Why no animal life ?

There was only plant life on earth for a couple million decades, before the first bigger organisms (than micro-) evolved to living outside the water. According only to science, not thirdparty colourful comic books ofcourse, so idk if thats legit.

Ha ha! You're a funny guy, Fifield! I wonder if Fire and stone is canon?

My thoughts on the subject is that the black goo has mutated the wildlife into somethin that is lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to confront the crew of the Covenant and scare the s**t out of the audience...

         " Bees have hives, man " 

I believe Fire & Stone is canon

Indeed it is Rick,Fire and Stone is just a frame of reference.I'm aware of plant life before any kind of life on earth,but the thing here is Paradise has had some kind of life.Whether it's engineer's or not remains to be seen.

canon for fans maybe not the (film) makers ^^

Once again,a frame of reference.

I'm not convinced F&S is canon. Anything Fox and RS says is canon, and that obeys the "rules" laid down in writing by said entities, is all that can be truly considered "canon", like it or not.

That is indeed a good point Starlogger,Ridley has said he is not beholden to the expanded universe.I wonder what this rule book means for the franchise in general.Back on topic,I do believe their was animal life on Paradise.Some time ago some one did a thread on some weird animal skeletons in Davids workshop.I'm having difficulties finding it though 

This is a interesting subject and one worth a good debate... we have to hope they have done research and have actual answers to why there is no signs of Life they dont have to tell us what this reason is... just as long as those behind the Story and Movie know a reason for it..

Much like the 10 Page Alien Rulebook we wont know every detail this contains but the Studio do and its a guideline for every person who works on future movies to reference towards.

Back to the subject....

I think we need to consider the reasons for it... here are potentially what could be at play... just my TWO Cents mind.

1) The Black Caused this.... but they would need to be following some guidelines that Prometheus set out, as that movie showed us the effects of the Black Goo and from infected Life new Life would arise... (Fire and Stone kind of stuck to this). We have  to consider unless they are adding a new effect of the Black Goo, that its unlikely this would have left no Life on the World, and also left the Engineers/Paradise Natives the way they appeared.

Also David would have needed life to experiment with so i cant see how he kills all life but keeps some back....  WELL I HAVE ONE THEORY... 

2) Paradise simply never had much Life Anyway, it had Trees, Water and everything for Life but no Actual Advanced Life apart from microscopic or even small life (insects/worms etc).  But i think this could be unlikely too, especially if this was in effect a loosely connected Garden of Eden in the context of the Franchise.

3) Some Energy Weapon or Virus (not Black Goo) that was released and killed off nearly all life on this World apart from Plant Life that can procreate without Pollination by the help of Animals or Insects or other Organisms.

============================

Some of the concept work from the Set Reports seemed to indicate mutations happening on the Trees and Spores growing from them....   If the Black Goo reacted how it was shown in the movie and could infect all life which includes Plant-life then surely Paradise would look like LV-223 did in Fire and Stone to some degree.

THE ONLY LOGICAL

Explanation i have is that some event made those above the Engineers or who created Paradise for a Purpose decided to pull the Plug like God did with the Great Flood and the Temple/Cathedral Complex was turned into some Noahs Ark

Where Specimens of Life was collected for Safe Keeping..

Before the Plug was pulled with some Virus or Energy Weapon or both that killed off all this Life, apart from those kept within the Safety of that Cathedral Complex... (And Plant Life)

When the beings on Paradise realized what the plan was they was attempting to get to this Place for Safety.

So when David and Shaw arrive there are Lifeforms and maybe Engineers or beings left but few in number and these was to repopulate the World after the Planned Extermination had happened.

The only other option is indeed as above but the Energy Weapon affected a area and the wildlife simply fled and migrated from the site of this Disaster (so wildlife may be on other parts of this World).

But then maybe they are not thinking things through and David Drops Black Goo that Burns and Mummified Engineers and made all other life simply vanish..

WHICH WOULD BE VERY POOR WRITING...

As far as Fire and Stone being Canon... i think this is a Grey Area...  and would imply Predators are also part of the Franchise...

The Source i had claimed that while Fire and Stone should not be considered direct Canon... the events and things that are shown in the series as far as ideas could very well be explored in the future of the Franchise.

What if the planet is not paradise in the way we perceive it to be?, what if the planet is a testing ground for creating humanoid life only, until david showed up and tookover(only speculation), sure it would need plant life to keep recycling and cleansing atmosphere and water to drink and who planted the wheat? david or was it the primitive humanoids or the engineers? remember Adam and Eve were plant eaters before the flood.

I tend to think you're on the right track airshaft_surprise.  This might not be Paradise yet, although I'm not entirely sure.

This planet could actually be more like Hell than Paradise and acts as a stop along the way to Paradise, which we'd see later.

Fox has been working pretty closely with the comic book guys this time around, so I think it's safe to say that the canon will line up a little better than, say, the whole Alien 3 nightmare.

That's not to say we should consider the comics to be taking place in the same reality as the films.  Film canon always trumps anything that happens in the comics/books, and they could change everything on us again in the next Big Deletion.  

If the AVP movies would have actually followed the comics, then AVP might not have resulted in such a mess for the company.  Let's try and erase those films from our memory.

This lack of life on the planet has been bugging me too.  If the black goo can act as an accelerant of evolution (like in the comics), then we would likely see various forms of life.  The fact we don't see anything other than hybridized plant life could potentially indicate this fertile planet wasn't seeded with the DNA by the Engineers in the same way Earth was...

I think the outbreak happened relatively recently in the grand scheme of things; weaponized goo with the broken down Alien DNA in it was released on the planet, which gives us ALIENS evolving at an accelerated rate (and dead Engineers). The goo acts as a chemical accelerant that helps Fire spread faster.

To add:  my guess is the infection spread through the trees like wildfire during the early stages of the initial outbreak, which drove most of the animals in the region away.

The Fire died down after wiping out the Engineers, leaving the infected spores & charred Engineer bodies behind.  Many animal species in the region died off during "the fire," yet the tree/plant species grew back even greener afterwards: the trees themselves are able to survive & reproduce, and there are some plants/seeds that have adapted to the fire.

It wasn't an extinction level event, but "the fire" drove most of the animal and insect species away from the bioregion.  The open grassland (where the crew lands and wheat is separated from the chaff) is left relatively unscathed by the fire because it's a fair distance away from the flames.

With all the Engineers dead, and without the birds and the bees to cross-pollinate spores, the seeds remain dormant until a viable host wanders along & falls prey to them.  Plants have both male & female parts to them, but if they don't cross-pollinate they're only producing a clone of the parent plant.

There are some species who migrated to different parts of the biosphere simply because they could.  Worker bees can leave.  Even drones can fly away.  The Queen is their slave. So the infected bee and bird species started building their "nests" in different locations.  They simply decided to start their new lives in a better spot.  As the seasons changed, the "birds and the bees" migrated between ecosystems, becoming part of new life cycles elsewhere in the biosphere.

So yeah, any birds left on the planet have learned to avoid this region by now.  Most wouldn't be caught dead building their nests here.  A few bird and bee species carried spores to other parts of the planet when they left and built hives there.  All the Engineers everywhere on the planet are dead, and David wants to get the hell off of it as soon as the company arrives. 

^are you a science-fictive biologist? hehe

I've been thinking about this way too much lol.  I'm trying to get inside Daniels' head a little bit with all the gardening ideas.

Whoever planted the seeds was working with domesticated wheat, causing Daniels to consider many of the possible implications.  Daniels' knowledge about gardening allows her to perceive things in a way that allows the filmmakers to approach the Garden of Eden ideas from different perspectives than Dr. Shaw, or W-Y private security.

I think Daniels almost immediately begins to understand how parts of the life cycle work, because she's constantly thinking about the life cycles of plants, animals, and insects in general.

Dr. Shaw might have a different view on the farming practices of the Engineers.  Some archaeologists think that farming is a necessary precursor to the emergence of full-scale civilization. The cultural evolutionist camp believes that all human cultures develop (or "evolve") along somewhat similar lines, and that farming happens after we leave hunter-gather and nomadic modes of subsistence.  If Dr. Shaw didn't plant the wheat herself, then she likely has her own set of questions about it.  

As always,very intriguing theory CarynDelacroix.I am uncertain about it because Paradise as well,starting with "The past to Paradise begins in hell."Comparable to the Divine Comedy.The way I figure it is this I indeed hell,hence no life only death.

As for the wheat,I believe i read somewhere that it can be self growing,though i wouldn't quote me on that.Also could corpses of engineers be used as fertilizer?

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking with that line from the trailer.  If they follow Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost, then we may need to pass through "Hell" to eventually make it to Paradise -- or possibly to get back to paradise. 

This could almost be like a pit stop along the path to Paradise that the trailer mentions. Depending on the way they arrange the films, I think they could go a few different ways with it.  

It's tough to say anything for certain at this point.  Having the two lines of the ALIEN in the film complicates things further... In some of the very early ideas Daniels was a security officer, but most of those ideas seem to have moved to the books.

If there are any worms in the soil on the planet, they can help the planet become more fertile.  With the Engineer bodies, they'd need to decompose and have their nutrients absorbed into soil.  The husks on the wheat might be a little too tough for them to be spread by the wind, but it's possible for those seeds to spread.  If it's wild wheat that hasn't been domesticated over several generations, it can be spread by the wind alone.  But what draws Daniels' attention is that someone has been modifying the seeds over time, replanting.  

I  believe that the burnt bodies are from a flashback, where we get to see what David's been up to the last ten years. When he set things in motion.

The field of wheat is ten years later, when things has started to grow back, mutated by the black goo, hence the spores. And this is when the crew of the Covenant arrives.

What buggers me is the size of the wheat! Is'nt it very large?

           " Bees have hives, man " 

As you have already suggested here, the mutagen/accelerant could have caused a xeno/neo/proto outbreak which is now on the top of the food chain and has wiped out all other life-forms. When the food is gone the aliens eventually die as well.

The other scenario is that there was a holocaust (electrocution) which wiped out all of the beings living there (engineers/hominids) perhaps due to the above?

Parkerparrot

The size of the wheat is possibly a result of slightly different environmental conditions + gardeners favouring larger sizes.  

Humans are growing larger as a species over time:  the ancient homo sapiens were much smaller than us.  "Big things have small beginnings," so an evolutionary process causes the species to progress from smaller to larger over time.  A similar process leads to a larger type of Engineer who eats the wheat, while the smaller ones are slaves who work the fields.

Those at the top of the food chain are the ones who eat most of the food.  The advent of farming leads to many changes in human culture, eventually creating divisions between haves and have nots.  After farming, we move to centralized city-states in the Fertile Crescent and Indus Valley from smaller, agriculturally-based egalitarian communities. Stock is taken: number systems, a mercantile class, and the Cuneiform language emerges. The "God-Kings" return to Earth at this point to see how far the human cultures have advanced, but they freak out when they see how fast it's now evolving. 

While playing around with bird skeletons in the lab, David starts looking at how an evolutionary process known as sexual dimorphism causes female birds to be much larger, on average, than male birds.  Things are the other way around in humans, so maybe sometimes small things do have big beginnings.  This could be what Ridley means about how evolution itself can be scary if approached from this angle. 

CarynDelacroix... That is a very interesting point You got there. And a very inteligent one, at that. The environment plays in to a great extent when it comes to evolution. In the Perm era (I believe) the atmosphaer had a very different composition compared to today, resulting in dragonflies big as eagles. Putting wheat on another planet with different circumstances could very much so lead to BIG wheat. Throw in the Engineers and black goo into the mix and... There you have it. 

I am so thrilled about this movie.

            " Bees have hives, man " 

You also bring up a really good point about the dragonflies as big as eagles.  The insect species can grow much larger if the environmental conditions are right.  But their body plans can sometimes limit how big they can grow (due to gravity).

Gravitational forces act upon the exo/endoskeletons; and gravity eventually causes the apple to fall from the tree.

The Apple branched off from the Pomegranate's ancient line after the gardeners started selecting for sweetness. Today there are over 5000 various types of apple; however, the pomegranate's ancient branch continues to be eaten by people who prefer pomegranates for whatever reason.  

Each type of "apple" has slightly different characteristics.  The Golden Delicious apples are the ones thought by many to be tasty.  In the Greek myth about Persephone, it's pomegranate seeds that Hades forces Persephone to swallow before he drags her to the underworld with him.  The Garden of Eden myth talks about Eve biting the Apple rather than the Pomegranate, because by that time the story had evolved...  

The River Styx (not Acheron) is the river by which the Gods made their Covenants with Hades and took their oaths.

Dr. Shaw has a degree in comparative mythology, but Daniels is the one who actually spends more time digging through the dirt and getting her hands dirty.  Shaw always had people doing the digging when she conducted archaeological digs, while Daniels spends more time considering ecosystems.

"There is nothing in the desert, and no man needs nothing." In a desert region, it's difficult to transform the environment into a habitat that fully supports life.  The Engineers are "mortal after all," so David understands that they require certain things. The Engineers need food and water like we do.  

The larger chest cavities of the Engineers would be what allows their lungs to filter air more effectively than us:  they need as much oxygen as we do (if not more) yet have ways of surviving in low oxygen environments for longer periods of time.  This gives the Engineer body plan advantages over humanity… Their large size and physique allows them to throw their weight around.  The smaller types of humans would be relatively powerless to stop some of the "higher-ups."

CarynDelacroix 

I just love the way how You get from insects to Apples to pomme granate to the river styx to Covenant!!! Wow!

But... (pause) A bigger body means more cells to transport oxygen to, wich allso means bigger lungs. Would i not be the case then that the Engineers would be more vulnerable to low oxygen conditions?

           " Bees have hives, man " 

I'm not too sure about the biological side of things yet with the lungs/chests.  People that live at higher altitudes are barrel-chested and can absorb more oxygen where the air is thin.  

I'm thinking the Engineers would require a lot more oxygen, as you say, but that they're able to take in so much air and filter it in a way that extracts as much oxygen as possible.  There's a certain amount of oxygen left over when we exhale normally.

Our lungs separate the oxygen from the carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and other gases in the air, but the plants need the carbon dioxide just as much as we need oxygen.  So the trees form part of larger lifecycles as producers.  The sun is the ultimate producer for that energy system, giving energy to the plants/trees etc.  If a planet isn't close enough to a sun to fully support life, we end up with a "shake 'n bake" colony where they need to artificially heat the surface of the planet ("bake").

When Prometheus started creating the goddess Aletheia out of clay, he had to go away from the workshop while she was baking in the oven.  His servant, Dolus (Trickery, who represents David/Davis) snuck into the workshop and decided to try his hand at creating his own version of Aletheia (Truth or Wisdom). Now there are two versions of Aletheia, or possibly even more if we include the Deacon's line... One of them is the real Aletheia, while the other one is a false version of her.

Just to clarify:  I think we'll be left uncertain if the Engineers or David created the eggs on this planet, or if Eggs/Xenomorph DNA is something that one group of Engineers stole from the others a very long time ago. There could be a few hints in the film that the Xenomorph's line is more ancient than the Neomorph and has been evolving for quite some time to get the opposable finger digits it's working on.  The Xenomorph is capable of manipulating its environment to suit its needs ("they cut the power"), so the opposable finger digits allow it to begin opening simple doors, pushing buttons on elevators etc.

CarynDelacroix

There's mythological traces all over this, everywhere! RS did'nt sleep during history an religionclass, that's for sure! And neither did You, I believe!

As for the xeno (a word that I actually don't like, since I am a purist and it first turned up i Aliens) theres no doubt they're intelegent, but in a different way from humans. when it comes to the origin of the biomechanical alien I am not sure what to make of it. It could be David but allso something else. "Something we have'nt seen..."

            "Bees have hive, man"   

"^are you a science-fictive biologist? hehe"

Hopefully one who does not like petting Space Cobras ;)

@airshaft_surprise

Indeed i think this is somewhat the general idea, that this place was indeed like the Garden of Eden, i think the Paradise reference has been all long to show us this place in context to The Garden of Eden this will play a role in a loose connection i am sure of it, this could be the Birthplace of Humanoid Life (Engineers or their Ancestors or even Descendants) which Humanoid life which includes our DNA Originated from.

@CarynDelacroix

Indeed we have to try and think if ways to explain this as i attempted to address in my previous post and simply having animals that simply fled from the effected area makes sense.

There are a few concerns with this, because we then have to ask what caused the Engineers or those beings to maybe only Populate this one area?  Are we left to assume this is the case?  Or have the Populated other areas on that World.

Which then we have to ask how come we dont see no more?

Surely David has not infected them all with Black Goo unless somehow when its released it will spread over the entire World...

I think maybe somekind of Energy Weapon could have done something to effect all life on the Planet apart from maybe Plant Life.

I would assume and especially if Humanoids inhabited other areas of this World that a Ancient Event wiped them out and over time the Fauna overtook and covered up all Evidence of a fallen Empire.

I think the Black Goo if in mass it lead to similar to the Sacrificial Scene could explain no life, because Life has been destroyed and broken down to kick start basic Microscopic life and the time frame has simply not been long enough for Evolution to Larger Organisms to take place.

Then those Charred or Soot covered Engineers/Humanoids remains do not appear to look like they have been infected by the Black Goo.... unless they was but then that Cathedral Complex had a Fail Safe Energy Weapon that would be used to prevent the spread of any infection by Zaping and Destroying Genetic Material so its no use and cant be infected and altered or maybe it just kills off the Black Goo itself.

But then we have to ask where did David get his Experiments.. And so i think that maybe some kind of Noah's Ark was built on Paradise that maybe those beings tried to get to before the Disaster had affected them.

@Parkerparrot and CarynDelacroix

Indeed in the ancient past, lifeforms did grow larger than they are today, and environmental forces impacted that the more life that evolves on a World the smaller indeed they seem to get (maybe this is why Chinese are smaller..  joke).

I think CarynDelacroix maybe you are reading to much into the Scientific Legitimacy of it all... maybe i have too as far as trying to figure out how this could be and this cant be etc...

We can only hope those behind the movie had done some of their Homework like you have for us to believe what we see in a more realistic way.

As you indeed made ONE massive Point

While not all Plant Life needs the helping hand of Organisms to help them Procreate, from animals eating the fruits to then be used to sow the seeds (via Defecation ) or via use of them to Pollinate like Insects are used for.

One thing i hope they have not Overlooked but maybe they have done... is indeed  Plant Life Needs CO2 and so there has to be some kinds of Organic Life to Produce this

Maybe this however is where the Cathedral comes in and the purpose of the Gold Structure on the Top?  A Terra-forming device?

Electricity and Electromagnetic Forces can be used to change elements and break apart some Chemicals, such as breaking down Water to Produce Hydrogen and Oxygen.

Science is even working out ways that Gold and Electricity can be used to create Oxygen from CO2, therefore not needing Plant Life to Re-cycle this for us..

Maybe this Cathedral has Technology that can reverse such experiments so that it can create from Oxygen everything Plant Life needs to survive?

As far as the WHEAT goes.. i think we have to assume that Shaw did not have any, i mean why would she smuggle some? she surely knew LV-223 would not support life like this and she assumed her only option was the Lifeboat.

So we have to assume it (Wheat) was native to Paradise, if the Engineers are connected to Paradise and we are connected to the Engineers, then why assume that Plant Life  (or some) could not have been brought to Earth from Paradise.

As far as Daniels saying it looks Planted, maybe she could tell it was or she could not figure out why Earth Crops would grow on a Alien World.

Maybe again inside that Cathedral was stored various crops and plant samples and so again this Building is like a Noah's Ark

Sorry people's correction, i should have said  Adam and Eve were plant eaters before the expulsion from the garden. sorry bouts that!