WEBVTT - The Monstrefact: The Xenomorph Queen

0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.120
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.160
<v Speaker 2>Hi, my name is Robert Lamban. This is The Monster Fact,

0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.760
<v Speaker 2>a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:24.680
<v Speaker 2>focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. Previously

0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.520
<v Speaker 2>on The Monster Fact, I devoted an eight part series

0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:31.840
<v Speaker 2>to the various xenomorphic organisms of the alien universe, along

0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.199
<v Speaker 2>with bonus episodes on the creatures of Alien Earth and

0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.839
<v Speaker 2>the events of the Aliens Versus Avengers Comics crossover. If

0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.159
<v Speaker 2>you're new to the podcast, you can find these and

0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:44.560
<v Speaker 2>other episodes in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind archive

0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.560
<v Speaker 2>wherever you get your podcasts. So I covered a number

0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.720
<v Speaker 2>of alien forms, but I skipped over one of the

0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.920
<v Speaker 2>most iconic xenomorphs of all time, the Alien Queen. Perhaps

0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.200
<v Speaker 2>because she's such a high profile and beloved monster, I

0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.920
<v Speaker 2>figured there just might not be that much new to highlight,

0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.400
<v Speaker 2>and hey, maybe there isn't, but here we go. You'll,

0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.520
<v Speaker 2>of course remember the Queen from nineteen eighty six's Aliens,

0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.679
<v Speaker 2>in which Ripley and her fellow survivors find out exactly

0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.600
<v Speaker 2>what's laying all of those eggs at the heart of

0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.720
<v Speaker 2>the LV four twenty six terraforming colony. The xenomorph queen

0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:24.840
<v Speaker 2>proves a deadly and highly intelligent adversary, capable of coordinating

0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.920
<v Speaker 2>the other xenomorphs in her hive as well as exploiting

0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:32.920
<v Speaker 2>human technology. Basically, she resembles the various other alien morphs

0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.840
<v Speaker 2>in her hive, only much larger in stature, with an

0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:40.240
<v Speaker 2>enormous armored headcrest dorsal spikes on her back in a

0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.480
<v Speaker 2>second set of arms I assume for egg manipulation or

0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.280
<v Speaker 2>possibly resin manipulation, because, of course, when established at the

0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.000
<v Speaker 2>center of a hive, she also boasts an egg sack

0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:53.480
<v Speaker 2>so enormous and engorged with xenomorph eggs that she has

0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.560
<v Speaker 2>to essentially be secured in place with resin tendrils that

0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.360
<v Speaker 2>are secreted by the worker morphs in the hud. This

0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:05.760
<v Speaker 2>of course, closely resembles the bloated abamin of the termite queen,

0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.560
<v Speaker 2>which can grow to many many times the size of

0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.400
<v Speaker 2>her body, enabling her to lay tens of thousands of

0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.240
<v Speaker 2>eggs per day, all while secured in her royal chamber.

0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.680
<v Speaker 2>We have to consider this as the primary natural world

0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:23.799
<v Speaker 2>analog here for the alien queen, as we discussed before,

0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.040
<v Speaker 2>within the Alien universe lore, and I'm rather partial to

0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.440
<v Speaker 2>the free League Alien RPG overview of everything here, but

0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.440
<v Speaker 2>you may differ. Xenomorphs can produce eggs without the aid

0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.320
<v Speaker 2>of a queen. This ties into some deleted scenes from

0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.320
<v Speaker 2>the original Alien motion picture that have been I believe

0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.440
<v Speaker 2>been restored in some cuts. So a drone can secure

0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.880
<v Speaker 2>a host with resin secretions and use its tail to

0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:53.160
<v Speaker 2>inject the host with a cocktail of enzymes and hormones,

0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.800
<v Speaker 2>thus causing the host to transform into an egg or

0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.560
<v Speaker 2>ovo morph. This process, however, is of course slow, and

0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.560
<v Speaker 2>a larger scale reproductive method is going to be necessary

0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:08.440
<v Speaker 2>when xenomorphs set up hives in host rich environments. Now,

0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.560
<v Speaker 2>there are plenty of natural world analogs to look at

0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.960
<v Speaker 2>here in which organisms employ different reproductive strategies depending on

0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:21.080
<v Speaker 2>environmental conditions. You have facultative parthenogenesis. This is a great

0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.480
<v Speaker 2>example in which animals that normally reproduce sexually with a

0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:29.240
<v Speaker 2>partner can reproduce asexually generally due to lack of available partners.

0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.880
<v Speaker 2>We see this in some birds, sharks, rays, and large

0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.800
<v Speaker 2>reptiles like the komodo dragon. Coming back to the high environment,

0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.520
<v Speaker 2>we also see this in bees, in which some queens

0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.240
<v Speaker 2>workers and solitary bees can reproduce without fertilization if need

0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:49.880
<v Speaker 2>be in resource triggered switching or cyclic parthenogenesis. So an

0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.720
<v Speaker 2>example of this would be water fleas a change can

0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:57.000
<v Speaker 2>take place due to available resources. Density can also determine

0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.280
<v Speaker 2>sex determination in the case of the green spoon worm,

0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.280
<v Speaker 2>as can social environment in the cases of the clownfish,

0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.800
<v Speaker 2>and temperature as we see in sea turtles and crocodilians.

0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.520
<v Speaker 2>We might also understand the queen's role by thinking about

0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.280
<v Speaker 2>cases in which animals like rats and mice may ramp

0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:19.080
<v Speaker 2>up their reproduction into a kind of plague mode due

0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.640
<v Speaker 2>to an abundance of resources, either due to natural botanical

0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.640
<v Speaker 2>cycles or human agricultural abundance. In the case of the aliens,

0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.640
<v Speaker 2>this landfall of resources is going to present itself in

0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.400
<v Speaker 2>the form of, say, a fresh off world colony, and

0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:37.520
<v Speaker 2>they're more than happy to make a plague of themselves. Granted,

0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:42.000
<v Speaker 2>the xenomorpse life mission might lean more overtly destructive than

0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.680
<v Speaker 2>natural world propagation. This could be due to it being

0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:50.279
<v Speaker 2>an extraterrestrial invasive and therefore a naturally disruptive force in

0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.640
<v Speaker 2>any given ecosystem that it did not evolve to thrive

0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.359
<v Speaker 2>within and find balance within. It could also have as

0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.480
<v Speaker 2>much to do with the artificial human manipulated rorements it

0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.640
<v Speaker 2>keeps turning up in, or, of course, they could constitute

0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.960
<v Speaker 2>part of a rather apocalyptic biological weapons armory. Part of

0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:11.919
<v Speaker 2>the fun of the Alien Universe is that it keeps

0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.720
<v Speaker 2>us guessing. Tune in for additional episodes off the Monster, Fact,

0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.240
<v Speaker 2>the Artifact, or Animalius Dependium each week. As always, you

0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.200
<v Speaker 2>can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your

0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:31.640
<v Speaker 2>Mind dot com.

0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.680
<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.599
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.480
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.