Why wasn't the little girl, Newt, not cocooned or killed by the Alien after she was captured?
It's not clear why would the little girl be just resting with that alien glue in there and not be infested with the embryo inside of her.
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1 Answer
Newt was very close to having a Facehugger attach to her, but Ripley came just in time.
How we know this is that the impregnation time of a Facehugger takes several hours or more to completely impregnate a host, so she was not already impregnated with the facehugger already dropped off by the time Ripley arrives.
Once a Facehugger is securely attached to a host, it inserts its proboscis down the victim's throat. This proboscis both supplies the host with suitable atmosphere for breathing and also implants the beginnings of a Xenomorph embryo in their esophagus, a process that takes several hours.
The other issue is that we don't know exactly how long it takes a Facehugger to be mature enough to hatch after the egg is laid by the Queen, we can only assume that it takes some time.
To sum it it all up:
Being that there was only one egg (there may have been more eggs but, from what we are shown, there was only one egg ready to hatch when Ripley arrived) there for Newt in close proximity, it would mean that from the time Newt was captured, the Queen had to lay an egg for her and have the Facehugger mature enough to hatch so as the impregnation process could begin.
As noted in the comments. Two issues are raised in regards to the egg hatching within 30 mins (as that is approximately how long Newt was captive for). It seems that because the Queen was still fastened to her egg laying tube that another alien had to of placed the egg in front of Newt, so we do not know if the egg was just laid or was a mature egg brought to Newts place of capture.
From there if the impregnation process was to take place it would be several hours before it drops off and we are none the wiser as if she was or was not impregnated with the Alien. So, there was just not enough time for all this to have happened. And the fact that Ripley comes just in time to kill what seems to be the only Facehugger around Newt at the time.
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There were plenty of other eggs in the room with the Alien queen. No matter how many were mature, they only needed one for Newt, and the one they used probably wasn't laid specifically for her. Also, the countdown makes clear the aliens had Newt for no more than about 30 minutes, including the time to carry her back to the nest, so in fact they were working rather quickly. Commented Apr 18, 2017 at 8:19
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@RoyalCanadianBandit, that is why I said that seemed to be the only egg in
close proximity(the eggs in the queen room were quite a bit away from where Newt was, plus was a different room all together.) and that we are not shown any others around her. But the placement looked to me like it was laid for her, but of coarse, there is no way to make a factual statement without something from the directors. Cheers.– KyloRenCommented Apr 18, 2017 at 8:25 -
But the Queen wasn't mobile while laying eggs; her egg-laying tube was glued to the ceiling. So one of the other aliens must have carried the egg over to Newt. Commented Apr 18, 2017 at 8:28
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@RoyalCanadianBandit, good point, but it still could be argued that it was a freshly laid egg carried to that room. Like I said, this is all speculation, but the fact that it did not open very soon after Newt was captured, does raise two issues. Does it take 30mins for a mature egg to hatch in the presence of a host? Or is it that it takes a newly laid egg 30 mins to mature, before emerging?– KyloRenCommented Apr 18, 2017 at 8:32