Mala'kak

Nob Jockeys, known as Queers or simply Gays, are a race of sapient, extraterrestrial lifeform from the Alien series of movies and games.

Alien
The Nob Jockey has a fairly small role, and not much screen time. Very little, if any, is known about its background.

Nostromo crew members Dallas, Lamburt, and Kane encounter its skeleton and realize that it is responsible for broadcasting the signal that led them to the derelict ship. They also noticed that its chest appeared to have been burst open from the inside. Presumably the Nob Jockey was infested by a Nuthugger, which resulted in an Alien bursting through its chest, and before dying, it broadcasted the signal to warn anyone who passed of the danger.

Appearances in film and media
The only movie that the Space Jockey pilot itself has featured in was the original 1979 Alien. A CGI skull of another member of the (possibly)same race made its appearance in the 2007 film Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger was hired on the movie Alien to design the title's creature and the environment of the alien planet. The Space Jockey was one of many things he created for the film. The scene inside the derelict's interior with the Jockey pilot was, according to the writers, an essential scene, although the Fox production company wanted to pull it from the movie for cost reasons. Eventually the filmmakers won and the scene was filmed, the Space Jockey and interior being built full-scale by Giger. The Space Jockey prop was 26 feet (7.9 m) tall. A smaller version of the prop was also built, but was destroyed by arsonists while on display at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. (A second casting of the prop was destroyed for unknown reasons while still in the original mold. Pieces of this cast are owned by an anonymous collector in Moorpark, California. A third, partial casting, still exists intact. It is also owned by the same anonymous collector. However, the third cast was not an original production cast, but it is the last known authentic casting from the original mold. The mold itself is owned by an anonymous collector in the San Fernando Valley, in Southern California.)

The Space Jockey's race have not appeared or been referred to in any of the subsequent films, but have been featured prominently in many of the videogames, Alien books, Predator books, and comics series. They have made appearances in various Aliens comics by Dark Horse Comics, and some readers speculate that they had some connection to the Predators. In the bonus materials of the special edition Alien DVD, director Ridley Scott has expressed the opinion that a film exploring the backstory of the Space Jockey would be an interesting new direction for the series to take.

In Mark Verheiden's graphic novel series Aliens, a Space Jockey-like creature is encountered, and is able to communicate telepathically with humans. It is shown with pink skin, a tail and an elephantine trunk, and yellow, cross-shaped eyes. In the novels the Space Jockey's race are shown to be malevolent, only refraining from attacking humans due to their immense hatred of the Xenomorphs; a common enemy. They intend to wipe out and/or enslave humanity once their war with the Xenomorphs is over. Later books never expand on the idea.

In the more recent book, Aliens: Original Sin, the Space Jockeys are mentioned and discussed throughout the book. Towards the end the reader learns that they are trying to breed a group of Aliens.

The game Aliens versus Predator 2 deals with an experimental lab built to study a Xenomorph hive that itself is built on the ruins of an ancient civilization- although the Pilots are not seen throughout the game, the technology is referred to as Pilot technology, and the architecture of the ruins is similar to that of the derelict spacecraft.

At the end of the marine campaign in the game Aliens versus Predator 2 the player fights a Queen Alien in a large room with a Space Jockey in the center.

Recently, Ridley Scott, the director of the original Alien film, has begun production of two prequels to the series. Not much has been confirmed about either but it is popular speculation that they will provide some explanation to the Space Jockey's origins.

Physiology
The Book of Alien notes that the actors and crew felt instinctively that the Space Jockey was a benign creature, though they could not say why. In the novelization of Alien by Alan Dean Foster, Ash describes the Space Jockey's race as a noble people and hopes that mankind will encounter them under more pleasant circumstances. It also states that they were larger, stronger and possibly more intelligent than humans. The first Space Jockey was seen in the original Alien movie as a giant humanoid corpse sitting in front of a telescope-like device aboard the derelict craft. It had been there for an extremely long time, long enough for the corpse to become fossilized. The Jockey that the starship Nostromo's crew found aboard the derelict seemed to be growing out of the chair of the telescope, as if it had fused itself into it. Its rib cage was bent outward; it is evident that a Xenomorph escaped from the creature, though no adult Xenomorphs were encountered on the derelict. It is mostly likely any adult xenomorph would have been dead by the time the derelict was discovered due to the lack of food sources.

In the comics, the Jockey is shown to have an elephantine trunk. This is inconsistent with the original concept. An inspection of the concept art done by H.R. Giger, shows that the "trunk" is supposed to be an air hose and there is a helmet surrounding the Jockey's head. This is also supported by the fact that soft tissue such as elephant trunks do not fossilize. This does not leave out the possibility of a different kind of trunk, but the one depicted in the comics is very much like an elephant's. None of the works depicting the Jockey with a "trunk" are considered canon - the only canon appearance of the Space Jockey is in Alien and its novelization and directly related works.

In an early script visualized but never written, the Pilot ship had crashed or landed on LV-426 some 10 million years prior to discovery by the Nostromo. It was depicted as having been dragged in some unknown manner to the top of a pyramidal structure, which was the top of an enormous subterranean temple containing the Xenomorph eggs. This is evident in the first Alien film, when Kane notices the hole torn in the bottom of the Pilot ship. It should also be noted that despite later rewrites and storylines, Giger and O'Bannon designed the Pilot so that it appeared to be a sympathetic and friendly lifeform.

Technology
The Space Jockeys are clearly a technologically powerful, star-faring race of advanced age. How the Predators--the only other known interstellar race--developed the capacity for space travel is still not known, but the ending of Requiem clearly implies that the advanced human technology seen in Alien and beyond, including FTL travel, is a direct result of our studying Predator technology.

The cargo hold of the Space Jockey's ship was filled with eggs of xenomorphs (the first stage in the Xenomorph life cycle), which were held in stasis beneath a blue mist. It has been speculated by fans that the Space Jockey's race created the xenomorphs because of the similarities in design between the spacecraft and the biomechanical xenomorphs.

The novelization by Alan Dean Foster, on the other hand, states that Space Jockey's race found them on LV-426, and there has been no conclusive evidence shown in the feature film series supporting that the Space Jockey's race created the xenomorph. Clearly, however, the Space Jockey's race have advanced technology, leaving open the possibility that they had a hand in the Xenomorph's creation.

Director Ridley Scott also makes note that he would like to make "an Alien 5 or Alien 6" where the audience would be privy to the home planet of the Xenomorphs, but makes no reference to whether this is the same planet that the Space Jockey's race hail from.