Will Alien: Covenant introduce Xenomorph Egg Morphing?

The Larger Egg Morph Scene, and Aliens then left it open for us to think of theory to connect the two in which as Gavin said logically maybe the Egg Morph is a way to the Queen.

For a Organism who is supposed to be a Perfect Organism, then having a Perfect method to Procreate is a must.

If Ripley had been killed before she got to Dallas and Brett what would we have seen?

1) A pair Egg Morphs that shrink? or even if they dont, they lead to two more Face Huggers which would require unsuspecting victims to come across those Egg Morphs?

Thus would give us 2X new Xenos, and the Original provided it survives by the time the Eggs are discovered by a unsuspecting Host/'s

2) One Egg Morph, and One Host for the Face Huger to then make another Xenomorph, which then as above would lead us this time with Two Xenomorphs on that ship waiting for unsuspecting hosts to come aboard the ship.... this method we have 2X Xenos and not a Xeno and 2 Eggs and so having 2X Xenos to Egg Morph Hosts.

These are the Two Logical situations to that situation of the Egg Morph Scene...

Is this Perfect? Nope its flawed and we have to ask why not do the same with Lambert and Parker to then have either 4X Eggs, or 2X Eggs and 2X Hosts for 2X Xenos?

These Two options now get around that and offer a more logical answer as far as perfect procreation.

a) The Egg Morphs, will produce not Face Hugers but a Related Xeno Hybrid or even a fully grown Xenomorph.

This is why the Egg Morph seemed larger than the Eggs on the Derelict.

b) The Egg Morphs give way to either a Queen Face Huger or even a Queen itself, the Queen Face Huger would explain why maybe Dallas could be used as a host.

Now a Queen could then lay as many Eggs as she wanted on that ship.

From what we seem to know about Covenant up to know, is that ‘Paradise’ was a possible title. There also needs to be some way of creating new alien life forms that leads to the Xeno. This got me thinking about the Garden of Eden, and from the biblical creation story, the Garden needed to be populated with lifeforms. So here is an idea. What if the Covenant is a bit like Noah’s Ark. What if David has convinced those back on Earth that he has found a paradise. This might bring about the Covenant having a cargo of different animal species with them. These could then be the basis of providing fresh specimens for David to infect with the Goo. Who knows what would come out of this?  But it would certainly open up a chicken / egg debate for the origin of life and the xeno lifecycle. This could help explain how the egg morphing and the queen come about.

@Batchpool heavy stuff!

As i think someone touched upon, if we take certain insects that have a multiple stage life cycle which includes Butterflies and Flies etc...

The Larvae Stage Cocoons itself into a Pupa, and then it produces Enzymes that break down and reuse Genetic Material from the Larvae to rebuild and reprogram its Genetic Code to Build something different.

Now from a Sci-Fi Scientific point of view what if you could harness those Enzymes that allow this change, the breaking down of DNA to then reconstruct it.

Utilizing such Enzymes could maybe give you a tool to do similar and maybe this could be a logical use of the Xeno Eggs to give Origin to the Goo.

This could fit and work, but i think there is a different origin for the Goo, but who knows hopefully we can find out how this stuff was obtained.

As far as the Egg Morph or by introducing something similar i.e the Organism evolves Organisms some way, or show how the Goo Evolves Organisms to become Eggs or similar. I think they could cover something like this... But would it be a way to explain the Goo i just dont know but i think a Egg Morph or Evolving a Host into something new could be something explored in the next movie.

Batchpool thats interesting idea..... we have to logically think about the Covenant as far as a Colony ship... If in real life we detected say within 100LY a World that was pretty much similar to Earth, if we knew it was primordial and did not have much life...  Then eventually assuming we can reach this would, we would not only go out to set up a Colony but also if the World can support Life without Tera forming, so was just as when Ancient Explorers set sail to New Continents.

Then yes it would be right to assume we would bring other forms of life with us to populate as a Earth MK2 especially if its to safeguard a Earth that is dying at some point in the future.

Will we see this? Who knows, i would assume until a Exploration ship has been on the Planet to study its potential for supporting life then checking out what life the world already has and what kind of a threat they could be.... i.e  anyone landing on LV-223 after Prometheus would in effect come across Space Cobras now instead of Worms... which we cant assume are safe to pet hey Milburn? ;)

Another thing however is yet while they would in real life, want to survey the world before we start to ship Humans in mass and other Organisms from Earth.... we would if we was being realistic... take a selection of Animals anyway..

To use as Guinea Pigs as while the planet may seem Earth like, you would want to not be taking your Space Suits off, and allow other animals brought along to be allowed on the surface and study the exposure to those for Months first.

But alas we cant have that as a Plot, we need to ignore a few things like that in order to drive along the plot.

The Concept of how brutal the process to Egg Morph a Host is compared to that of just simply a Queen laying eggs has always made me feel conflicted. The BroodHiveMother as Her own separate Organism is fascinating & fantastic all on it's own. Of course there HAS to be some recurring "central to the HIVE" Figurehead every so often when the Demi"God"+ Races were off doing whatever is above Human Understanding. 

However, the fact remains that  the MORB is psychologically "sadistic" in it's way it messes with it's prey before it's curtains for the Crew. This makes me on the side of the EggMorph being wayyy more of a TrueAttribute for the Xeno121 compared to having a Queen to have to take orders from. The BigChap literally didn't give a single shit how it messed with the doomed NostroCrew. With no "higher intelligence" to answer to the BigChap could run amok unchecked. Attributing to the BioMorph that lurks inside every TFW; the heightened sense of natural intelligence would procure the idea to Propogate fellow running mates. 

Enter Dallas & Brett & their horrifying yet AweInspiring "deleted" scene. With fresh & mostly fresh DNA to mix with the BioAccelerant lurking within an adult Xeno & at having the cost of fatigue; two potential Spores would be procurred if left alone. 

This type of imagery, perplexity, & intensity of all things considered makes me personally believe that not only should it be brought out in some enduring way in A:C but that it has as much impact & holytolitoeggman it does to this day ^_^

I will add and again while we cant take it as Fact/Truth the source did say that while Fire and Stone is not to be considered Canon, the events in that Comic are shown as events that could happen... and that some themes/elements could be explored in the next movie.

And so yes seeing what a Lush World would become if its exposed to the Black Goo from LV-223 and what happen to any indigenous life on such a World would be interesting.... i.e Fire and Stone we saw a number of Hyrbid Creatures such as Ants, Sharks, Monkey Creatures that could and are most likely evolved from the Black Goo.

A big Flaw with Fire and Stone is that LV-223 and near the Temple/Crashed Juggernaught we did not see any native indigenous organisms apart from the worms... and so we never saw no Vast Lakes, or Large Cattle Sized Lifeforms....  But then maybe we never explored much of LV-223 in Prometheus.

Well while LV-223 seemed to baron to have such things, Paradise is  completely different.  Such a World is bound to have life... even if it does not have advanced life.

Another thing the source was saying is that things are loosely based on the Bible, and Paradise Lost but not to be taken as too literal as far as to assume the events are connected to being what happened to Mankind.

And also as far as to assume Heaven, Earth, Paradise the Garden of Eden and Hell are all literally connected as in the Bible and Paradise Lost... and going with what they said before as we are not seeing literally a God, his Angels in the skies above (Heaven) and Creation of Mankind on Earth..... they said that the Scope is larger, and by that even more than Galactic... i.e further than our Galaxy... 

So i think that means we are not looking at the story of Earth, with Heaven and God and Angels above and Hell and Fallen below thats the center of the universe with stars and planets and sun going around the Earth.

Nope.... Earth is a tiny dot in our Galaxy and Prometheus hinting at the Engineers as seeding many worlds in the Galaxy, well the source claims its bigger than that.

so i think there point is that in context of the Franchise Hell is not on Earth, Paradise is not on Earth and thus the Garden of Eden is not on Earth.... we had our World as this.

Heaven =>Earth=>Paradise=>Garden of Eden.

Well Paradise in the Franchise is not on Earth as its in the Bible and Paradise Lost, and so we cant assume Hell and the Garden of Eden are on Earth as far as the not literal interpretation that the Prometheus/Alien Prequel Franchise is showing us.

For all we know, LV-223/426 could be the Garden of Eden? or Hell.

In Prometheus tiny worms became hammerpedes in a matter of hours.  In Fire & Stone, they've had 130 years.

Indeed i can see the point that how fast stuff evolved from the Goo, that over 125 years since the spillage/activation of the Goo on LV-223 at the end of 2093 could have evolved stuff more.

But seeing how the franchise and comics showed how the Goo worked, we had normal Ants ish and what seemed to be black Goo Ants...

And so its where did the Ants come from and if they evolved from the Goo, then how did the other different ones come to be infected differently?

But then the comic is showing us that the Goo Spillage had changed a baron world into a more alive with vegetation and life one.

Maybe the Goo infected Plant Material from the Lifeboat? 

Or maybe the crashed  Colony ship from LV-426 could have came across some Goo latter?

But i think they are trying to show that the Goo can create all Life from itself, the sacrificial scene implied this and Weyland Goo Files.

But that World at the start of Prometheus did already have Vegetation, which meant it had basic life already on it.  But we dont know how many times the Sacrificial method was used over and over to obtain the desired results.

One thing we cant rule out is that the Colony Ship

Really love the idea that the eggs aboard the derelict are the covenant crew. But I also like the idea that it was docked to a subterranean chamber. I like a lot of ideas.

I wonder if the sacrifice is not only to influence the action of the Liquid with specific DNA, but and/or to prevent it from spawning more horrific forms?

I'm not a big fan of the Dark Horse comics, but I do wonder if some of what they showed us is legit. Example: all the life forms they encountered were MORB analogs of terrestrial forms, with the exception of the MORBS themselves. Is it possible there is a default set of recurring life forms?

I sure hope not. You see, this is one of the reasons why I didn't like Fire and Stone. Very limited in vision.

i read that the Egg Morph scene was deleted for several reasons: 

Pacing

Too over the top

Ridley and Giger weren't happy with the set. 

Giger had expressed that he wished he had had more time to work on it, and you can see why. It's really plasticky.

With respect to the egg parts being so big, they had to be to (efficiently) contain the actors. It would have been preferable and more horrific if they were being visibly reduced, but my impression is they had little time to realize the vision. 

The thing is, we're definitely putting more thought into all this than they did at the time. I doubt anyone forsaw that this would go on for 30+ years!

I didn't think they were especially big.

If a queen is involved does
the royal facehugger come
from a woman who is very
fertile? Or at the very least
a woman? I mean she is egg
morphed right? Does men
become warriors/drones
and woman queens. Do they
keep queens eggs apart
from drone eggs? Did the
Derelict only have male eggs?

@Oduodu

Everyone has their own interpretation, but I have always seen the hosts as mere incubators, and that it is the embryo carried by the face hugger that determines what type of Alien is born. In terms of sex this is how I see it...

Drone (Alien, Alien 3, Alien Rez) Male, infertile, born from a host implanted by a normal face hugger.

Warrior (Aliens) female, infertile, born from a host implanted by a normal face hugger.

Queen - Female, Fertile born from a host implanted by a royal face hugger.

Warriors are only ever born when there seems to be no viable threat, and aside from egg morphing it shows that only the fertile castes can reproduce, plus it also begs the question - what would a fertile male look like and how would his fertility affect the lifecycle?

Gender is redundant to any Alien other than the Queen.  Drones, warriors - same thing.

There is no queen.

Going back to my theory of the Butterfly life-cycle ...

What if the Alien's acidic blood is the actual Enzyme (molecular acid) that is (maybe) used for the (egg) morphing process? ... the corrosive action of the blood is probably not due to a single acid but a complex of enzymes ... it just so happens to be a great defence mechanism as well ...

Yes thats a idea, and maybe its not the Acid Blood but the Xeno can produce something similar that is less potent but acts as the Enzymes in the Metamorphosis of a Butterfly

We dont know for sure yet what the Xenomorph total procreative Life Cycle is.... maybe SM has more clues from the Book and what they worked on..

Alien it was determined that the Organism is born from Egg, and when it reaches Adult it then Egg Morphs a victim using the victims genetic material to make a new Egg/spore....   there is a size difference but we dont know if that was intended plan and well maybe the Larger Egg Morphs will shrink down in time.... we cant say thus that they would produce larger of different Face Huger as the plan was at the time before shooting that the end process was to simply re-create the Egg/Spore Stage.

Aliens showed us that a Queen lays Eggs, it does not show us other means and it led us to assume that the Derelict was Eggs laid by a Queen but this does not have to mean a Queen has laid them on that ship... the Eggs could have been transported.

Alien 3 tried to show us that a different kind of Face Huger could create a Queen the Royal Face Huger but it never really explained what determined a Royal Face Huger.

Alien R showed us that the Xenomorph DNA could be harnessed and modified and that a Hybrid Organism cold procreate differently too (Queen giving Birth to the New Born).

Promethethus while not showing us the Chicken/Egg as far as Goo/Egg, it did show us that Genetic Material related to the Xenomorph could be used to create Organisms with Xeno DNA... and a sequence of events could lead to the creation of a Organism similar to a Face Huger with the same purpose.

Its now if they would try and re-introduce the Egg Morph or having Xeno related Organism/Creation being able to Genetically alter a victims DNA itself to produce a Hybrid or Egg. We dont know if they would go this route or how much down this path we shall see.

"I think Ridley will show us HOW A XENO can be made, but maybe not How the Original was made and by that i mean the first of its kind. 

Or they could show how this happened as a Flash Back, and then have David Re-create similar events to produce hopefully a slightly different kind."

That could alright because then people can still wonder how the first alien was done. This could still keep some mystery about it, which I like.

I like the idea that David in a way is responsible for creating a monster. This doesn't mean that he needs to be evil but that it is an accident that is born out of curiosity.

I would be under the impression that David is more than a nieve boy and curious i think he would be curious but also cunning..

Fassbender said he likes playing David as he is Creepy, and so i think David is more Sinister than Ash, yet more charming than Bishop at the same time.

He will fool the Covenant Crew just as Satan did with Eve, with Agenda, that he achieves with Deceit and Charm.

If we were to look at the Alien as a weapon, which has been designed to be the perfect organism, we can have possibility of more.

What i mean is, the Alien itself could have a lot of different ways to reproduce depending on the number of hosts available. 

In Alien, a small crew so theres no point in a Queen. A lone Alien would be enough to capture and reproduce. 

In Aliens its a colony so a large number of eggs would need to be produced in order to survive.

Alien 3, again a large number of life forms. Count people and animals, its enough to need a queen.

Could it be argued that the Queen in Aliens was small given the number of hosts? If so, what size of Queen would you need for a planet?

There is also the possibility that we have not seen the every stage of the Aliens life-cycle. 

@ ETB,

An Uber-Queen, a breed able to produce even more eggs, that is an awesome idea - I'm imagining sacs full of dozens of eggs, each laid like a giant a possibly a fully quadrupedal xeno... the Empress, maybe? 

@Gavin 

Thats sort of the idea, imagine the Aliens in the second film were just the start of a colony. All we seen was a Queen in its early stages and worker drones.

Could we have the possibility of Warrior Aliens? Creatures that are bigger, faster, take more damage and all round nasty. After seeing that model, I like the idea of an Alien King. What about heavily armoured Aliens that act as a Royal Guard for a fully grown Queen.

If one accepts that an Alien could egg morph it's former host, egg morphing is potentially more efficient, particularly since you need to wait around 3 days at least for a Queen to start laying, and depending on how many hosts you have access too.

Thats really the point I'm getting at. As a weapon, the Alien could adapt to the environment and develop depending on its hosts.

As with every thing else the context of the Egg Morph is within the context of the catalyser and the black goo.

The black goo radicalises its victim and over stimulates the reproductive elements of its host. (The hammerpede shows worm characteristics when its broken in two but reproduces an invasive sexualised entity). Fifield who had been smoking cannibis and Holloway who had high alcohol levels and were more sophisticated organisms may have had a much slower but still catastrophic re organising of their molecular structure.

The zenomorph is a bio weapon whose genesis is connected to the goo and when it attacks its victim the serum (held its elongated skull) may be a developed hybrid of what attacked Fifield and Holloway.

If we take A L I E N as a model three men have been attacked two were morphing into what might both be Face huggers. Perhaps the genetic code of the lifecycle is such that when a Zeno attacks mankind and it has multiple targets it will look to break down male mankind in an attack based on ascendancy and supremacy and the male chromosomes are a forma for an aggressive invasive re organised face hugger. Whereas when a Zeno detects a female human kind the emphasis is rape submission and hosting. My recollection is that in A L I E N S we meet one live host who is female.

Is there anywhere in those two films where that notion is contradicted. Notice also that Shaw generates a Trilobite which bares female reproductive characteristics and leads to a deaconess. Note the composition of the A C crew and the high and probably equal number of females to males. 

Which female reproductive characteristics does the Trilobite possess?  The long phallic tube it forces into the Engineer (where the Deacon gestates) seems more male than female.

I think MJ is referring to the assortment of vulvas that is Mr. T's face.

Fair point on the look of the things - but, practically, they all contain more phallic objects.

I think we need to remember we are talking a Totally Alien Species and so its not right to try and connect it with anything we have on Earth, certainly not as far as Mamals

Yes we have the Queen that lays Eggs, but there is not proof that the Queen cant do this on her own (Parthenogenesis)

While the Egg Morph is handy, once a Queen is set up this is the best way to create Eggs hands down and it does not require a Host to produce...

The Egg Morph we have to assume if a Organism tries to do the same with the Alien Covenant Crew and there is only 10 of them.... (so far cast) then they would only be able to create a maximum of 10 Eggs (this would assume a Xenomorph is already on that world, if not and it needed a host then if the Covenant has 10 crew then we would only see up to 9 Egg Morphs.

Just because the Trilobite implanted a Embryo does not mean its Female, or Male  like the Face Hugger, i think we have to assume they have no SEX not in the context of life on Earth..... so they are Asexual and that they only need to Manipulate a Hosts DNA and so it does not matter if the Host is Female/Male.

@ S M & Aorta

The trilobite lays something inside the Engineer rather than stimulates reproduction through offering a male spoor and whilst yes I made a connection with the vulva I also thought of the eventual projection orally into the Engineer as an over stimulated clitoris from amongst multiple vulva. A man may see it otherwise. 

@BD Curiously the idea of mythos being separate from our own history and functionality is almost the opposite of my view. Deeply routed myth whether sub created or historical tells us more of whom we are not simply allegory but we find great truths about the story we have come into to, myth allows the freedom to understand more of whom we are. As I have said before the foundation of the A L I E N mythos for me is routed in separating out procreation as a blessed and sponsored part of the story and making it something devoid of a moral compass which merely exists for its own sake to achieve either retribution, punishment or destruction in a nihilistic manner. The precise reason why it was created will hopefully be narrated in A C. If its an accident a meddling that went to far that would make it a morality tale BUT for us. Elizabeth said we are them and they are us what the Engineers got wrong is us getting it wrong through myth making.

I say all of this because the radical sexualising of the strain that took place with the goo came from "us" and the imagery that Ridders uses leads me to not to see that radical sexualising as separate but connected and therefore to see echoes in the mythos behaviour of radicalised female and male behaviour is for me a template from which to perceive these matters.

Some of what is offered is about increasingly desperate ways of film makers to make money but some of the creative thought that has gone into the movies stands up to further examination as an exercise in what happens when you divorce our procreative programming from its moral context.