Genetic Engineers

Ant Hive

MemberOvomorphJune 13, 20121007 Views2 Replies

What I gleaned from watching Prometheus was that the Engineers were seeking the fountain of youth. Playing with their own DNA to make themselves immortal. The elixir that the sacrificial Engineer ingested was not meant to give birth to the Cambrian period on earth, but to see if the genetic manipulation they developed would reconstruct not just a dead cell but DNA as well, as we know carcinogens can disrupt a cell at a genetic level which is in essence cancer. Doing it on earth was simply a quarantine precaution like LV-223, which is why the lone Engineer was left behind so hastily. To be able to reconstruct a broken strand of DNA is itself immortality or at least an exorbitant life span. When Shaw and Ford stimulated the head with a few mili-amps they activated the cell regeneration effect that was a part of the Engineer's experiments. Their ignorance as to the proper catalyst for cell regeneration caused the head to overload and explode. Your thoughts...

Dr. Ess
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June 13, 2012

I like the thought. Hard to say as this will be addressed in greater detail in the sequel. I am not as sure about your thoughts on the head being reanimated. I wrote a post that addresses why they put electricity through the head and it seems like this was a direct nod to Frankenstein (the full title of the Mary Shelly book is actually "Frankenstein - The Modern Prometheus") and Frankenstein is reanimated with electricity in a similar way. (your explanation is more scientific though). My full post is here: Answers to Common Prometheus Questions [url=http://www.crankleft.com/blog/2012/june/12/answers-to-common-prometheus-questions]http://www.crankleft.com/blog/2012/june/12/answers-to-common-prometheus-questions[/url]

Hadley's Hope
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June 13, 2012

I'm not so sure about your theory on 'cell regeneration' She specifically targetted [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_coeruleus]Locus Coeruleus[/url], which she instructed Dr. Forde to stimulate. She says that this will 'trick the brain into thinking it is still alive'. [i]The projections of this nucleus reach far and wide. For example, they innervate the spinal cord, the brain stem, cerebellum, hypothalamus, the thalamic relay nuclei, the amygdala, the basal telencephalon, and the cortex. The norepinephrine from the LC has an excitatory effect on most of the brain, mediating arousal and priming the brain’s neurons to be activated by stimuli. [/i] Why the head exploded? I have no idea. I assume that a hint will be dropped sooner or later relating to mythical/supernatural reasons... that the dead have accepted death and cannot be called back from Hades etc, which some people will be happy with.