May 12, 2012[quote=Winwood][i]It could be that our arrival inside the Engineers ship is seen as some kind of infection, and we need to be flushed out in some way?[/i][/quote]
This is a clever idea, but then clearly Shaw's being used to create MORE of something. (Dear, little Cuddles.) So it doesn't hold up 100% according to a human model of immunity.
I went and read all of the Snorky chatter (Thank you, Sparty, for the handy compendium). Very interesting and over the top a points... Oh well, c'est la vie, but here we are back at this.
It seems to me that the Engineer technology might allow them to "grow" things biomechanically, but that doesn't mean that all parts of the complete mechanisms remain alive indefinitely. All living things must EAT; something. This is a universal truism mandated by physics. It's not very efficient to have ALL Of your machines remain alive all the time. It wastes too much energy. Now, that said, I can easily see there being a thin layer of living material on every [u]surface[/u] of the Juggernaut, but it seems more likely to me that for something like the "temple" of [i]Prometheus[/i] ("egg chamber" of [i]Alien[/i] that was never shown on screen) that it was cut out of rock. Lots of folks on here are constantly poo-poo-ing the use of rock as not being "modern enough," but I don't think they know what they're talking about. Rock is FREE building material, if you have the technology to manipulate it into the shapes that you need. No matter how advanced your technology, there is still a COST associated with everything. Free is free, even if you're a million year old immortal.
So, I believe that the "temple" is largely carved out of rock, with biomechanical features added as necessary. I imagine that they are just grown in place and then the ones that don't need to remain alive simply OSSIFY.
OSSIFICATION and FOSSILIZATION are different, but produce similar results pragmatically speaking.
The 1979 SJ could simply be OSSIFIED. In fact he likely is simply ossified because there is no mineral substance around him to have fed a process of fossilization . Ossified things can still decay, and the SJ of 1979 LOOKs partially decayed.
When he dies; he, his suit, and the chair he's sitting in no longer are in need of nutrients. They don't need to move or function anymore. The ship would likely divert those nutrients and other stored energy to preserving the CARGO—the facehugger eggs that got Kane. So, lacking any need to remain alive, the biomechanics associated with the "cockpit" are simply allowed to ossify. Now, if the ship had done an emergency landing on Pandora, there would be LOTS of nutrients around for it to acquire and perhaps the suit and the chair etc. could have been kept alive without being allowed to "fully die" and ossify. Neither of these planets is quite that alive. Not a lot of food around. No running water (that's obvious (anymore)).
So, I think that there are parts of the temple that are still alive (the urns, the "black soup" and the creatures in it, the murals) and that the majority of the Juggernaut (that was ever designed to remain alive in the first place) is still alive, but likely hibernating as deeply as it can.
If my theories about the biomechanical nature of the Engineers' technology is correct, David will be very ODD to them. He was never "grown" or alive in any way. He should seem more "alien" and interesting to them than any of the humans. I don't think that their technology would be able to USE him in any "everyday" way. He is not valid as a host for anything xeno-like. He is not EDIBLE. They may be able to use him for his power source (after some rather advanced "patching in"), but other than that role as a potential "battery", I believe he's only potentially relevant to them as another intelligence. That's pretty big in and of itself, though.
