Neomorph & Xenomoprh life history traits

I like your article a lot and I really dig Alien Covenant, most chestbursters seem to avoid conflict. With the exception of the Bambi-Burster (ignoring the one from AVP), most chestbursters are vulnerable at that stage, including the one in Covenant. 

I had a question. Are the neomorphs going to be important after the prequles. do you think that they are killed of before the events of alien and if not why arnt they in any nonprequal movies?

Copied this from a thread where I was discussing such with a friend. :)

" Those are all extremely solid, and good points!! Neomorphs in a swarm situation would be just absolutely devastating.
A thought about Neomorph reproduction: They eat, grow and 'bud' off spore pods. Each and every one of them. You want mass-saturation and absolute domination of an area, a queen won't do it.
Say each one can 'bud' a mature spore pod once every day, times say 4 days, times say, 3 Neomorphs. Now each pod can potentially infect say, reasonably, 6 people/animals.
Now there's a terrifying, powerful and 'Alien' lifecycle system. ;)

For me however, I've got a LOT of work invested in The Alien and it's Origins (NOT David and NOT the Engineers) and it's lifecycle as well as establishing Set but reasonably-flexible time-lengths regarding the stages of it's life cycle that hollywood loves messing with.
Chestburster stage, my take on it, it's not as vulnerable as people think.
Consider the sheer strength needed to force it's way out through a human body? Now it's also Fast, and I'm pretty sure those jaws it has can partially unhinge like a snake's, yet still be able to support and conduct a LOT of muscle force for a truly horrible bite radius that'd likely go through a spacesuit gauntlet with NP.
It's also possible that Chestburster can spit acid, or something different but equally nasty. "

Timmy the facehugger Good question. The difficulty here is that these species are engineered mutations from experimentation with the "Black Goo". Not an organic invasion of a natural environment.

However, if you adhere to the Life History Traits mentioned above you could well argue that the Neomorph's in A:C work well as an early invader of the 'Morph Genus and that eventually the Xenomorph will become the dominant species.

I would really like to see the next film utilise the Neomorphs as a swarm-like invader as Blackwinter-witch says above. If they could 'Bud' spores daily (or even upon death) you could really set up a horrifying invasion that rapidly collapses a population of colonists. This would lay the foundation for the more formidable Xenomorph to establish dominance.  

Xeno's out-compete Neomorphs. Colonists are harvested. Eggs are produced. Lone survivor in the Derelict ship escapes. crashes on LV-426.

BAM!

A L I E N    

Blackwinter-witch and Jerry Conaway I stand corrected on the Xeno Burster. As you both point out, it is not weak, vulnerable or defenceless at all. Thank you for pointing that out :-)   

The point I was trying to get across was that if the Xenomorph had a weakness (as small as it may be), it is this stage of it's life cycle.

The Neomorph's in A:C came out swinging. The xeno Chestburster seem to prefer to hide and grow before going on the attack. But as you pointed out, it can and will defend itself quiet capably if needed.

I imagine being attacked by a xenomorph chestbuster would be akin to an angry cat latching to your leg coupled with the whole squirrel in your pants scenario lol.   

IRaptus

I conceded to you that the Chestburster is (as far as it goes) the most vulnerable stage of the Alien, relative to Facehugger and Big Chap. So we're good, right?.
BUT, I still think it'd be safer to cuddle a Hammerpede than annoy a chestburster, or corner one. :)

Falconer

LOL yeah, it would be Interesting...but not half as problematic as the scenario you provided. :D

Blackwinter-witch Yep all good :) just acknowledging your excellent points here and on the other thread.... Im not actually sure how I ended up with two threads for this topic :-/

Sorry all!

Falconer Lol. That gives a gives a very strange and frightening mental image!!!

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing

Well, Happy to see that i am not the only one to think that the Neomorph is a better genocidal weapon than the Xenomorph. Thus if David goal is the extermination of human/humanoid races, then weaponised neomorph spores are way more effective/devastating than Xenomorph eggs. Ideally Juggernaut with black goo is even more potent ! If his goal is to design a relatively sophisticated being to hunt down reasonnable number of humans which can somehow defend themselves, then Xenomorph is a better weapon.