Transcription taken from Mister Death's audio journal, October 13th 3143
"Begin playback."
"Maybe it is truly intelligent. Maybe you should try to communicate with it."
"Did you?"
"Please let my grave hold some secrets."
"Perhaps the creature is intelligent… so suggested Science Officer Ash, a synthetic working for Weyland-Yutani around a millennium ago. There is some conflict in historical data exactly when Ash went offline, but it is definite he was running circles around the dupes he was serving with and studying the Xenomorph as thoroughly as he could without arousing direct suspicion. I'm sure the suggestion was not an idle one.
"As Ash wished, his grave still holds the secret of whether he even attempted communication with Kane's son, or what came of it if he did. His advice would go unheeded for the next two and a half centuries. Xenomorphs were uniformly disturbed by human interference and responded with overwhelming hostility every time. Some reports, most prominently those of Ellen Ripley, seemed to characterize the Xenomorphs as 'evil' or malevolent in nature, but as an outsider looking in, I have grave doubts about the accuracy of this perception. To a mouse, a cat is a supremely evil being, and a snake might as well be a demon risen from Hell. To virtually every species that had the misfortune of sharing Earth with us, humans are the supreme evil of the world, unrelenting in cruelty and brutality towards all others and even our own kind.
"I thought the entertainment industry would be a happy business, and it would let me bring joy to adults and children the universe over, but what I see in them, the dumb malice, the greed, contempt for a child with a prize that one desires… last Christmas, I tried to kill myself not long after a single mother stole a bulldozer to rob a warehouse of my toys that her children wanted. Three of my employees were killed when she brought the wall down, and two more were maimed. She never showed remorse, even at her execution. She was so proud of her own cleverness in getting her hands on what she wanted, even at the very end, and thought it was unfair we were penalizing her for getting hers.
"I proved to be made of sterner stuff than I had assumed, and it got me thinking that what I want isn't my death, exactly. If I'd succeeded and maintained any self-awareness, I would have regretted sacrificing my ability to try changing humanity for the better. That change will never come voluntarily. Never will the masses choose to be better. They will be better because I am going to force them to be better using the only tool that has historically withstood the human onslaught. I'm going to breed a Xenomorph colony, and whether humanity lives or dies is going to be their choice.
"I guess I've been thinking for a while about this. It's illegal, might be genocidal, and will gobble up my wealth and then some to establish. I'll be ruined if it doesn't pay off.
"Ruined, huh… ruined from what? I hate my life. I hate my species. I hate my job. All my friends are phony, and my employees are sad sacks waiting to die too and trying to take every natural resource and lifeform with them on their way.
"I found a company that I think is up to meet my needs. Very secretive, and they say they can do damn near anything as long as the money's good. I want an egg. Christ help me, when I think of what I want, I want one of those fucking eggs. Even Ripley, in her mania against Xenomorph XX121, was noted to have wondered at least once or twice which species is worse, and I find myself in the same boat. I've already got my eye on a rocky, barren archipelago to raise them on that I think will be perfect. It's the spitting image of Acheron, where our species had their first known major contact. They like being below ground, and on this shithole world, they aren't missing much.
"A species that humanity can't bully and tyrannize into oppression, Holocaust, extinction. A species that will force us to change our ways to live… or die for our failure to learn from past mistakes. Practically every other Earth-native species is extinct, and we infect the universe instead of accepting the outcomes of our choices. I don't wish this to go on. I wish we had gone extinct two millennia or more ago, that the Earth might have persisted as a galactic marvel, with plant and animal life that it could sustain naturally. I've read about it, but I've only ever known Earth as a dusty shithole we hold onto more out of habit than because there's anything worthwhile left here.
"This game arranged and played is for my pleasure, these toys meant for my peace of mind and to help me not feel so bad about the broad state of things anymore. A game with real stakes, real consequences. If we can coexist with these ancient and lethal beings, to teach them love and friendship by our example and give it freely, and maintain this attitude and harmony, I hope it will be a foot in the door for a nobler nature innate to both species in the future. If things go like before, or turn that way, humanity can't win in a war of eradication with Xenomorphs. They'll kill us all and take the Earth as their own. I'm fine with that too. Because something has got to change."
Shape's Notes
Mr. Death at this point in his life is a lost, unhappy man that's doing what he can to make a change in a world that seems hopeless to him. By the time Xenomorph Colony Seven goes public, he's a different person altogether. Nothing lasts forever, but Xenobia, Alcina, and Violet illuminated his grey life with joy, purpose, and the inevitability that nothing would ever be the same. I'm coming to know these characters as I write them, and each is more than my humble concepts of them proved to be.
Along those lines, I wrote a follow-up to Xenobia's telepathic journal last chapter, detailing the Communion she sought with Dracul. I would love for reviewers to vote whether I should publish that chapter or let the implications of it and the revelations about some characters appear later on. It isn't super explicit, but if I publish it, it's definitely going to take this story to an M rating, which may not be a bad thing. At the moment, we're seeing the Colony in happy times, but going public with an Earth-based hive of Aliens is not going to sit well with everyone outside of the Colony, and some might have foolish notions about the nature of the relationship between Homo sapiens and Plagarius praepotens.
If you don't want to learn more about Xenobia and Dracul, who would you like to see next chapter? Alcina? Violet? Dr. Jaeger? Taggart? The start of the Queens reproducing? It was a busy, happy five years in secret for Colony Seven, and I think it's worth getting into a lot of it before the cruel, brutal world takes its shots at this loving, unique family.
See ya next time and thanks for reading, reviewing, and caring about some nobody girl that thinks about Xenomorphs more often than not!
XOXO, Shapely Hips