HESITANT TO POST THIS BUT IT IS RELEVANT

Just because they're advanced in many ways, does not mean they've advanced in everyway beyond us. Cultures on Earth did not evolve equally, even some of the "advanced" ones hadn't got some of the developments of other cultures, which they then appropriated through conquest (e.g. the Mongol invasion of China led to the spread of gunpowder technology) . It may be that we're dealing with a race that is more ruthless than it is inventive . Most of it's technology may be acquired through conquest. Perhaps that's why they like their big grey dudes, we're evolved from curious monkeys, - but they downside for the rulers of course, is we prefer freedom, as any sentient being eventually will strive for. Using religion and terror as tools to encourage obedience to higher authority will work quite well to contain that - but not on fearless atheist androids.

We are not positive what caused the Engineer demise. We see a hologram of them running, a beheaded Engineer, and a stack of about 15 at another chamber door with various holes (head, chest etc.). People will insist that the cause was the "Black Ooze," or a deacon that got loose. What we have are results without any facts... Have fun with the discussion.

patch...you summed up a really nice scene and what it entailed...but it still makes you wonder about my question. Why arent they on some robot awareness program?

I think the movie missed an opportunity to show variance with the Engineers. They all look the same. It would have been cool to see one of the Engineers androids.

Well looking at the Engineers – they are a super race, in their minds. They are creators of life and death they do not need or desire to need lower life forms or mechanical forms because this would be an insult to them. They are all the same because it makes sense. Let me put this way – why have mechanical/android devices when it can break down, requires maintenance and fixing. This is a super race, perfect to the core, constructed and designed for specific needs and duties. We need sacrificial clones, fine. We need space jockeys to fly the galaxies, fine. I think these beings can create themselves for specific task or duties such as we seen in the movie. Elders decide their fate and their duties. Only mechanical things we see so far are ships and life pods with navigations systems. Hard to really say but I am basing this on the movies and the book. We could find out more about this race in the sequel – I hope.

[u]Elders decide their fate and their duties.[/u] You've just described a slave in that sentence, and that's why they don't have robots. Slaves are cheaper. what some of you thought was a bunch of advanced beings, others watched and saw slaves. How so? The Space Jockeys can breathe outside the dome, despite 3% Carbon Monoxide, which would knock us out in seconds and kill us in minutes. The manufactured atmosphere inside, is perfect for humans. This suggests that humans have been brought here, probably many times, and some may have gone back. (who do you think drew on the cave, what they remember of a 3D hologram. ?) Space Jockeys lack individual features like differing body hair, eye color. Diversity is NATURAL, uniformity is ENFORCED. Evolution, (including competing for mates) favours diversity. And in case any of you simply assumed it, there's actually nothing in the first scene that says that the Engineer dying is on Earth. That guy could be dying on some remote planet in 2089 for all we know. There are subtle tricks to link that scene in our mind to Earth (the monolith being one). If the Space Jockey in scene 1 is not on Earth, then there's no need to assume Space Jockeys existed billions of years before modern humans. And if that's the case, their DNA would only match ours if THEY came from Earthlings, rather than vice versa. All these things point to the possibility that these trips were not invitations for us to come visit, but for humans to go WITH them, on the Space Jockey ships. Brought to LV 223, where there is an atmosphere for them to breathe in the hive, where they will do as they are told, by a 'superior species' that they might think is god, until the experiments start. Eugenics in the US during slavery, led to slavemasters picking the biggest strongest slaves to breed together, to produce bigger stronger workers. And that was in the days before test tube technology. If you wanted a race of slave workers, you wouldn't care one from the other, or want them to feel like individuals. The gene for hair, nipples, and skin pigments can be inhibited, and growth regulators can be altered, and after a while, you have a race of big, bald, grey workers. If one dies, simply clone him. Robots cost money.

They are simply not interested in andorids - that is like playing with toys for them. They create lifeforms and design them how they want them to be. Or better said - these white tall guys dont create anything, just workers for the species yet unknown, we may find out in sequel who they are and if they fart..

The assumption is that the engineers are actually literally the foundation "race" or "species" of humans. This may not be the case at all. The ones pulling the strings, may be more our size and strength. Already we can create genetic homologous strains of animals with no differentiation of their DNA. Maybe, these advanced beings created a very special version of themselves, stronger, more adaptable, very intelligent, very clean gentetics, to carry out specific duties, called "Engineers" to travel to other worlds. You have to note, the gray-white humanoid in beginning, 2000 years earlier than the one that was in the sleep chamber, were identical in appearance. Maybe when Shaw visits the actual planet of origin ( sequel?), she will find someone that looks like her mother-in law.

Or maybe they simply grabbed and adapted humans from preindustrial cultures, and adapted them to do their dirty dangerous work? Who else would agree to work with this stuff, and to spend long periods in stasis far from home?

And androids can't be hosts for Xenomorphs if course.

Lol who said the engineers use money - that in its self is a very low tech level concept. And as technology gets more common place it gets cheaper even a david could be cheap one day...I really hope theres good reasons for all these things or its going got looks more silly than it already does...

@XENOTRON...If they created androids whihc I agree would be neat...I bet they would all have multiple arms and huge legs able to multi-task ...real work horse type tool is my thinking. @dopelganger ...you got me to thinking (again) that they have mastered life and becasue of that, life is cheap. They can create something quick and easy using GOO formulas for the desired outcomes. If that is the case, the opning scene makes sense. It aint suicdie, its a creation carrying out its function...WHOA....good commenting HH @HADLEYSHOPE...man, I have gotten some good ideas off of you. Keep em coming..Yes, the dome is built for humans to occupy as these boys can breath on the planet...So it is possible they are picking up humans and transporting them there. Someone tell SHAW that it is not an invitation, but an answer to the question..WHERE DID JOHNNY AND JANIE GO...and everyone points to the stars...thus cave drawings

@lindelost...why play with dolls when you can play with the real thing. Excellent point and I agree...thank you @oldpro..Hi mom...its me SHAW mother of calamari...lol @Hadleys hope...androids cannot participate in GOO parties...is a great point @crabfart...dont think the people involved in the making of this movie are not reading all this stuff...they will address quite a bit and up the squabble and critcs to a roar but satsifying level...

But the question seems loaded? There can be no answer, especially in those circumstances - why [i]should[/i] there be robots? Because humans have them? Engineers may not share our pre-occupation or interests in that regard. Maybe they could care less about robots and/or are able to come up with a better solution to any problems that might require robots than humans could? We can't be certain that that they mishandled the goo in terms of bringing the misfortune on themselves, but perhaps they did. That would only make the situation worse as far as I'm concerned as, leaving any fan-fic guesswork aside - and dropping any presumption about robots: what remains is the root of your question, which is much more interesting and relevant, it seems to me, as it appears to be to do with contingency. The goo is effectively toxic - apparently as toxic to them, as it is, to us. They are, apparently, a super-race of beings. With that, I'm still struggling to understand how I'm supposed to believe in the rationale of their management of the stuff - given it's supposed to be so potent - and that there'd be any possibility, at all, of them, or anyone involved with it, literally handling it themselves? OK, perhaps, "sabotage". Fine - but that still leaves the fact that it's just stored in a pattern all over the floor of some room in pull-top cans, where it can froth and merge if someone leaves the door open and where it's also just stacked up in another room like it's on Clearance Sale?.. Humans Beings are, presumably, morons, in comparison to Engineers - yet our ideas about containment protocols seem to be a lot better than that, in our, "weapons facilities".

the question is: Do Engineers Dream of Electric Davids? Really, why should they need robots? they seem part mechanical... and brave... and huge... and twisted up in their heads...

Perhaps, the "building" skills of the Engineers (or group of) was removed by a higher power for some sort of rebellion, a coup an act of charity maybe towards a fickle and fragile race. Perhaps they can no longer create anything at all except allow their DNA to be snatched up and encrypted as RNA forming new DNA. Perhaps the Engineers want to build an army of xenomorphs/deacons whatever and that army might need to feed on human DNA. In this film phenotype seems to pre-cede genotype, i.e it breaks the gene dogma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_dogma_of_molecular_biology DNA makes RNA makes Protein What if the Engineers, disabled can only provide protein which can be broken don into RNA and finally retranscripted into DNA strands. Out of all the worlds they conquered/colonized whatever, perhaps humanity has the closest match to protein that will trigger this reverse transcription, with the Xeno as catalyst ?

@allinamberclad...you make an excellent observation in regards to how something so dangerous is being handled questionably by superior beings. That leads to much specualtion. Did someone do it on purpose. SABOTAGE..has been brought up. If an accident, this could not be the very first one making you think...dont these guys learn from their mistakes? Android robots could do a lot of good in handling GOO and packing it for transport. Robots have their obvious advantages and disadvantages...we all know this. However, the idea of life being so cheap becasue of cloning would make robots uncessary..except for handling goo.... @Psi...having an army of ALIENS that can destroy makes one think counter to 2001 philosophy. The beings in that movie wanted to seed life and did so. they never went backwards as space never ends and they morped into pure energy after a while....They wanted to creat life on planets and by contrast Engineers want to destroy? Doesnt sound very noble or someone I could respect

I actually had the initial thought that the engineer Killed david so violently because he was artificial. My first thought was perhaps they fear a singularity, or find it insulting that something thinks without living. I would probably say it's safe to assume whatever they develop weapons to fight is probably not AI, because xenomorph based bio weapons seem just about the worst way possible to battle a robot But yeah there is absolutely nothing in the movie to indicate what direction our speculation should take and the only interaction with an AI (unless their spaceships have AI built in) is the attack on david, which isn't very enlightening.

@Richie Exactly. But it's like this in every direction you turn? From my perspective, all of this fan-fickery is being produced within a terribly flawed context. Furiously nailing a roof onto a house, that has been built on quicksand.

Tathel...Yes, we are swimming around in uncharted waters...thats for sure. We need some nudnging from someone...that be the DVD with Ridley spilling the beans. This whole forum will have a giant HISSY after that.... Allinamberclad...it has been said that they intorudced so much in this movie but failed to explain it...Well thats a questionable tactic to use. Look how it produced two distnct camps...the likers and the dis-likers...We need to close that gap and a sequel will do it... Will one of these multi-billionaires please step up, put up about 150 million which is a months interest and help us SCI-FI lovers out here....?

@Richie Personally, I think, "unexplained", is great - or, certainly not [i]necessarily[/i] bad. I don't think, "unexplained", is the questionable tactic - I think the questionable tactic was in simply producing an, overall, disfunctional example of Film.

Robots are only needed by a flawed race that sees the flaws in themselves and desire to fix it. The engineers may view themselves as perfect and had no need to create superior beings,or they had seen the folly in it and decided not to.

Expecting a completely alien, highly advanced race of beings to behave the way we might, is the height of ethnocentricity. It is also made clear in the film that the Engineers have some kind of belief system......something for which they're actually willing to physically sacrifice themselves. That means all bets are off, in terms of what we might "naturally" expect.

@allinamberclad...agreed..."unexplained" is the fuel for sci-fi... @bogger...anything that is great likes being reminded of it unless of course they have reigned in theri egos...When that sleeping enigneer awoke and then went nuts, that is not someone I would revere @artyoh....agreed...All life forms no matter what thier intelligence act out their own way. It reminds me of angry humans get when their pets misbehave... @hadleysHope...your comment made me think of .."he who has the gold rules" and might makes right...Thats what the Pharoahs did..no love for them, but fear

Robots?!? The SJ species has been around for MILLIONS of years. - Hell, maybe BILLIONS of years. - and you ask "Why are there no ROBOTS?" I would assume that a species of that age would have moved past simple "mechanical" creations. - everything will eventually become bio-mechanical. - Meaning, when you look at a dog, it "MIGHT" be a real dog; or it might have been grown from Dog DNA; OR, it might be a bio-mechanical dog, with enhanced musculo-skeletal features, vision and performance. I doubt anything will be "pure" after a billion years of science. Why would you want human muscles, when they can be replaced with a synthetic, which enables you to run 150 MPH, with limitless endurance and lift 20,000 pounds? Exactly. BUT, my assumption is that at this stage of their evolution, the Space Jockies don't have R2-D2 and C3PO walking around. - Come on man,.... get with the program. Robots are so 2012. - It'd be like someone from the year 1100BC looking at a video of New York City and saying, "Where are all the goats and horses?!?!?" /sigh.

Yes unexplained is ok as long as its not too barmy. Its the bits that seem totally out of context within the framework of the film - I just wish i was all much more realistic / convincing like alien was : ( ...anyway it can get better but some bits can never be fixed now : ( ...

Pickleguy...in th world you are describing in your comment, it makes perfect sense and your point is received...thank you

All of these ideas are pure speculation. - there's no definitive, conclusive proof at all anywhere in the movie regarding the motives of the Space Jockeys and what really happened on LV223. It's fun to hypothesize - whereby some of our hypotheses could turn out to be factual in subsequent movies, but really, it's all just conjecture. Lastly, to contribute to the discussion, I ask this: "Why would a BILLION year old species need robots?!"

@Richie: Well.... thanks?! Are you some Forum Moderator or something? I didn't know that I needed your approval to post. /gag.