Within the prequel era of the Alien franchise, fans were given a potential origin story for the Xenomorph species that was met with immediate controversy, and has since been explained away by fans as being less significant than it was initially presented. However, in one particular continuation of Alien lore, the Xenomorphs are given a new name that seems to confirm this controversial origin as truth.
In the film Alien: Covenant, a spaceship full of human settlers is heading towards a new planet ready for human colonization. However, after the ship’s crew are woken up from their hypersleep, they find another planet that is much closer and just as accommodating for human life. So, the Covenant descends upon the world to check it out–and that’s the worst thing the crew could have done. Once on this new world, the crew members meet David, a Synthetic that was seemingly lost following the Prometheus mission. As it turned out, David traveled to this world with a ship stolen from an alien species known only as Engineers, and inside that ship were containers filled with a substance known as ‘Black Goo’, which kills and/or mutates anything or anyone that comes into contact with it. David decided to use the ‘Black Goo’ to run experiments in the hopes of creating new life–and he was successful. By the time the crew of the Covenant arrived at David’s little world, he had successfully used the goo to seemingly create the first Ovomorph, which held the first Facehugger, which gave life to the first Xenomorph.
‘Biomechanoid’ Explains the Unnatural Origin of Alien’s Xenomorphs
In Aliens vs Predator: Xenogenesis #3 by Andi Watson and Mel Rubi, a team of hired guns contracted by Weyland-Yutani are infiltrating a hidden warehouse/laboratory owned by a competing company to steal information on secret Xenomorph experimentation happening there. Little did they know, a group of Predators already infiltrated this area and decided it was the perfect arena in which to hunt and battle Xenomorphs. This put these thieves right in the middle of an all-out war between two of the deadliest creatures in the cosmos–but they weren’t going to leave without getting the information they were hired to retrieve. Upon successfully hacking into the computer system, the infiltrators see videos of people being impregnated by Facehuggers, and even the gory births of the Xenomorphs themselves. While watching, one of the thieves calls the Xenomorphs by an all-new name: ‘Biomechanoid’, which is actually pretty telling.
When something is referred to as a ‘Biomechanoid’ in science fiction, that means it is equal parts biological and artificial–which indicates that the Xenomorphs did not come into being naturally. Sure, the name could have been referring to the Xenomorphs’ almost mechanical aesthetic, but the way this person said it–like it was their official name–leads one to believe that he was speaking from some level of authority on the subject. In this comic, the Xenomorphs are seemingly well-known and have a presence on Earth, not to mention entire laboratories run by billion-dollar companies are dedicating obscene amounts of money into the research surrounding the Xenomorph species. So, it is safe to say that at this point in the franchise, humanity has a better understanding of the Xenomorphs than they do in the films–and perhaps, they were able to trace the Xenomorphs’ origin back to David and what was depicted in Alien: Covenant.
‘Biomechanoid’ perfectly backs up the idea that Xenomorphs were, in fact, originally created by David in Alien: Covenant as that would make them a biological organism that was brought to life artificially, not naturally. Plus, the world surrounding this addition to Alien lore supports the possibility that humanity would have learned of their origin and renamed the species accordingly–proving that this new name for Xenomorphs actually confirms their controversial origin.