- Today's episode of Because Science
is sponsored by Mack Weldon.
Oh, hello.
I just took off my helmet, even though I'm
about to encounter the first extraterrestrial life forms
because I'm a bad scientist.
But I can't help it, these xenomorph things
are too interesting, too complicated, too ...
Unnecessarily convoluted, I have to study them
up close and personal.
What is their life cycle?
What the heck is the black goo?
How do xenomorphs really work?
For the last 40 years, since the original Alien came out,
fans have speculated about how the iconic monsters work.
Their has to be some science in the science fiction, right?
But fans have always argued because the Alien franchise
is intentionally vague about biology and life cycles.
The movies want you to be in the dark
to heighten the horror.
However, the movies sometimes feel downright contradictory,
so how do the xenomorphs work?
I think I've figured it out, yes, even with Prometheus.
In the first Alien, and even Aliens,
the life cycle of the xenomorph isn't all that complicated
if you know where the filmmakers were coming from.
According to screenwriter Dan O'Bannon
in an essay entitled Something Perfectly Disgusting,
"I patterned the alien's life cycle on real parasites.
"Parasitic wasps treat caterpillars
"in an altogether revolting manner, the study of which
"I commend to anyone who is tired of having good dreams."
You're tired of having good dreams, right?
This is Cortesia Glomerata, a parasitic wasp
that parisitizes caterpillars.
It does so by laying eggs inside of
the caterpillar's body, which eat them from the inside out
and eventually bug-burst from their bodies,
wherever their chest may be, after a gestation period.
Look familiar?
(whooshing)
Whoa!
Nice try, loser.
Both co-writer Ronald Shusett and director Ridley Scott
have been quoted as saying that parasitic wasps
inspired the life cycle of the original alien.
You're tired of having good dreams, right?
This is Rhyssa Persuasoria, which Ridley Scott
mentioned in an interview.
It crawls along wood, finds a grub underneath that wood,
drills into the wood with its butt, and then
inserts eggs into the grub which then hatch into larvae
which eat the grub from the inside out,
muscles first, vital organs last.
This is the Tarantula Hawk Wasp,
which Shusett has mentioned in interviews.
It paralyzes a spider, leads it to a den
and then leys an egg on its abdomen which then hatches
into a larvae and burrows into the spider,
eating it from the inside out, muscles first,
vital organs last, and then eventually
emerges as an adult animal.
Sounds just like an alien incapacitating
a human for a facehugger, doesn't it?
(gooey chomping sounds)
With this inspiration, O'Bannon said that,
wait, where's the ...
O'Bannon said that, "These alien beings had two sexes
on their own, but they needed a third animal to reproduce,
so they bring in an animal, put it up next to
a facehugger, or spore, and then wham,
they lead the inseminated animal off to
an enclosure somewhere to await the birth."
This is more or less exactly what parasitic wasps do.
They fertilize each other first but need a third animal
to complete the life cycle, so ...
This is the classic xenomorph life cycle.
Humans stumble upon a long-dead race of parasite
that died out before they could get their
last fertilized eggs hosts, but then humans arrive
and the eggs activate and then a embryo delivery device
or face ...
Facehugger, attaches to a human and implants an embryo
inside that human and after a gestation period,
the embryo bursts forth from the chest,
eventually growing into a full-grown xenomorph.
Xenomorph has to find another mate to continue this process,
but this is the gist of it.
Parasitic wasps don't have queens,
but James Cameron's addition of one
doesn't really change anything, it just--
(growling)
ugh, it just adds a step.
The black goo, though, that makes things complicated.
The film Prometheus introduces a number of distinct-looking
creatures, but they are all linked by the goo.
We see goo-sposure lead to everything from
the hammerpedes, to the trilobite, to the deacon alien,
and finally to a zombie guy?
How the heck does the original xenomorph life cycle
fit into any of this?
According to the movie, the goo is actually
Chemical A03959X.91-15, or a so-called genetic accelerant.
Now it's my theory, and many others', that this
genetic accelerant takes whatever biology it finds
and weaponizes it.
It takes any living thing, and through a genetic process,
makes it more xenomorph-y, depending on
the genetics it's working with.
I mean really, the first alien you see and it
looks like a vagina snake, and you wanna
take off your helmet and touch it?
That's just--
No dude, that's just your fault.
You're bad at your job.
So the goo takes Holloway's sperm and transforms it
into the trilobite, which in turn infects the engineer,
which becomes the deacon alien.
The goo also infects some native worms on LV-223
and makes them a lot more hostile and acidy.
The hammerpedes.
But what about that zombie guy?
Well, in a deleted scene from Prometheus,
he was initially supposed to be a lot more like
a xenomorph-human hybrid or transforming
into a xenomorph himself.
This only goes to show that this is what the goo does.
It takes living things and gives them
xenomorph-like qualities.
But how does the black goo take biology and weaponize it?
And how does that fit into the xenomorph life cycle
as we know it and the original Alien franchise?
I've been calling the Alien aliens xenomorphs
this whole time, which implies that they are
a singular species, so how can there be so many
different animals in all these movies?
That's because xenomorph is not a species name,
it's a description.
"Xenomorph" means "strange form."
The classic xenomorph that we're used to, then,
is simply just the strange forms that
the goo gives to humans, just like the hammerpede
is the strange form given to the worms on LV-223.
If all his is the case, than the goo,
filled with microorganisms or viruses or nanomachines,
or whatever, could be a vector for
intense and specific horizontal gene transfer,
which is the transfer of genetic material
between organisms and not between generations,
like the gene transfer that created you.
This genetic accelerant then, more or less
attacks hosts' cells and inserts genetic material into them.
Those cells take up the new material and express those genes
and change the entire organism as a result.
We see this most frequently happening in bacteria,
which can share genetic material to become
antibiotic-resistant, for example, but in this case,
the goo could share xenomorph-like genes
with any organism to make them more ...
Alien.
But where does the dog alien from Alien Cubed fit in?
It doesn't.
That movie's bad.
So where does all of this leave the alien life cycle,
including the goo?
(exhales)
Alright, so, from the original movie we know that
a xenomorph needs to interact with another xenomorph
to fertilize an egg and further on the strange forms,
so first the goo has to interact with a human
and then the human transforms into a xenomorph
and with another xenomorph, that fertilizes an egg
with the embryo transfer device, the f--
(whooshing)
the facehugger inside, which interacts with a human
which then becomes a xenomorph after the chest bursting,
which, one of them could split off and become the queen.
The goo also attempts to do the same thing
with human sperm, forming the trilobite,
which interacts with the engineer,
which interacts to form the deacon, after some bursting
as well, and the goo also interacts with the worms
on LV-223, and then becomes (panting)
the hammerpede, and all this can happen
via horizontal gene transfer, and that all makes sense
except, only the strange form of the human and the goo
will produce the classic xenomorph
that you're familiar with.
So what is the true xenomorph life cycle?
Well it all started with humans that were
exposed to a bio-weapon that became a strange form
of a parasite that needed a third party to reproduce
just like a parasitic wasp and all that was
via a process known as horizontal gene transfer.
(panting)
Of course, everything would have been a lot more
straightforward and sensical if Ridley Scott
had stuck to his original vision, but hey,
life, even fictional life, is complicated.
Because--
(choking)
Because ...
Ooh!
Thank you so much for watching.
Make sure to follow me on Twitter at @Sci_Phile
where you can suggest ideas for future episodes
and on Instagram under the same handle
where you can now see mini-episodes of the show
just like you can on Facebook, which I forgot to mention.
So go do it, and ask me questions.
Don't at me.
You can at me.
And a special thanks to this week's sponsor,
Mack Weldon, makers of premium underwear, workout wear,
hoodies, outerwear.
They are super high-quality, which I appreciate
because I have extreme skin sensitivities.
I can tell if all my hairs on my body are
in the same direction or not, so when it comes to
buying stuff that fits well and feels good on your skin,
I take it super, super seriously, and I just
ordered some stuff from Mack Weldon,
it was super easy, and now if you have the same
needs for your clothing, you can order from them
and get 20% off your purchase, which is
more than most promo codes, I think,
using the promo code SCIENCE.
Hey, you're a human with skin.
Be comfortable in it, and if you don't like the clothing,
they'll refund you, no questions asked,
and you can keep the garment.
Promo code SCIENCE, Mack Weldon.
Have you ever seen the tagline for Alien 3?
Which is actually Alien Cubed.
Right, they wrote it like this.
Write it like this, like that.
And the tagline, they say.
"Three times the horror, three times the scares and stuff."
They say three times, but this is cubed,
so the only way for that to be true
is if the original Alien had only 1.733 horror.
Like, that was the value of horror.
Then if you cube this, then it's gonna be
three times the original value.