Sacrificial Engineer Responsible For The Cambrian Explosion

this is an inexhaustible font from which any writerdirector could cull sequelprequelequal concepts from ... "what was my audience anticipating, what did they Read Into it, what do they want to see" ... maybe im reading too much into it, but the impression i get of the biological warfare agent that the Grigori created was that it - as i perceived was illustrated - obliterates all subservient genes and assimilates only the most primalferal survival characteristics - that is - it consumes everything it comes in contact with and eradicates everything genetic except for the most vicious aspects, thereby creating/perpetually evolving the purest dominative machine ... the spawn of which is Alien. to be continually rebirthed ...

Assuming that the planet we see in the opening sequence is Earth, I have been studying it carefully for any clues as to how far back the scene with the sacrificial engineer took place on Earth's 4.5 billion year timeline. If the event shown is the very, very beginning of any life on Earth then we are talking looking at 3.5 billion years ago when amino acids began clumping together making way for singular-cellular life. At the end of that sequence you see just that in addition to mitosis, cellular reproduction. It is not to say that the engineers didn't come back during the Cambrian explosion, but what I saw was the very beginning of life itself. I will have to do some research as to how far ahead plant life predated and set the conditions needed for animal life.

Reminds me of the Necromorph virus in that way. Furthermore, everyone knows Ponyo's dad is responsible for the Cambrian explosion.

@abordoli - do we not in the scene see that plant life was already in existence, and do we not see the effects of the Engineers sacrifice take immediate effect. Before the Cambrian explosion life on earth was simple and non-complex. If the Engineers visited Earth 3.5 Billion years ago then how come it took 3 billion years for "the Seed" to take effect. When from the Cambrian explosion onwards life on Earth has evolved at a relatively steady and fast pace.

I love applying history/science to these types of things.

@Snorkelbotton We do not really know if the Cambrian Explosion really was a case of rapid evolution as there is not a complete fossil record as of yet. Recent discoveries in pre-Cambrian fossil records are shedding light on the fact that diversification of species was well underway before the Cambrian began. Genome sequencing has also revealed that much of the genetic code has been conserved from pre-Cambrian organisms. If anything, the increase in differentiation of species was due to the break up of the supercontinent Godwana which created many niche environments for organisms to adapt to (speciation and specialization).

Gondwana did not begin to break up until the early Jurassic period, well after the Cambrian period.

@Snorkelbottom During the early Cambrian the supercontinent shifted and caused breaks in landmasses across the North-Godwana margin. "The Gondwana supercontinent underwent a 60-degree rotation across Earth's surface during the Early Cambrian period, according to new evidence uncovered by a team of Yale University geologists. Gondwana made up the southern half of Pangaea, the giant supercontinent that constituted the Earth's landmass before it broke up into the separate continents we see today. Whatever the cause, the massive shift had some major consequences. As a result of the rotation, the area that is now Brazil would have rapidly moved from close to the southern pole toward the tropics. Such large movements of landmass would have affected environmental factors such as carbon concentrations and ocean levels, Mitchell said. There were dramatic environmental changes taking place during the Early Cambrian, right at the same time as Gondwana was undergoing this massive shift," he said. "Apart from our understanding of plate tectonics and true polar wander, this could have had huge implications for the Cambrian explosion of animal life at that time."

Gondwana was formed during the Pre-Cambrian, and broke up in the early Jurassic... [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana]Gondwana[/url]

@Snorkelbottom I don't feel I have to tell you this, but Wikipedia is not a legitimate website that you should use to get information about scientific matters (anyone can write on it, it is not peer reviewed, and does not have the latest information). I use google scholar or the research database in my University to get my information about these things. The information I have about Godwana comes from research done by the geology department at Yale University.

@ Drakeequation - Two quotes from yourself... Quote 1 "[i]We do not really know if the Cambrian Explosion really was a case of rapid evolution as there is not a complete fossil record as of yet. Recent discoveries in pre-Cambrian fossil records are shedding light on the fact that diversification of species was well underway before the Cambrian began. Genome sequencing has also revealed that much of the genetic code has been conserved from pre-Cambrian organisms. If anything, the increase in differentiation of species was due to the break up of the supercontinent Godwana which created many niche environments for organisms to adapt to (speciation and specialization)[/i]" Quote 2 "[i]Apart from our understanding of plate tectonics and true polar wander, this could have had huge implications for the Cambrian explosion of animal life at that time.[/i]"

@ Snorkelbottom I should have clarified, I mean that we do not really know if the Cambrian Explosion was a case of ENDOGENOUS rapid evolution. As in, caused by some unknown substance within the organisms as opposed to environmental pressures. If it was simply the case of the creation of niche environments, then evolution was still progressing across predictable time tables instead of unaccounted for rapid acceleration in the diversification rate.

@ Drakeequation - I have started using wiki so that those uneducated in these matters can get a grasp of the basics. Regardless, this information is verified by Nature (I checked), you may have heard of it - publishes scientific papers, theories etc.

@Snorkelbottom Nature publishes research studies and papers, the fact that this information once appeared in Nature does not somehow make it fact. Nature publishes contradictory information all the time as new research discoveries in science supersede old ones. This is how science works and why it is important to find research articles that are recent and up to date. If I pulled out a nature magazine from ten years ago, much of the information would now be obsolete in the face of recent discoveries and research. Furthermore, I doubt you cross-referenced all the recent geology articles in Nature to see if the information still held up (BTW it doesn't as the new study is also published in Nature). All the incoming freshmen at most universities are warned not use Wikipedia as the information is usually unreliable.

[img]http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/7b54c11d8b244d240d0306b250a23e90/81118%20-%20Sweetie_Belle%20animated%20caption%20internet_argument%20meme%20rarity.gif[/img]

@drakeequation - no offense, but do you think me a fool. Of course I cross referenced the articles, as I peruse them frequently as part of the paper I am currently writing. LOL at the pony pic BTW Citing holes in sources is inflammatory at best - you call the information available from Nature to not necessarily be fact, then state that the one university you cite (Yale) also appeared in Nature. Pending a major discovery it is known as scientific and geological FACT that Gondwana was formed just before and during the Cambrian period, covering the Cambrian explosion, and then subsequently broke up in the early Jurassic. If you have evidence to the contrary cite it now, otherwise this is just a diversion away from what the OP was about.

.... I just did site evidence in the previous post about the Yale research team finding evidence that Gondwana shifted causing breaks in the continent which created niche environments for primitive life. I think you are confused because you assume that Gondwana only experienced the one major breakup during the Jurassic and not the shift and minor breaking that occurred during the early Cambrian. Furthermore, I said that recent research studies that appear in Nature supersede old ones. I was referring more to the fact that a Nature magazine is not cannon like the bible in which the information, if written once, is true forever. And you did not cross-reference the articles in Nature, if you did, you would have read this study and not been arguing with me in the first place.

[img]http://assets.diylol.com/hfs/4c4/183/cb0/resized/business-cat-meme-generator-and-for-that-reason-i-m-out-4eccda.jpg[/img]

Firstly, why the personal attack assuming I have not cross referenced said materials, I cross reference them, as stated before, frequently in the fields of biology, geology, cosmology, astronomy and physics - Yes its a big paper I'm writing. I referenced Nature to show that I am not some web-page pulling nerd, and yes I have read Yales study - which although interesting, the papers from the Texas university at Arlington hold more weight within the community and field of geology... The facts regarding Gondwana, in summary are thus... In the Precambrian period the super-continent now know as Gondwana was formed, ultimately breaking up in the early Jurassic period. This super-continent however experienced frequent "breaks" throughout its "lifetime", cased from tectonic movement, collisions and other environmental factors. Your original argument Drake was that the Cambrian explosion may not have been responsible for the evolutionary jump in early Earth life, and that this "jump" may have happened earlier. This then led you to cite the break up of Gondwana as the probable cause for such a jump. Which ultimately happened in the early Jurassic, not the Cambrian - the continent did experience small breaks during its lifetime but THE break up was not, as you stated, during the Cambrian period. Scientifically, geologically and biologically the movement and subsequent break ups of Gondwana being the cause of these evolutionary jumps is probably the truth. But in terms of the Alien/Prometheus franchise I suspect that Scott/Lindeloff are suggesting otherwise, and using the Cambrian explosion as a possible point in Earths history for when the Engineers seeded the earth with their "Seed", as per the OP.

There was no breathable atmosphere as today in the cambrian [max ~ 5% oxygen) and surely not before! As engineer breath air (atmosphere in the pyramid is like our), it can't be from that period. Opening scene is on the ability of a very advanced civilisation to create life...when used by...advised beings, otherwise it mutates everything and bring death, so the sacrifice of enginner is a kind of metaphor of this. I don't know if holloway would have been disintegrated, just before burned he looked like transforming into an engineer (same skin, eyes)... Whatever, there are so many questions after this movie, so everything is possible, the worst or the best...we will see