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Sevastopol Alien
Drone
General information
Host type Human
Height 6.6 ft
Weight
Distinctions Smooth-domed head
Notable individuals Nostromo Alien
Chronological information
First appearance Alien
Last appearance Alien: Blackout


The Drone[1] is the Xenomorph's first stage of maturity after progressing through the Chestburster stage. Drones construct Alien Hives using a resin-like secretion that they produce and collect hosts for impregnation.

Biology[]

Drones generally stand at the height of around 7 feet tall, and about 14–15 feet long, tail included. Drones spawned by human hosts appear bipedal in form, though they can also move well while using all fours, allowing them to become more adept while climbing on walls or maneuvering through enclosed spaces. Sharing the general characteristics of the Xenomorph, Drones have a skeletal, biomechanical appearance and are usually colored in muted shades of black, gray, blue or bronze. The Drone's most distinguishing features are its cylindrical, elongated skull, enclosed within a smooth, translucent dome on their head. Drones each possess long, prehensile tails with a sharp tip that resembles a scorpion's barb, which can be used as a formidable flailing weapon. In addition to being the Worker class within the Alien Hive, Drones are voracious predators possessing incredible strength and are easily capable of restraining or subduing an adult human with physical prowess. Once a certain amount of time has passed, the Drones eventually continue to progress to their next stage of maturity, the Soldier.

Intelligence[]

Drones are shown to be cunning, intelligent and patient, employing stealth tactics by blending in with their environment (regardless either it be the walls within their hive or the pipes and vents within man-made structures) and waiting motionless for their prey to come within range before striking. Drones are generally solitary hunters, preferring instead to operate alone. In the absence of a Queen or a Hive, Drones can still operate normally and are capable of making independent decisions.

History[]

Nostromo Incident[]

In the year 2122, the commercial towing vessel, Nostromo, intercepted a distress signal on the planetoid LV-426. The vessel's employer selected the Nostromo's unsuspecting crew to investigate, disguising the mission as mandated company policy. Unbeknownst to the crew, the company knew about the signal's Alien origin and hoped the crew could yield a viable Alien specimen, even if it endangers the crew's lives. During the investigation the crew discovered a derelict ship, but Executive Officer Kane was incapacitated by a Facehugger, which impregnated the former with an embryo. Kane was brought back to the Nostromo for further treatment, but the embryo eventually matured and violently erupted from his chest, killing him. The creature fled into hiding and eventually grew into an adult Drone, which began killing off the rest of the Nostromo's crew one by one. Ellen Ripley, the crew's sole survivor managed to finally kill the Drone by incinerating it with her escape shuttle's engine exhaust.

Terror on Sevastopol Station[]

Fifteen years later, the salvage vessel, Anesidora, intercepted the same distress signal that came from the derelict on LV-426. One of the Anesidora's crew members, Catherine Foster, fell victim to the Facehugger as well. Foster was taken to Sevastopol Station, where the Facehugger died and the Chestburster inside Foster later erupted from her chest. The Chestburster escaped and hid itself within Sevastopol Station. A Drone soon appeared on the station and soon started abducting or killing Sevastopol's residents, causing mass hysteria. The station's Colonial Marshalls led by Waits tried to ambush the Drone after it had been spotted in engineering. The Marshalls were outmatched by the Drone and it killed all of them, leaving Waits the only survivor. Many of Sevastopol's residents assumed that there was only one Drone aboard the station, but in truth the Chestburster that emerged from Foster had matured into a Queen and it had build a hive within Sevastopol Station. The abductions were carried out by a collective number of Drones that hunted separately throughout the station, therefore mistaking them for a single individual.

Some time later, the commercial transport ship, Torrens, arrived on Sevastopol Station. One of its passengers, Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Ellen Ripley arrived on the station in search of the Nostromo's flight recording, unaware of the chaos that had transpired. Ripley first encountered one of the Drones while traveling with a scavenger named Axel. The Alien impaled Axel with its tail and pulled him into an air duct. Ripley managed to evade her pursuer, but she would again encounter the Drone on multiple occasions during her time on Sevastopol, though it's unclear if these encounters were the same individual. With the help of the surviving Marshalls, Ripley attempted to trap the Drone in the Lorenz Systech Spire; but the plan failed when she was accidentally trapped inside with it, so Ricardo released the lockdown for her. Eventually she was able to lure the Alien into the Gemini Exoplanets Solutions module. Waits then ejected the module from the station and it fell into the atmosphere, incinerating it along with the Drone on board in KG-348's atmosphere.

Ripley would eventually learn the truth when she uncovered the Aliens' Hive located within the station's reactor. Ripley managed to destroy the Hive when she initiated a reactor purge by powering up the reactor cores and overloading them, although multiple Drones managed to escape before the blast and are now scattered throughout Sevastopol. The Drones managed to establish a smaller Hive located elsewhere on the station and one of them managed to capture Ripley, though she successfully escaped. Multiple Drones later pursued Ripley during her escape in open space, surrounding her on the maintenance walkway. Just as they prepared to pounce, the bolts detonated, sending Ripley tumbling overboard into the Torrens. The remaining Drones aboard Sevastopol would all perish when the entire station fell into KG-348's atmosphere due to the gravity stabilizers being damaged. One final Drone managed to climb aboard the Torrens and killed the transport's crew, leaving Ripley by herself cornered by the Alien. As the Drone closes in on her, Ripley opened the Torrens' airlock, sending them both into space.

Appearances in other Media[]



Dark Horse Comics[]

The following information follows the continuity from Dark Horse Comics' Aliens comics and all related media, therefore unrelated to the primary continuity.

The smooth-domed Aliens appeared in Dark Horse Comics' Aliens comic book series, set on an alternate continuity following the events of Aliens. They play a prominent role in Aliens: Labyrinth.

Aliens: Colonial Marines[]

The smooth-domed Aliens also appeared in the 2013 video game, Aliens: Colonial Marines, serving as one of the frequent enemy types encountered in the game. They are referred as Lurkers.

Behind the Scenes[]

Drones used the design of the original Alien as the basis of their appearance. They serve as the primary antagonists of the 2014 video game, Alien: Isolation. The game's developer, Creative Assembly, programmed the Drones' artificial intelligence with a complex set of behavioural designs that slowly unlock as it encounters the player, creating the illusion that the Alien learns from each interaction and appropriately adjusts its hunting strategy.[2] In addition, Creative Assembly altered the design of the Drone to feature recurved legs as opposed to the more humanoid legs like the original Alien had, in order to provide the Drone a walk cycle that would hold up to scrutiny during longer encounters with the player.

Drones were originally supposed to appear in Aliens, though their description was much different when compared to that of the original Alien. In James Cameron's initial treatment of the film, the Drones are described as smaller than the Soldier class and white in color, with an excreting probe in place of the inner jaws. They were to be a worker caste inside the Hive, tending to the Queen and moving her Eggs.[3] They were ultimately cut from the movie before filming, although they appeared in the novelization by Alan Dean Foster.

Trivia[]

  • The Drone/Drones in Alien: Isolation received the nickname "Stompy" because of the low sound it makes when stepping.

Gallery[]

Sources[]

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