Our DNA matches, but what if the Prometheans didn't create us?

Posted this in another thread, and not sure if it was intended for here lol.. relevent to both topics mind...

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We dont know the Agenda of the Engineers, but the unseen dialog from the Elders Scene and by that full scene and not what we got in the deleted section, does sugest that the Engineers seeded their DNA for some purpose for the greater or their good.

The translated dialog was “Let your body become the dirt. Your blood become the waters. And may your soul become their way back to us.”

Elder Engineer Speaks

What we have to consider is what ever Agenda the Script was trying to vaguely show us could not be changed, and maybe there are reasons the Elder Scenes was cut and Engineers was portrayed...

To me they had been tonned down to be mearly Pawns.

But going to the Sacrifical Scene, it to me seemed to had been set Millions and not thousands of years back and that it was the start of Evolution of Life and not a more direct route to Mankind as Spaights draft more rapid Evolution was.. i.e From Primate to infected with Engineer DNA to Mankind.

So the Prometheus scene could leave the path for them creating life, surely they had done this before?  But the result of Mankind could that had been a accident?  Did they expect our creation from the process after thousands or millions of years?

It does leave room for the Engineers to had came back and re-engineered life again, constantly chossing lifeforms and upgrading them... Ridley said the Engineers had been back many times to upgrade us, not only Technologically but Genetically.

We dont know what exact route they was taking or where they are not going (Fox and Ridley) But there is no reason as to why one potential could be that a faction of Engineers came back to the Seeded Earth and then genetically upgraded he evolved life to become more Engineer DNA and also taught us stuff...

Was doing this against the wishes of the Elders or the Original Agenda? Do the hierarchy on Paradise know about what was done or our creation?

These are the many things that could be answered...

As far as us being their creators, thats a interesting idea but i am not sure its one they would explore, some other ideas i heard was that the Engineers are us but from the future after we genetically Engineer ourselves to far that we can procreate....

While i dont think they are us from the future, as well that opens up a whole as to why go back to the very start? 

It could instead  mean that these Engineers had evolved themselves so they can not procreate and the creation of Mankind was a way to allow them to breed in future or for some purpose to the Procreation of their kind.

But the idea of more Humans is a good one or human related, as well we dont know how many other Worlds these Engineers had seeded, the hints by Ridley is they have done so on many worlds.

It does appear that our Engineers are more clone like, however they are not all exactly the same, their appearence does differ.... not including the Elders, of whom two who was shot up close look different i,e vary in appearence more...

The actual younger Engineers while looking alike they also differ abit, but these differences are minor, they lack the diversity that Mankinds appearence does.

But then with mankind its a racial thing as some races do not have as varried look as some other races. I.e some races features are more uniform and similar.

These Engineers seem to lack even that diversity much like we see with Primates, while there are differences, they are not as vast... maybe like neanderthal man, in which Science sugests they pretty much had more uniform characteristics.

And the Engineers appeared likewise they was not quite Clones as a Clone would be identical, but i am sure there is some kind of clonning going on to a degree.

I am going to be busy today and maybe weekend but i will go into detail with some points raised in the OT.

Interesting,

Maybe the Engineers are a slave race created by the Prometheans from modified human DNA?

I would make the 'Prometheans' FAR more dangerous and cunning. Not dumb enough to get caught(yet) in their own black goo. 

Engineers do the dirty work...Prometheans observe from Paradise?

@BigDave  The Deacon might have taken the Elder Engineer's advice to literally bond with the dirt.  Maybe the creature allows its Blood to merge with Stone to become one with the environment now.  The soul of the Deacon moves into the mountains and becomes embedded in the Stone.

Nature itself can be harsh.  The elements can be rough.  It was a dirty job digging the subterranean levels of the central air processor at Hadley's Hope but someone had to do it.  Employees lost their lives, even before the outbreak, because the ground was unstable.  Some colonists had this crazy idea that LV-426 itself was trying to kill them.

LV-426 is very hostile.  The Alien has survival skills: the elements that make it up made it a "tough son of bitch"... Aliens are able to survive the constant storms on the surface, while androids and Engineers can't.  For a split-nanosecond Ash thought he perceived something out there in the Stone.  However, he decided it was just his mind playing tricks on him, causing him to see patterns.  Many of the androids, and even the aliens, choose to consciously ignore this complicated part of the life-cycle.

Miss Shaw is an archaeologist, who is specifically trained in interpreting patterns of culture & has many ways of understanding beliefs, systems of knowledge, and human perception.  Her cross comparative way of looking at things may be the only reason she's there. Perhaps he can't read the hieroglyphs and isn't prepared to interpret their whole culture. She'll have to take David at his word about what they're saying to piece together some kind of cultural meaning-- especially if we're not given any subtitles in Paradise..  The answers don't come easy when David speaks

In line with my thoughts that Engineers are either clones or a "created" life form for the use of the delivery of life, created by a superior being we are yet to meet. Perhaps the whole idea of the sacrifice at the start of Prometheus is simply an example of how it's done.

Having said that I think the re write of the script has created an unexpected plot hole. In the original script early humans already existed. The scarabs released by the Engineer accelerated evolution of the human species. Minor changes in dna could have achieved this.

In the re write it seems that the Engineer's sacrifice is deemed to have sparked new life in the early primeval days. Evolution over billions of years would lead to minute changes in dna in each generation leading to modern humans being hardly recognisable via dna analysis compared to the Engineer dna as tested by Dr Shaw.....

Either way a perfect match can't be achieved as even individual human beings show minor differences in their dna to every other Human Being on Earth.

this is good! it could explain why the "clone engineer" immediately remembered his task of killing the humans (and their creation, David) the minute he wakes up!

Good! Good! if Paradise had that in the plot i'd be real happy!

Well if we look into what Ridley is now saying and taking what he says as Fact or Truth, or leading to where they want to go...

Then YES our Engineers are not the ultimate creation Force, you see Ridley said (they did not want to meet God in the first movie, this would have to mean the Engineers we saw that includes Sacrificial One, the Last Engineer and any of the Hologram Engineers are not GOD).

The Original Draft did not have early mankind as such, they just had a early Primate, this could have been as advanced as merely a Chimpanzie, or even as evolved as LUCY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afarensis  which is the most complete find of a fossil of the earliest Hominoid found that walked upright.

What the Scene showed was the Bio Former Scarabs implanted the Engineer DNA into a early Primate that eventually lead to Mankind, i.e Mankind is a Primate/Engineer Hybrid.  Now this process could have been hinting at upgrading a Hominoid such as Lucy to Human or upgrading a Chimp etc Primate to a Lucy Hominoid.

Lindeloffs draft changed this to show what appears to be the start of Evolution of Basic Life to Complex, or the start of Basic Life.

Ridley said these Engineers had been back over thousands of years to keep upgrading our DNA, so maybe they futher inbreed and mixed in Engineer DNA untill Mankind was achieved

Ancient Alien..

That seems to be the case that Fox and Ridley are now going, these Engineers are basically just Biological Terminators.... or David 8s.

But before the Original idea was they was part of a Culture, a Advanced Alien Humanoid Race, that had some Cultural and Ritual Purpose... The Elder Engineer Scene showed that especially the full not shown on DVD/Blu-ray Extras one when translated.

The full Engineer Speaks Scene and how the Engineer reacted  and the Full Last Battle Scene including how the Engineer found a Book on the Floor of Vickers Suite, and also his wonder at the Violin Girl...

All gave more depth to our Engineers and dropped some hints at maybe why the Last Engineer was alive and why the Mission went to Pot!  (Sabotaged)

But the re-cut of the scenes now sends us down a different path and one that while simplyfies the Plot, it also leaves us wondering about the attempted Ancient Aliens Connection.

True Big Dave, but that doesn't answer the fact that our dna matched the dna from the engineers head. We share 98% of our dna with some of the Great Apes, but certain traits differ. Either the Engineers created modern Humans recently, and therefore shared dna (there still would be differences) or this is a plot hole in the script. Would actually be more interesting if the dna trail was mapped by shaw, showing a historical similarity in the dna, changes over the eons via evolution. This would have been scientifically believable.

Or, perhaps the creators of the Engineers were the ones who visited Earth thousands of years ago and took human's back to their planet and cloned or bred the Engineers from Human dna.

Interesting.....

We share a lot of our DNA with other creatures as well.  The way I see it is complicated.  The Engineers are a match for everything: their DNA shares links with all life that evolved on Earth.

Humans go through a stage in the womb where we have gills (due to our evolutionary history).  Archaeologists are actually very knowledgeable about the evolution of man, because they're the ones who deal with all the fossils.  It wouldn't be that Shaw completely discounts Darwin.  It's just that she would tend to agree with hybrid theories of evolution on how certain things happened.  All life on earth is connected to the first single celled organisms.  So Engineers are a match for everything.

It's possible the early hominid lines were interbreeding to create new lines. Some hominid lines were less successful than others, and humans are the survivors.  We branched off & developed along different lines than the Ape family.  It's technically incorrect to say we evolved from apes: we only share a last common ancestor with apes/chimps.

I think you guys are on the right track.  In Blood and Stone we're shown that the goo has the potential to create ape-like species, other species as well.  I don't think the Engineers are 100% clones of each other, also that they don't share 100% of our DNA.  They share a very high percentage.  IMO the genetic expressions/genetics themselves vary slightly because a hybridization process is also at work.  When genetic images are rebuilt there's always a little bit of new genetics in the mix

It could be that there were already microscopic organisms developing in the ocean (+ plant life) and the goo speeds up the evolution of the entire ecosphere.  Once plants are present you have more ways of processing air and stabilizing atmosphere..  In Spaights' script only early man is effected; now it's all life on Earth.  Everything is a match because they became part of everything in the environment.

So, essentially the Engineers look for worlds like ancient Earth and then plant their genetics like a seed.  The craft that hovers above the ritual oversees. An entire evolutionary tree or tree of life grows on the planet.  The goo serves a ceremonial/ritual purpose: it may be how Engineers start new colonies...We may just be a colony that didn't develop properly

As Caryn Delacroix put it..

And Caryn  the point you make was what i was too, that we all evolved from a common origin...

This movie is hinting that this Origin was because of the Sacrifice Scene, in which case its hinting that this scene started and produced the building blocks of life..  Or that this scene started the catalyst to allow basic life to evolve into complex life.

Now Brego... what i was trying to say is Ridley sugested the Engineers had came back over and over to upgrade us, this means that after the Sacrificial Scene they had came back over and over to futher mix their DNA with life on Earth untill the point that Mankind or our Ancestor was created.

My fault that i never made that a bit more clearer, i.e that its not that the Scene started to evolution... it kind of did but Ridley sugested that the Engineers came back over and over to re-engineer life over and over...

Spaights draft showed a more simple aproach in that a Primates DNA was mixed with Engineers to produce a Hybrid thus mankind... now something like this could have also happened in Prometheus but not shown on screen but at certain points the Engineers came back and futher added their DNA to evolved life... and maybe to Primates was the final stage to produce us..

So when they said a match they meant that Human DNA and Engineers are connected...

The movie did not become scientifically accurate as far as a 100% match... as well i am not 100% match to yourself... so its kind of a error but then every Sci Fi makes such errors.

I understand Brego your point is that if the start of the movie was the start of Evolution, even if was the start of how Basic Life was evolved to start more complex life then over Millions and Millions of years that Original Engineer DNA seed would mutate to a point it can not be 100% with us.

But thats when i was trying to sugest that as Ridley said so, these Engineers never just seeded us at that point and allowed for Evolution to take its toll...

They would come back and futher select certain Organisms and futher  mix in their Engineer DNA to the point that who knows maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago was the point that Mankind was created by a futher Process...

This leads to the Engineers having to sacrifice their DNA lots of times unless latter they found they did not need to kill themselves for that purpose...

The movie was trying to be very bold by saying the Sacrifice started creation of all life on Earth, or the catalyst that would allow simple single celled life to evolve into complex..

A very bold idea, but one that adds many questions as to WHY?

Spaights idea was better, in that these Engineers seeded their DNA that then evolved life on Earth to take on Engineer traits... thus causing Primates to evolve into Mankind.

But saying that as i said, Spaights idea could have happened at a latter point as Prometheus was set what a Billion years ago or definately many hundreds of Millions of years ago.

Spaights was set more maybe a hundred of so thousand or many many thousands of years ago... but this kind of Engineering by the Engineers could have taken place many Millions of years after the Prometheus Sacrifical Scene.

That would make sense Big Dave. I still would have loved to see Lucy (the oldest know humanoid) somehow effected by the Engineers sacifice. Would have been very interesting. Then again a whole group, tribe or population would need to be effected, leading to modern Man. Again as somone mensioned this would be reminice of 2001 a Space Oddecy....

@BigDave  "Spaights idea could have happened at a later point".

That's an interesting thought.  Maybe some early visits were to upgrade us in a similar way.  What you said about the Engineers selecting for certain traits/certain species is intriguing as well.  It gave me a lot to think about & can even add layers to the garden/tree metaphors.

My thinking goes futher than that Caryn...

I question things like..

i) Why leave a Star Map for us, as a Trap? or not?

ii) Why did many Ancient Civilisations gain the Star Maps?

iii) How could David speak Engineer and Read their writtings?

iv) Why leave the Big Head Statue at the Temple?

These all to me seem to show that the Engineers visited us over the thousands of years of our evolution to modern day Mankind, during which they may have taught us things such as Language, how to build Temples, and other things.  So the movie hints that these Engineers plaid a part in our advancement in technology, and as a result they was worshiped in a Godlike fasion by Mankind.

This would be in addition to upgrade us Genetically...

It is thus my interpretation that these Engineers are Genetic Gardners, and we are say a Flower, a Crop or a Fruit....

And over the many many years they may have came back to the Garden (Earth) and taken samples of their creations back to their Greenhouse (LV 223) where they test and experiment with their creations, and when they have created results they are pleased with, they then set down back to the Garden (Earth) to then plant their new improved Seed back to Earth.

At somepoint something happened where a Engineer was infected to produce the Deacon in the Mural, we can not be sure if this was a creation that took a lot of re-engineering and manipulation to get that result,  or if the original result was different and they futher experimented with those results until they achieved what was in the Mural.

We do not know the true Xeno connection, and if the Xeno came from that experiment or was a off shoot of it or if the Xeno was the start of that experiment.

But one thing seems for sure, they eventually came across something that intrigged them, the Engineers always genetically modifying lifeforms to create new kinds in the pursuit of Perfection....

But a event led to them comming across something else that produced a Organism that they found very interesting and his either resulted in the Deacon in the Mural or the results was modified over and over until they created the Deacon..

AT THIS POINT!

They saw the Deacons DNA as more favorable basis than their own Engineer DNA, the roots from which the Deacon Originated from Genetically i.e related to Xeno DNA, was thus a new strand of DNA maybe that these Engineers favoured.

Maybe from this they also optained their Bio-Mechanical Tech?  Or their Bio-Mechanical Tech got mixed with their other Tech to produce the Original DNA Strand related to the Xeno that over time they re-engineered to get to the Deacon.

Regardless of which of the above is accurate the Engineers on LV 223 then favoured the Deacons DNA over its other creations and even their own DNA.

And thus this DNA was now to be what they would use to change the course of Evolution of the Organisms and Life they was creating over the Millions and Millions of years.

I definitely view the Engineers as gardeners, although I think they do more than terraform/garden: I think they alter the entire biosphere. 

The garden/tree symbols and nature metaphors could just be "part of the natural order".  Humans like to view themselves as separate from nature, however, nature is a part of us & we're a part of nature.  Each life-cycle, ecosystem and food chain is connected to larger cycles and food webs that connect all energy together in the biosphere. Each ecosystem is connected in this larger system called the biosphere.  Areas where different regions & ecosystems meet and overlap are called ecotones.

If the movies follow the new comics, then it seems the goo might create many different types of plant and animal species.  We can use this sort of tree of life metaphor to stand in for the entire evolutionary tree that's growing on the planet within the biosphere.  Since all life is connected. 

Humans would be able to be viewed as some sort of fruit or flower, but I'm also considering the idea that we're "a branch" they want to "cut off."  At this point I'm unsure if the Engineers actually want to "harvest" us.  However, this garden/tree metaphor can stand in for how everything that grows from the goo is connected, related to the single celled organism, and whatever preceded the Engineers...

Everything needs some sort of energy.  Altering and creating plant & animal species alongside man gives early man something to chew on.  "There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing". Early man needed food and natural resources, therefore all life on earth was grown alongside man.  The invention of the plough at the beginning of the neolithic age changed culture in big ways.  The technology/social practice spread across the world like wildfire & each human culture began large scale farming. We began transforming the envionment to suit our needs. Fast forward 10 000 years and terraforming begins, Weyland solves the environmental crisis, fixes the ozone with his air processors.  The Company has learned how to modify the environment on a massive scale.  If there's no atmosphere they'll just create one. Soon they'll be able to modify existing atmospheres and biospheres in order to introduce simple indigenous lifeforms, like earthworms, which can aid in fertility.  If Weyland corp becomes capable of creating simple lifeforms in the colonies, then we're almost gods now. This could tie into them being us.

Definately think they are going the route that the creators of the Engineers are part of some universal bigger picture... the "Big things have small Beginings"

And they could be going the route that the Goo is the key to all life, but how the stuff is portrayed does lead to some inconsistancies...... but seems they are going the route that the goo is not just something that breaks down DNA to allow it to then on mass imprint itself on the Life on a World to evolve it and pass traits of the Organism whos DNA was broken down.

But that it is the key and the spark of all life, like the Comics hinted at, but again this method does leave some flaws....  and keeping it basic as a Substance that can be used to spread the DNA of a living Organism in a efficent fashion as far as a starting point seems to fit better, and by living Organism that can be anything that has DNA which include Plants.