- "Alien royal jelly. The stuff that made the right land of drones into queens."
- ―Aliens: Genocide
Royal Jelly, also called Alien Jelly,[1] and more colloquially known as bug juice, was a potent, transformative substance produced by a Xenomorph Queen.
Overview[]
Royal Jelly produced by a Queen or Queen Mother was believed to be involved in the creation of new Queens, similar to the way terrestrial bees and other eusocial insects create fertile queens. Royal Jelly could be used to create Praetorians from Drones if the situation called for it. If the Queen died and there were no Praetorians to take her place or Royal Facehugger's are nearby, the Royal Jelly could be a last resort to creating a new Queen. Its exact purpose is unknown, however. On earth, Queen Mother royal jelly was highly prized over the typical variant from typical queens.
The Jelly is unique to every Queen, making each Hive different. It is also extremely addictive to humans if used as a drug, offering its users a euphoric sense of bliss and wonder.[2] However, too much exposure to Royal Jelly can lead to heavy mutation, as was the case with Prof. Kleist's Bug-Men.
History[]
Alien-Earth War[]
In the aftermath of Earth's infestation in the late 22nd century, humans harvested Royal Jelly from the remaining Xenomorph Hives, where it was refined and marketed as the performance-enhancing drug Xeno-Zip by the Grant Corporation. Known on the street as "Fire", the drug also contained a minuscule amount of Royal Jelly recovered from the remains of the Queen Mother destroyed on Earth. Less potent synthetic versions were manufactured as supplies of the pure substance dwindled, and therefore the United States Colonial Marine Corps mounted a recovery operation to G-435 for more.
The Xenomorph drone Ol' Blue was used by authorities to search out junkies and drug dealers selling Royal Jelly. Since Blue was from a different Hive than that of the Jelly drug being sold on the street, Blue furiously hunted for the scent of the Jelly as if sensing another opposing Hive.[2]
BG-386[]
Weyland-Yutani scientists extracted Royal Jelly from the Matriarch and utilized it in multiple experiments and tests. Additional quantities of Royal Jelly were stored in containment cylinders.
Lunar Maru[]
Aboard the Lunar Maru, Gropius Lysenko had been genetically altering Linguafoeda Royal Jelly in an attempt to open their alien consciousness to a human scale of understanding, even going so far to test it on himself, the effects of which were unforeseen. Ultimately, his experiments revealed that the altered Jelly greatly accelerated Linguafoeda's reproductive cycle.
Trivia[]
- The concept of Xenomorph-produced 'royal jelly' is first mentioned by Bishop in Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Aliens.[3]
- The substance first appeared in its physical form in issue 3 of Aliens: Female War.
- The 1991 comic book series Aliens: Genocide was the first of many comics to feature "Royal Jelly" as a highly sought after commodity.
- In the 1995 point-and-click computer game Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure, the formula used to synthesize Royal Jelly was BE + NO + Dil + Egg Slime.
- In the 2010 video game Aliens vs. Predator, canisters of Royal Jelly serve as the collectible item of the Alien campaign. Once the player has found and smashed all of the canisters, they will unlock the trophy/achievement "Quite a Specimen."
- Some have theorized that it was close contact with Royal Jelly, as a result of destroying these canisters, that caused Specimen 6 to turn into a Queen.
- The black liquid has a similar effect on organisms as Royal Jelly, only the effects are more acute.
Appearances[]
- Aliens (novel) (mentioned only)
- Aliens: Female War/novel
- Aliens: Genocide/novel
- Aliens: Harvest/novel
- Aliens: Colonial Marines (comic series)
- Aliens: Cargo (mentioned only)
- Aliens: Music of the Spears/novel
- Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure
- Aliens: Havoc
- Aliens vs. Predator (video game)
- Alien: River of Pain (indirect mention)
- Alien: The Roleplaying Game (mentioned only)
Gallery[]