Sacrificial Engineer Responsible For The Cambrian Explosion

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.

The big guy may have dissolved a few billion years ago, but I'm sure I've just found his Speedos washed up on the beach at Blackpool........

Well, won't yet reveal what Im headed to for I just had an epiphany and need to bake my stuff some more, but will post the black-goo/genesis stuff here + a link to my thread sure. Until then, must say I just tripped on that nice RS interview which clear things about "what" the Sacrificial Engineer was doing (still not exactly how, though...) [url=http://www.movies.com/movie-news/ridley-scott-prometheus-interview/8232]http://www.movies.com/movie-news/ridley-scott-prometheus-interview/8232[/url] One thing is, it proves my version right (seeding all life, occurred many times on many places, not necessarily Earth) but mostly, if I dare say, I think it should push to go for the simpler, most parsimonious theories/assumptions. see you later, got some stuff to do, then some thinking and writing :) cheers

If we are on message boards guessing at what the screenwriter was too lazy to figure out ,we are screwed.Funny that Ridley had the Android watching Lawrence of Arabia,a movie that makes sense!Ridley knew the script sucked but was probably like" hey I gotta make a film a year, mate. I'm not waiting for a perfect script, I'll make this half baked script look great just like I did with Bladerunner."

Hold on guy. You guys mixed thing up. Engineer at earlier of the scene sacrified himself to make modern human call Homo Sapiens. Full stop.

i think you need to focus on that was called the Great Leap, that shoved Homo Sapien Sapien well ahead of his peers in a VERY short time !!! research that and tell me if it doesnt fit better!

space jockey responsible for cambrian explosion? no because space jockeys aren't real and have never been to earth. but assuming your meaning are they responsible for the cambrian explosion in the prometheus universe and that is the timing of their visit to earth I would say: Judging by the rest of the film I extremely doubt the writers/creators put any thought into that whatsoever. In the end it doesnt matter they seeded their stuff and humans came out at the end that look totally diffirent to them despite being 100% dna match (LOL) Also I'm still disturbed by the 2 year journey to travel 35 light years.

@Rick Jones so sorry again but as a paleontologist that "Great Leap" thing is far from having a lot of support. Plus it would be inconsistent to imagine the Engineers coming ~50.000y ago. The beginning of the film extensively shows you a naked earth. 50.000y ago, earth was comparable to what it is today in term of biodiversity occupying land, so what would have been the sense in showing a naked earth? Plus how would those genes, released in a remote waterfall, exactly spread among ancestral human populations? Anyway, my main question for you and many other people here was... what exactly make you consider [i]Homo sapiens[/i] "well ahead of his peers"? First, notice it's a single 'sapiens' with a lowercase (2ble 'sapiens' was another megalomaniac thing abandoned years ago). Many on this site also speak about that scene implying we are not linked to the rest of life forms... Well, am maybe 'ahead of my peers' regarding typing on that laptop or booking holidays... I am sure way behind an orca when it comes to hunting fishes and seals... Am way behind a bird when it comes to flying... am way behind a polychaete worm when it comes to living at a depth of 2500m and temp of 80°C... There is no such thing as 'ahead' and 'behind' in evolution. Simple and small organisms are those surviving major extinction events. We are not ahead, we are among, working on thinking that way for *other* animals would do a lot of good to most 'sapiens'.

well said iapetus we dont even know if intelligence or tech intelligence is a good long term survival trait. If we can match animals like crocodiles who've been around millions of years we might have something to shout about. but i have to say ultimately our sun will go super nova and destroy all life on earth but a tech intelligence like humans has the ability to overcome this . We are the first species on earth that may be able to continue our existance and travel to another star system. If we dont destroy ourselves first.

@ iapetus My comments were for reflection beyond the movie. And the Great leap is supported as Homo Sapien and  Homo sapien neanderthals both derived as seperate species from Homo habilus. Homo habilus only dates back to 2 million years ago. I am not sayng this film supports our true science, I am simpl;y pointing out as others have that modern man was created Pre Cambian, Iam stating that we have specific research to support a pronounced advancement of HSS in a short period of time that seperated him form his closest cousins. hence the theory of DNA enhancement that causes HSS to have 46 chromosomes versus every other primate past and present to have 48. I made the leap to real world discoveries as fodder for Ridley's tale.

sorry edit: NOT CREATED PRE CAMBRIAN

Why infect Earth? Everything the Engineers use is organic. I believe they harnessed the DNA of the species that is being subjigatted in the mural for thier technology: the ship, thier suits all of it. They worship the Alien and sacrifice themselves to it so that they can create more organic technology. I think the reoccurring theme of survival and creation of new life (androids) by us shows that we worship ourselves and use others for our selfish means. Another theory is that they created these organic devices and they rebelled.

It's pretty much impossible for the engineers to have only seeded humanity and not all life on earth, for exactly the reason I already stated in this thread earlier. We share almost all of our DNA with every other life form on this planet, down to bacterial spores that have been dormant for hundreds of millions of years. Since we've seen from the film that engineers have exactly the same genome as us, they too share almost all of their DNA sequence with earth bacteria that have been dormant for hundreds of millions of years. That is because earth bacteria arose from engineers seeding the planet with their DNA. There is really no other possible explanation for that. Be parsimonious here and don't read too deeply into things.

Another Theory: Who is doing the subjugating? The ship is organic. Could humans be the subjigatted? It could be a more advanced Alien race is spreading itself like a virus and using lesser species (us) as slaves. The carriers of Alien seed.

How could the Engineers have any idea that we3 to 3.5 billion years later would be the ultimate product of evolution? They are just adding 'ink to the water' so to speak and awaiting what it would do, they are not to know of unforseen circumstances and unpredictable changes in enviromental conditions such as the Moons orbit around the Earth acts as an accelorant for mating cycles, tides coimg and going, egg laying, migrating, and over all as a counter weight to Eaarth rotation upon its axis as it wheels through space around the Sun. Even the Engineers technology is different in the space ship designs or at least another piece of tech in their cultures socialogical and scientific make up.

The Cambrian Explosion records the first truly diverse ecological system in the history of the planet. Among the life forms present were the first mollusks, including gastropods and bivalves; and also the brachiopods with their shells; the arthropods with their segmented bodies and hard exoskeletons, including the trilobites; the trilobites' cousins, the chelicerates, which had the basic framework of their descendents the scorpions and spiders, complete with antennae, long stinger tails, and legs near their mouth; and their cousins, the crustaceans, some of which looked similar to crabs and lobsters even back then; the echinoderms, which were the ancestors of the starfish; the cnidarians, which were primitive precursors to jelly fish and corals; sponges; comb jellies; sea anemones; sea cucumbers; velvet worms; carnivorous worms; and segmented worms. All of these extremely diverse body plans were present during the Cambrian Explosion.