Expect more Black Goo in Alien: Covenant!

Well, this post is in 2 places, so I am going to put the same thing here as I did in the other...

I agree, that certainly looks to be the case.  But they don't appear to be in a similar setting as in 'Prometheus'.  The setting looks more like catacombs.  The different size urns has always been interesting to me.  Sarcophagus and the remains of Engineers in them, like a recent post was suggesting?

Good call Membrane, they do lookore catacombs than the hull of a Juggernaut.

They have buried it in a mountain like vault on their own planet. Maybe they kept it there as they saw the "threat" of their creators. Hence, now, why the planet "paradise" is no longer paradise...but a nightmarish dreamscape that the Covenant crew will land on and find out just how deadly it is.

I think this is more of a temple or catacomb setting, not a weapons facility. Perhaps inside of the ruins, where the dead alien species were lying around and on the steps?

Could be part of a prologue, or flashback scene.

I noticed some pictures hanging behind him. Could be art department papers for the design of the urn system.

Or, perhaps the Ampules themselves were stolen by the Engineers? The image above definitely makes me think of a catacomb or "just another tomb". I can't make out what's behind Ridley to the top left. But what if these Ampules were a symbolic creation by the Engineer's own creators? A method of continuing life after death by transforming their bio-matter into something else? So many questions...

It could be Ron Cobb design. 

Cool shot ... that looks like an Alien hand, coming up on his righ-hand shoulder lol ... glad to see I got the font right on the crew patch though ...

David007, thanks, I was looking for that picture (in between trying to work) to show the possible similarities.

Membrane...perhaps this could be part of their temple system. I recall the picture of the massive death scene of Engineers we saw very early on. They were going up a ramp as I remember, this could be the interior.

Exactly my thoughts as well.

Also by the appearance of the large statues, I am reminded or early Rome and Greek art they had throughout the cities. Large statues of their gods and if themselves. I'm sure they would have the same set up.

Catacombs on the Engineer homeworld could be friggin' awesome and creepy as hell. Would certainly make for some great set pieces.

Thankfully, Scott and crew are using a lot of pratical effects.

Indeed..... this is what i posted on the other thread

Yes very interesting...

The question is that location where they store the Urns for use on set?  Or is it actually from a set...

If its the later then it would mean those Urns are stored in some kind of more Ancient but very non-Engineer Bio-Mechanical  Catacomb

This could show maybe there is a lack of Bio-Tech on Paradise? or maybe not.... it could show that these Urns have been there for thousands of years and then we have to ask was they transported from LV-223

But then it could just as easily be that David has hidden them away in such a place... but yes interesting that Urns play a role...

I think this time maybe Ridley would show us more of how you get from those Urns to a Xenomorph.

Very encouraging key elements of the Engineer culture are reappearing in scheduled and unscheduled material as well as new insights. Clearly the world that David, Shaw and the Covenant arrive at has suffered a catastrophe. The central question remains, was this David bringing hell or some thing much further back. Whatever the challenges of LV223, they have arrived on Paradise or indeed we find out they originated on the homeworld.

Now we know more about the nature and composition of the Covenant, Danny has said they were searching for a new world, it seems the dark side of the planet was hidden from their view as they make the choice. The lander in the pristine wilderness of Paradise has a good deal to uncover and Ridley is clearly offering rich pickings. That the why the Zeno and the Urns appear in the same movie is good for the potential survival of all of our pads and lap tops where we hammer away at our speculations on Urns, Eggs and their connective tissue.  

The lack of a Bio-Mechanical Look to these Catacombs is interesting..... could it be Paradise has different architecture more inline to Ancient Man did thousands of years ago....

These kinds of constructions on set is a specialty of one of the Artist on Production Geoff Kemmis

Maybe our Paradise Engineers did not possess Bio-Tech?

This shot does not look like it belongs to LV-223 and so i think we could rule this out.. maybe?

But as Janek did say they would not build these Weapons on their own Back Yard.... is maybe important?

Could it be David has placed them there? However those Shelves do look ideally right size to store the Urns... is this Coincidence?  Did David do some Construction to build a Stone House himself lol

So its interesting to figure out how such things got there.... David?  or are they there from a long time ago and we have to suggest it has to be from thousands of years ago.

Surely while its hard to think how a Advanced Race could have had such a outbreak on LV-223 that near destroyed them all.....

If they knew of this outbreak... or not but they knew the potential of these Urns... why would they keep them on Paradise?

Unless it was a faction who had presented these to another faction like Pandora and her Box... thus like a Gift, a Trojan Horse.

Another idea is it could be a Flashback Scene... maybe not even set on Paradise, or LV-223 etc.

So yes very interesting and looks like we would see the Goo again... but where this shot is, well that could be any place really.

Likely to be Paradise or some other World either present Alien Covenant time 2104 or Thousands of years ago.

Indeed Michelle...

The Source which again is to be taken with pinch of salt... had suggested Covenant seems it could carry over themes from Prometheus 2 Pandemonium/Paradise Lost

A interesting thing they said was about Generations of Mankind... and how Evolution is not how we perseve... thus i think they hinted at us not Evolving from Apes but from Engineers.

They also said that Biblical Accounts, of Punishment should be taken as not literal as in the Bible.. but they are events that had occuried just not in exact context to how the Bible says... they hinted towards how the Movie was bigger than being based around Earth... and that Paradise Lost we have Heaven, Earth, Paradise, Garden of Eden and Hell all located within the confines of Earth.

But Prometheus showed this is not the case.... i.e Paradise is not near Earth....

And so when i consider what they was trying to suggest,  they seemed to hint at maybe these Biblical events had happened to previous Generations and Ancestors who may then be related to Engineers?

When we look at that Scene of Disaster with Bald Humanoids all in pain and dying on those Steps... maybe this is a scene of such Biblical Punishment for Sin?

So if we look at that....

Maybe we could throw a theory that what if the LV-223 Engineers where kicked out of Paradise and then Punished....  some of them then escaped and had to find some place else to move....

These Fallen Engineers maybe forgotten about by those on Paradise and the Fallen had then stolen Fire and dabbled in a all manner of things and ultimately then returned to punish those who threw them out of Paradise?

@ BD The Urns may belong to the pre paradise lost phase of the Engineers history housing the pre Zeno strained catalyser we saw in the early sacrificial scene. This is good goo perhaps. The Engineers in the quarry appear to be related to our lone acolyte rather than the more militaristic suited and booted type. What we may see is a pristine innocent ancient world which has been destroyed by the LV223 guys or our young and beautiful Lawrence of Arabia. The former a serious war caused by Paradise Lost or the latter a Trojan Horse.         

HI BD Yes two obsessive hobbyists minds think alike !

This is Evolution as we have been taught... Biblical and other Religions and Cultures have us created in the image of God, which some cultures God is not Monotheistic there are Gods... but be it Monotheism or Polytheism nearly all cultures had multiple level of Gods

Different Hierarchy  be that God/Angels, Titans/Olympians and Annunaki/Igigi

But in each we Man was created in their image...

And so when i look at the Sources comments, which they suggested Mankind now is 4th or 5th Generation of Evolution  and we are in the image of these Gods in which Engineers are part of this Tree...

If we look at the Evolution from Ape Image above... then we replace the Ape with Engineers or a race previous to them.... and as this Evolution we see Man come from Small Ape and we get more Human and more larger as we go up the scale...

If we reverse this and start with some Engineer Related Being... and Gradually each Evolution the beings get smaller instead... maybe less advanced too.

This could then fit in with the Engineers and our DNA Match...

A number of Ancient Cultures had it that when Man was created he was Alone... first of his Generations... and latter Woman was created... in Mans image and shortly after this that Mankind Fell.

If what the source seems to hint at, we are Evolved from the Engineers.... then the scene of destruction we have Females but they look like Engineers.

Could these be the next stop of the Engineers Evolution where they had then gained Females..?  This lead to their Fall... and Punishment?

The source hinted at connections but not to take them too literal but definitely as things that have happened. They also hinted that the means these Engineers or the Hierarchy Terraform Worlds and Manipulated Worlds to be able to support life is a Dangerous Tool as is the Tool of Creation of Life if used wrong..

They hinted at this a while ago... but one of the last things they said other week was that the Process they can Terraform creates hostile conditions, terrible storms, even cause Floods, or Heat a Planet to desert or freeze it to a Iceage and these things are required sometimes to START a Fresh

So yes i think such things could be connected..

Ridley did say after Prometheus came out the Engineers had played a role in Evolving Mankind not only Technologically but Genetically over many thousands of years.

Indeed Michelle ;)

And i hope it looks like somethings they was trying to show us.. this different path that steers away from Alien and Xeno... is not going to be completely forgotten

The Urns are interesting... because the Source said Prometheus had all the clues right in front of us, but they was vague and not highlighted enough to figure out... Prometheus 2 was to give a bit more detail to this without being a Xeno movie.. they claimed 20% Xeno Related, and Prometheus was more as far as Screen time.. but less of a DNA match.

They claimed with David that all you need to Re-Create the Xenomorph is the Tools and Knowledge and David possess both...  This hinted to me that we dont have a Origin as such from A-Z as far as Deacon to Xeno... or Alien Covenant Xeno to Xeno in Alien... but that its via a process with a Tool and Knowledge which hints the event could have happened thousands of years ago... but it could also happen again now...

Maybe like the invention of the Bow... this was invented thousands of years ago.... but if you left a group of young children on a Island with no contact maybe they will over Generations re-invent such a Weapon.

Maybe thats not a good analogy...  but if there is a process from Goo to Xeno maybe this means Xeno could had been created thousands of years ago... but can also be re-created to show how it would have been thousands of years ago...

Maybe a more detailed process than Prometheus... which left many confused...    Lindeloff said the Deacon was a Progenitor to the Xenomorph....

The source claims the process we saw is similar, but the Deacon has a way to go as far as Evolution.  So this does not mean the Deacon ===> leads to Alien... but events similar to the Deacon ===> Lead to the Xeno thousands of years ago?

And maybe re-created once more....

If on Paradise we have beings related to Engineers who had females as in those scenes... and the Urns are involved and the source claims it was  Parasite as its original intention (before Fox tried to make it more)  then the Process of Holoway to Shaw... could have happened between Engineers and Female ones.. or what ever beings is in that Ancient Scene... (or is it at the hands of David? i doubt it).

And the Covenant is a Colony Ship with couples.. we have so far cast and if we assume they are all crew (apart from the two Davids, and Shaw)  then we have 8 males and 5 females.

If this is 5 couples... thats a lot of ways to Re-create the Xenomorph... however.... the crew arrive to something Evolving.... and so Originally the threat may not be from the Crew...

Maybe Shaw? or something from thousands of years ago?

can't wait

The smallest brownish coloured urn on the left is a dead ringer for a Baghdad Battery.

Maybe thats a clue.... remember this theory did appear a while ago on here....

Could these Urns had been Powercells.... where they Power the Ships... but the Engineers had other uses?

Its a theory that maybe does not hold any real substance... maybe the Bagdad Battery was instead a Empty Engineer Urn.

But if i try and see how a Battery could fit in.. here it goes..

1) The source said the movie has a Matrix connection and theme... this may be about Creator/Creation Rebellion and Punishment.... but other elements doubtful is the (its all a Dream/Matrix) concept..

However.... there was a purpose.. those Machines who we created who then over thrown us... started to use Bodily Fluids from Humans as a Power Source... Humans where suspended in like Cryo-Pods/Bacta Tanks and fluids where drained from them and these Humans where kept in a Dream like unreal virtual World the Matrix.

2) The Temple mound is very similar to HR Gigers Harkonnen, where the idea was that the Temple functions by converting living beings into energy.

And so yes indeed that could mean the Urns are broken down material as a Power Source..

But i doubt this is the case.

@Lone; yes it does. Also, the urn next to it is a lot wider than the other urns to the right of Ridley.

I'm assuming that it and the bagdad battery next it have a different use to the other urns?

This could be interesting, I would like to learn a bit more about the black goo but not too much. I am not interested in seeing LV-223 again better make a new place for that.

David007:

CGI can be good if it is done right but I prefer practical effects in general. The Fifield monster is a case where I think that CGI would have been better. One thing that is good about the original Star Wars movies is that they didn’t use CGI as far as I know or if they did they didn’t have too much of it. The prequels over-did that which is one reason why they weren’t as good as the originals.

As Big Dave says it would be interesting to see how they go from the urns to a Xeno although we don’t need to be shown the whole process. I hope that we will not be shown the whole process about how the Xenos were made.

Michelle J:

“That the why the Zeno and the Urns appear in the same movie is good for the potential survival of all of our pads and lap tops where we hammer away at our speculations on Urns, Eggs and their connective tissue.”  

One thing that I like about that is that if they use the Xeno and the urns in the movie it will make the urns from Prometheus make more sense. If people then go back and watch Prometheus after AC then the urns might make more sense so I think that it is good for Prometheus that AC gets done.

@ everyone. 

I have been very strong on the catalyser ingested in the sacrificial scene being "different' to the zeno stained black goo in the vials. My arguments were based around the outcome of the worms, fifield and the domino effect of Charlie's drink. As we know the cup which carried the goo was not unlike the top of the Urns which David unscrewed and in the trailer was on the alter. I have also been puzzled by the Urns being left in homage to their God Head their deity whom we know will reappear on Paradise. Why make penitential offerings of the zeno strain to your God with whom you have rebelled it would appear like a tease.

Seeing Ridley sat in the Catacombs rather like he is in a pub in the North East of England with a lot of rare real beer and my assertion this is the pre fall catalyser, lead me to the following.

1) The catalyser is the fire it is the bringing of life PROVIDED IT IS USED IN THE BLESSED WAY THAT IS SANCTIONED BY THE CREATORS. The blessed way is for the gardeners to ingest and sacrifice, that leads down to the catalysing and beginning of complex life through the re organising of DNA strands witnessed at the beginning of P R O M E TH E U S.   

2) Over Eons the Engineers tired of their role and rebelled against their creators (Paradise Lost, the Sumarian Legends). They began to take the fire (The Promethean Myth) and use it in ways that were not sanctioned. They wished others to pursue their sacrificial role and set up LV223 for their experiments they gave the Catalyser to mankind (earlier visits BD) and in Fifield and Holloway we can see the horrific effects in their infancy, in A L I E N we saw a branch of the outcome in the Egg Morphing. Even the worm to hammerpede shows the enormous power of the fire when it is used outside of its sanctioned purpose. 

Mankind is connected to the origins of the Zenomorph. A mere drop of it lead to the birth of the Trilobite but who birthed the Trilobite, Elizabeth (Black Goo + Woman leads to multiple vulva'd Miss T.

This represents the fall by the Engineers their rebellion lead to their punishment on both Paradise which will be explained in C O V E N AN T and turned round on them on LV223.

This is the reason why they wished to destroy us as revenge for their punishment for using mankind (echoing the myth of Satan and Paradise Lost).

For the woken Engineer to hear mankind had arrived seeking immorality when they had been punished for us was in a sense the ultimate irony and doubled the Engineers desire to fulfil his task.

In the same way that David told us through his curiosity with Holloway the story of what had happened on LV223 (Mankind plus Catalyser leads to Zeno) so when he arrives at Paradise he will fueled by his curiosity, pursue the notion further and introduce his own unique mechanical qualities into the mix (why Bio mechanoid and the big idea of his re integration). What we will not know until we receive the movie is how Shaw and Daniels dealt with this horrific truth. I think the military trained Daniels may be revealed at the political level as the antagonist who redeems herself, Elizabeth may only find her answers by a transformation we can only guess at (technically she is alive I think is the phrase). 

So for me I am calling it their is one Goo it is the fire of the origin of life and the Engineers were punished for its misuse and one of the side effects of offering it directly to Mankind was the Zeno strain which we will see evolve still further in C O V E N A N T.                     

@BD

When we look at that Scene of Disaster with Bald Humanoids all in pain and dying on those Steps... maybe this is a scene of such Biblical Punishment for Sin?

Just to finish/elaborate on my view that the Black Goo is the "fire of life" I wanted to deal with several elements which might appear anomalous. On both Paradise and LV223 there has been a catastrophic loss of life by the Engineers of biblical proportions. We know from your source that within the hierarchy is the power to terraform, create storms, heat, ice ages etc. I think the retribution meted out on both Paradise and LV223, where large scale elements of civilisation were wiped out, came from the exercising of such power. Indeed the changes that occurred to the temple and the storm may represent an activation (whether latent or immediate) of such powers.

The reason the Engineers were flooding into the head room was to escape such retribution, you can see in the Quarry scenes the same attempt to retreat to somewhere that was deemed safe. The Engineers who were wearing their pilot masks may have simply been trying to get away and not connected directly to the Earth mission.

Why did an Engineer survive , in mythos and story telling  there are alway exceptions, he may have simply got lucky with his timing.

How was David able to remove the Black Goo without it going nuclear this was the beginning of him gaining the "tools and the knowledge" which will be pursued much further.

Clearly the Engineers engaged in life cycle experiments and produced a Deacon which was celebrated in the mural and it was subsequently entombed. The idea that it was sacrificed to create the Zeno strain may have been  considered but that we see the symbol of that idea removed and replaced with an ALIEN shape fused into the alter can as the story unfolds allow for that notion to be dropped just as the Goo in the movie was no longer associated with the green coloration but was black and seemed more related to the liquid moving around the Engineers body canals as they broke down at the beginning .       

Nothing is certain but retribution on a biblical scale seems to have entered the story and rather than D & S arrive at a Paradise that is alive and isn't what it seems it is indeed a post retribution world which to the Covenant crew isn't what they thought and shares that same sense as LV223. The events and elements seen on Prometheus are returning, they must be part of the story  and one that makes clearer their meaning but their was sufficient ambiguity in their portrayal in Prom that they have had room to tweak what was in their minds when Daniel and Ridders discussed during the making of Prom how these matters would play out in the sequel.

Through Spaihts to Lindelof to movie it evolved and it may have kept on evolving after the movie was made given it was lose enough to move down a slightly different pathway. The good news right now is all these things are appearing.      

I completely agree with Chris.  

I don't believe the urns are Engineer tech at all.  The writing on the urns, and the Engineer writings throughout the dome are very very different.

The writing on the urns is organized in columns instead of the rows we see for engineer text.  The lettering/words/alphabet also looks completely different to me.  The urns lack the cuneiform like style that the Engineers use.

@Jeffomorph am I being exceptionally stupid but where does Chris talk about writing on the Urns. I have read his thread starter and remarks and see no reference here to writings on the Urns. Can you fill me in ?  

I was agreeing with Chris that the Engineers possibly stole or found the urns.  The writings on the urns appears quite different than the other Engineer writings we see around the temple.  This could possibly mean that the Engineers did not create the urns and contents.

Many thanks I have never seen the urns on the mantle piece. I am not sure how the following proves or disproves anything but.

When David opens the door into the head room the controls and hieroglyphs are activated by a vertical sequence.

The Urns in the headroom have the same vertical writing on.

So whether the Urns manufacture originates elsewhere they have found there way to LV223 and Paradise.

As the urns are connected to the Engineers who are the gardeners and catalyse with the Black Goo I am not sure it will represent mass theft.Unless you take the view that the entire Engineer culture is and alway been at odds with the hierarchy and the sacrifice at the beginning with a canister, which holds the pot, looking remarkably like the top of an Urn when it is removed , represents rebellion.    

Yes Michelle seems we are for the most part on the same page... the Source did say the Substance is like Fire (Prometheus) but also like the Forbidden Fruit (Paradise Lost) and its the basis for everything.

Oh just want to leave this here just to tease lol