Seems like that ship was still doomed even without the saboteur because the science officer apparently studied at the School of Prometheus.
At some point this occured to me too. I mean how incompetent/careless were these people and they knew they were carrying highly dangerous alien specimen of which they knew very little about.
This whole ship should have been one giant flying lockdown cage with tripwires, liquid nitrogen all over ready to freeze everything T-1000 style and a batallion of Colonial Marines as backup. Especially when we know how much value W-Y is placing on this transport.
Then again i work in logistics and i know how careless people can get over time even with dangerous goods, much less over 65 years in a small and closed group. Humans just aren't built to be operating at a 100% over such a long stretch of time, small mistakes turn into habits and these are extremely hard to shake off.
What's even more terrifying than the monster designs themselves is their intelligence. We know that the Xenomorph has exhibited very sophisticated tactics but then again so does every high level predator on Earth. Eyeball alien seems almost human in its intelligence, did that thing try to actually warn the human scientist about the impending escape of the slugh aliens?
What if it itself is not malevolent at all, it's just misfortunate that it appears as a monster to us when it only wants to communicate ( but then again why take over the engineer, most likely killing him?)
If they existed in real life, I’d agree that they might just be “presenting” as conscious without actually being self-aware, just machines simulating it. But in-story, we’ve seen a lot through their eyes — with Wendy in particular being a major protagonist — so I think we’re supposed to take it as a given that whatever they are, they’re conscious. (Likewise Data!)
Maybe the children AI's are the result of them itself not being self aware and just replicating a child's mind and simulating its life and reactions? If they're AI at all, that is.
I hope they address this this season, this episode returned to the familiar Alien template ( though done well), i hope the next episode continues the world building.