Xeno scene?

Umm... I get that the Promethus Proto Xeno is just one version or a pre version or a completely new version. I know that doesn't help but I view it like that. You are left to ask that very question. Depending on the Xeno form, its all of the above. But it does seem that any Xeno has to come from an Engineer. Hope that helps.

Hold on, I don't think that's a "proto" xeno at all - I'm not sure of the specifics, but don't they mention that the derelict ship in Alien is millions of years old, while this is a lot more recent? Even though the EVENTS of Prometheus take place before Alien, the Engineer ship that was found is actually much more recent (with a payload of bio weapons from a much more recent time in the Engineer's history) than those encountered by Ripley.

The bioweapon (black goo) is something that created both the facehugger form (came from Holloway) and the subsequent xenomorph form (from the engineer). It created the cobra form from the worms. They all share the same life cycle. The purpose of the weapon seems to be to infect the indigenous life forms on a planet to destroy themselves in a massive conflagration of violence. That would involve a progenitor and many offspring, and the bioweapon would efficiently take advantage of all of the survival adaptations that each species accumulated over its natural history. It's a really fascinating sci-fi idea from a biological angle. So essentially, this stuff would create different species of super predators given different species originally infected.

It's not the Xenomorph we've come to know and love, it is a sort of proto-xeno. You have to remember, the ship and planet in this movie were NOT the same from the Alien film. At the end of the film I was led to believe there were many ships at that base, as well as other bases in other parts of the galaxy. This proto-xeno was made in a unique way as well: It was conceived by Shaw and Holloway while he was infected, making the alien octo-facehugger, which impregnated the engineer. If the octo-hugger works in the same way as the classic xenomorph species, the type of alien that pops out would be determined by the host.

I also saw the alien at the end as a proto-xeno, what some people are missing is the speed in which these possible biological weapons can evolve given the right environment and hosts. We see evidence of this in the black goo effecting the worm like mutations, we see evidence of quicker gestation than pregnancy with Shaw - these things mutate fast (nano-tech?) and grow fast. If we entertain the thought that these xenomorphs are in fact engineered bio-weapons, then I would imagine speed of evolution would be something very advantageous to 'resetting a planet' for further experimentation of life and evolution of life. I find it very plausible that what we consider time for evolution to take place quite different from what these engineers can do.

I just remembered that when they were in the room with the urns there was a picture of a xeno.