They didn't eat their hosts in Aliens.
What do you think their hosts ate before they were attacked? Iron filings? They undoubtedly had foodstores of their own, which the aliens could easily eat.
Wouldn't the extreme acidity of their blood indicate that they can metabolize virtually anything?
No, since acids don't transmute elements. A chunk of iron which has been dissolved into an acid solution is still useless as organic food.
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Post by NecronLord »

Darth Wong wrote:WTF? Did you even get my point at all? The humans had fucking plasma weapons, just like the terminators! This is not remotely analogous to one side having ranged high-ROF weapons while the other does not.
SMSterling's books even go to the point of specifically pointing out Skynet's mistake in deploying plasma weapons, saying it should have stuck to conventional firearms.
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Post by Shroom Man 777 »

And another difference when comparing the Resistance's beating Skynet with the Xeno's defeating the Resistance. The Resistance started out and ended up with way more men then Skynet. The Xenos will start out with less men than the Resistance. Unless you propose bringing in a superhive or something, and this isn't just the US Resistance we're talking about...

And how the fuck would the Xenos know where to go to find food and animal hosts?
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Post by Admiral Valdemar »

Darth Wong wrote: Where the hell do you get the idea that they can use inorganic materials as food? Are you seriously suggesting that they would feed off scraps of metal and garbage in the post-apocalyptic wasteland? As for going into stasis, yes, it is shown that they can do that. Too bad it won't help them create this hyper-breeding program that you propose.
As per the movies and Anchorpoint Essays, there is precious little to go on. The Chestburster grew to a two-metre tall adult within hours after it left Kane and killed Brett and didn't seem to have any access to food (it was hiding in the cargo bays full of minerals). It certainly has an amazing metabolism and none of the convenient bodies in Hadley's Hope had been picked on by hungry xenos. In other words, it's an open case given they're so radically different to what you and I call animals (it doesn't need air and is ectothermic) so I can't really say.

The stasis feature is very useful as a survival mechanism, unless you argue that against all the many others species in the world that use such techniques prior to adequate environmental features arising.
WTF? Did you even get my point at all? The humans had fucking plasma weapons, just like the terminators! This is not remotely analogous to one side having ranged high-ROF weapons while the other does not.
My point is that the Aliens have the advantage the Resistance had over the Terminators, that is, ability to create numbers. It was not meant to draw an analogy over plasma weapons (which as Necron pointed out, were a bad thing for Skynet to produce).
They would be an annoyance, but not a serious military threat. Postwar mine-clearing and unexploded-ordnance accidents would probably kill as many Resistance fighters as xenomorphs, if not more.
That depends on a load of variables to say the least, but since the OP doesn't state much, I can't elaborate.

Shroom: And how many Xenos do we start off here with and where are they situated etc.?
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Post by Darth Wong »

Admiral Valdemar wrote:As per the movies and Anchorpoint Essays, there is precious little to go on. The Chestburster grew to a two-metre tall adult within hours after it left Kane and killed Brett and didn't seem to have any access to food (it was hiding in the cargo bays full of minerals).
Nevertheless, the ship does have foodstores. The fact that it was found in parts of the ship other than foodstores doesn't mean it must be capable of feeding off steel plate.
It certainly has an amazing metabolism and none of the convenient bodies in Hadley's Hope had been picked on by hungry xenos. In other words, it's an open case given they're so radically different to what you and I call animals (it doesn't need air and is ectothermic) so I can't really say.

The stasis feature is very useful as a survival mechanism, unless you argue that against all the many others species in the world that use such techniques prior to adequate environmental features arising.
Of course the stasis feature is useful. But the fact remains that they will have extreme difficulties breeding, humans will quickly learn to shoot those big fat eggs on sight, and the fully grown xenomorphs are only a combat threat if they can sneak up on you until they're in melee range. They'll drop like flies.
WTF? Did you even get my point at all? The humans had fucking plasma weapons, just like the terminators! This is not remotely analogous to one side having ranged high-ROF weapons while the other does not.
My point is that the Aliens have the advantage the Resistance had over the Terminators, that is, ability to create numbers. It was not meant to draw an analogy over plasma weapons (which as Necron pointed out, were a bad thing for Skynet to produce).
First, they do NOT have that advantage. Second, even if they did have that advantage, they will suffer at least an order of magnitude greater casualties in combat against human fighters than they can dish out. Third, these aren't their classic Alien-verse "humans trapped away from support and isolated from reinforcements" opponents. Any time they managed to successfully capture anybody, the humans would immediately launch a counterstrike to find and neutralize the entire hive with overwhelming retaliatory force.
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Post by Admiral Valdemar »

Darth Wong wrote: Nevertheless, the ship does have foodstores. The fact that it was found in parts of the ship other than foodstores doesn't mean it must be capable of feeding off steel plate.
Indeed and I concur with that despite lack of any reports in the movies etc., but it's not a stretch to rule out a lithovore like ability engineered into it to act as a back-up for normal heterotrophy in the event of insufficient organic sustenance.

Of course the stasis feature is useful. But the fact remains that they will have extreme difficulties breeding, humans will quickly learn to shoot those big fat eggs on sight, and the fully grown xenomorphs are only a combat threat if they can sneak up on you until they're in melee range. They'll drop like flies.
But of course, I never said to the contrary. I'm merely hypothesizing that, whereever and however many Xenos there are here, some may go out into the wilderness and find other hosts instead, whether they cross human paths later on depends on how humanity goes about rebuilding, but there's plenty of space for them to get lost in.
First, they do NOT have that advantage. Second, even if they did have that advantage, they will suffer at least an order of magnitude greater casualties in combat against human fighters than they can dish out. Third, these aren't their classic Alien-verse "humans trapped away from support and isolated from reinforcements" opponents. Any time they managed to successfully capture anybody, the humans would immediately launch a counterstrike to find and neutralize the entire hive with overwhelming retaliatory force.
First things first, I'd say the rebuilding of civilisation would take higher priority than going on a "bug hunt". I certainly do not doubt the humans will succeed in any confrontation, but depending on how things go, the Aliens could be exterminated as they attack the Resistance first thing or some bugger off elsewhere and leave them alone unless the humans come looking. Xenos have a very sneaky way of dealing with anyone that comes near their hive and will openly let people walk in until a trap is sprung that negates many advantages, but I digress.

Regardless of this sidetracking, the original point stands. The Resistance is too many and able to equip itself with sufficient weaponry to deal with a Xeno attack unless in the case of amazing numbers of Aliens storming them (thousands to one base etc.). This is not a suprise given the nature of the Xenomorph as a bioweapon which is far better suited to terror and attacking population centres with little protection.
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Post by THEHOOLIGANJEDI »

This Battle imho can go either way. IF the resistance has Nukes and nukes every nest they find they could win. Most other tactics I can think of are risky and would lead to continuance of the Hive. Plus remember Aliens are very patient and pic their attacks well, this ain't movie Starship Troopers.
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Post by Shroom Man 777 »

They could win if they could build up an incredibly large population while hiding for a very long time and then suddenly striking the Resistance and overwhelming them quickly and outsmarting them and outwitting them and using tactics we've never seen in the movies. In short, we have to give the xenos every advantage we could think of while pulling down the Resistance's pants.
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Post by Antares »

Darth Wong wrote: 1) Aliens are biological creatures with biological requirements. In other words, without food and water, they don't have cross-country range.
Just one thought about this. I am quite well informed about Xenos and they were never called pure biological creatures. The term for them was always biomechanical (whatever that exactly means).

They also dont have biological requirements like we have. Otherwise the movie "Aliens" would make no sense. The colonists in the filmed were not gnawed off to their bones. Every body we have seen in the film was quite intact. So the question arise: exactly were did the "biological" mass come from the xenos needed for their bodys, the queen needed for their increased size, the queen needed to grow its ovipositor and the eggs, huge amount of resin the aliens used to build the hive and stick the hosts into the hive walls.

Just look at the size of the ovipositor + the queen + the eggs. If this thing is considered mostly biological then were the hell did the bio-mass come from?

The queen alone would require at least two tons of bio-mass with 100% conversion of tis mass to her needs.

The colonists certainly got huge amounts of food and stuff, but i doubt that most of it was reachable by the xenos. The xenos number also was several dozens which would also require large amounts of bio-mass just to grow them. Every xeno is about twice the weight of a normal human.

Also remember "Alien". The chestburster was growing to its mature state withing several hours. Were did it get it's bio-mass from, when it was really depending on food like you suggest?

Again the crew might have large amounts of food and so on, but this might be sealed of somewhere. It was never mentioned in the film that the xeno used te supplies of the Nostromo to feed itself. It would have been a large strategic disadvantage, because the crew wont be that dumb and let the alien creature feed on their stuff without taking counter actions like decompressing the storage bay.

The only scene we ever saw an alien descendant actually "eating" something was in "Alien resurrection", when the newborn bites of the head of Gideman.

The scene in "Alien 3" were a victim was laying on the ground and the xeno was above it didnt show an "eating" scene but more an "inspecting scene".

All this doesnt mean, that the xenos might have a chance against resistance. I just wanted to make it clear, that xenos arent biological how we define it :)

Short summary. No "biological" creature:
1) can grow within a few hours to it's mature form and multiply it's birth mass by orders of magnitud
2) can grow apparently without the need of typical biological food
2) can survive in space/extremly hostile environments
3) can take the pressure AND heat of molten lead (Alien 3)
4) got highly corrosive blood
5) can take a gas that freezes a human within 2 seconds (Alien 4)
6) is not visible on IR (Alien 2)

Of course it is possible, that i always misinterpreted the films and various sites which discuss the physiology and abilities i read are wrong :)
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Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The alien might have some fucked up biochemistry with fucked up chemical reactions which totally defy everything we know of today.
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Post by Cthulhu-chan »

Although it's almost certainly not canon, I recall reading in various Aliens comics about the initial life cycle of a xenomorph. In particular, the chestburster is the only stage that required any organic materials to survive, and only needed this for it's growth spurt. For that matter, I believe any organic material was sufficient, not necessarily biological bits. Once the xeno had matured, it was esentially a lithovore, though not exactly particular.

Again, this was from a most likely non-canon source, and therefore probably means shit-all, but there ya go. I tried to hunt down anything even remotely official, but the lack of canon material or references online is rather... dissapointing, really.
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Post by Shroom Man 777 »

If it doesn't eat biological stuff, then what in god's green goodness does it eat? Wtf is a lithovore?
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Post by Cthulhu-chan »

Well, from a chemestry standpoint, organic simply means carbon based. A lithovore is a creature capable of surviving off of purely non-organic substances.

So to answer your question, xenomorphs may very well eat whatever they can chew up and swallow. Since they can tear through steel doors, that could be just about anything.

One thing to note, xenos have never been shown to eat humans, if I recall correctly. Several websites (none official, sad to say) make note of this.
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Post by Darth Wong »

Antares wrote:Just one thought about this. I am quite well informed about Xenos and they were never called pure biological creatures. The term for them was always biomechanical (whatever that exactly means).
Since they grow with no added parts being surgically added to them, they are obviously not biomechanical in the normal sense (which basically means "cyborg").
They also dont have biological requirements like we have. Otherwise the movie "Aliens" would make no sense. The colonists in the filmed were not gnawed off to their bones. Every body we have seen in the film was quite intact.
So? The fact remains that the alien lifecycle requires that the embryonic lifeform use a host body for sustenance while it grows from an egg into a chest-burster. It feeds off the food used by that body, which was one of the key plot points of the original movie.
So the question arise: exactly were did the "biological" mass come from the xenos needed for their bodys, the queen needed for their increased size, the queen needed to grow its ovipositor and the eggs, huge amount of resin the aliens used to build the hive and stick the hosts into the hive walls.
What do you think the colony ate? Air? They obviously had lots of food on hand.
Just look at the size of the ovipositor + the queen + the eggs. If this thing is considered mostly biological then were the hell did the bio-mass come from?

The queen alone would require at least two tons of bio-mass with 100% conversion of tis mass to her needs.
So what do you think the Queen ate? Parts of the colony? That fusion plant would have been seriously fucked up by the time the Marines got there if the Queen set up shop in the coolant area and started feeding off plant components.
The colonists certainly got huge amounts of food and stuff, but i doubt that most of it was reachable by the xenos. The xenos number also was several dozens which would also require large amounts of bio-mass just to grow them. Every xeno is about twice the weight of a normal human.
See above.
Also remember "Alien". The chestburster was growing to its mature state withing several hours. Were did it get it's bio-mass from, when it was really depending on food like you suggest?
Its host body, genius. It had no other conceivable source of mass, since it was trapped in that host body. This honestly doesn't occur to you?
Again the crew might have large amounts of food and so on, but this might be sealed of somewhere. It was never mentioned in the film that the xeno used te supplies of the Nostromo to feed itself. It would have been a large strategic disadvantage, because the crew wont be that dumb and let the alien creature feed on their stuff without taking counter actions like decompressing the storage bay.
All speculation which does nothing to change the fact that we have incontrovertible canon evidence of an alien growing in an environment where it was completely surrounded by organic tissue and had no other conceivable source of nutrients.
The only scene we ever saw an alien descendant actually "eating" something was in "Alien resurrection", when the newborn bites of the head of Gideman.

The scene in "Alien 3" were a victim was laying on the ground and the xeno was above it didnt show an "eating" scene but more an "inspecting scene".

All this doesnt mean, that the xenos might have a chance against resistance. I just wanted to make it clear, that xenos arent biological how we define it :)
No, you tried to do that, but the evidence doesn't back you up.
Short summary. No "biological" creature:
1) can grow within a few hours to it's mature form and multiply it's birth mass by orders of magnitud
2) can grow apparently without the need of typical biological food
2) can survive in space/extremly hostile environments
3) can take the pressure AND heat of molten lead (Alien 3)
4) got highly corrosive blood
5) can take a gas that freezes a human within 2 seconds (Alien 4)
6) is not visible on IR (Alien 2)
None of these things necessarily prove it is not biological except #2, which happens to be nothing more than your personal speculation and totally inconsistent with the original film. Organisms can survive in very hostile environments here on Earth, fast-growth is hardly proof of inorganic nature, we have fucking acid in our own stomachs, high body temperatures are a characteristic of mammals but not all life forms (particularly against the backdrop of a fucking nuclear fusion reactor cooling system), and Alien4 disproves your own point by showing humans being cross-bred with aliens; something which is impossible if the Aliens do not have some kind of DNA which makes them a biological life form.
Of course it is possible, that i always misinterpreted the films and various sites which discuss the physiology and abilities i read are wrong :)
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Post by NecronLord »

Cthulhu-chan wrote:Although it's almost certainly not canon, I recall reading in various Aliens comics about the initial life cycle of a xenomorph. In particular, the chestburster is the only stage that required any organic materials to survive, and only needed this for it's growth spurt. For that matter, I believe any organic material was sufficient, not necessarily biological bits. Once the xeno had matured, it was esentially a lithovore, though not exactly particular.

Again, this was from a most likely non-canon source, and therefore probably means shit-all, but there ya go. I tried to hunt down anything even remotely official, but the lack of canon material or references online is rather... dissapointing, really.
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Post by neoolong »

Cthulhu-chan wrote:Although it's almost certainly not canon, I recall reading in various Aliens comics about the initial life cycle of a xenomorph. In particular, the chestburster is the only stage that required any organic materials to survive, and only needed this for it's growth spurt. For that matter, I believe any organic material was sufficient, not necessarily biological bits. Once the xeno had matured, it was esentially a lithovore, though not exactly particular.
In Aliens: Labyrinth though adult aliens need to eat.

A clear canon policy would clear it up, but I don't think there is one.
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