Two different types of black goo.

The "goo" is organic matter the xeno microorganism feeds on. Notice when David opens an ampule there's a fluid inside the glass tubes(most likely water) the xeno microorganism lives in surrouned by an organic goo not yet blackened by the xeno organism infiltrating it. The xeno gets released and has a chance for evolution when human beings (or another being/host of a similar nature) with natural body heat and outgassing of warm carbon dioxide the xeno responds to by ampule/egg "sweating" and release of the xeno microorganism which develops into a heinous hammerpede or "snake" feeding on the black, organic goo. In the movie Alien the xeno creature is an arachnid-like facehugger without the black goo but needing a oxygen-breathing host. Very weird ideas and I may be wrong in my observations.

I have tried to read through the sticky thresd on Goo and the result is my mind became goo-like. ".. The xeno gets released and has a chance for evolution .." This is grest way of describubg the beginnning of xenolife. All that we know of xenos seem to be about their adaptive survival techniiques. As long as the areas has some sort of living organisms the new xenos have not only a chance fro survivial but become a great threat to their host and race. Are wholly instinctive? No concience? Just adaptive? Can their thinking even begin to make sense to humans? Xenos with brains would be an ultimate threat to the Universe Future. Now hat is David's role in xeno development? If we forget about the 'Alien' storyline can David be figuring out a way to harness the xeno power for his own rise to a God like state? A world of David and xenos. Paradise fro him.

We don't know how is the end result of the infection of Holloway, because is just starting and then he dies, burned by Vickers. IMO the Infections are the same (in Fifield and Holloway) and the end result is the outbreak of the head... In the screenplay by John Spaihts, the black scarabacs (the first black goo) are the same ... and actually what these bugs do is extract the DNA from the first Engineer ... and later from the xeno ancestors. Who knows, maybe the both black goo are the same, but with different DNA samples.

In fact I think that this is the original creature [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/Prometheus_mural_1_zps0347af35.jpg[/img] and the gazpacho containing the DNA of this life form to create the Xenomorphs ... like the Black caviar in the beginning of the movie, that contains the genetic material of the Engineer for creating the mankind.

I'm sure this will get cleared up some in the next installment, Paradise. I think there's only one kind of ampule, one kind of goo and the xeno microorganism can grow into any form that suits the environment it's in as long as it isn't frozen. I would say the xeno has a simple central nervous system like an insect or basic animal then once it achieves deacon status has a primative brain with some reasoning and cognitive ability. The xeno is highly adaptive and takes on the genetic characteristics of its host as we've seen many times.

Would there be any enviroment that a xeno could flourish with the greatest chance of gaining intelligence? Hence a consciousness that would lead to xenos becoming more that just a entity that takes over hosts but becomes a true creator of their own world. I guess I see what we call xenos as parasites but not thinking/creative/learning/ race of beings. Maybe zenos can never build but only destroy in order to survive.

the thing about these creatures is that they cant fucntion as part of an ecosystem being a super-efficient parasite that targets any large mammal will relatively quickly run out of prey/hosts and either starve and die or resort to a dormant state but its not a given evolutionarily speaking that new prey/hosts can be expected to turn up which to me (imagining if i was an exo-biologist on one of these storys) would be the biggest clue to its not being a naturally occurring species and possibly deliberately modified bioweapon created for the purpose of genocide

by creature i mean xeno just to be clear

"..end result is the outbreak of the head..." Is there any connection between exploding Engineer's head and the Fifield/Holloway infection?

".. cant fucntion as part of an ecosystem Your explanation has finally hit me and explains some confusion on my part. Xenos are result of created good so they are not part of any eco system and exist because they exist. When hosts have disappeared they to will disappear. until other hosts coming along. My mind kept thinking of xenos as a developing speicies somehow surviving and getting better/smarter having will to dominate a Universe. But the reality is , as has been explained many times, they are just result of tool to be used by whoever masters the goo/xenos ect/. THere is no reason to try to figure out how the xenos fit into any star cultural system because they can't.

Well, the Blu ray revealed that what happens to Fifield is the same thing that what we see with the Engineer's head.

yeah its almost like the goo didnt work on them and they exploded as their heads warped trying to form into a xeno like shape i wonder what the starter creature for the xeno was maybe they were made from the bird faced creature in the mural plus goo

The First Engineer disintegrates and his genetic material is released into the water to create life. [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/Weta_Engineer_prometheus_zpsea9cb48e.jpg[/img] [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/PROMETHEUS_WETA_VFX_03_zps0f1427e9.jpg[/img] Million years later, Holloway disintegrates too but after having sex with Shaw, the Xenomorph's genetic material is released into the uterus for his sperm to create a new life form. [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/original_zpsc1b9b2d3.jpg[/img] [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/prometheus_featured1_zpse3fbc213.jpg[/img] The Black Goo is not a biological weapon IMO...but is the tool to create whatever that the Engineers want...even biological weapons.

One thing I want to point out that I think the stuff that the Engineer in the beginning drank looks totally different than the black goo ingested by Holloway and Fiefield. Remember the honeycomb pattern at the beginning when the container was opened? In the "Furious Gods" blue ray documentary Ridley Scott had a whole department who's job it was to create the cusine seen in the film including the honeycombed material ingested by the Engineer at the beginning. Its purpose appears separate from the black goo found later on LV223. We know that the beginning stuff, call it honey for short, was a potent genetic substance that broke down biological tissue and DNA and then supervised it reforming in a new sequence. The technology of the Engineers was very advanced when it came to biology and genetics as is demonstrated by the beginning. The black goo seems to be a powerful mutagen that alters the DNA of its substrate host and also carries the ability to be transferred by impregnation through sexual intercourse into another host, which acts to gestate a protofacehugger which is the beginning of a xenomorphic replication life cycle. Its effect on Fifield is what happens when it is directly applied to the epidermis or through direct oral and nasal ingestion. Holloway was contaminated in a slightly less direct way but still was through the oral route just in a much lower concentration so it took longer and we can only guess that the end result would likely be another Fifield like bioweapon.

@nostromo001, Just speculating but perhaps the first Black Goo (with the honeycomb) it is in pure state, before extracting the DNA of the Engineer...and the other in the Urns is ready with the Xeno-DNA inside. Maybe the Engineers injected the pure substance in an unknown life form and then this creature disintegrated, resulting in the Black Goo from the Urns with the Alien DNA collected.

In fact I've been thinking a bit on the Hammerpedes, because if we use the Occam's razor then is easy and logical assume that the hammers are mutated worms...but what if this worms actually have disintegrated? and the DNA of worms was mixed with the Xeno-DNA to give rise to this snake - like - facehugger creature. After all we dont see what happens to the worms... he mutation is just the easiest answer.

Shambhala, I hear you but I think we are over thinking this thing. I am pretty sure that the writers and RS meant the hammerpedes to be mutated centipedes or worms as you call them. Remember the deleted scene when Melburn finds the 6 " centipede-like alien and David says prophetically. "Our first alien." That was supposed to be most likely an intermediate form of the mutating little things - centipedes or worms they show in the head room initially. I have to go with Occam's razor this time.

Solid explanation @nostromo001. I think the goo in the urns/vases/ampules is also nutrient rich for the xeno creatures to feed on initially as you see pools of the black goo aound the ampules. Fifield also gets burned by the hammerpede snake blood made of acid as he tries to cut the hammerpede's head off. So it appears the acid blood can infect someone and turn them into a super strong xeno zombie. I think there's too much open to interpretation in the time and space between the honeycomb fluid the first Engineer drinks which breaks him down and rebuilds him (into what?... we don't know) and the black goo and xeno microorganisms contained in the ampules that infect the crew.

Theseus, I would bet that black goo could have multiple and simultaneous functions considering the advanced level of the Engineer technology. I bet they even genetically engineered themselves to be godlike physically perfect beings. From what we have seen, which may be just one facet of their various branches of science, their bioscience and genetics is way advanced compared to us. Holloway was wrong when he said that the Engineers prove that anyone with half a brain could make intelligent life! Just that black goo had multiple effects. Almost like they have genetic maps of organisms and can alter specific genes using their various goolike concoctions. What I wonder is what other areas of science do they excel in? Look at thier ships and Orreries!

If you go by one of the early draft screenplays for Alien, it was supposed to be fungus/spores. Updated to 21st century scientific knowledge, the "black goo" looks to have nanotech embedded in it. I think there's two different types of "goo". One "goo" which is in the ampules that David pulls out of the urn and the second "goo" is what's coating the ampules. If you go back and watch the original trailer for Prometheus, that outer goo wasn't on the ampules that David took back to the ship. It's there in the movie. If that outer "goo" is some kind of sealant or stabilizing fluid, then there are two different types. One being a disintegrating fluid that's used to seed the galaxy and the other being a toxic and mutagenic fluid that's only there as a "bio-industrial fluid". Is Prometheus then a commentary on industrial waste and environmental contamination?

Man you guys are obsessed with the whole Xeno thing let it go, this is about a new type of alien intelligence. I love the Xenomorphs too but its kind of getting old talking about Xeno this Xeno that. Maybe the goo was never a pre-Xeno goo to begin with maybe they designed it later only to become a terrifying creature. Lets take a new speculation about how this stuff was genetically engineered during the their war and how they created the darn thing from pre existing DNA.

Two goos, yes. One in the begining, a very fast acting DNA disperser. The other is the weapon found on the moon. The unweaponized goo used by the sacrificial Engineer may require drinking and the black goo on the moon is a weapon developed from it. I think Halloway and Fifield had the same exposure with slightly different results. The main difference was Halloway staying clearer headed and choosing suicide while Fifield went nuts in the alien installation alone. In the end they'd both have been bulbous headed zombies. The engineer was probably past his expiration date despite such good preservation. The goo from the moon seems to the true universal bioweapon. What we know as xenomorphs are just a relatively stable bioproduct. Possibly the ultimate goal given the wall sculpting we see. The goo take anything organic and kills it, weaponizes it, and/or makes it breed monsters. So when we see goo at its source with a variety of lifeforms the results are quite varied. There are similarities in the Prometheus creatures and the xenomorphs seen elsewhere. Patterns programmed in to the goo, it applies the ones best suited to the host and situation. I'm still not convinced that the Deacon is anything but the cousin or aunt of the ancestors of the LV-426 hive. I imagine the poor thing starving quickly on the moon unless it can find a lot of worms. In fact I wonder if the Xenomorphs ancestors were just big bugs. Giant ants, maybe livestock. Exposing them to the goo lead to the form we know today. The Aliens keep some of the genetic plasticity the goo gave them which explains A LOT in various sources. Consider the drone who hatched from LV-426's behavior in the director's cut of Alien. Without a queen or access to the eggs it was exposing the captives to what weaken microbes it carried. The microbes seem to be trying to make eggs or something out of the humans. Finally knowing that both the aliens and humans have a common creator and see how the goo works almost makes Resurrection seem reasonable.

@Shambhala I want to commend you on the screen shots posting. I don't recall in my DVD version of the movie seeing such clarity in the scenes you posted.

Taking into account that much of the backstory we are asking for is being developed decades later as is often the case with successful properties...

I think the opening scene is critical in differentiating between two different types of Engineers.

1.  Ships

A:  Smooth and natural-looking like a river stone.

B:  Militaristic/Bio Mechanical Giger Aesthetic

2.  Engineer Aesthetic

A: Smooth Cloth, light colors, suggesting a pious sacred nature.

B:  Biomechanical, dermal armor resistant to firearms; prominent Giger aesthetic.

3.  Black Goo

A.  Carefully handled, honeycombed, an ounce for the entire planet...importantly shows the entire destruction to creation double-helix process. A  genetic catalyst/accelerant.  It cannot be understated how important it was that the ship departed prior to.

B.  Thousands of Silo/Warhead-like containers of pure-black soup.  Genetic chaos/death/cancer.

The theme reminds me of Robert Frost's "Great Unanimal Man" and the Bible's inherent "sins of the flesh".

Whether two warring factions, or simply scientific vs military branches, I'm beginning to suspect that the "Xeno" mural suggests the military Engineers have some part of Xeno DNA both in their goo warheads AND  in their own make-up.

4.  "Mortal after all..."

Beyond the obvious, the deeper meaning here is that the Military Engineers cannot escape the predatory violence of the evolutionary process.

They are as tainted as humans.

I wonder if the pathogen that caused the exploding head/Engineer deaths was a fast-acting genetic nuke to contain the Xeno-goo breach and stop it from spreading.

Fin