WEBVTT - The Monstrefact: Alien, Part 8 - The Offspring and Other Hybrids

0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.439
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:12.160
<v Speaker 2>Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is The

0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.400
<v Speaker 2>Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow

0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:20.480
<v Speaker 2>Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.

0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.400
<v Speaker 2>When I wrapped up the last Monster Fact episode concerning

0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.800
<v Speaker 2>the alien universe, I mentioned that I'd be back with

0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.160
<v Speaker 2>at least one more installment. That is, provided alien Romulus

0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.000
<v Speaker 2>gave us anything new to ponder, and it certainly did so.

0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.000
<v Speaker 2>Here we are once more going to discuss the many

0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.880
<v Speaker 2>strange and horrifying ways that xenobiology can interact with human

0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:51.280
<v Speaker 2>physiology in this series. Fair warning, this episode is going

0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:54.480
<v Speaker 2>to feature spoilers for Romulus, as well as other alien

0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:58.240
<v Speaker 2>films and bits of related media. First and foremost, we

0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.040
<v Speaker 2>have to remember that even the cores morph life cycle

0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:05.880
<v Speaker 2>is one of horrific and deadly hybridity. The adult xenomorph

0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.880
<v Speaker 2>is inherently a combination of alien and host DNA agent

0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.160
<v Speaker 2>A zero slash thirty nine to fifty nine x point

0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.680
<v Speaker 2>ninety one slash fifteen. The black goo works as an

0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:22.520
<v Speaker 2>evolutionary accelerant on most biological modes of life. In the series,

0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.960
<v Speaker 2>pushing them into stranger, more hostile, and more durable forms.

0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.320
<v Speaker 2>So most of the individual forms and lifestyle stages we've

0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.759
<v Speaker 2>discussed so far can be thought of as the most

0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.199
<v Speaker 2>likely forms and morphs of xenomorphic life, but many other

0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:44.080
<v Speaker 2>paths are possible. This is especially true when human engineer

0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:49.600
<v Speaker 2>or android scientific manipulation changes the shape of things to come.

0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.400
<v Speaker 2>In nineteen ninety seven's Alien Resurrection, set two hundred years

0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:56.760
<v Speaker 2>after the events of Alien three in the year twenty

0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:01.240
<v Speaker 2>three eighty one, we encounter United Systems military scientists who

0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.680
<v Speaker 2>have not only created numerous clones of long dead Ellen Ripley,

0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.680
<v Speaker 2>but also the xenomorph queen that was growing inside her

0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.880
<v Speaker 2>at the moment of her death. Their results are numerous

0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:15.480
<v Speaker 2>Ripley clones with varying degrees of xenomorphic biology, as well

0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:20.519
<v Speaker 2>as an alien queen with human reproductive physiology. The latter

0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.359
<v Speaker 2>situation results in the birth of a monstrous newborn hybrid,

0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.080
<v Speaker 2>a pale humanoid xenomorph with various human features and a

0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.640
<v Speaker 2>complex emotional state. Much earlier in the Alien timeline and

0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.680
<v Speaker 2>more recently at our cinemas, we witness the birth of

0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.440
<v Speaker 2>the offspring hybrid in Alien Romulus We get to this

0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:43.919
<v Speaker 2>creature via various missteps. First of all, whalen Utani scientists

0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.040
<v Speaker 2>managed to isolate the black goo from the remains of

0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:51.520
<v Speaker 2>the original Nostromo xenomorph. Then they attempt to engineer it

0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:55.600
<v Speaker 2>into a control biohacking agent that alters human physiology to

0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.760
<v Speaker 2>make them more resilient. Offworld colonists a futurist concept that

0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.880
<v Speaker 2>we've discussed unstuff to blow your mind before. Instead of

0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.120
<v Speaker 2>terraforming other worlds into something more like Earth, what if

0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.600
<v Speaker 2>we altered ourselves to better fit those worlds, or at

0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:13.040
<v Speaker 2>least met them halfway. So give it up to wayaly

0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:18.399
<v Speaker 2>Utani solid concept. Their execution, however, falls tragically short of perfection.

0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.600
<v Speaker 2>In their vanity, they attempted to harness the biotechnological might

0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.959
<v Speaker 2>of the engineers, and the violent trajectory of the black

0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.560
<v Speaker 2>Goo could not be contained. We see footage of the

0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.880
<v Speaker 2>supposedly successful resurrection of a dead lab rat via the

0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.880
<v Speaker 2>formula let's call it gray Goo, only to later see

0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:41.240
<v Speaker 2>the disastrous mutations that the specimen experienced. Now unaware of

0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.560
<v Speaker 2>the latter complications, the characters in Romulus take off with

0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.320
<v Speaker 2>the gray goose samples and sure enough one of them,

0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.240
<v Speaker 2>K eventually injects it into their own system to bounce

0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.360
<v Speaker 2>back from an injury. The gray Goo appears to work here,

0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:59.040
<v Speaker 2>at least initially. However, the formula affects K's pregnancy, resulting

0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.160
<v Speaker 2>in the rapid earth and development of a fast growing

0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:07.160
<v Speaker 2>alien zeno hybrid referred to as the Offspring, a towering,

0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:12.680
<v Speaker 2>misshapen monster with elements of xenomorph human and engineer features. Now,

0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.320
<v Speaker 2>I wasn't sure exactly how I felt about this creature

0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.120
<v Speaker 2>design at first, but it has grown on me, and

0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.840
<v Speaker 2>I've seen that it clearly freaked out and revolted plenty

0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.880
<v Speaker 2>of viewers, so it's very much serving its purpose in

0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.640
<v Speaker 2>the film. So I eagerly await revisiting this creature when

0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.600
<v Speaker 2>Romulus is released into our homes later this month. Now,

0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.480
<v Speaker 2>the Romulus scientists we're far from the first to experiment

0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.640
<v Speaker 2>with the black goo and charge its effects on various organisms.

0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.560
<v Speaker 2>The engineers, of course, pioneered this science, and the rogue

0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:48.400
<v Speaker 2>android David experimented exhaustively on the flora and fauna of

0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.120
<v Speaker 2>an engineer home world, before presumably moving on to more

0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:56.720
<v Speaker 2>human centric experimentations on the far flung world of our

0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:01.360
<v Speaker 2>Guy six. In David's Notes and Drawings from the Engineer

0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.960
<v Speaker 2>World and Covenant, we see exhaustive and increasingly nightmarish records

0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.479
<v Speaker 2>of the black Goose effects on native species, as well

0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.080
<v Speaker 2>as his own manipulation and proposed alterations of human and

0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:19.400
<v Speaker 2>engineer physiology with the accelerant and altered strains of xenomorphic life.

0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:23.359
<v Speaker 2>Interestingly enough, one of these images depicts a creature with

0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.240
<v Speaker 2>the head of an engineer and the body of a xenomorph.

0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:30.000
<v Speaker 2>It would seem that David's twisted imagination, if not his

0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:36.760
<v Speaker 2>unwholesome experiments, prophesied the romulus offspring decades earlier. You'll see

0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.680
<v Speaker 2>this illustration, by the way, in the compiled volume David's Drawings,

0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:45.200
<v Speaker 2>published in splendid hardback, alongside a softback booklet about the

0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.680
<v Speaker 2>artists Matt Hatton and Dame Hallett, who created the drawings

0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.000
<v Speaker 2>and the notes that litter the set of David's laboratory

0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.560
<v Speaker 2>in the film. The main book is a beautiful, haunting volume,

0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.000
<v Speaker 2>and the accompanying booklet provides wonderful insight into the visual

0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.640
<v Speaker 2>design process of the film. Now, the Extended Alien Universe

0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:09.920
<v Speaker 2>contains numerous additional hybrid complications. The Alien RPG from Freely

0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.120
<v Speaker 2>Publishing includes several of these related to the creation of

0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.920
<v Speaker 2>the twenty six Dracona strain, a black goo based vaccine

0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.360
<v Speaker 2>similar to what we see in Romulus, intended in this

0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.960
<v Speaker 2>case to halt the development of a xenomorphic embryo in

0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:28.159
<v Speaker 2>the human body. In the module Destroyer of Worlds, we

0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.440
<v Speaker 2>see one complication in which the black goo derivative is

0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.120
<v Speaker 2>introduced into the body of a human already impregnated by

0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.400
<v Speaker 2>a face hugger. The accelerant, they write, serves as a

0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:43.080
<v Speaker 2>genetic bridge, resequencing the DNA of human host and xenomorphic

0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.800
<v Speaker 2>embryo into a single organism, essentially turning the human into

0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:52.440
<v Speaker 2>a xenomorph from the inside out. The resulting body burster

0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.839
<v Speaker 2>resembles a normal adult xenomorph, but with the skull of

0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:01.920
<v Speaker 2>the human host embedded in the creature's cranial dome. This concept,

0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:06.480
<v Speaker 2>in essence, originates in William Gibson's unproduced screenplay for Alien three,

0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.960
<v Speaker 2>and plays on some early hr Giger suit designs for

0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.600
<v Speaker 2>the original Alien. It's a fitting and horrific concept that

0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.200
<v Speaker 2>Alien filmmakers should certainly come back to in the future,

0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.880
<v Speaker 2>all right, that's it for this episode. Tune in for

0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:26.160
<v Speaker 2>additional installments of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Anomalogus

0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:30.120
<v Speaker 2>Dupendium each week. We'll run an omnibus of the Alien

0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.040
<v Speaker 2>episodes later this month, and as always, you can email

0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:46.600
<v Speaker 2>us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.680
<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.600
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.480
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.