August 17, 2012[size=50][/size][size=50][/size][size=50][/size][size=50][/size]Yes Paradise isn't what the characters expect it to be when they find it. In more ways than one. Kind of like finding out the Engineers aren't actually gods. Their civilization in the stars has been left in rough shape. "As above, so below".
The storm that happened in the heavens above destroyed paradise, because the Engineers tried to lash out and kill their creators/fathers/the true gods of us and them. And the storm also consumed the Paradise the Engineers were attempting to set up on Earth in the ancient past.
I agree it could be 1 or 3 but I think Shaw's question of if they're us, then who created them? may mean that we were simply recreated in their image, based on a blueprint that had already been created. The sacrifice engineer just broke down and donated his genetics. And there's probably a true creator of us and them. The Elders may have forced the servant engineer class to reproduce in this way to create more, which is why they were watching to make sure the deed was carried out. Sacrifice one and get a lot more servants/subjects in return.
Humans were created as an offshoot of the way the Elders start their colonies/kingdoms.... But the Paradise kingdom that grew on Earth millions of years ago disappeared back into the ocean that it came from when the Earth Engineers rebelled against the true creators of us and them. And humans were saved from the flood and plague that destroyed Paradise/Atlantis. These are beings that are identical to humans that proceed us. The true atlanteans of myth were not said to be mermaids, they were said to be a tall, pale race with incredibly advanced science, that misused it and created mermaids and hybrid serpent monsters...
The true gods have punished them in a similar way on the other worlds that rebelled after the god-king at the time, Zeus's brother Poseidon (symbolic of the devil/lucifer with his trident/pitchfork) brought them into a war against the fathers/creators.
http://screenrant.com/prometheus-cast-crew-themes-interviews-sandy-163243/all/1/
"“It’s about the beginning of life and the eternal ‘what if’.’ Has this ball we’ve been sitting on right now been around for three billion years or one billion? And if we haven’t been pre-visited (by alien civilisations), then what was this planet doing for all that time before life came along? It’s only our arrogance that says, ‘No, it’s impossible, we’re the first ones.’ Are we the first hominids? I really, really, really doubt it. In recent memory or legend we keep talking about wonderful, weird things such as Atlantis – what is that? Where does that come from? Is that real, was it real, is it a memory, did it exist? And if that did exist, did it exist three quarters of a billion years ago? There’d be nothing left now. How was that created and who was it?”
-Ridley referencing Atlantis (sometimes thought of as a mythical Paradise) with a few hidden meanings ;)
