STAGE VI: PRAETORIAN, CRUSHER, QUEEN

Stage VI P. praepotens are monstrous horrors. Their immense size and crested carapaces mark them as the leaders of their hive. Stronger and smarter than those beneath them, Stage VI Xenos command alien armies. These Stages are only reached when an existing Queen produces royal jelly and exposes her Soldiers and Sentries to it.

PRAETORIAN

When a hive reaches a population of over 300 individuals, Workers feed the Queen’s chosen warriors with Royal Jelly until the transformation to Praetorian takes place. The penultimate form of an alien Soldier, Praetorians grow up to twice the height of their brethren. They develop a head crest similar to a Queen’s, but maintain a more standardized bipedal form with only two arms. Lead protectors of the hive, Praetorians are the Queen’s Royal Guards and army commanders. It is theorized that if a hive loses its Queen, a Praetorian can molt into a new one. If this happened before another hive invaded, the old hive can be preserved. If not, the invaders take advantage of the leaderless Xenos and claims them for their own Queen.

CHARGER

Also called the Crusher, the Charger is the Xenomorph equivalent of a tank. After being force-fed Royal Jelly and raw metals by the Queen’s workers for weeks, a bloated Sentry will cocoon itself in resin and undergo a massive transformation. Its quadrupedal stance is bulked up and its head grows a massive, armored chitinous crest similar to a Queen’s. Chargers grow to stand between 1.8 and 3 meters tall at the shoulder. Heavy defensive protectors of the hive, the Crusher will charge an enemy like a rabid rhino, trampling personnel and plowing through even lightly armored vehicles. Essentially the Runner variant of the Praetorian, the Charger’s mobility is limited in that it cannot climb or jump very well. Luckily, they are relatively rare and only appear in long established hives.

QUEEN

The mother of the hive, at six meters tall or more, the alien Queen is perhaps the strongest and most intelligent of the species. While any adult alien is capable of initiating ovomorphing in a host organism, only Queens have the ability to lay eggs en masse. When her first molt is completed and the Queen is fertile, her Workers spin a resin cradle that holds her suspended above the floor of the hive. The Queen then grows an enormous egg sac that soon becomes distended and engorged with developing eggs. As each new Ovomorph is ready, she deposits it on the ground via ovipositor for her Workers to spirit away to nearby cocooned hosts.
The most astonishing thing about the Queen is her ability to communicate with her hive. While evidence exists to suggest she does so via a combination of pheromones and subsonic vocalizations, there are company consultants who believe she communicates telepathically as well, “speaking” with her children over immeasurable distances. In fact, corporate psychiatrists have documented that employees who score high on their company esper tests and find themselves within the proximity of an alien hive will have vivid dreams of the Queen calling to them, whether they are aware of her existence or not.
Additionally, professional dreamers seem to have a hard time producing after being exposed to an alien Queen. Of course, this could simply be a form of PTSD, but it bears further investigation. An alien Queen’s distinguishing characteristics include her size, her large crested head, set of six dorsal spikes (instead of tubes), unique stance and a second set of grasping arms.

CONTAINMENT AND TERMINATION PROTOCOL

A Charger is nigh invulnerable while charging with its head shield down, but its body is only as armored as that of a regular alien Soldier, and well-placed explosives or heavy artillery will make short work of the beast. While they have few weaknesses, taking out a Praetorian will temporarily disorient the Soldiers it coordinates. As for dealing with the Queen… yeah. Don’t.

"They grab the colonists, they move them over there and they immobilize them to be hosts for more of these. Which would mean that there would have to be a lot of these parasites, right? One for each colonist. That's over a hundred at least.”
“Yes, that follows.”
“But each one of these things comes from an egg, right? So who's laying these eggs?”
“I'm not sure. It must be something we haven't seen yet."

— LT. ELLEN RIPLEY AND BISHOP

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• STAGE V: SOLDIER, WORKER, SENTRY

Genetic Descendants

• STAGE VII AND BEYOND

Scientific Name

P. praepotens