How Did the Engineer Get to the Lifeboat?

[b][i]"survive the atmosphere pressure differences?"[/i][/b] I dont think thats the case, as i said this planet/moon seems similar to Earth apart from the toxins in the Atmosphere. If you emitted all the CO2 that all the Cars in the World Produce and have that daily CO2 all pumped into the air across the UK, well you would not be able to breath in England. If you stood in a office and had say 20 Cars with pipes connected to their exhausts and pumped the CO2 into the office complex well again you would find it hard to breath but that does not alter the Gravity, Pressure etc of the place. The main reasons are the toxic levels of CO2 and Nitrogen aside from those its safe to assume the planet would be habitable. If we could all of a sudden place vast vast Forests on that moon and find a way to reduce Nitrogen levels, then eventually the planets CO2 would drop and Oxygen increase. If all Plant life was to die tomorrow and never grow back, it would not take ages for some areas of the planet to become toxic as the Oxygen levels drop and CO2 rise.

'The willing suspension of disbelief' lets us accept the existence of: David as a synthetic human, the medi-pod, atmosphere generators, light-speed space travel, cancer is cured, so why is anything so crazy? Especially a race of Engineers we know scarcely anything about........until 'Paradise', I hope!

I LOVE ROCKS!

I think it could be a combination of things you mentioned BigDave but have you ever considered some of the similarities in shape to the Atmospheric processor design; even having a similar set up for the way they enter it/ the way it's raised off the ground? And that the air could have been being processed there on a massive scale? In fact we pretty much know oxygen was being produced inside the temple. But what about outside? What if when David opened the door and allowed oxygen into the sealed chamber he also reactivated the Engineers' version of an Atmospheric processor? And that from that point forth it was converting atmosphere directly outside again. It started to clean the air of the toxins again, but also caused the storm because the planet had been started but not completely terraformed. Along with allowing the oxygen, pressure change, and moisture to deteriorate the urns inside the anaerobic environment. What if Holloway is completely right when he says they WERE terraforming here? What if the planet had been terraformed to that point, and that's why it almost matched our atmosphere. But when that door was sealed and the outbreak happened the facility had been improperly shut down. I mean they disturb the Atmosphere in the room below, and the atmosphere above takes a sudden drastic turn (the massive storm which occurs very quickly after they get past the door). Why does the storm strike there of all places on the planet? As above, so below. Janek says something like he's seeing increased levels of something in the upper atmosphere... I think when the Engineer wakes up at some point he realizes the facility is completely active and not just producing air for the interior of the temple... He therefore knows that his possibly increased lung capacity/breathing abilities + the toxin cleaning process starting up again means he will soon be able to breathe very easily outside that Temple. All the other temples have collected as much toxins and other things from the air, have broken it down and recombined it in new ways with the alien genetics, setting as many temples for as much as they need to clean/collect... They'd already taken the most useful and deadly parts that existed in that atmosphere. They search for certain atmospheres and convert them but have also found uses for the other toxins they extract from the air. Sometimes their Elders used to make them return after the planet had been made habitable to set up colonies. With Earth they had to do little work setting up the garden and it quickly became a paradise. Ours was one that backfired on the Elders and rebelled against them, causing the downfall of Paradise/Atlantis. A time when things were much more perfect in the garden that the Engineers/Elders set up for us, then destroyed themselves and periodically returned to to show us where they had gone. And to involve us in a war that's now been raging against the Elders, as an offshoot of them and almost their younger brothers instead of their creation. They wish to lead us to knowledge only to bring humans into their war against the fathers. Funnily enough if the air processing stuff is true, then David's comment about it not being the air is ironic and true at the same time. Because part of the mixture he gave Holloway would have then been in the air originally, concentrated and added to the nitrogen and carbon concoction in a liquid state. Nitrogen and carcinogens causing some of the poisoning breakdown and mutation afftects. The black liquid part, and not the xenomorph genetics part just to clarify what I'm talking about. The xenomorph genetics adding to and amplifying/modifying the base. Because he combined the two. A tiny bit of each. And the engineers have already added part of the genetics to the goo before, but mixing it in the ratio that David does + making Holloway drink it causes different effects than when Fifield is exposed to the stuff directly. The ways that the black-liquid and xenogenetics have been combined gives it its abilities, based on broken down elements of the genetics: the morphing cycle and some regenerative abilities and other traits that make it the perfect organism. However, the Engineers only wanted it in small doses at first until they played with the ratio and weaponized the fire. It's much like how I've been saying that things in this movie are a mixture of things. A prequel and not a direct prequel. An Alien but a new hybrid form called the Deacon Shaw's balance of science and faith. David secretly being more emotional than he's letting on and telling half-truths. In the Alien universe, but a parallel story...

ok, i think i solved the riddle. he was carrying this to the lifeboat [img]http://hudsonweb.net/writer/pics/spaceballs_large_05.jpg[/img]

too soon?