The Derelict

"The Derelict" was a the name given to the long wrecked spacecraft discovered ny the crew of the Nostromo on the planet LV-426 in the 1979 science fiction film, Alien. The Derelict was an alien ship, however it extremely unlikely that it was created by the by the species that the titular alien creature was one of. Rather, this ship was used and most likely constructed by a different race of beings from the title creature.

The Derelict was large, wishbone-shaped craft with three large vaginal-like openings in front of what is assumed to be the control room. It is from one of these openings that three of the crew members (Captain Dallas, Navigator Lambert, and Executive Officer Kane) entered the ship. The interior of the Derelict seemed to resemble more of a giant beast than a spacegoing vessel with circular gangways and passages In a very large room on a turntable-like structure was a giant alien life form that appeared to have been dead for a long time, since it was fossilized. It appeared to have grown out of it's equally enormous chair. It was sitting at a giant telescopic object that pointed upward that is assumed to be the pilot's controls. It also had a huge hole in it's chest with bones bent outward, like it exploded from the inside.

Very little is known about this creature inside the Derelict, which the Alien production team called the "Space Jockey". (Although the creatures designer H.R. Giger simply named it "The Pilot").

In a large hole near the side of the Space Jockey's "turntable" was a pit leading down to an enormous cave-like cargo hold filled with thousands of leathery eggs, covered by a thin layer of blue mist that reacted when broken.

It is generally assumed that the Derelict was destroyed in the thermonulcear explosion from the atmosphere processor in Aliens. The Derelict was never seen again after Alien save for it's brief appearance in the 1991 Special Edition of Aliens.