highly viral infection and alien physiology

[BishopIII]

If it was an ALIEN  infected from the Alien in the THING. It would no longer be an ALIEN...it'd be a perfect copy. An imitation. It'd be the Thing.

 I tend to think of a virus as something that attacks & weakens its host.

Though for hostility...an ALIEN infected with the Rabies virus?  Viciousness with no reason

That depends on whether the Thing organism can imitate an Alien, since it must consume the host cells to duplicate them. The extremely corrosive body chemistry might be a problem - it could end up killing both simultaneously.


With Rabies, the alien would have to be born of a mammal, since Rabies is a mammalian disease. A nasty thought though, especially considering most aliens are human-hosted.