Just what does Weyland-Yutani want with the Xenomorph anyway?

[Jeivar]

If we just go with the original Alien, then WY was willing to sacrifice six working class nobodies in order to get their hands on an alien lifeform to study it. Okay... evil, but not that far-fetched.

If one goes with even a fraction of the more extended Alien universe, then Weyland-Yutani have expended HUGE resources on this pet obsession, and I'm wondering what the hell the point is. The Xenomorph is non-sentient, so it can't provide any new technology, and... sure, it's physically dangerous but it would make for a crappy bioweapon. It's too dumb to complete any objective more complex than "kill everything", and it's reliant on darkness and close quarters. It's never going to prevail against properly equipped, properly led soldiers who actually know what they're up against.

Sooo... as a thinking exercise, can anyone imagine what on earth their end game is? Can we just assign WY to the "Moronically Evil" shelf next to Umbrella and Vault Tec?

[Dr.Samurai]

Maybe the potential lies in the fact that a facehugger can impregnate different biological species, which result in different types of xenomorphs? Maybe they aren't after the xenomorph that we know exactly, but they're after the mechanism that creates xenomorph-type creatures. We see in Resurrection that the xenomorphs do have intelligence, so maybe WY is looking to create usable living weapons.

[Metahuman1]

They can survive in the vacuum and temperature extremes of space, and well, there is the molecular acid for blood and I always got the impression the things can heal and regenerate at a considerable rate.

Maybe that's at least part of it?

[Kitten Champion]

Hard to say, we mostly see their actions from the perspective of the people they're screwing over and they're reasonably justified in their presumption that it's not worth it.

Their value as bio-weapons may be more than you perceive, as the scale and nature of conflicts in this universe are rather vague and the Xenomorph is pretty well designed to adapt to any environment. They could release them systematically amongst civilian populations and then profit from their extermination, or they could annihilate rebellious labourers and poorly-armed guerrillas. Maybe they could be used to compliment existing forces in some strategic fashion rather than replace it altogether.

Though, you're also presuming that they'd just go with vanilla Xenomorphs and not whatever they can concoct through genetic engineering and careful breeding -- maybe even tame them in some reliable fashion.

Beyond the military applications, they've got a biology that could be very useful for biomedicine and any potential human bio-forming project.

[Saph]

Sooo... as a thinking exercise, can anyone imagine what on earth their end game is? Can we just assign WY to the "Moronically Evil" shelf next to Umbrella and Vault Tec?

Weyland-Yutani have to be constantly chasing Xenomorphs because otherwise the entire Alien universe falls apart.

If you think about it, the Xenomorphs are actually incredibly bad at their job. Successful parasites coexist with their hosts; the Xenos kill their hosts very fast and very wastefully. On top of that, they don't have any technology, which means no space travel, which means no way to find new hosts. So their entire life cycle is dependent on some alien species being smart enough to discover space travel and travel across the stars to find the Xenomorphs, then dumb enough to let the Xenomorphs jump on them and impregnate them. As soon as any intelligent species figures this out, they're going to stay the hell away from any Xenomorph-infested regions, and if they do have to fight Xenomorphs, they'd do it by nuking them from orbit, or dropping nerve gas on them, or something similarly unfair.

But the whole point of the Alien franchise is that you're supposed to have Xenomorphs preying on/stalking humans, otherwise you'd have no story. So Weyland-Yutani have to keep chasing Xenomorphs even when it makes no sense for them to do so. It's a case of plot induced stupidity.

[Millstone85]

If you think about it, the Xenomorphs are actually incredibly bad at their job. Successful parasites coexist with their hosts; the Xenos kill their hosts very fast and very wastefully.If there is anything I am willing to acknowledge from Prometheus and beyond, it is that xenomorphs were always bioweapons, of the biosphere busting sort.

[Jeivar]

If there is anything I am willing to acknowledge from Prometheus and beyond, it is that xenomorphs were always bioweapons, of the biosphere busting sort.

That was Ridley Scott's original idea for the creatures. The crashed ship on LV-426 was a bomber.

[tomandtish]

Weyland-Yutani have to be constantly chasing Xenomorphs because otherwise the entire Alien universe falls apart.

If you think about it, the Xenomorphs are actually incredibly bad at their job. Successful parasites coexist with their hosts; the Xenos kill their hosts very fast and very wastefully. On top of that, they don't have any technology, which means no space travel, which means no way to find new hosts. So their entire life cycle is dependent on some alien species being smart enough to discover space travel and travel across the stars to find the Xenomorphs, then dumb enough to let the Xenomorphs jump on them and impregnate them. As soon as any intelligent species figures this out, they're going to stay the hell away from any Xenomorph-infested regions, and if they do have to fight Xenomorphs, they'd do it by nuking them from orbit, or dropping nerve gas on them, or something similarly unfair.


Yes and no. Don't look at them as parasites surviving with their hosts. Look at them as force reduction/addition. They have the advantage of reducing enemy forces AND increasing their own forces in the same action. So every enemy you take out by implantation adds a "soldier" to your side.



If there is anything I am willing to acknowledge from Prometheus and beyond, it is that xenomorphs were always bioweapons, of the biosphere busting sort.

Exactly. What we haven't gotten enough of from the one prequel (maybe Covenant will clarify) is if there's a way to control them. If not, then yeah, it is at best a scorched earth policy. You use them to eliminate populations when you don't necessarily care about recovering the territory. They also make an excellent weapon of terror.

But if they CAN somehow be controlled, then they become a lot more effective.

Admittedly, you'd think at some point W-Y would give up on this. But there is potentially a LOT of money in the creatures. in the expanded universe for sure (and some argue the movies) the aliens can survive in vacuum. They can handle some level of small arms fire, have a nasty self defense mechanism, and are effectively fearless.

I've never gotten the impression that they want the creatures as weapons themselves, but W-Y may be trying to study them to adapt parts of them into other creatures or areas. For example, suppose you could adapt the acid blood into a synthetic in a manner that wouldn't harm the synthetic...

[Saph]

Exactly. What we haven't gotten enough of from the one prequel (maybe Covenant will clarify) is if there's a way to control them. If not, then yeah, it is at best a scorched earth policy. You use them to eliminate populations when you don't necessarily care about recovering the territory. They also make an excellent weapon of terror.

But if they CAN somehow be controlled, then they become a lot more effective.

It's kind of irrelevant whether their creators had a way to control them, though, given that it's painfully obvious by now that humans can't. I used to read some of the Aliens EU material, and it felt as though literally every single story went the same way. Humans get hold of a bunch of Xenomorphs, humans try to use the Xenomorphs for some morally dubious purpose, Xenomorphs inevitably escape, the space station (or whatever) gets infested and everyone dies. You'd think that after the seventh or eighth time, they'd learn, but apparently not.

It reminds me of those Incredible Hulk stories (and why they got so repetitive, too).

"Hey guys, I've got an idea! Let's capture the Hulk and use him for military purposes!"
"Uh, the last eleven times we tried the whole division we sent to do it got destroyed, sir."
"Exactly, there's no possible way it could happen twelve times!"

[gooddragon1]

Well, in the resurrection movie, we see a human with considerably improved abilities as a result of having some of their DNA. It's a long way off from a space marine, but it's a start in the genetic engineering department.

[Grim Portent]

I'm not sure on what's an official part of the Alien EU, but there was a Dark Horse Comics four parter featuring a 'tame' Xenomorph called Ol' Blue (http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Ol'_Blue), and some more that were used as 'guard dogs' by a company called MedTech. So it might be possible to tame the drones and warriors at least, and the Queens are implied in the movie Aliens to understand threats and negotiation, at least somewhat.

[Leewei]

Any answer will involve a lot of speculation, since there is no guarantee that corporations and society at large exist by the same rules as present day.

So, here's some speculation:

The most valuable assets of modern biotechnology companies is intellectual property (IP). Patents and similar legal constructs grant companies legal monopolies worth billions of dollars. It is certainly true that xenomorphs are bioweapons and horrific monsters. More importantly, though, they also are radically different than known life, and have radically different capabilities, such as accelerated maturation and blood that will dissolve through most known substances nearly instantaneously. There is a lot that Weyland-Yutani can learn about biology from the xenomorphs, and all of it is patentable. What's more, WY has competitors. Any of these other companies could instead start a biotech revolution if they obtained and studies xenos first. This makes acquisition of xenos an existential priority for WY.

Legal penalties for deaths of colonists and personnel could offset this, but governments are territorial, and space is a very, very big place. Employees of WY very likely have signed waivers, as well. From a corporation's perspective, money lost in legal or criminal battles can still be offset by large enough revenues.

WY probably also incentivizes executives such as Burke to bias them toward risky endeavors.

Lastly, science marches on. A hostile creature that infested and wiped out a mining vessel a few generations back couldn't be a threat to a state-of-the-art installation, could it?

[Ramza00]

Genetic Memory, Regeneration, Different Life Cycle (faster growth), Ability to Survive in an Vacuum, Different Metabolism where they function very well with very different body temperatures to humans and animals, Blood that uses Oxygen at a very different ph level than human blood and thus different chemical reactions and not using hemoglobin, and so on.

Lots of stuff where you would want to study Xenomorph DNA and Xenomorph Hybrids. I am not sure though you would want to clone a full animal though and instead use the modern version of crispr to add DNA into other bacteria, fungi, other animals, etc that are far more well known, and also do an entire genome / sequencing project for it is not the final organism but instead the proteins, enzymes, cell parts, etc that the Alien makes that is useful instead of the final creature.

The biology of the xenomorph is useful, thinking of them as bioweapons, or guard dogs is not useful.

[Traab]

In Aliens, you know what we dont see much of? Aliens. This race of xenomorphs are the only one (other than preds, but im not sure if thats a retcon) that earth has seen and confirmed to exist. The potential for study is MASSIVE with that. Everything from weaponry (Hell, they could weaponize alien BLOOD, to hell with the aliens themselves) But pretty much every field of science would have its own laundry list of reasons why they really really REALLY want to study them.

[Cazero]

If you think about it, the Xenomorphs are actually incredibly bad at their job. Successful parasites coexist with their hosts; the Xenos kill their hosts very fast and very wastefully. On top of that, they don't have any technology, which means no space travel, which means no way to find new hosts. So their entire life cycle is dependent on some alien species being smart enough to discover space travel and travel across the stars to find the Xenomorphs, then dumb enough to let the Xenomorphs jump on them and impregnate them.
But of course. It is so obvious.
Weyland-Yutani are ecologists. Since the Xenomorphs are unfit for survival on their own, Weyland-Yutani provides the habitat required for the specie to keep existing. That means killing lots of people for more and more dubious pretexts, but is there anything more human than saying "**** you" to natural selection even at our own expense?

[shadow_archmagi]

If we just go with the original Alien, then WY was willing to sacrifice six working class nobodies in order to get their hands on an alien lifeform to study it. Okay... evil, but not that far-fetched.

If one goes with even a fraction of the more extended Alien universe, then Weyland-Yutani have expended HUGE resources on this pet obsession, and I'm wondering what the hell the point is. The Xenomorph is non-sentient, so it can't provide any new technology, and... sure, it's physically dangerous but it would make for a crappy bioweapon. It's too dumb to complete any objective more complex than "kill everything", and it's reliant on darkness and close quarters. It's never going to prevail against properly equipped, properly led soldiers who actually know what they're up against.

Sooo... as a thinking exercise, can anyone imagine what on earth their end game is? Can we just assign WY to the "Moronically Evil" shelf next to Umbrella and Vault Tec?

It's the ultimate invasive species. Drop a few eggs in the middle of nowhere and it starts converting biomass into hostiles. Pretty soon whatever enemy you're dealing with has a nasty second front to deal with. If your enemy has to deploy two divisions to clean up, regardless of whether they win or not, you just traded one egg for a big chunk of their army not being around for the next battle.

[Seppl]

While I do not know the exact conditions, it probably involves some kind of bet between the respective CEOs of Weyland-Yutani and Umbrella Corp. It would explain so much...

[Leewei]

If we just go with the original Alien, then WY was willing to sacrifice six working class nobodies in order to get their hands on an alien lifeform to study it. Okay... evil, but not that far-fetched.

If one goes with even a fraction of the more extended Alien universe, then Weyland-Yutani have expended HUGE resources on this pet obsession, and I'm wondering what the hell the point is. The Xenomorph is non-sentient, so it can't provide any new technology, and... sure, it's physically dangerous but it would make for a crappy bioweapon. It's too dumb to complete any objective more complex than "kill everything", and it's reliant on darkness and close quarters. It's never going to prevail against properly equipped, properly led soldiers who actually know what they're up against.

Sooo... as a thinking exercise, can anyone imagine what on earth their end game is? Can we just assign WY to the "Moronically Evil" shelf next to Umbrella and Vault Tec?

In the roller coaster ride that is Aliens, it is easy to miss some detail. Burke himself was the one who gave the colony coordinates to search for the derelict vessel. The colony had been running for years, and had not been attacked by xenomorphs, and Ripley had been in hypersleep so long that her relatives were all dead. Because of these, Burke dismissed the threat they presented. Pretty much all the bad stuff in Aliens goes back to him and his increasingly desperate attempts to cover up his past mistakes.

[Dr.Samurai]

In the roller coaster ride that is Aliens, it is easy to miss some detail. Burke himself was the one who gave the colony coordinates to search for the derelict vessel. The colony had been running for years, and had not been attacked by xenomorphs, and Ripley had been in hypersleep so long that her relatives were all dead. Because of these, Burke dismissed the threat they presented. Pretty much all the bad stuff in Aliens goes back to him and his increasingly desperate attempts to cover up his past mistakes.
This is so nuts. I mean, listen - listen to what you're saying. It's paranoid delusion. How - It's really sad. It's pathetic.

[Giggling Ghast]

Interestingly, one of the Dark Horse comics stated that the xenomorph's method of reproduction was actually geared towards spreading their population to new areas, and the xenomorph could control its gestation period.

1) Human gets implanted with xenomorph via facehugger.
2) Facehugger falls off; infected human, believing they are fine, travels to new area.
3) Out pops xenomorph; new area now infested.

Of course, said comic presented them as a naturally occuring species, which we now know they are not.

[Dr.Samurai]

Regular xenomorphs don't make facehuggers though. So it would be:

3) Out pops xenomorph; new area depopulated.

[Giggling Ghast]

Regular xenomorphs don't make facehuggers though. So it would be:

3) Out pops xenomorph; new area depopulated.

Yes, if it's a regular old "warrior" xenomorph. But it could also be a queen. There's no way of knowing what you got until it starts pooping eggs.

[Leewei]

Regular xenomorphs don't make facehuggers though...
Out of curiosity, how do you know this?

[Dr.Samurai]

I don't know much beyond the movies but I thought that was the purpose of the queen, to lay the eggs that birth the facehuggers that implant the xenomorphs into the host.

It's the queen in Aliens that is laying the facehugger eggs. It's the queen in Ripley that makes her valuable in Aliens 3, and it's the queen in Ripley again that is the reason they clone her. So they can make more.

But maybe I missed something.

Did my Burke quote even get a chuckle out of you?? :smallbiggrin:

[Leewei]

I don't know much beyond the movies but I thought that was the purpose of the queen, to lay the eggs that birth the facehuggers that implant the xenomorphs into the host.

It's the queen in Aliens that is laying the facehugger eggs. It's the queen in Ripley that makes her valuable in Aliens 3, and it's the queen in Ripley again that is the reason they clone her. So they can make more.

But maybe I missed something.

Did my Burke quote even get a chuckle out of you?? :smallbiggrin:

It absolutely did. I was trying to come up with a better 10-character response than "Hahahahaha" :)

[Giggling Ghast]

Yes, only a Xenomorph Queen lays eggs. The canon is a little indecisive, however, on how they're created; some sources say their eggs are exposed to special royal jelly, while others say a single drone can evolve into a Queen.


Did my Burke quote even get a chuckle out of you?? :smallbiggrin:

Yes. :smallwink:

[Jeivar]

Yes, only a Xenomorph Queen lays eggs. The canon is a little indecisive, however, on how they're created; some sources say their eggs are exposed to special royal jelly, while others say a single drone can evolve into a Queen.


The director's edition of Alien has a deleted scene, where Ripley stumbles upon a nest the alien has set up within the Nostromo. Brett's corpse and Dallas (alive and moaning to be killed) are slowly transforming into eggs. So the original idea was that the xenomorphs could just multiply and multiply as long as there were victims.

[Grim Portent]

Yes, only a Xenomorph Queen lays eggs. The canon is a little indecisive, however, on how they're created; some sources say their eggs are exposed to special royal jelly, while others say a single drone can evolve into a Queen.

In addition to this, some stuff I read says that Praetorians can become Queens if the original dies, and that drones can become Praetorians (and then Queens) if exposed to royal jelly.

There's also apparently some EU comics with a caste above the Queens, called the Queen Mother, who is basically a species wide equivalent of the Queen found on their (no longer canon) homeworld.


Also, apparently Royal Jelly can be made into a drug called Xeno-Zip, and aliens hate the smell of anyone using Xeno-Zip from a rival hive, and will proceed to kill the users as if they were also Xenomorphs. For some reason I find this hilarious. :smallbiggrin:

[Yora]

It's the ultimate invasive species. Drop a few eggs in the middle of nowhere and it starts converting biomass into hostiles. Pretty soon whatever enemy you're dealing with has a nasty second front to deal with. If your enemy has to deploy two divisions to clean up, regardless of whether they win or not, you just traded one egg for a big chunk of their army not being around for the next battle.

If they are a naturally evolved species and not artificial biological constructs, then they would probably come from a planet where they don't rapidly cause the extinction of all megafauna because their natural host creatures are so much more badass than humans.
The strength and agressiveness that makes them total murder machines when dealing with humans might be just enough to maintain a stable population that doesn't disrupt the ecosystem of planet Xeno. :smalleek:

[Traab]

In addition to this, some stuff I read says that Praetorians can become Queens if the original dies, and that drones can become Praetorians (and then Queens) if exposed to royal jelly.

There's also apparently some EU comics with a caste above the Queens, called the Queen Mother, who is basically a species wide equivalent of the Queen found on their (no longer canon) homeworld.


Also, apparently Royal Jelly can be made into a drug called Xeno-Zip, and aliens hate the smell of anyone using Xeno-Zip from a rival hive, and will proceed to kill the users as if they were also Xenomorphs. For some reason I find this hilarious. :smallbiggrin:

Wasnt there an empress or some such thing too? Yep, read up, apparently all they do is spit out queen facehugger eggs. Heh, I read a fanfic where they basically birthed live drones making them way more dangerous as a source of infestation because they dont need bodies to infest with face huggers anymore.

[Red Fel]

Well, first, let's set aside the Xenos' use as a bioweapon, and the fact that Xenomorphs are legitimately terrible at their jobs. (Let's be honest - in an open, sunny area, in the presence of any degree of armed forces including tanks and air support, they wouldn't stand a chance.) Is there any chance that, to use corporate speak, "the acquisition of Xenomorph assets could synergize with Weyland-Yutani's dominant corporate paradigm?"

What does W-Y do? Well, they have a bioweapons division, which would obviously study Xenos, but let's put that aside. They have an R&D division, but that works on Yautja tech, so Xenomorphs aren't terribly relevant to that. Aside from that, they work in manufacture, deep space transport, and terraforming, with an interest in colonizing.

Let's big-picture this thing. W-Y specializes in setting up space colonies to acquire raw materials and manufacture them. They also terraform planets to serve as functional colonies.

Look at the Xenomorph. Highly adaptable. The impregnation process and "DNA Reflex" allows it to assume a form suited to the local environs. They're also naturally hardy, able to survive in challenging atmospheres. Further, they in many ways resemble insects, down to a suspected pheromonal-scent-based form of tracking and communication. Taken together, you have a highly adaptable race that follows hierarchical structures; if you could control that, you could avoid many of the expenses associated with colonization altogether. Rather than adapting the planet to suit your employees, create a race of employees that rapidly adapt to the planet. Rather than expending tremendous resources on the deep-space travel necessary to get your employees to their target (including atmosphere, life support, and supplies), send a basket of eggs and some basic equipment, and wait. Xenos are suspected to have something resembling genetic memory, so programming a single generation should be sufficient to get them to work the planet for you. Best of all, they're easily equipped to defend your mining colonies or manufacturing facilities from thievery or sabotage - they're bioweapons, after all. You never have to pay your employees, they'll never unionize - just ship off some eggs and let them do their thing. They're not space-capable, so all you need are some automated supply dropships to leave materials and pick up product, and they'll never even bother to leave the planet.

... Of course, if you ask me, the real reason they want to master Xenomorphs is the name. They want to be Weyland-Xeno-Yutani - WXY. Rolls off the tongue.

[Brother Oni]

If they are a naturally evolved species and not artificial biological constructs, then they would probably come from a planet where they don't rapidly cause the extinction of all megafauna because their natural host creatures are so much more badass than humans.
The strength and agressiveness that makes them total murder machines when dealing with humans might be just enough to maintain a stable population that doesn't disrupt the ecosystem of planet Xeno. :smalleek:

I think that was a comment made in one of the EU comics prior to Prometheus - since the xenomorphs are like ants with a similar hierarchal structure, it would imply that they're comparatively low on the food chain, so imagine how nasty the predator must be to need that acid blood defence mechanism.

A lot of their effectiveness in the Alien universe could simply be chalked up to an invasive species introduced to a new environment with no natural predator.


Well, first, let's set aside the Xenos' use as a bioweapon, and the fact that Xenomorphs are legitimately terrible at their jobs. (Let's be honest - in an open, sunny area, in the presence of any degree of armed forces including tanks and air support, they wouldn't stand a chance.)

Wrong tool for the job. They're not intended to be stand up combatants, they're intended to be terror weapons and/or other asymmetric warfare scenarios.
Once their hive has been located, artillery/air strikes would take care of it in short order but until its been pinpointed, that's a lot of personnel tied up with containment and recon, along with the poor morale induced by the potential threat of something bursting out an air vent to eat you (or worse, impregnate you with a parasite that kills you as it bursts out).

For example, air bursting weaponised anthrax spores would be useless against a prepared military force but highly effective against a civilian population or an unprepared garrison force.

[Red Fel]

Wrong tool for the job. They're not intended to be stand up combatants, they're intended to be terror weapons and/or other asymmetric warfare scenarios.
Once their hive has been located, artillery/air strikes would take care of it in short order but until its been pinpointed, that's a lot of personnel tied up with containment and recon, along with the poor morale induced by the potential threat of something bursting out an air vent to eat you (or worse, impregnate you with a parasite that kills you as it bursts out).

For example, air bursting weaponised anthrax spores would be useless against a prepared military force but highly effective against a civilian population or an unprepared garrison force.

This is true. And perhaps this is what W-Y wants them for - a way to crush non-W-Y colonies and thus discourage competition. Space colonies are unlikely to have the military equipment needed to defend against a Xeno infestation, and in all probability are environmentally contained - and an enclosed space is a Xeno's best asset, as we've seen time and again. And W-Y is suitably powerful that once it has infested an overrun a rival colony, it can nuke the site from orbit, clear out the infestation, and take over business, thus establishing a colony monopoly.

[comicshorse]

This is true. And perhaps this is what W-Y wants them for - a way to crush non-W-Y colonies and thus discourage competition. Space colonies are unlikely to have the military equipment needed to defend against a Xeno infestation, and in all probability are environmentally contained - and an enclosed space is a Xeno's best asset, as we've seen time and again. And W-Y is suitably powerful that once it has infested an overrun a rival colony, it can nuke the site from orbit, clear out the infestation, and take over business, thus establishing a colony monopoly.

It doesn't even really need to do that. Assuming the Xeno's aren't immortal once they've run out of people to implant you just have to wait until the last generation die of old age and then send in a janitor with a flame thrower and instructions to burn the eggs not stick his face next to them

[Traab]

I still say the acid blood alone is worth its weight in gold. I mean, we dont have ANYTHING that can melt metal that fast. The blood melts things so quick its like watching a slow motion explosion with the crater it leaves behind. The only thing that doesnt seem to get destroyed by it are the xenos themselves. That could come in handy in all sorts of applications, not just war, though it would be incredible for that if they could find a way to artificially create it. Probably be a far cheaper way to disable armored vehicles and crack open bunkers than to drop missiles on it. Drop a 500 pound blob of the stuff wrapped in xeno skin from a plane and watch it dissolve the top three floors of an enemy stronghold.

[Grim Portent]

Of course Ripley post cloning is probably infinitely more valuable to a thinking mind than a Xenomorph is. She has the nascent telepathy they possess, increased strength and the acid blood.

If you could give those to your soldiers they'd be insanely better than normal humans, even if only because they can tell where each other are over short distances without needing line of sight or comm systems. In the cramped colonies and stations of the Aliens 'verse that's actually really handy. That they can melt door locks by pricking their thumb with a knife or haul metal plates off walls with their hands is just a bonus.

That and if they can isolate the xeno genes in Ripley they might find the Badass genes she has as well. :smallbiggrin:

[Leewei]

Of course Ripley post cloning is probably infinitely more valuable to a thinking mind than a Xenomorph is. She has the nascent telepathy they possess, increased strength and the acid blood.

If you could give those to your soldiers they'd be insanely better than normal humans, even if only because they can tell where each other are over short distances without needing line of sight or comm systems. In the cramped colonies and stations of the Aliens 'verse that's actually really handy. That they can melt door locks by pricking their thumb with a knife or haul metal plates off walls with their hands is just a bonus.

That and if they can isolate the xeno genes in Ripley they might find the Badass genes she has as well. :smallbiggrin:

She also has enormous resilience (enough to survive a surgically-aided chest-burst) and at least some memories of her original self, which hints at a form of serial immortality.

Fridge logic-wise, the aliens are cheaper to mass produce - just provide them with something in which to incubate (or else a modified reproductive system, as in Alien: Resurrection). Aliens are more capable melee combatants, are stealthier, and are unlikely to go on blathering about rights and paychecks.

Admittedly, Ripley-8 can use military grade gear, can interact socially with humans, and seems capable of getting along with xenos. As I understand it, she was being studied as a bonus discovery, but the principle project was creating xenos.

[Dr.Samurai]

Guys, it's the physiology of the face-hugger tail that allows it to spring from the egg at tremendous speed. If this mechanism can be replicated, it would revolutionize Weyland-Yutani's power loaders.

[Rater202]

I'm gonna throw my chips into the "Use their genes to genetically engineer hybrid super soldiers" pot.

[Grim Portent]

There's also the potential to make some pretty funky furniture out of their carapaces I imagine.

Xenomorph foreheads fashioned into macabre bowls could be pretty neat. :smalltongue:

[Leewei]

If Prometheus is added into the context, WY's research and even morality might be justified with the notion of eventual contact with the Engineers. This species had intended to kill off humanity before using biological warfare. Understanding their tricks, adapting them for our own use, and developing countermeasures are all extreme priorities.

[Aedilred]

The number of drugs and technologies that could be created from close study of alien biology, let alone that of an alien as remarkable as the xenomorph, would be incredibly valuable to a company like W-Y even if there were no military applications at all. I thought it was pretty self-evident why they were so keen to get their hands on it.