Why did they explode?

Necronom4 My theory is that they had sperm growing inside them becoming octopoid facehuggers that inherited memories from them setting of for juggs facehugging the engineers except bob because he was on a different hive mind matrix frequency since he was from a different faction.

Necronom4 I have racked my brains on that one !!! How do we solve this ?? Because yes they exploded - or something exploded out them . Where do we start ? Ot must at least the size of a chestburtser or would those holes be the size of an ultramorph's movable jaw ? Does the holes run straighr through ? Can you see from one side to the other ???

Perhaps direct contact with the goo un dilated - perhaps a goo spitting ultra morph or one who had a scorpion like stinger that directly inserts the goo into your system reacting so quickly as was the case with the case with the severed head. Dunno ....

ITs all a confusion, because: 1) Engineers are running from something, even you can hear a roar. 2) The pile, evidence to suggest that they exploited. 3) The sacrificial engineer and Holloway through a similar process. 4) In Furious of Gods, one of the designers said Fifield head was about to explode, as the head on the scanning table. 5) The Engineers know about the existence of the Deacon (by the mural), and we know how is the process to create one of these monsters, long and complicated cycle that includes sex. So...Engineers were escaping from a deacon / ultramorph? or from a infected Engineer? (Fifield Style) And if the deacon/ ultramorph is the answer...How this creature was born?..There are Engineer womens? :p or it was just something like in Jurassic Park...Life finds a Way....

But one thing is certain; most of the people who work in this film has no idea how to create a coherent concept, they just wanted to do cool things for the big screen. Ambiguity can be a very useful tool, but I think it went out of control. In fact Prometheus is almost like a Role-playing game...with lots of possibilities and possible stories, and maybe we need some of these in the future :p [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/Dados_4_a_20_caras_trans_zps5b5526f0.png[/img] The screenplay by Jon Spaihts was more consistent over the Black Goo (aka scarabs), and I think they should keep a little of that, not with the Scarabs, but with the idea and operation of the goo.

The engineers exploded because the goo can't make them go a step further in the evolution process. They are already on the end of their evolution process... So instead of going trough mutations, the goo can only kill them.

I sense your frustration - I know what you what you want to say and has said - I love it too and they messed it up and unchangeably altered that image you had in your head - and now you are stuck with it. We have no concept of what we are dealing with its the perfect money making system - perfectly structured in its money making systems - we have no chance against them unless we get ridleys head reattached - I am not conning you - I feel the same way .....

@shambs Spot one 100% this is common thing with Lindeloffs writing its not so much ambiguity.... but contradicting... Then so was Lost! As with most of my interpretations i will ignore what is set off screen but take into account it but basically go by more what we see on screen... We did not see Holloway break down but he may have started to, he did drink a diluted amount of the Goo, as far as Fifield, well again they said off screen stuff to basically make sense of what the theatrical release showed us, same as the Weyland File on the Goo... Basically added stuff latter to make sense of what we saw... When in reality from the drafts and concept and even some shots that was shot and last minute scrapped alternatives..... Fifield was being mutated as per Hammerpedes. Now onto the WHY DID THEY EXPLODE debate.. 1) The Engineer Head.... this head could have exploded because of tow reasons in my opinion.. a) The Engineer was going through some kind of accelerated transformation and his genes was being changed and cells, and the combination of him losing his head and then the sterile environment in the Ampule room, preserved the head and prevented the mutation of cells from occurring. Once they tricked the heads cells to thinking the head was alive again, we saw the mutation start to take effect but due to the accelerated process caused via the manipulation of the Head via the Tool Shaw and Ford used the process happened so fast and also as the cells had been in state of stasis for so long it caused a reaction and the head exploded.. My theory being had they not upped the voltage or what ever with that tool we would have seen the head mutate or break down at a slower rate and not explode... b) The Engineer was in the process of his cells being changed and broken down like the Sacrificial Engineer and the fact the head had been decapitated and was left in the sterile Ampule room had put a stop to this process.... When they awoke the head with the tool they used they had accelerated the process too fast and the Engineers head exploded. Both theories i think show that somehow the Ampule room is able to preserve and but organic matter in a state of stasis. And that maybe the Goo does not effect dead material so much, i.e why Milburns body never mutated or got effected by the Goo, Fifield did as he did not die, he just had bad acid burn on his face. Before some claims the Goo reactivated Shaws Dead Womb, well her womb would not had been dead, but some other genetic defect would have prevented her from having kids, its not a case of she produces dead eggs..

Especially since you are an artist a very good one at that - my 2nd oldest sister is also very artistic - I am not - and she gets very upset when they mess with what is close to her especially visual stuff.

Onto the Dead Engineers... Now if we consider they exploded like the Head and we consider the Sacrificial Engineer Scene... We see the Sacrificial Engineer take a substance that reacts with his cells, it causes a violent reaction that breaks down his cells to form a black liquid and this liquid then goes into the water and either reforms to make new DNA and Cells or its bonds with basic life and mutates its cells. But the basic thing we see is a rapid chemical reaction, where the Engineers genetic material breaks apart and rushes off down the stream and into the winds fast... The Engineers Space Jockey suits are a pressured environment, and when such a reaction occurs it has no where to escape so the reaction intensifies until it finds the weakest point to escape and explode from. My point being take some Coke and put either a Mentos or Bicarbonate Soda into it.... Stick the Mint etc into the bottle close lid and a reaction occurs this is more intense if the coke is shook up.... now if you do this to a coke bottle and the lid is not on tight the lid will fly off and coke spray out... If you secure the lead down with lots tape etc then as the reaction occurs you shoot the bottle with a projectile be that a Air Riffle or Dart and you will see the Coke will escape violently from the resulting Hole. The reaction in the bottle is just looking for the weakest and quickest point of escape.... if you melt the plastic a bit but not enough to melt a hole and you secure the lid tight, then chances are the coke will break through the weakened plastic where it was melted... Now go and get another cola and poor it into a bowl, apply the mint and stir and you will see a reaction but it is no where near as violent as inside the pressured environment of the Bottle. This is my only logical explanation to how those holes had occurred in the Engineers, unless they was caused by some other Engineer/Organism that had attacked them. I can not account for how come the bodies was all piled up and not scattered about, unless logically they was later moved to that point and piled up on one another.

I could tell you that the idea for the engineers head exploding came from spaihts draft where the engineers head starting decomposing and they tried to get in a tankk where it coild be preserved and spaihts got that idea(I think) from an unused idea from one of the alien scripts where the facehugger was beginning to break up and he wanted to get into an stasis pod and liquid for preservation before it completely disintegrated - I think it was in one of xeno alpha 07 's blogs. Not sure. Sorry of topic and I think everyone is now tired of my "script" revelations. At least know that are up against it - that system I talked about !!!!

Maybe likewise thats where they could have got the idea of the Engineer disintegrating into a liquid... Which is what we see after he takes the more butter consistency metallic substance from the Sacrificial Bowl, that broke him down into a Black Substance Liquid...

@oduodu, yes, I also feel that way, great to see that I am not the only, and the analysis of the scripts is very helpful. BigDave, nice theory, it's probalbe that Black Goo can only act on living matter as you said, and so the head collapse.

@BigDave; quote "The Engineers Space Jockey suits are a pressured environment, and when such a reaction occurs it has no where to escape so the reaction intensifies until it finds the weakest point to escape and explode from." Yes, I too thought that might be a good explination. Then I dismissed it for some reason. My brains not working properly today. @Oduodu; thanx for the compliment bud! Anyway, when the engineer in the hologram looks back, is he looking to see what's chasing them, or is he looking to see if Bob's behind him? He must have wondered where Bob was?

Necronom4 I guess a deacon type creature as the screech in the recording sounded a lot like the deacon at the end - I guess.

Well the screech could just be the sound of the Hologram being activated.. Again we have more Lindeloff Ambiguity that does not add up to what they say is going on..... Because the Engineers do look behind them and they are looking like they are running from someone, be that a infected Engineer or something else. If all those Engineers knew they was infected, while they may run to the ampule room i doubt they would care whats behind them unless it was a mutated Engineer (like Fifield) or something else i.e Deacon or Xeno type Organism. if they was not infected or did not know for sure if they was, then i guess they would run and look over shoulder if they was trying to get away from a infected Engineer in case of getting infected themselves. The only other explanation would be they was infected and tried to get to the ampule room or maybe that room was the only way to access the Cryo Pods to stop or hold up any infection, while chasing them was unaffected Engineers who wanted to kill them to prevent the outbreak.

@BigDave; yes, I originally thought that the shreek was the sound of a deacon (it does sound like a deacon) but then again, it wouldn't be the first time we have mistook a sound. It could indeed be the sound of the hologram activating, that was my thought exactly in my last post.

[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/x7UDXgi.jpg[/img] Pretty sure the real reason why is because this just looked cool... I doubt they thought that far ahead.

There are other toxic substances than the black goo, which itself was different as it leaked out of the vials in the pyramid than the stuff that the engineer imbided in the beginning. The movie raises more questions than it answers, and not always in a good way. It is interesting, though, more than enough to anxiously await the sequel(s).

[img]http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/night-of-the-creeps/18.gif[/img] Ever seen Night of the Creeps?...their also an escaped bio-weapon which came from space! As for exploding head in Prometheus...I think it had something to do with green crystals.

Um... Maybe it's just perspective, but did anyone else notice the one huge Jockey in Freeze's pic above? Bottom left of the pile looks like a massive Jockey.

Also, I firmly believe that it was a Deacon- the scream is just too similar. I believe this is why we are shown/ hear the scream at the end.

Fleshvessel- yes I did notice it. It's one of a handful of clues that suggest to me that the Engineers and the SJ are separate species.

Major noob Do you think that the bottom left is a sj and the rest being smaller are engineers ?

Well its hard to say as the image is in the foreground and others in back ground, and we know what illusion that can cause.. as well looking at my thumb its bigger than my xbox 360 on other side of room lol But yes this guy does not look to far in front of others and some even at back look various sizes. So the Space Jockey could be explained away by a different sized Engineer. Remember us Humans stand about 5.5ft average. And if we take Males only well we average about 5ft9-5ft10" but can vary from 4ft10 to 6ft10... but even so we can have some around the 4ft Mark and 8ft Mark but these are usually people with some kind of growth defect i.e Dwarfism and Gigantism and they also have other psychical characteristics and bone shape deformaties. Lets save Arguments sakes most Human Males can stand from about 5ft to7ft now if thats the case then why could the Engineers not be passed off as a race that vary 7-12ft Tall?

Oduodu- I think it's possible. Also, consider David's needing a ladder to operate the door. The great size of the Troglybite Facehugger. Shaw's saying she wants to know "who made them". To me, all this points to something larger and more powerful than the Engineers, who themselves seem cloned.

Sorry, I've stared at the image of the piled up engineers and can't see much of a size difference between any of them. If you look at his leg, it is the same size as the engineers leg to the far right of the image. Also, he has a hole where his arm is missing, but slightly to the right of said hole, there is an arm or leg that might add to the illusion of him being bigger.

On the subject of the piled up engineers, it was either Fifield or Milburn whom pointed out that they looked like a scene from an holocaust picture (something to that effect.) Maybe those piled up "engineers" were actually test subjects from the engineers homeworld? Maybe they were sent there, to their deaths?

I choose to believe that the Engineers were undergoing the same sort of head first mutation that Fifield was suffering from somehow, or a similar strain. However, their genetics were safeguarded so that if the mutation cycle started up from the spores within the green goo, they would not mutate all the way like Fifield would. So, that left some of them knowing they would head burst before a creature could come out and in a way their genetics were missing a key ingredient that allows both the transformation to complete and the egg laying traits to go forward. Their x chromosomes are altered, and they have increased testosterone and lower levels of estrogen, creating a man who is genetically coded to be stronger and taller than us, based on levels of hormones and things going on under the surface. David has certain sets of programming, but the Engineers have themselves been engineered genetically by a higher species and follow genetic codes where the junk DNA triggers subroutines in them and not in us, hormones etc regulate the behaviour of most Engineers. The Weyland corp may have had a manipulative agenda for their crew, and programmed David to do certain things, yet he may gain his own free will. The Engineers could be almost like a runaway faction that was once completely obedient to the Elders. The idea of the head might not be as important as the idea of the mind. The morphing side of the genetics might usually attack the mind directly. The brain might be more important than the head themes, because it's what's in the head and below the surface that matters. For some reason I think the Engineers were coded so that certain aspects of the Xenomorph's lifecycle couldn't move all the way through them and caused their heads to explode, or caused the chests to burst prematurely and kept chestbursters down to a minimum... and it needed the addition of Shaw's x chromosome and Holloway's sperm. Making the sex themes/psycho-sexual nature of things in the alien series very important. Fifield and Millburn ask if the Hammerpede is a boy or girl, but it looks like both. Worms are hermaphroditic so it is both... the Alien species also shares this trait...but has many other traits, and can take traits from its host... The Alien may even be able to evolve faster than any other species, because if it did survive for long enough it would carry its traits to the next generation and be the perfect harvesting tool to carry the genetics forward from one species to the next, if you can use the fire the right way and not get burned. In my theories the Engineers were coded to not let the mutation cycle start bringing about more octopoid/facehugger creatures and then chestbursters, so the cycle wouldn't keep going forever, but David accidentally got their evolution started again, and it quickly and rapidly moved through the mutation cycle to try to find the traits it needed to get to Original Xeno form... However, it became a Deacon because Shaw was infertile -- she gave it an x chromosome so it is almost there, but the trait it needs to be able to lay eggs is dormant in Shaw's genetics. The Deacon cannot become a Queen... The Ultramorphs become Kings.... but they die even faster than the Hermaphroditic ones if they don't develop a hive. The Hammerpede lacks the ability to transform, the sperm side...But has amazing regen capabilities like worms do.. Worms can split their genetics...it can heal itself in a way similar to the original facehugger, but can't deposit spores. The Hammerpede used genetic memory to try to attack the head and enter the brain or chest... The brain is as important as the head themes/symbols. In Frankenstein it is the bad brain the monster has that causes him to be a monster... This is similar to some things we see in Prometheus, The modern Frankenstein. David is a monster. He is different than all other androids because his artificial brain has artificial feelings.. Ash said the Alien is the perfect organism, unclouded by conscience and delusions of morality... However, just because the Alien is instinctive and not burdened by logic all the time, does not mean it is not intelligent. It doesn't mean it doesn't exploit the intelligence of others and control the minds of its drones and warriors... The Alien Queen may control minds in her hive, and Cameron was wrong to say they're in any way like Ants... The characters were wrong, they were so wrong, too many horrible traits from all across the universe in the species.It's more like the wasp/bee idea, the ones that paralyze their ant victims and turn them into Zombies, take full control over their minds, over Fiefield's head/mind, before even changing him all the way... The Alien is building its hive mind before a queen arises because the male side is rising to dominance. The green goo side/green crystal side contains the nanospores already, and David found this out and pieced it together. The green goo is from an alien Queen that reached near maturity, and almost the very last stage of the alien cycle where they become fully intelligent... The green goo is sort of the idea of a Queen's royal jelly, whereas the blackgoo actually is a product of the extremely rare Alien king that some of the factions fight over to try to make the perfect strain(s). In one of spaight's scripts they were almost farming them in beehives, and had 8 different types of alien egg. This particular Engineer faction only has one strain...and big things have very small beginnings. The goo can contain different ratios of spores and nano spores, and the black goo is secreted from an Alien king or male aliens..-- the Engineers worship them and have to kill/sacrifice a King to get this rare highly weaponized form of it. The alien drones and warriors can usually only secrete the black goo and resin to transform the environment in minor ways, to get royal goo you need a king or queen. But a king has his reign and then he dies, its inevitable. The Queens are usually dominant in their species, and males Kings are extremely rare because they start hermaphroditic until the female genetics rises to dominance... the reverse of what happened in Engineers and humans, favoring kings over queens... Weyland wanting a son so bad he created one. It'd be about worship and obedience to the head of the hive, the colonies, the Empire etc. Mind control, tricks that don't really hurt pyhsically, but emotionally and psychologically... hive minds... possibly collective consciousness and the idea of the singularity. I think the heads exploded because they were programmed to if infected with one strain of the alien, it was trying to get to the chestburster stage and some of it managed to within their genetics, because they do have x chromosomes, and are a match for us, but the x ad y chromosomes have been altered to produce more and less testosterone. The series becomes about a parallel path, a parallel evolutionary track that can split away from the creature that normally prefers to take the she approach... and can combine back with it later on in the series... We've never seen a King before because the normally hermaphroditic alien represses its male side as the Queen comes to dominance and controls their minds... David and Weyland were tricking people/controlling their minds in this movie, and David cut off the feed to Weyland. The head of a company can regenerate like the head of the Hammerpede...because the brains behind the operation is too important, and much work was done to make it so David's head will be able to be revived.. In the early posters there was a green light coming out of a hole in the head statue. There are reasons the characters behave the way they do, and that some people might do the same in similar situations if they were uninformed beforehand... many were picked for their "skills" and ability to be manipulated, as well as their egotism. Like the happy birthday video for David, the crew interviews in the special features are clues. Weyland corp analyzed each of their psychological profiles, and David might have edited Shaw's dreams/memory to almost program her to respond in certain ways... He didn't plant a fake memory like Blade runner, they used her memories and beliefs, her genetics and her father's image, to their advantage... Shaw will feel like her mind is about to explode when she finds out all of what Weyland and David did. The Engineers were coded to almost make the organism self destruct within them. The Last Engineer was actually trying to destroy this other factions outpost, cause them to have the outbreak, but stop the outbreak dead in its tracks, kill them all, then stop them from leaving for Earth.... The last Engineer then stepped into his hero chamber and thought all would be well, that the Elders would come pick him up. But a bigger war was brewing back on Paradise. The Hero Engineer had already stopped the supply of this strain, but we kick started the organism again, because the other faction tried to leave a trap for anyone who would come for the goo. The Elders decided not to approach the planet at that time,a s they were engaged in war elsewhere and forgot about the hero engineer/knew the area would be full of deacons and chestburster, but no full xenos who could plant eggs.., they did want to try to take some of the royal goo, but knew the area could be compromised and had no way of knowing if the hero died completing his mission or not. The Hero engineer actually thinks David is an idiot for screwing it all up, they were planning to go to earth but that Engineer stopped them. the others who were part of his crew of sabateurs only succumbed to the chestburster stage, and it did influence his mind because the infection got into his head, but he was only killing us so he could get off the planet and not leave people alive. He needs the pulse to die out before they become infected. His head was David only worked out the broad strokes and made Janek kill himself. There could be gaps in David's logic because of emotion... Humans are emotional creatures, David almost gets emotional while watching Lawrence of Arabia. The reason logic flew right out the window for Millburn is because his mind was blown... He had never seen anything like it, and he was hypnotized by it. It was not successfully mesmerized by him, and he was being completely illogical because of emotion, and his own inner character, i.e. trying to impress Fifield, and thinking he could handle the situation by spouting something about snake charming (which he may know nothing about, although yes he was a biologist, but may not have any experience handling snakes of any sort, and wanted to appear in control to Fifield who was panicking)... A sort of fight or flight response, Millburn chose to fight back his fright at that point, but the panic and lack of real world experience causes him to act irrationally like Vickers when she keeps running straight and develops tunnel vision... There are problems with the characters characters, i.e. their psychologies, not so much an intelligence thing. They were all found to be easily manipulated by others.

@HiveMinded; It is very interesting what you are suggesting! I think you are basically saying that the engineers genetics have some kind of fail safe so that if they do get infected, they will self destruct as opposed to them mutating. That is a very good reason as to why they exploded!