Alien Origins - What Happened on LV 426?

IMO i think the guy entering is carrying a helmet not an egg (going by comparitive size and shape) and i think theyre meant to be humans looking around not engineers (again by comparitive size to eggs etc) this wouldve been a pre-urn concept artwork

It would be safe to assume that what ever got our Engineer on the derelict of LV 426 has something to do with the demise of our Jocks on Lv 223. What bothers me though is the fact that those who survived or thought the were going to survive on LV 223 did not leave there when they had the ability to do so. I can't help but feel that our engineers are not the originators but are some how working for someone else...our engineers are Sacrificed for bigger causes right from the beginning of the film and Lets face the fact also that makes the pilot on LV 426 the ultimate Kamakazi Commando Jockey. Which all brings me to another realization is that during the Hologram sequence with David there are several star systems that are floating about but it's not until David steps on the floor that Earth comes into view and He selects the planet himself and not the engineers. If it is true that who ever really built those temple thingys as a long standing alarm system for unwanted visitors perhaps they are aware of Shaws departure for the home word OR perhaps the race of engineers has long since died during some War in Heaven and now there are new races to contend with? Deep thoughts down the Giger hole that the white rabbit never came out of. The path to paradise is as thin as a hair and sharp as a sword...on all sides is HELL. So I would expect the Journey to Paradise to not be an easy one for Shaw..it's the ultimate journey. I must say though I am hoping to see some splicing and dicing into the Bio-mechanical Matrix while still in your spacesuit.

caenorhabhditis, you are correct. I zoomed it in about 400 times and it is a helmet as can be seen by the flat bottom where it attaches to the suit. The guy laying in the foreground is harder to make out. Perhaps it could be sharpened if someone wants to get a closer look. It maybe based upon the Spaihts script where evil David purposely infects Shaw with a face hugger and leaves her no helmet.

Here is the image I took the liberty of blowing up a few times part shows what possibly is Shaw, lying upon here side and more-than-likely is David. There was talk in an earlier draft of PROMETHEUS with Holloway being infected by a parasite FACE-HUGGER but they chose to thus follow just Shaw being taunted by David then omitting the entire purpose of those references altogether. [img]http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/6945/25942510.jpg[/img] I zoomed in really close from a medium-wide shot to a close-up for direct comparisons between the two. When looking closer the 'person' lying down looks an awfully-lot like Holloway. I know it is not the way it went ultimately in the finished film but does not mean they were doing teaser pics or started going one way but decided to change tack on the stories progression.

My theory. The Space Jockey was on it's way to a planet to attack whatever species that it was after. Possibly earth. I've come to that conclusion because the eggs are already in their full engineered development vs the Space Jockey where things hadn't evolved to that stage. And on the mural we see an Alien like species that look like what we see in the 1979 movie. My guess is the Engineers goal was to get what we see in the Alien movie. The same one on the wall. I also think that the Space Jockey isn't as old as the Engineers and may have evolved over the centuries. Hence his size and the question that was asked when the scientist noticed the change/evolving change on the dead Engineer's face/head after they take the mask off. Is it possible that the space suits that they're wearing is what they're trying to physically evolve into? That has crossed my mind often due to the look of the Space Jockey who look more organic than a space suit. Although if you look closely, you can see the part of what looks like it's nose, looks like metal and not organic. A space suit. If this isn't about evolution, then perhaps the Space Jockey is a different type of Engineers but larger from the same planet. Similar to us humans that come with different looks, color, hair, eyes etc. Or a better example would be in the last Predator movie where there are different types of Predators on their planet. Or just simply, evolution.

@ MesHuggah "An unusual feature of worms, well unusual to human eyes, is the nature of its two sexes, where we have hermaphrodites with two x chromosomes and are capable of self-reproduction but may still need a male to fertilise the eggs." This got me thinking about the Meredith Vickers character. I had questioned her gender after the seeing the non explanation of the male repair chamber in her room that she'd demand having on the ship for her. I was thinking that she might be a male who had a sex change. But now I'm leaning towards that she may well be a hermaphrodite.

nah! haha! it was there for old pa weyland shaw says to vickers "it does by-pass surgery what do you need it for?" its later that we find it was configured for a man because its weylands

besides a male only configuration would be as much use to a hermaphrodite as it would a female....... well only half useful/useless

Nostromo001 and King, thank you for finding/posting the pic; its very intriguing because where the blue light is emanating from seems to be a doorway, not just a mechanism built into the wall! That's very cool, and the way an alien technology should be (in my mind): both surprising and unpredictably odd. I like the way their IT tech just melts into the environment, not like current human computers which are visually distinct and often get in the way. They are truly bio-mechanical! Going back to the Space Jockey, I always wondered if Ridley and gang intended there to be other crew members on the Derelict. Lambert poses the question and no clues (leading us in either direction) are presented- but I suppose there being a single occupant is more disturbing on a number of levels.

I think we have to consider that the eventual chest burster of LV 426 in Alien must have had an earlier human component - Shaw, for example - which may have contributed to the eventual ability for egg laying in the first place. It should be interesting to see how the writers get us from Prometheus to Alien, just as Star Wars did with its 3 prequels.

@caenorhabhditis. No. When the woman looked at the machine, it was stated earlier in the movie that it was configured for a male. That's what made me suspect Vicker's gender. So I'd went online and Googled it to see if I wasn't the only one that questioned this. Turned out there are several listings that talked about Vicker's sex gender, concluding that she's a he. I doubt that this was for the old man. He basically had all that he needed in his private area. Think about it. Why would Vickers need to have it there? Why would Weyland need to have it there and he could have it in his area where they had him at, basically on life support keeping him alive? Remember, the robot stated this was Vickers private area and what she wanted in that private area. Regarding her possibly being a hermaphordite. That is still relevant. If she has male parts, in particular, more male than female, then that machine is needed. If she's not a hermophordite, then she is a male who had a sex change.

@epics7, the medpod was for Peter Weyland, there are no ifs or buts about it. Damon Lindelof confirms it in the commentary, and it didn't need to be confirmed since all the evidence is implied on screen. The medpod was just as much a foreshadowing device for Weyland's presence on board the ship as it was for Shaw's caesarean. Vickers' quarters is [i]Weyland's[/i] quarters; Vickers was a late addition to the mission, why do you think Weyland was surprised to see Vickers on board?” “So you came after all..." "After all your vigorous attempts to stop me from coming here, I'm surprised to see you." Though he does not have much time on the clock, he knew all along that he would be going on the journey, and the ship was appointed accordingly, ergo, the lifeboat luxury suite was not Vickers’ accommodation, it was Weyland’s.

I just can't buy the bioweapon theory. That would take far too long for one and doesn't make sense...why not use something far more effective? SJ and Engineer are noticeably different in size, cargo/xeno egg features and ship features. The SJ's ship on LV 426 has no hypersleep chambers, no holographic control center and the eggs are organic containing facehuggers. The Engineers' ship has a holographic map, hypersleep chambers and metallic ampules resembling the eggs containing xeno microorganisms in the glass tubes of fluid resembling water which were contained within an organic goo I think was a micro-nutrient for the xenos to live on and grow in. These ampules and their xeno microorganisms on LV 223 as well as the eggs on LV426 responded to slight increases in atmosphere temperature via human body heat and outgassing from our breath seen as "sweating" or some form of chemical reaction.

Hi...Um..I read...AND.....the jars werent a bio-weapon..they were alien DNA...and the builders were seeding the galaxy with it. Spreading thier..um.."Gifts" as it were....What happened is what always happened...enough time lapsed and enough decay took place to smudge the initial goal...and some of the dna leaked into the planets ground..and its indigenous populations of whatever worms or flies existed there..and the dna did what it was supposed to do. It altered the dna of the host. Its what always happens. Anyhoo..Those eggs werent part of the initial cargo. Another creature replaced the jars with their own eggs..thus providing protection to its young. Just follow the film and youll see Im correct in this. It was basicially a way to "further" any and all planets that had life...ego notwithstanding..even Earth has that much Ego to go around...just look at what we do to the Middle East. Same thing. Infection= Change.

the lv426 crash could be a result of ignorance to the xeno species? much like in Alien - the fachugger falls off and they think Kane is fine. same thing with the engineers? scouting mission ends with discovering the pilot has a facehugger on him, gets infected, facehugger falls off they think everything is fine and they take off. everyone is in stasis except the pilot, chest bursts with a queen, she spits enough acid to escape through the floor, eats the rest of the crew and gets big enough to lay a whole bunch of eggs in the cargo, which she figures is like a stasis bay and will last longer than her... does her job and curls up in a corner somewhere to die hidden from unsuspecting customers. pretty thin? obviously this is disregarding the cargo image posted earlier ...so many ways they could go... alternatively; like the sacrifice of the engineer at the start of Prometheus; the crash on lv426 could be completely on purpose and not a crash after all. the cargo bay starts as full of eggs, the pilot could willingly get infected and land the ship, leaving a critter to go forth in case there's any indigenous life. and the beacon is left transmitting to trap any engineered life that has evolved to the point of space travel - is thus a threat and needs to be wiped out. also pretty thin, or; the Deacon on lv233 eats the humans from the follow-up mission (or the Yutani corp. sneakily following the Prometheus, may be like months away instead of 3 years?) or maybe infects one which becomes a proper xeno queen? jumps on board one of the remaining derelict ships (whos crew is in stasis) lays a whole bunch of eggs, curls up and dies in a corner. the engineer crew wake up (because their alarm goes off for their specifically timed missions), the pilot gets facehugged (like in the image) they take off to go show their masters this new form of species, and crash on lv426 because the pilots chest bursts. i dunno, i like the original idea Ridley Scott had of it being a warship that was compromised - i'd like it better if it were completely independent from the Prometheus story, perhaps happened tens of thousands of years before anything happened on lv223

how do we even know there is an engineer in that cockpit on lv426? maybe following yutani or weyland corp teams get caught/infected by deacon or other goo related org's and try to leave/escape on one of the other juggernauts as shaw and david did because their human spacecraft got destroyed or more likely in this case left in a panic without them there would have to have been at least one human plus (infectee in chair) and maybe another android to assist in juggernaut operation (assuming it takes android iq to work out how) its not impossible but: where'd the android go unless it set the beacon? were the nostromo crew the first/only ones to go down? where did ash arrive on the scene in the chain of events? how did he appear to know what theyd find (the xeno)?

you have a good point there - since the cockpit makes its own 'shell' for whoever the pilot is, then perhaps the pilot could be human - maybe even Liz Shaw? dna locks, if applicable, would probably not see the difference. im not sure if androids would contain any living flesh - if they did it would surely carry human dna (the writers could play with this) though, if Shaw got to the point of knowing how to drive a juggernaught, then no need for David to be about (plus i'd say the warning beacon would probably be automatic once a ship crashes?) if Shaw made a daring escape from some un-winnable situation - David would sacrifice himself. also, im sure theres plenty of places for an android to hide on lv426 if it comes to that; the nostromo crew did very little exploration of the ship, so theres tonnes of space to write-in other things. from the time the juggernaught set down on lv426 im pretty sure the Nostromo crew were the first to find it, theres no hints of it at all, next was Newt's family. After the events in Aliens? I would say 'the company' would get on top of it eventually, maybe find the remains of David, maybe find the remains of what laid the eggs, maybe find the remains of more engineers? i get what you are hinting at. In Alien, i always used to think that 'the company' orders were standard cold procedure; 'on contact or discovery of any alien life, observe and study, any alien tech must be assessed for usefulness, militarization is first priority by default. samples must be obtained at all costs, crew expendable - goes without saying' it would be a logical doctrine. i also assumed 'the company' has secret intel on previous encounters with alien races and would probably never announce 'first contact' to the general public; that's how they roll. now with the Prometheus movie as canon, then the events of lv223 would be a possible source - meaning someone caught a radio transmission or a 2nd team actually landed there. so if 'the company' did know about lv426, went and had a look without disturbing anything, then left quietly; getting a bunch of ham-head miners to be the ones to be the guinea pigs - would be completely within their nature. they may have even set a beacon off to make the story plausible for the nostromo crew. all that said, i dont think 'the company' would give ash any key intel - for risk of him getting hacked. he would just be following orders from 'mother' as they were issued. ash is just a company tool with a few of his behavioral inhibitors left out.

what i was wondering was if a team followed prometheus to lv223 then one human plus infection plus android (ash) left in a juggernaut crashed on lv426 human chestbursts in cockpit android although having places to hide well wouldnt he want 'picked up'? and so set a beacon or earlier transmission to notify his company... they recover him and send the nostromo after the trick beacon message to get infected and brought back for experiments

maybe

ash was well creepy i went back n watched alien again for the first time since i was a kid the other day haha i needless to say i didnt fully understand the magazine business back when i was a kid i remember thinking oh dear he's malfunctioning badly what an odd way to try and kill someone by sticking a rolled up magazine in their mouth hahaha