Moebius' concept

From

The Design Of The Derelict

a) When Moebius arrived on the project and stayed for a short time, Ridley had him design a derelict ship and Moebius came up with a view of the vessel in the distance on a landscape and a closeup of the vessel's observation dome. The shape of it might be comparable to a space rocket capsule or an inverted spinning top.

Moebius's derelict ship

Moebius' derelict with
observation dome

a.ii)  Addition derelict concept sketches for Alien

b) In the Ridleygram of the derelict being revealed,  Ridley drew more than one of Moebius' derelict and connects the pods with long bridge tunnels. He told Fantastic Films in an interview that it was Moebius's design. The way that Ridley drew the derelict closer up makes it look organic as if it has been slight Gigerised and because of the shape resembles Giger's egg silo. At this stage, Ridley's own design for the egg silo was based on Giger's Castle Harkonen from Dune shown in Giger's Necronomicon.

Ridlegram: Derelict is revealed

c) Giger's breast shaped egg silo was initially a pyramid that soon undergone an extreme transformation in design to something more organic looking.

Giger's Egg silo design, work378

d) In the Ridleygram showing the exterior of the derelict, is the hole an entrance or an observation dome hole. In Moebius' derelict ship, on the side there is an observation bubble where the pilot seat faces towards.

Ridleygram: Exterior Of Derelict

e) In the Ridleygram of the derelict entrance, in the distance, out through the entrance, on the side of the pod in the distance we see the side of the observation dome.

Ridleygram: Derelict Entrance

f) Ridley told Fantastic Films magazine that this pod was his interpretation of Moebius design, but also we know that he has been using the Giger's Necronomicon as a bible. Ridley Scott was not satisfied with these ideas, and he thought that Moebius design looked too Victorian so he was keen to take it a step in new direction.

1. Ridley Scott: This was a Moebius idea of the derelict. It's actually rather nice and slightly archaic and feintly Victorian for some reason or other. I quite liked it but we finally decided, it simply wasn't strange enough - not unearthly enough. It was too normal, so therefore Giger came up at a much later stage and did another one (p28, Fantastic Films (GB) #2/(US) No.12)