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Hi!

If anyone watches the Alien franchise, you know that Weyland wants the xenomorph to use as a biological weapon and they couldn't since Ripley and friends prevent that (fortunately). So when I saw the first Alien movies I accepted that premise. It's ok for me.

But now, we are playing a campaign and you tend to play with that original premise and you have to think a bit more about this background or premise. That is, Weyland or other corporations like Lasalle or even another powers like the UPP want the xenomorphs to use them as biological weapon. The players are in the campaign to avoid those plans.

Then, after some sessions, I began to think: how a power could use a xenomorph like a weapon of mass destruction? I try to explain better my question: If you want to eliminate an enemy, it's better and more secure to send nukes to the colony. I supposed that you would want to use xenomorphs, as opposed to nuclear weapons, to not destroy the infraestructure, or to reuse the enemy world in a future... But there is a problem. You have erased the enemy population, but now you have hundreds or even thousands of XX121s living in the world you want to occupy. How would you deal with all of them? I suppose that sending military teams to the world so they could exterminate the aliens won't solve the problem, the teams might die or even a single and hidden drone or facehugger may survive and the infection start again in the new colony. From a corporative and capitalist point of view, using xenomorphs as a weapon of mass destruction is really expensive and the cost-benefice balance isn't suitable. So, I suppose, it's much cheaper and secure to launch a nuke to a world than using xenos.

Have you thought about this? Any answer or proposal? I tell because I am in this situation in my campaign and I don't know how a power can use xenos like Weyland would want to do in the movies.       

How long do Xenos live without people to eat? Could it be that ovomorphing is a “hibernating” stage to wait for more food? Perhaps the plan is simply to wait 7ntil the Xenos have killed everything then starved. Then simply flame the eggs?

Or perhaps they want to make the Xenos more controllable, like in Alien 4? Or engineer a terminator gene? 

I Would think of the Xenomorph as a Bioweapon, as some kind of last resort weapon, or if it's publicly known, as kind of threat like Nukes are today. But Xenomorphs as an equlient to Nukes would RPG-wise kind of boring. Because one thing that makes them scary is that PC's don't know how to handle them...

If I were for example WY and want to use it, I would get some poore devils impregnatet by a chestburster und would send them to an Enemy Colony and wait, till the Xenomorphs finish the Colony off. 

How long do Xenos live without people to eat? Could it be that ovomorphing is a “hibernating” stage to wait for more food? Perhaps the plan is simply to wait 7ntil the Xenos have killed everything then starved. Then simply flame the eggs?

Or perhaps they want to make the Xenos more controllable, like in Alien 4? Or engineer a terminator gene?

Yes, about the lifespan of an alien, it could be a solution but in the book you can see that G-435 (Achilles 2.4) host a xeno world plenty of hives (page 280).

About the mind control what it's shown in Alien 4 is a bit rudimentary. The bad boys limit to throw some hot vacuum to the xenos to control them in a room. Of course, the experiment goes wrong and all the aliens escape. Additionally, In the middle of a battlefield it could be ridiculous to see a group of soldiers launching vacuum to the xenos.

Maybe some kind of item like a signal transmiter which replicates the queen orders would be valid... But I don't know how "canon" (or "futuristic") could it be.

I Would think of the Xenomorph as a Bioweapon, as some kind of last resort weapon, or if it's publicly known, as kind of threat like Nukes are today. But Xenomorphs as an equlient to Nukes would RPG-wise kind of boring. Because one thing that makes them scary is that PC's don't know how to handle them...

If I were for example WY and want to use it, I would get some poore devils impregnatet by a chestburster und would send them to an Enemy Colony and wait, till the Xenomorphs finish the Colony off.

Yes, but, as I told before... I suppose you want the xenos to not destroy any infrastructure. If not, you would use a good nuke or missiles to finish the colony.

And true, if you maintain the xenos as a last (last) resort weapon after nukes, it would be a bit boring since they are not being to be used primarily.

Yes, but, as I told before... I suppose you want the xenos to not destroy any infrastructure. If not, you would use a good nuke or missiles to finish the colony.

And true, if you maintain the xenos as a last (last) resort weapon after nukes, it would be a bit boring since they are not being to be used primarily.

I guess, that the point of the Xenomorph as Bioweapon was not thought out to the end. It feels more like a plot hook. Or otherwiese WY isn't in the know that the Xenomorph will likely turn Colony Buildings into an Hive?! 
In my mind WY is thinking, hey we have an almost indesctructable beast/killing maschine. Let's just let it loose and kill. Afterwards starve it to death and just take over the enmy Planets and use the Buildings, which might only need a little repair of the fighting. But again, the haven't thought it out well. 
Otherwise, the want to use the DNA to enhance Humans, or create better armour (inspired by the Xenomorph skin).

I would like to approach this in a slightly different way: what does really mean to weaponize in this case? It doesn’t have to be just releasing a lot of xenos on a corporate enemy. As we know from the movies, the xenos might be valuable in many ways and forms. They could probably be of military interest in other ways than we have seen so far.

For example, by understanding at least some of their biomechinacal context, new weapons and other things could be constructed. The derilict, or stuff that’s found inside it (like the telescope or canon), might be just as interesting, also from a military point of view. The derelict is, I think, a part of what the xenos really are. They seem to come from a very specific context.

So maybe the really interesting question is rather: why is WY interested in the xenos in the first place (because they already knew how to kill people)? And what are they planning to do with their new knowledge? And who is doing it? Perhaps rivals or factions within WY? Or something external, like a very powerful AI?

As some of you already have noticed, I have started a post about Giger and his grand vision of biomechanical beings and technology. I think that’s a pretty good answer to the question of WY is so interested. It’s not only about killing people, it’s more about a very powerful and new form of technology (at least to mankind). I would say that in the long run, WY could potentially become powerful even outside the context of mankind. Maybe that’s their true goal.

This is the thread about the biomechanical aspect: viewtopic.php?f=99&t=4968

There's a lot of ways they could be used, but most or all of them come with their own set of problems. If you use them as a weapon of mass destruction there's the issue of what you do afterwards, sure, you may have exterminated the target population, but then you have a lot of xenos on your hands. Can you modify their genome so they die after some time? Maybe, maybe not. Can you engineer some virus that targets them? Again, maybe.
To me, what makes the most sense, is to use them as a highly specialized weapon: you can smuggle a single one of them easily (the carrier maybe even doesn't know about it), it gets released inside the target area, it wreaks havoc, hopefully kills everyone and then you just need to "clean up" one of them, hopefully with a team that knows what they're doing. 

But why would it be interesting for WY to just use the xenos for killing people? It just seems too complicated, considering the effort and costs it would take to ”clean up” the mess afterwords. Just sending a couple of attack drones would probably be a lot easier.

Some ways to use it are:

a) Simply as a threat that you never have to use.  (ie. "You wanna mess with us?  Have a look at this.")
b) Geneticially engineer them to have a short lifespan so they go in to kill the populous, leave much of the infrastructure intact, then once they die, you go clean up and salvage.
c) Tame them like the USM intended.