Why did they explode?

Thanks, Yeah that's the gist of it, i just had to explain the context of how it would fit with a few other things and theories i have. I have a lot of suspicions that the last engineer was on a sabotage mission like some others do. So, he would have known he could try to infect them all, and stop their mission to earth, while causing the organisms within them to burst prematurely, and take them all out with one shot. Almost a suicide mission too, but i can't figure out how the infection spread. It had to start with someone being infected by the goo it seems, but we don't even know yet for sure how the mutation/infection thing works. We saw it at work most clearly on Fifield. I'm almost 100% certain that Ridley is incorporating some of his old ideas for egg morphing/the morphing cycle. And there are similarities from this plot and earlier drafts to not only Star Beast, but some portions of an unused Alien 3 script I believe... Where the Alien was almost miniaturized by way of spores, and starts transforming a person from within. In that script though, it was in the air. Something different is going on here, but some of the science talked about in that unused alien 3 script might be applicable to the spore aspects (the stuff inside the green goo, and what looks like it might be specks in the black goo at the beginning). Basically I think a lot of it actually has to do with being programmed to respond in certain ways. Like in the Happy birthday viral, they ask David what he sees to almost check and see if his brain is alright. David might have found the secret to lying though, only working out the broad strokes and remaining ambiguous so he can get away from his programming... David is becoming a real boy, like Pinocchio, and cannot tell a complete lie... It would hurt his emotional circuits, but the way for him to get around that is a logic loop of some sort where he used double meanings, and actually used a very tricky choice of words at all times... It wasn't his bad, he gets away with saying he didn't know it was "in her" because he pretends he is referring to her survival skills...This is David's trick, a deception of the mind, he cannot feel physical pain and is immortal, but this android almost feels emotions.... The Engineers might have known that if they started transforming like Fifield they would become mindless zombies, so they made it impossible for their genetics to keep transforming.

@BigDave Brilliant it makes a whole lot of sense instead of trying to figure out what the goo does and this explains it to a Tee. Cool thoughts on why and how they exploded.

@HiveMinded some nice theories some may be tad complex but some good ideas... And yes maybe the goo reacts differently to Engineers, i will make a thread to explain a theory that could explain what Fox and Prometheus could be trying to show us, but at moment would take a long post... In a nutshell they are trying to imply that the Goo at the start and during the movie are all one and the same... so i had tried come up with a theory that could explain that. This theory basically suggests the Goo only breaks down complex life and only evolves basic life, the worms are basic lifeform and thus took on Xeno traits... Like Worms Sperm is a more basic lifeform so maybe the Goo mutated these to take on Xeno traits and when one of these now hybrid sperm got into Shaws Womb it fertilized her Egg... Where as the rest of Holloway was breaking down at a slower rate due to lower dosage. Fifield came into contact with the Goo via a different means and this caused him to start to mutate slightly and become aggressive, his head starting to swell and then eventually explode (as some on the production team suggested would been the outcome. This has holes though as how did the Engineers get infected like Fifield surely their Bio Suits protected them? as the rest of the crew of Prometheus may have came into contact with goo off the floor, Milburn and Fifield was surrounded by it but Fifield only seemed to get infected when his visor was melted and he slipped on the goo and fell face first into it. In which case the Goo could now contact his skin. Thus is Space Suits prevented the Goo from effecting him prior to that... Would the Engineers Space Jockey suits do the same? Also if the Engineers had been infected like Fifield and the end result was a head explosion, then that means the Engineers would have gone further down the route of infection than Fifield had done. Which we then have to ask why was they all piled up and running away when surely some of them would have been turned into aggressive SOBs... unless those running only just started the process and they was running away from others at a latter stage.. But then when that door to the ampule room had shut and the other area where those bodies had piled up, surely if they went through same process as Fifield they would have gone berserk maybe attacked each other... maybe thats why some bodies never had head holes? Maybe they was latter dragged there and piled up? Or maybe their infection was more like Holloways as he did not become aggressive... Anyway thats some way to make sense of all this if we try use the explanations that Fox wants us to believe in. Or maybe the Engineers are just not affected the same way, so if infected like Fifield they would not become aggressive mutant toxic avenger dudes like Fifield? Na i prefer my theory from the clues i had obtained as opposed to the above.

"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." This is one of those clues that Lindeloff speaks of, he implies the movie has all the answers and others are like WTF does it hell. I think what Lindeloff is saying is we are spoon fed the explanation not via what we see but by what members of the cast say... The Milburn and Fifield wondering if the Hammerpede was a Boy or Girl, is another clue which the answer is that as they come from Worms they are hermaphrodites but none of them never said they was hermaphrodites... The is it a Boy/Girl is a vague clue to suggest it is both. Likewise others such as when Milburn asks if the head statue is maybe God.... And how Shaw says on a number of times about a outbreak. And Janeks mention of how he had to destroy a compound on Earth because the scientists was working on something and they split some of it and they whole complex had to be destroyed. And also how he suggests they was making Bio Weapons and the place was a Bio Weapons plant etc. Throughout the movie its these assumptions by the crew that was written into the script to explain what was going on, even if maybe a little vague. This is what i think Lindeloff meant by the answers are there... But they are vague and they are just members of the crews own assumptions so maybe not to be taken as fact, but i think Lindeloff expects us to have taken them as the answers. So basically if you watch the movie and are deaf with no subtitles you would not get more answers than if you was blind etc.

Yes I agree BigDave. The crew are like commentators in a way, like when Holloway say's "It's just another tomb." The tomb of the gods? But then again, Janek say's it is a military facility, so which one is it? Is it both? Very confusing!!!

My interpretation and again its based mainly on the deleted scenes is that maybe these Engineers was on LV-223 as a watch post, they essentially created life on Earth as a Garden, and the Engineers are Gardeners.. Well i recon a contingent of them was placed on LV 223 where they can watch over us from afar, they visited us from this place and they may originally had planned to make it a heaven for us once we are ready... i.e the Invitation. But something happened, either a war broke out and some Engineers decided to rebel against their creators and their creations (Mankind) and wanted us destroyed, of the Engineers on LV 223 had found a new Organism to Worship... Or simply there was a point where they had got fed up of how Mankind had turned out and given us one last chance we which failed and so they decide to turn the Watch Post into a Bio Weapons Facility. Which would be ideal as its closer to Earth and we have a invite anyway so when we come to LV 223 all that awaits is death.

I was also wondering if the Engineers could be controlled by their creator with the black goo? They have it in their blood & it can be used against them if the do not obey?

Possible..

Ridley had watched 'Scanners' and decided to rip off Cronenberg! :p 

When fiefield and the other scientist are being told by the captain there is life movement I believe there was a alien .. maybe not a xenomorph but it's too soon to be the cobra style snake ... What's weird is when the acid for blood of that snake sprays fiefield his face gets submerged in the black goo.  And he doesn't do much more than turn Into a zombie so I doubt that in covenant the goo is going to transform anything into a xeno unless that deacon comes into play and gets infected by black goo then evolves from there maybe