The Xenomorph Queen is the ruling caste of the Xenomorph species in the Alien franchise. These creatures act as the leaders and mothers of the Xenomorph hives, being the only caste capable of propagating the species. Standing at 15 feet tall, queens are a terrifying sight to behold. They have a tougher carapace than other variants, an extra pair of arms and a huge cranial crest extending from the back of the skull. They also have enormous ovipositors which are almost constantly laying new eggs from which Facehuggers are born. Queens usually remain immobile within their hives and constantly lay eggs while Xenomorph drones and guards tend to them, but in the event that there is a threat to the hive, a queen can tear away its ovipositor and become mobile in order to combat said threat.
Aliens[]
In Aliens, Ellen Ripley encounters an alien queen inside the atmosphere processing plant of Hadley's Hope on LV-426. After finding and freeing the young girl Newt, she leads her through the maze-like structure of the hive only to turn into the central chamber where the queen is laying eggs. Xenomorph guards move in to attack, but Ripley threatens to torch the eggs in the chamber, prompting the queen to call off her guards. As Ripley and Newt near the exit, Ripley fires her Incinerator and sets the hatchery ablaze, infuriating the queen.
As Ripley and Newt flee, the queen detaches her ovipositor and pursues the humans. The dropship Smart Ass arrives at the landing platform to carry Ripley and the other survivors back to the USS Sulaco in orbit, but the queen also boards the craft and hides within the landing gear compartment. When the Smart Ass lands within the Sulaco's hangar, the queen emerges and attacks the android Bishop, tearing him in half. The queen then advances on Newt, who tries to hide beneath the floor grilles while Ripley goes to activate a Power Loader. Ripley returns with the exoskeleton and fights against the monster, managing to throw it into an airlock. She opens the airlock and ejects the queen into space, which likely burns up upon re-entering LV-426's atmosphere.
Alien Resurrection[]
202 years following the events of Aliens and Alien 3, the United Systems Military had begun producing their own Xenomorph specimens. They achieved this thanks to acquiring Ellen Ripley's DNA following her demise on Fiorina 161. Since Ripley had been carrying a juvenile queen at that time, alien genes had been intermingled with her own. After a lengthy period of trial and error, the USM were able to produce a clone of Ripley that also carried a cloned queen. The queen was extracted surgically before it matured, allowing the military scientists to study its growth in a controlled environment. Ripley's clone, herself part-Xenomorph, was allowed to live so that Dr. Gediman could study her.
With the queen, the USM were able to produce their own Xenomorph drones by paying mercenaries to kidnap individuals from across the United Systems that would be used as hosts. These persons would be taken to the USM Auriga in cryostasis and exposed to Xenomorph eggs and the Facehuggers that hatched from said eggs would couple with the victims and implant them with embryos. However, the Xenomorphs being bred by Mason Wren's team proved to be more intelligent than expected as they were able to escape confinement by killing one of their own and using its acidic blood to melt through the floor of their containment cell.
The escaped Xenomorph drones freed the queen from captivity and relocated her to the bowels of the ship where they would establish a hive. Due to the USM scientists' genetic tampering, the queen had developed another means of reproduction: the human genes she had inherited from Ripley caused her to grow a uterus, allowing her to give live birth to a new type of offspring. Later, after being captured and brought to the hive, Ripley-8 witnessed the queen giving birth to a human/Xenomorph hybrid. The newborn creature, however, did not recognise the queen as its mother and killed her by ripping off her upper jaw.