The "invitation" Shaw is talking about. . .

The common thread was a depiction of a star system in the various cave paintings, carvings, heiroglyphs and structures. It was Shaw who interpreted it as being an invitation. Perhaps it was a warning all along. Avoid Zeta Reticuli. Going there we obviously woke something up, and for whatever reason it's ready to head off to Earth and do something unimaginable with our explosively overpopulated selves.

True perhaps, I just didn't get why SJ's would leave any kinda hint of their civilization out in the stars. . . IF it is an invitation, then I'd guess the Prometheus crew do something to displease them BIG time. I.e meddling with SJ's creation goo, and accidently creating the Xenomorph species. . .

I think that goes well with the " i was wrong ..." Of course we miss the "cause" that would lead the SJs to seek revenge against the humans ( and that is clear from the trailer ..the ship is leaving to earth ) One sure thing is that all or almost all Space Jockeys are almost dead ...so 1) Humans are the cause of SJs exinction .... a virus maybe ? A revolt on earth ? Or 2) Humans were just something to be harvested BUT something delayed the SJs to carry on their plan ...the arrival of the crew give them the chance to reproduct and continue the plan . Of course the jockeys were the "kings" and then they "died"

@Frantz - Totally agree that SJ's are the "kings" we heard spoken in the trailer. Just makes me wonder, how a civilization as advanced as them could be wiped out when it seems like they've tranversed the galaxy and dozenz of planets. . .

Maybe the answer is in that image ...of that humanoid near the river ... with black veins growing on his head ...hes getting sick ? hes mutating ?

Metaphorically Frantz, We were also the Kings, we created and improved upon our synthetic progeny until they were superior to us in every way. Indistinguisable from us, immune to disease, aging, unplagued by morality, perhaps Vickers is referring to the fragile humans sleeping in those cryogenic chambers, we're obsolete, our time has passed.

One weird thing about the "invitation". If the star pattern appears in the remains of different civilizations, thousand of years apart (as sumer and aztecs certainly are: sumer disappeared circa 2000 BC, aztecs raised circa 1300 CE so the shorter time span possible is 3000 thousand years _ and I have not even counted the cave paints that must be much older), it should be different in each appearance, because the stars move against the firmament and constellations realign. The only way to the Weyland team to discover the map was to have a simulation of all the most bright stars in the sky, "reversing" it in time with a computer and finding the only pattern(s) that would match all the historically registered patterns inequivocally. The problem is, given the great incertainty about the exact time of the engravings, it would be very, very difficult to come with good matches. Of course this is only a matter of suspension of disbelief; the "star pattern" is a necessary part of the plot _ but I think it would be more credible if they had found an alien artifact showing the position. One more thing. The engraving were done by humans, not by the aliens. So what the engravings reveal is that humans in that ancient times had enough familiarity and communication with the alien race to know from where in the skies they had come from. This is not the same as an invitation; this interpretation requires a lot of self-centering (Shaw believes the only goal of the sculptors were to give her a key to meet the aliens).

I hear what ur saying there mate, I would assume this relates to the "chariots of the gods" Ancient astronauts theory. and u are quite right the night sky at those times would have been diff for example the Pyramids of Giza Align with the constelation of Orion and the Nile represents the Milky Way! and that was done thousands of years ago sooooo it could well be that they over looked this and didnt go into much detail would be better if they found an artiffact (NOT the stargate) with some kinda of co ordinates...looks like they show the old Sumerian pics too which show a specific star system, but guess only time will tell hey..

I think the invitation was there basically to get humans back in contact with Space Jockey's so that they could use our DNA to bring them back from extinction hence "A king has his rein and then he dies". I think our DNA is based on theirs as they created us in the first place. But because humans evolved to be "The Gods now" and basically steal the stuff in the ampules then the Space Jockey's punish the humans. That's the feeling I'm getting from the trailers anyway.

Perhaps they had assumed we wouldn't be sufficiently stupid to recklessly expose ourselves to unknown biological materials without a host of rigorous precautions........and since it turns out that indeed we [i]are[/i] that idiotic, they decide to do the universe a favor by wiping out a recklessly idiotic race.

Speaking of the humanoid in the beginning of the trailer, maybe he is Jockey or Higher Being that is infected with pre-existing virus and parasite. His plan is to allow all life form whose seeds he sowed to evolve a better defense against the parasite or virus. When a life form has evolved to build a stronger anti-body, he would presumably be intelligent enough to travel across stars to meet their Creator/s. Once arrived, the Creator would just sample their DNA, incorporate it to his own, and travel back to Paradise called Earth to rule once more as "Kings" ...with Xenos in tow.

I think the Engineers are mad when they see the humanoid the humans have created and to them its the wrong thing to be doing, only they can create etc. Then they turn around and punish us for making such a thing.