I feel like this has been kind of a long time handwaived thing to explain certain things like whispering into the minds of humans in game, but I’m not sure outside of hivemind telepathy and maybe inspiring nightmares in humans. The queen also communicated to ripley in one of the alien movies, but I’m not sure if this was the original ripley or the clone spliced with xeno DNA
In Aliens, Ripley kind of non-verbally negotiates with the queen in the hive, where the queen orders the other xenos not to attack her to protect herself and her eggs. As for anything after that idk I honestly blocked out everything in the fourth movie out of my memory. So while it’s not really telepathy, I think more cool stuff like that should happen ingame.
You see it a lot in AVP actually.
The aliens are a hivemind, the queen acts as the head of the mind and is linked to the rest of the hive.
You’ll see it in some of the books and short stories too, especially ones that have sections with alien protagonists.
Alien: Sea of Sorrows is a prime example, I’ll explain it in a spoiler, be warned it’s a big spoiler for the book.
Sea of Sorrows follows Alan Decker, the descendent of Ripley and an empath. He’s hired by Weyland Yutani to go to a world they believe has a xenomorph hive, and hopefully give them more information on how aliens think and feel. He discovers they’re a hive mind, all connected to the queen. Through each Xeno morph he can sense an underlying autonomy overpowered by the queens will. The book also has sections in xenomorph perspectives which reinforce this idea that the drones are just animals while the queen does all of the real thinking and instructing for them. Furthermore the queen is presented as very very intelligent, she understands Alan Decker is able to sense and feel their feelings, and even knows he’s the descendent of Ripley, who they call the destroyer, or something along those lines. Really good book.
If I’m remembering correctly, they’re capable of causing nightmares in people by just being in the same broad area as them, even if they’ve never actually seen the xenomorph or know of their existence, so that would also be a form of telepathy.
Sounds like the Xenos mostly have the Queen as a psychic presence holding together the Hivemind with a very limited psychic ripple to other organisms.
The idea of an “empath” is neat, but kinda doesn’t feel right for the Aliens universe— though the idea of certain people picking up on it more does make a cool sorta sense a la XCOM, so I guess I’ve just got a self contradictory opinion.
It’s something that really only exploded in the fandom and not out of the initial movies, where they’ve only ever been shown to communicate according to physical laws (pheromones, sound, vision).
Meanwhile the fandom just ran wild with the psychic stuff and where it was introduced more subtly (like the earth war comics as dream manipulation) it also has been implemented much further, and the newer fictional works are also muddying up a lot of what made the original aliens what they were, so now we’ve got black goo and a crossover bleed of tyranidification of xenomorphs going on.
If you want a plausible “psychic” explanation without violating physical laws just give them biological radios.
Yes the queen is psychic, in fact, in the current times of the lore (around 2182-2184 iirc), the UPP has(or rather had) even started using the queens psychic emanations via her dreams as a way to scare people or leading them to do horrible things to themselves and others, I would say this is some sort of psychic suggestion as well.
" it is thought that their primary means of communication is substantially more complex, possibly involving pheromone release or ultrasound. Weyland-Yutani researchers have even proposed Queens and their offspring share some kind of bioelectrical hive consciousness; the fact Queens are seemingly in almost constant contact with their brood and able to communicate with them across significant distances or through considerable obstructions supports such a theory. Their large head crest may well play a part in the communication process, acting as receptor/transmitter for the whatever signals are employed."
and
Project Morana from the UPP MSS (The Queen dreams I was talking about before)
Well I was alreayd doing this in CM anyway so It’s nice to know it’s cannon now.
I mean. IIRC in the AvP extended universe the Queen Mother is so psychically powerful that she can actually stimulate the neurons of the deceased, literally raising the dead to attack others.
It happened in one comic during the xenomorph outbreak on Earth, but I could be totally schizophrenic and misremembering something.
That is terrifying.
one doctor injects modified royal jelly into himself & gains wacky psychic ability’s even
I can HRP that without admin intervention. So thanks for the idea. Also their is already a stim that can do that. It just gives you the queens psychic whisper ability. Needs a buff but its good.
Nah let’s add a system where when studying the xeno embryo incubation process and messing with its genetic properties (its ability to merge the hosts genes with the Xenos genes allowing different types based on hosts) you accidentally create an airborne version of the embryonic process, beginning the mutation in anyone who breathes it. Now instead of an embryo being needed to be planted in the host, the host becomes an embryo. Subsequently from a singular injection or exposure to the airborne version your body conforms and mutates into a xenomorph, rapidly destroying your consciousness/unwilling parts of you and allowing the newly birthed/mutated xeno to quite literally break out of you.
And throw in some psychic stuff too.
If you guys haven’t read William Gibsons alien 3 screenplay with anchor point station I highly encourage you do. Amazing stuff.
The movie that could have been.
Sounds like Project Chimera, its actually still around too (first introduced in the old 80s/90s comics)
But honestly anything that enhances the mad scientist part of the researcher / scientists we have is always cool to me. +1
At least we got a comic version of it. Which is horrifying to watch the process and definitely makes chestbursting seem tame. I won’t post the panel here cus it’s a bit graphic but I suggest people interest to look up “William Gibson’s Alien 3 Xenomorph” the first image is the panel with the xenomorph basically shedding some guy who breathed in the stuff.
I have yet to read the whole comic, I’ve really gotta get around to it. A lot of those alien comics and stuff are really good inspiration for maps/gamemodes/other additions.
You mean the DNA chem property that randomly spawns mixed with zombies.
Here is an idea. Why not make a nurological computer with xeno nurons. Real life computers have been made using human nurons. So you now have a super computer with psychic powers.
(Maybe I should not allowed to play researcher.)
There’s multiple types in the canon now yeah, in Prometheus and Covenant if you’ve seen those movies, there is the Bloodburster and Bodyburster also mentioned in the RPG, as well as the Goreburster, lots of “bursters” lol, all inspired by the old Alien 3 comics I believe
that doesnt follow the lore question the op was asking about but im sure you could suggest this in the idea section instead even if its a bad idea some might debate it enough to fit