Alien King

The Alien King, is a very rare form of xenomorphs. Although some describe it as just a male variation of the species, since it is assumed that all other castes are made up solely of hermaphrodite(the queen is the only female). They can also be called alien sovereigns. At the moment, the existence of some specimens is known, one of them is the specimen called Kansas, which lives in LV-223, and is considered one of the most studied specimens of this caste.

Description[]

The alien king is said to be the representation of the male sex in the xenomorph species, all male specimens of xenomorphs are alien kings, in a sense. They are large and robust, with a larger and more ornate crest. It is said that kings are much tougher than queens, and in turn, far exceed them in strength. It is speculated that the xenomorph king has the function of the supreme protector of a hive, which is why he is called the great soldier king by some.

The alien king has a reproductive function and is a secondary commander of the hive, second only to the queen. Kings have an instinct to reproduce with the queen and command xenomorphs from lower castes, assisting the queen in this task. Alien kings vary in shape depending on the host and the age of the animal, being the only type of xenomorph with an entire growth process, it is said that the process of gaining strength is very long and exponentially rapid growth would be very costly. . Furthermore, alien kings are a huge energy cost for queens to generate, and for this and other reasons, they are rare.

The alien kings are so indispensable that they are responsible for managing the hive until another queen emerges. Generally, the king will collect the royal jelly stored by the former queen and implant it into a facehugger already damaging the existing eggs, filling it until it overflows, and then personally protecting the young queen until she reaches maturity.

These xenormorphs were culturally considered high-level prey by the yautja, due to their rarity and equally proportional strength. It is known that countless yautjas have perished when confronting a single alien king, the alien king's regenerative capabilities make him a difficult animal to deal with even for high-level yautja weaponry. The alien king known as Mort'ur has killed several elite-ranking Yautja throughout his life. Which made him considered a huge threat, and a trophy that only the most experienced should claim.

Alien kings have two evolutions, the emperor and the war king. The first being a caste that the alien kings can employ, and the second being an evolution in case of extreme threat from the nest.

Life cycle[]

Alien kings have a different life cycle from other xenomorphs, they cannot be achieved by the simple evolution of caste aliens in a simple increasing evolution as occurs with queens. Males are born from specific eggs laid by queens, called king ovomorphs, which are larger and require a lot of royal jelly to manufacture. They are equally costly for empresses, and less so for queen mothers, but the first two castes are more favorable to laying eggs. It is believed that the exorbitant amount of royal jelly generates a mutation in the ovomorph, generating a male xenomorph, as less expensive eggs always result in females. It is believed that, when xenomorph kings are created, they can exponentially increase the possibility of xenomorph kings being born, it is beneficial because in a way, it promotes genetic flow between colonies, which leads to the improvement of the population.

Ovomorph/Facehugger[]

A king ovomorph in the process of incubation

Once laid, the king ovomorph will enter the incubation process. After a period of 4 months, the ovomorph will automatically hatch, releasing a king facehugger. The king facehugger has heightened senses and is much larger than any other known facehugger. This is because this facehugger actively hunts potential hosts.

The king facehugger has an electrical receiver, powerful enough to force its waves to effectively pass through the air. This allows the facehugger to detect potential hosts more effectively, within a radius of tens of meters. This facehugger can remain active for 4 months, and despite the facehuggers' low requirement for hosts, they are known to target mainly large animals.

Chestbuster[]

The king chestbuster is born after 6 hours. The chestburster is large compared to the standard of the species, they will begin a growth process that will take 2 days. During this period, the host's body will serve as a meal. They gain the morphology of a xenomorph in a short time, but are still relatively fragile.

Knight[]

The knight is the name given to a xenomorph king in his first phase. He is at this point stronger than a soldier and greater in authority than one. They are in the process of maturing. These young males are gaining experience and discovering how xenomorph society works. They stay in this phase for 2 weeks. Despite the name, this is one of the least combative life stages for a young male xenomorph.

Grand Duke[]

The Grand Duke is a juvenile stage, they are intermediate in size between a soldier and a Praetorian. They are robust and strong, the young king is already beginning to practice his dominance over his sisters in the hive. They are still submissive to the Praetorian. This is the stage in which the young male feels bold enough to actively participate in combat.

Because of the last factor, it is the most dangerous phase of life, as young males put themselves in very dangerous situations. This phase lasts 3 months.

Prince[]

The prince is a sub-adult king xenomorph. It is intermediate in size between a praetorian and a queen. In practical terms, the prince is a nearly complete king. And it provides great protection to the hive. Princes must leave the hive at some point, for two reasons: the first is that queens sending a young king to a nearby hive increases the chances of that nearby hive sending a king to its own hive, and the second reason is that the presence of a prince not bonded to a queen induces in the young praetorians the instinct to evolve into a queen to mate with him, which leads to other problems: inbreeding and competition for authority.

Princes usually submit to a king, if not killed by him. They eventually become adult kings, who are deprived of reproductive rights. In exceptional cases, the overwhelming presence of kings in a hive forces one of the kings to become an emperor. This phase lasts 2 months, but princes may slow their growth to avoid becoming potential competition for an already established alien king.

King[]

This is the full adult stage of the male aliens. At this point, he is as big as a queen, some king aliens are as big as an empress. Adult kings are huge and powerful, to the point that they are described as having no natural predators. Alien kings usually settle in a hive far from their home territory, in order to search for unrelated hives. The kings court the queen, and are accepted as her mate.

King aliens mate periodically with queens. King aliens are also known to reproduce with empresses and queen mothers. They do not usually share a queen, but there are exceptional cases where male aliens share the position of king. Although it is speculated that they are brothers. They usually compete with each other for dominance in the hive, and the winner remains as the queen's sole mate; the other male may even remain, but as a substitute. But these situations are rare, since the kings aim to reproduce and therefore it is more likely that they will leave of their own free will in search of another hive, or try to court one of the praetorians and induce them to become a new queen.

Other forms[]

Emperor[]

An emperor is not a life stage of male xenomorphs, but rather an evolution experienced by certain king aliens. The emperor is the only established caste that a alien king can assume, and the highest as well. An emperor can be as great as a queen mother, but his authority is somewhere between that of the queen and the empress. Studies indicate that to ascend to this position, the king must consume exceptional amounts of royal jelly or begin an alternative process in which the king will undergo metamorphosis into a larger and stronger form; alien kings only perform this evolution when in the presence of other alien kings or in the presence of an empress, in order to provide balance. In the absence of an empress or queen mother, the emperor is the highest authority in the hive, although he tends not to impose this on his mate, the queen.

Emperor aliens are one of the rarest xenomorphs to see. Since an alien king rarely feels the need to evolve into one, Emperor aliens were targeted as trophies by ancient races, as they were considered super dangerous. They are very similar to kingfishers, but are more robust, and have larger crests and tails. The emperor may be considered by some to be just a very large and old king, although this is contradicted, since a young alien king began an immediate process of evolution to take command of a hive where there was already a king.

War king[]

The war king is an adaptation suffered by alien kings in case of external threat. The war king grows substantially in size, gains more physical resilience and more muscular strength. A war king is inferior in attributes to the emperor, but it is a faster evolution that alien kings can achieve in cases that require a quick response. An alien king takes 5 days to metamorphose into a war king; some alien kings converge into this form to assume greater strength and subjugate other alien kings while aiming to become emperors themselves. A war king has slightly more authority than a common king, but is still submissive to the queen and higher castes.

Ecology[]

Intelligence[]

The alien kings have an unknown extent to their intelligence. They are described as highly intelligent, and the specimens that most demonstrate signs of true emotion. A research carried out by the company Bionational Corporation containing a young alien king created by them, specifically, one in its ''prince'' phase yielded many discoveries. The specimen in question was called ''John'', its host was a sentenced prisoner who was the guinea pigs to generate these animals.

John was a specimen who showed particular interest in what his creators were doing. Growing up without a hive, the young alien king did not display hostile instincts towards humans, as he saw no reproductive function in them, and as long as he was kept fed, he tolerated people in his cell, as long as they did not get too close. He demonstrated that he recognized himself in the mirror, demonstrating his ability for self-awareness.

He was easily entertained by magic tricks they performed for him, the xenomorph always buzzing as he tried to understand how the things they showed him worked, always whining when he failed. The alien began to imitate some behaviors and gestures that its caregivers made, and at some level imitate speech. But as in other experiments, the alien kings prove that for a xenomorph, human speech is unpronounceable.

John, like other king aliens, becomes hostile to people when they are joined to a hive. In this case, the only peculiarities were that the specimens demonstrated that they recognized their creators and were therefore less hostile towards them. Alien kings in their knight phase, which is proportional to a childish phase, show playful behavior. They tear off pieces of corpses and play with biting them. Some specimens played together in what resembled a game of tag.

Behavior[]

The male aliens are calmer than females. King aliens are more patient and observant than the general species. They demonstrate a greater degree of passivity, and are less inclined to respond aggressively if they judge something to not be a threat. They sometimes discipline their subordinates and occasionally flirt with the queen, sometimes even giving her gifts, even though they are already an established pair. The hosts do not seem to have much influence on the alien's personality, demonstrating that the tendencies will almost always be invariable when faced with the same stimuli.

The alien kings have demonstrated that they begin the process of evolving into a war king if subjected to constant stressful situations. The animals begin to calm down only when in this new form, since they are more confident in their strength. But some specimens attempt to evolve into emperor if the tests become too intense or simply too frequent again.

Sex[]

For a long time, the real sex of the specimens was questioned. Xenomorphs were represented as asexual creatures, or at least females. The alien kings and their existence becoming increasingly common knowledge brought this discussion to light. The Binational corporation mapped the number of xenomorph chromosomes. From what has been studied, the number is invariable regardless of the host, resulting in 37 pairs of chromosomes and 74 chromosomes in total. Artificially created hybrid specimens generally have a chromosome number closer to that of the host, generally meaning incompatibility with xenomorphs born from conventional reproduction.

The king aliens were the only specimens that naturally demonstrated the presence of Y chromosomes. Other types of natural xenomorphs demonstrated the absence of the Y chromosome, demonstrating that the other castes are composed of female specimens. The alien kings are the male form of the xenomorph species, and even when they do not reach maturity, they can be commonly called xenomorph kings.

Creation and maintenance[]

Xenomorph kings are powerful creatures, throughout the distribution of xenomorphs, some organizations limit hives to prevent the production of these specimens. Some others try to promote their existence. Companies create king xenomorphs for studies and military use.

Xenomorph kings are quite expensive to create, requiring exceptionally large quantities of royal jelly. It is so costly that the rarity is considered justifiable in the natural environment, and even more so because some try to limit xenomorphs from creating them. Some king xenomorphs are introduced into experimental hives to assist in their management. They are quite useful as they seem to be indifferent most of the time as to whether xenomorphs are modified or not. The xenomorph king named "John" has been mated to a cloned queen, and the two appear to be living together successfully, despite certain reproductive difficulties.

Xenomorph kings might be a little simpler to maintain. They are less inclined to run away. And they can be much more tolerant of people. They are sometimes used to protect bases. King aliens protect the place where they reside, and this was useful in yautja invasions, are known specimens of king aliens that, once released, brutally hunted the invaders until their extermination.

Known specimens[]

The number of king alien specimens is relatively few. Most exist in captivity, but a certain amount exist free on planets living in native hives. The specimens were all named with some different name to facilitate identification, those that are not are little-known animals and are therefore treated as having a doubtful existence. Specimens counted include only adult (kings and emperors) or young (princes) specimens, and will be divided based on this:

Princes[]

Adak'hor
Specimen - 98
Markur
Engineer Prime Xenomorph (?)

Alien kings[]

Kansas
John
Masuka
Xalapu

War Kings[]

Atsuki
Kuinb'ara

Emperors[]

Big G
Grandmaster

(The section of information presented to you will be subject to constant change. Research is carried out all the time to confirm the existence of more aliens of this type.)