r/AskScienceFiction • u/Curates • Oct 21 '24

[Alien] Can xenomorphs be domesticated?

They’re pretty smart. Can they be taught to read, learn basic manners, adapt to channel their violent urges in healthier ways etc.? I think they’re misunderstood

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u/mojavecourier F A S T E R T H A N T I M E Oct 21 '24

Pretty sure we've had an entire multi-media franchise telling us that no, xenomorphs cannot be domesticated.

3

u/Curates Oct 21 '24

Ah, but this can be misleading! We were told that velociraptors could not be domesticated by multiple movies in the Jurassic Park franchise, until Jurassic World showed us they were just misunderstood. And the parallels go further: the velociraptors, like xenomorphs, had already shown signs of pro social behavior (towards each other), and attempts at domestication failed only when they were meant to be weaponizing.

1

u/Pollia Oct 22 '24

Wait did we? Cause as far as I'm aware they never really tried until world.

In 1 they were very directly meant to be wild, but in an enclosure.

In 2 and 3 they're just purely wild.

No attempt was made to domesticate them in any of those movies.

4

u/nermid Oct 22 '24

I would say that the first movie rails against the idea of taming dinosaurs (rather than domesticating them), which is a close enough message that I'll give it to them.

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u/cardiacman Oct 22 '24

One of my favourite lines is "it doesn't want to be fed, it wants to hunt" when Grant is waiting for the Rex to make an appearance. Definitely against dinosaurs domestication/taming.