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| “ | You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The Perfect Organism... Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. | „ |
| ~ Ash, referring to the Nostromo Drone. |
The Nostromo Drone, or also simply known as "The Alien", is the titular main antagonist of the 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien, the first installment in the franchise of the same name, and the overarching antagonist of its 2024 follow-up Alien: Romulus.
The creature comes to be after Kane, a member of the Nostromo space station crew, is infected by an alien facehugger and impregnated by it. This leads to the horrifying birth of the alien Drone, which begins to hunt the remaining members of the crew attempting to turn the Nostromo into its own Xenomorph nest. Eventually, the creature is pitted against the last remaining crew member and Alien series protagonist Ellen Ripley in a fateful game of cat and mouse. It is a deceased sibling of the Sevastopol Drone.
It was portrayed by the late Nigerian visual artist Bolaji Badejo in his only film role while its vocal sound effects were provided by the late Percy Edwards.
Personality[]
The Nostromo Drone has shown to be very smart, capable to ambush its unsuspecting prey by using ventilation ducts to its advantage, something that all Xenomorphs retain. It also never attempted to attack the entire crew at once and waited until the crew was separated from one another before it began an attack. It seemed to prefer crawling on the ceiling and dropping down on its prey.
It knew that it was vulnerable in its Chestburster state and immediately fled after bursting out of Kane's chest.
Biography[]
Alien[]
In the year 2122, while returning from a job in the Solomons, the Nostromo passed through the Zeta II Reticuli system when the Nostromo's onboard computer, MU-TH-UR, awakened them from hypersleep prematurely (Kane was the first one to awaken). The computer had intercepted an apparent distress beacon originating from a planetoid within close proximity to their ship and in accordance with company policy, were required to investigate it.
The Nostromo crew responded to the beacon and took a drop ship to a planetoid (which later came to be known as Acheron). The weather conditions on the planetoid's surface were extremely violent and the ship suffered extensive damage while trying to land. Kane was part of a three-person survey crew that explored the planetoid's surface. Along with Captain Dallas and navigator Lambert, they discovered the ruins of a derelict spacecraft, which had apparently crash landed here many years ago. On the ship, Warren Officer Ellen Ripley determined that it was not a true S.O.S. beacon but a warning signal.
Kane explored the cargo bay of this carrier ship and found a giant nursery filled with thousands of large, bio-organic pods. Drawing his weapon, he examined one of the pods at close range and found that it was actually an egg. His proximity to the egg prompted it to hatch, eschewing forth a facehugger which attached itself to Kane's helmet. The facehugger secreted an acid that bled through the helmet, allowing the organism to attach itself directly to Kane's face and impregnate him with the Alien's embryo.
Kane was brought back to the Nostromo for treatment, but soon recovered and had almost no memory of his experiences on the planetoid. During the crew's dinner, the Alien embryo eventually matured into a chestburster and burst from Kane, killing him. Due to Ash's intervention, it manages to flee further into the Nostromo. When it matured into a drone, the Alien began to kill the ship's crew starting with Brett. It then captured Dallas in the Nostromo's air shafts and cocooned him along with Brett's body in order to produce more Xenomorphs, though the cocoons were later destroyed by Ripley.
By the time Ripley, Parker, and Lambert were the only surviving crew members left, they decided to use the shuttle. While preparing, the Alien snuck up towards Lambert and was about to kill her, but was ambushed from behind by Parker. Despite being in excellent condition, Parker was overpowered by the Alien almost instantly. After finishing Parker off, the Alien returned its attention to Lambert and killed her by mutilating her.
It was nearly killed when Ripley set the ship to self-destruct. However, it hid in the escape ship. Thinking quickly, Ripley opened the airlock and the alien was blasted out the door by a grappling gun. The Alien nearly crawled up the ship's engines, only to be blasted into space by the engine's exhaust.
Alien: Romulus[]
| “ | It wreaked havoc unto this station, until what was left of our security forces shot it dead, only to trigger its — its swan-song. | „ |
| ~ Rook about the aftermath of Nostromo Drone's final rampage at Renaissance |
Unknown to Ripley, the Alien's end was fully assured at the space facility Renaissance; the Xenomorph's crippled body was salvaged by Weyland-Yutani via a drone space probe sent to search the drifting wreckage of the USCSS Nostromo. It was taken to the Renaissance and subsequently studied, culminating to scientists aboard extracted its genes in order to develop the "Z-01" compound from its residual Chemical A0-3959X.91 – 15 and a batch of cloned Xenomorph breed in their Facehugger stage via an experimental bio-engineering technique called "genetic printer". However, this awakened the scarred Alien who then slaughtered everyone before taken out by a handful of survivors there for good. It was a pyrrhic victory in their part though, as its acidic blood breached the station, killing the remaining crew before Rook managed to seal the station back up.
Other Media[]
Comics[]
In Alien: The Illustrated Story, a graphic novel adaptation of film of the same name that was first published by Heavy Metal Communications in June 1979. The fully-grown big chap in the comic is huge, towering over its victims at anything between fifteen and twenty feet in height, although this size may just be for artistic impression.
Novel[]
In the Alien novel big chap, the facehugger, and the egg look very different from their movie appearance. The design of the Egg is smooth and opaque but become rough and transparent prior to Facehugger release. The Eggs do not open with a petal-like opening as in the film, rather the Facehugger simply explodes violently through the top of the capsule. In the novel the facehugger is gray in colour with a single bulging eye on its back, whereas in the films they are a pale yellow and have no eyes. It also has octopus-like suckers underneath the help it adhere to Kane's face. The fully grown Drone has large eyes. While the creature in the movie had no eyes, Giger's original designs did feature large eyes at the front of the head. The Alien in the novel also has similar regenerative abilities as the Facehugger, and notably does not possess an inner jaw, instead killing its victims with its bare hands.
Alien Next Door[]
Since Alien Next Door is a book for children, the Xenomorph in this book has a more simplified design, but is still very tall, has the tail-blade and inner-mouth, and the acid blood. He endeavors to keep his house cleaner than the Nostromo, and searches for his place on a cold, new, alien world: Earth. From Facehuggers to feather dusters, discover how the perfect killing machine relaxes after a day of scaring space marines. This is a big chap from an "Alternate Universe", and thus is not the actual one from the movie canon.
Dead by Daylight[]
The Nostromo Drone was introduced as a playable Killer in the 29th chapter in the asymmetric multiplayer game Dead by Daylight, being simply called "The Xenomorph" in-game. The Xenomorph's ability causes it to automatically enter a more animalistic stance called "Crawler Mode", which reduces its terror radius (the heartbeat and music that survivors hear when the killer gets close) and allows it to use its tail for attacks with a longer reach than normal melee attacks, though they also have to be more precise and incur a slightly longer cooldown period if missed with.
The Xenomorph also has access to a tunnel network similar to the Demogorgon, enabling it to enter the hive underneath the map and travel at a much faster speed while also recharging its Crawler Mode much faster than above ground. To counteract Crawler Mode, survivors can pick up flamethrower turrets at the tunnel entrances and set them up to fire at the Xenomorph, knocking it back to a normal stance when close and in line of sight.
Trivia[]
- Due to the Alien being the first Xenomorph that appeared and was designed within the franchise, some elements of its physical appearance less resemble other Xenomorphs that appeared after it, namely lacking more flatten ridges on its tail that enable it to swim, more humanoid limbs, having six-webbed fingers instead of either three or four, and its tail blade were smaller, which more resembles a scorpion's.
- In the film, it is only referred to as "the alien" or some variant of "creature." In the credits, it is also only called "the Alien," as the terminology of "Xenomorph" hadn't been decided upon yet.
- The fully grown Alien in the novelization of the movie is quite different to that in the film. It has an alarming ability to regenerate after sustaining injury, possesses large eyes, and notably does not have an inner jaw, instead using its bare hands to kill its victims.
- According to the book Alien Vault, the Alien originally had a four-day lifespan, and the reason it hid within the Narcissus was because it was looking for a perfect place to die alone after its killing spree, though this no longer bares canonicity, due to xenomorphs being able to live at least months, if not far more.
- The American Film Institute ranked the Alien as the fourteenth best villain in American film history on their list of the 100 greatest heroes and villains.
- In Alien Isolation, its sibling, the Sevastopol Drone, ironically became the nemesis of Amanda Ripley, the daughter of the Nostromo Drone's killer.
- It is the first Xenomorph of the entire franchise, first one in the post-Fox Disney era, and only one to appear in more than a single film.
- Technically, the Predalien had a cameo at the end of Alien vs. Predator (2004), but it only had a significant role in the sequel Requiem. Also, the canon of the spin-off crossover films is unclear at best, thus making the Nostromo Drone as the only important Xenomorph to survive its initial debut.
