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.

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@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.

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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

OK, my bad. It was simple cellular life that began around the 3.8 billion year point with photosynthetic plant life beginning around 3.4 years ago, with our protective ozone layer forming between 580-540 million years ago. With the engineer breathing air similar to our requirements, this puts his (assumed first ) visit at around 542 millions years ago at the beginning of the Paleozoic Era (the Cambrian being the first period of that era). However, who's to say that the engineer did not have a lesser need for oxygen (or had some apparatus up his nostrils) and his visit could have been 700-600 millions years earlier when multi-cellular life was beginning to form. What we are shown at the end of the opening sequence is either cellular reproduction or the first actual multi-cellular organism catalysted by the engineer's broken down and re-incorporated DNA. I'm also inclined to believe that the this opening sequence requires a huge suspension of disbelief as there are a lot of contradictions. Let's not forget that it might not even be Earth making further dissection of this a moot discussion. What I'm saying is that there are some huge disconnects (what we see being created vs the atmosphere not yet quite right for breathing) that the writers try to fly over the head's of the masses hoping that those that have studied these things in academia won't notice and expose the "wizard behind the curtain". Either way, we have a humanoid being appearing way before primates and hominids began to actually appear around 4 million years ago. If, hypothetically speaking, something like these engineers are our "creators/gods" and their goal was to end up with the sentient life-form on this planet appearing to be cast in their image, then they would have had to make a lot of return visits to nudge the "clay" (us) into the mold.

I've always just called the black liquid the "primordial soup"

hmmm, no pony fights in here gang ok? LOL... Keep the peace! ;p

In the Cambrian Period there wouldn't be enough air to breathe for the engineer who doesn't wear a helmet. And the idea that the spreading of alien DNA on one spot in an ocean would massively change evolution on the whole planet and lead to almost similar creatures sometime in the future is ridiculous. This part of the film is worthless for a scientific discussion. The parasitic lifeforms are much more intersting.

The OP did not state and was not intended to invite a scientific argument. The OP was stating the nature of the black liquid, and citing the Cambrian explosion as a [b]POSSIBLE[/b] point of time in which the Sacrificial Engineer seeded Earth and accelerated the evolution of life on Earth. That is all. Rather than suggest another period of time in Earths history subsequent members argued that there was not enough oxygen for the Engineer to breathe during the Cambrian period (a slight conjecture considering he came here in A BIG UFO), and citing incorrectly Gondwana's break up as being before/during the Cambrian explosion. Both of which detract away from the core of the OP - the nature of the black liquid.

It's possible that the scene in question was a "re-seeding"? There were many mass extinctions throughout the history of life on Earth. It might not have been depicting pre-Cambrian Earth.

I think its definately Earth, but Im more interested in the Engineer itself. I think the Engineers once believed in a Supreme bieng "God" and in order to become one with thier god they researched into Bio-organics, eventually perfecting thier speices but the Engineers wanted more, they wanted to become Imortal, "Gods." This I think is that very black goo substance they created, but one Indiviual member of there race had different beliefs. I think the Sacrifial Engineer, believed God had created them and wanted the Engineers to in-turn create other life in the Universe, but these beliefs were too radical for the fellow Engineer race, so they cast out the Individual on Earth, where he did as he believed his gods wanted and drank the goo, sacrificing himself to seed Earth with life.

hmm, 530 million years ago? really? you reckon THAT's what the opening scene means? Wow.

The scene from the beginning pretty much has to be the seed of all life on Earth. The writers just overlooked the fact that Earth air at the time would not have been breathable. The other option, that engineer DNA was needed to create humans but not earlier life, and just happens to share 90% of its sequence with Earth bacteria that had already existed for 3 billion years prior but don't share any common ancestors, is far, far more ludicrous.

Hey dudes didn't read all of your pony battle (hehe jokin) here. Drakeequation, you gotta show some bona fide, I can tell you wikipedia is reliable on basic scientific knowledge like the break-up date of Gondwana. Am a paleontologist so maybe I can help and make some use for that phd here. The Cambrian explosion is a notable evolutionary event. However the more discoveries and facts pile up, the more we realise large parts of that diversity had already evolved before that. It appears the "explosive" factor is artefactually increased by the lack of good quality fossil record prior to it. All in all, yes major diversification event, though probably less "boom" than it looks like. However, I wonder why you guys (almost) always go for the most contorted solution. If it's not written on the screen "Earth- Cambrian" it seems a bit far fetched to assume the audience will get it. Plus cambrian organisms were not "simple unicellular organisms", there were pluricellular life forms with apex predators etc. including [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalocaris]Anomalocaris[/url] or, more related to us, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikaia]Pikaia[/url]. This means stuff as "complex" (not a good concept to look at evolution!) as for respectively arthropods (insects, spiders, crustaceans) and cephalochordates ("protovertebrates" with ~similar muscles, digestive track, proto-spine and 'head') had already evolved. And water was already swarming with all kinds of vegetal and animal life. Watching the intro, I considered this to be early post-formation Earth and the seeding of all known life. Must admit I thought I could see some grass too, but having seen the movie 3 times I am still unsure as it could be some weird grazing light on thin volcanic gravel or smth like it. Weird shade of greenish-brownish indeed, but could also be part of "suspension of disbelief" as they could assume people would see life more as "animal" (yes I assure you, they could assume that... *sigh*). Moreover, I think the massive amounts of water and running water were meant to hint at something. I think what they intend to show is sometime around the end of Hadeen around 4Gy ago. After the accretion and formation of Earth, the whole thing is pretty much in fusion and slowly cools down, emitting gases etc. A bit before 4Gy, as the temperature cools, water condensates in the primordial atmosphere and you had torrential rains, a downpour most similar to the biblical flood, washing all lands and forming the oceans. We found the earlier traces of life to be little more recent than that, ~3.8Gy. I think the (almost? erm...) naked earth we see and massive amounts of running water and waterfalls point at that. It is new-born earth and they seed life. Another argument in favor of that IMO are statements by the film's crew members in interviews. They said the engineers seeded humanoid life forms on planets all over the galaxy. Would be pretty hard to believe they took the chance and discovered several DNA-based proto-lifes on each planet then disrupted their course to have humanoids evolve at some point. Much simpler to assume they seeded it all themselves, justifying these all share a similar DNA-based life, among which humanoids resembling their creators were programmed to appear. Sorry I use so many words! hehe Cheers!

The Cambrian Explosion was used as a [b]possible[/b] point in time, not a definitive. Regardless, because of the nature of the "Seed" shown later on in Prometheus, I doubt this substance was used to create life, but rather to exponentially evolve pre-existing life by adding the genes of the Engineer to that of ancient Earth, leading to an abundance of four-limbed, two eyed, two eared, one nosed (with two nostrils) lifeforms that progressively lead to the evolution of the human race, aka Engineer clones, by the Engineers genes becoming more dominant than those found on indigenous Earth life forms.

Ermm must say I doubt that, Read my last part. Very hard to assume they would find several planets with similar DNA and carbon-based life that could be affected by the same black-goo. I think it makes more and a simpler sense to assume they seed the basic blocks of life that will allow life to form, and justify why it is all similar-one-common-ancester life-forms. Also, it is a simple shortcut from science, as the early steps of how those bricks formed and assembled are what still stirrs a lot of debate. So it's just easier to assume the basic blocks were seeded and the rest went on as we know it, then you just have to explain how they can control that a humanoid shape will evolve (and similar nostrils and all is far less trivial than what you seem to assume hehe, mostly on plenty different planets). Otherwise you have to make an already pretty bold statement that life evolved several times in our galaxy alone, then another major statement that all these unrelated "lifes" were DNA and carbon-based out of random, which allowed their black-goo magic to work spotless on each of these.

I'm working purely off what we see in the film, and what we see is this substance evolving existing lifeforms and affecting others - we do not see it creating life, just affecting it. And whose to say that there isn't plenty of life in the universe, and whose to say that the majority of said life isn't carbon based. Until we venture among the stars and visit other worlds we won't know all we can do while sitting on this small rock is assume and presume, beyond that we are all just hairless apes, a few of which think they have the answers to the entire universe when not a single one of us have even set foot on another world. What I'm saying is, is that we are a primitive race with delusions of grandeur, those that state they KNOW the facts know little if anything, theories are constantly being succeeded by newer theories, new discovers constantly put old established facts and assumptions into question. Rather than presume and assume we should observe and learn.

seriously, am not attcking you, only a debate of ideas here. Plus you should realize that my statements regarding life in the universe are actually much more conservative than yours, here. I am not saying there is no chance that there is plenty of life in the universe. Only there are necessarily less chances in only just our galaxy, even though I'm convinced there are still plenty of chances there. But what are the odds that such life originated like ours and used the exact same basic elements to build the exact same basic structure on which to store information? I precisely imply that it is pointless to look for life *only* in the way we know of it, looking for water on similar sized planets etc etc. Odds are much greater to find plenty of different kinds of life-forms which are based on other elements more frequently found on other planets, like methane atmospheres or ammonia lakes etc. The thing is, it's not even sure we'd see it, was it even right in front of a drone's probe, because that's not what current missions are looking for (still not saying there's life where we explored up to now though, just an example). To get back to the point. In the film, it seems different effects occur depending on whether you ingest or get in contact with the black goo. Then again, different effects seem to occur depending on the *kind* of black goo. I'm convinced they are about the same stuff, but I still have to make up my mind whether what the worms & Fifield are in contact with (mutanogenic black goo) is the exact same thing that what Holloway ingested (more liquid, in a vial) and what the Sacrificial Engineer ingested (more like the worm/Fifield black-goo but "active/in fusion") I have my theory about those different mixes of goo and different effects depending on how you get in touch with it. I will post it soon in a larger thread + a part here, but have to give it a bit more thoughts for now.

The stuff in the vials is the "Seed", a mutagen that causes the stated in the OP, the black goo in the urns is a catalyst that combines with and spreads the seed and acts as the "Seed" would have after being ingested (the broken up remnants of the engineer that seeded life).

eeeh nah, not for me, I don't see it that way. Not that far, similar kind of thinking, but not that way. And I think there's stuff your version doesn't explain quite well that mine does. Will post it here when I have put down a more synthetic version of my take on the broader scheme in a thread. (wow, that must be one of the shortest post I ever wrote since I first logged here. Am getting better! *pats his own shoulder*)

My uneducated try The first scene is Eden. They make Adam and Eve, and then transport them to earth.

Sounds legit LOL. But seriously, don't really fight about history on this movie. Was there really hieroglyphics showing Z2R? No. So, throw all history OUT THE FRICKIN WINDOW.

I could not really discern from the the movie the period whether it was 2.5M or 3.5M or more or less years ago. I assumed it was earth for the theme of the movie. I also assumed it was earth because the Engineers had earth clearly in their holographic star system map that was projected. I agree the black liquid is some sort of mutagenic accelerator. It appeared to me that Engineers have the manifest scientific knowledge to manipulate DNA. From the movie mapping Engineer DNA to Human DNA and finding a match. I can only assume the SJ (sacrificial Engineer) gave his life to offer life by consuming the mutagenic liquid. That then got washed over planet earth by pouring into the waterfall and assuming the river runs to the oceans etc. Affecting either existing or new species of organisms whether they are plant? or mammals? After that I guess it does not matter , the DNA that was engineered but the Engineers is on the planet and "active" in systemic recombination.

@ iapetus - be sure to PM the link to that thread, as I myself am almost there decoding the nature of the "Black Goo" and how it ties the Engineers, the Xenomorph and us together.