I've been reading all the posts I can find and have an idea. They say Shaw may be only doing a cameo in this movie and there are two more prequels to complete up to the original Alien movie. Devastation of the Covenant crew will abound and just as the movie ends, Shaw with personal made ragged clothing will appear returning from an exploration trip. Just in time to be in the next prequel! It's been done before as a plot trick!

i am back after 2 years

@BigDave Do you think Alien: Covenant will explore the origins of the green crystal from Prometheus? Sorry I couldn't get a better picture, its only shown briefly.

on the subject of the folk in cryo on the covenant, id agree theyr age range would be between 20-30. couples ready to start a family but who also have something to contribute such as nurses, engineers, construction workers, farmers etc. it wouldn't make a lot of sense to bring children with them as the adults r going to be extremely busy. that's only my take on it if I was setting up the mission. children could become a distraction. though it depends on what cargo the covenant has onboard. plausible it has pre-fabricated structures designed for theyr needs on a short term basis. and what function would the covenant play after landing? would it be able to function as a living space, school, hospital for any length of time? or is it seen as a resource to be stripped down once a suitable planet has been found?

@Seraphis 

Originally it was the Sacrificial Bowl from the opening Scene, which lead to a theory for me that they did the same kind of Sacrifice on something related to the Xeno... and its broken down material was re-weaponized into the Urns.

But as with Elders Scene, and cut down of Engineers scenes.. they had changed a lot post shooting...

and the Crystal with no explanation was the result.

The Source i had in Febuary 2015 had teased that on Paradise there was a Obelisk that was black, but it was not stone not quite, it looked Grown and had roots attached and a Green Glow in the center and was to be the in-context...  Re-take of the Tree that bore the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden and also the Fire in Prometheus and also in a way Gold in other cultures the Gods wanted.

And so its teased then that the LV-223 Engineers had Stole this Fire/Fruit and so in this case if the Source was correct..

Then this Crystal could be a Shard taken from the Obelisk and its from this the Engineers obtain the Creation Tool Goo.

The Source seemed to tease that in regards to other cultures and Gold that the Gods sort is to be something different and that the Gold is not Gold... but in loose context its obtained how Gold is in Ancient Mythos like the Emerald Tablets.

Which again i think points to the Green Crystal and thus the Gold is the Substance the Sacrificial Engineers used. Which is obtained from the Crystal...

But we dont know if the Source was correct or if thats Changed now with Logans Re-write.

Well the 4Chan leaks seem to say that the Ship has Embryos... and so these Couples are not here to procreate because they have Embryos in storage..

Makes no sense at all... what they gonna do?

Test Tube Grow the Embryos to Humans? Then why need couples? 

Plant the Embryos inside the Females once they have found and set up a new Colony?  this seems odd.... why not just have sex and get pregnant?  Why not have Frozen Sperm?  The only way this works is with a twist and those colonist get implanted with non-human Embryos.

So i am not so sure really... i would imagine they are there to set up a New World and then Procreate on it.... due to age of some of them it would make more sense if they already have some Children on board but we cant be sure.

@claudius

Welcome back

@WildGoose

I am not sure how they will tackle Shaw... i would think she would be wrote off as far as timeline goes...

The movie was set to feature and be about David and Shaw and what they find on Paradise... the Source i had said this is what they was doing but that Shaw wont play a big role.. she get some answers, but they wont be what she wanted and she will be incapacitated and Technically Not Dead.

Seems AC is arriving at the aftermath and so AC is like a Prometheus 3 or Prometheus 2.5

Which could be in part true.. because Ridley Scott said they are going to the story in Alien, the Why, When and how... this movie will BACK INTO Alien and they are coming in at it from the Rear End/Door?

Maybe this is kind of like what they did with Star Wars... we had the first 3 movies... then the next 3 was prequels... backing into the first movie..

Maybe thus they would be going 10 years after Prometheus but then in latter movies in some sense we will see a kind of backing into Alien... as far as setting in the past...  and not a direct Prometheus 2094 ---> Alien Covenant ---> 2104 (Alien Eggs made) ---> Alien Covenant sequel ---> Space Jockey Event set between year 2104 and 2122...

Nope... i think it will go backwards..

I suppose there are multiple paths possible for the plot in AC? For example:

The Juggernaut (which David and Shaw leave LV-223 in): What’s in the cargo hold?

• Urns with the mutagen (the black goo)?
• Eggs (perhaps different kinds which Spaihts suggests)?
• The Deacon (David returns to LV-223 for some reason)?

The trip to Paradise (which we will be presented with in a prequel novel): What happened during this trip?

• Shaw was persuaded by David to repair him (get his head back on)?
• Shaw was put in cryo-sleep?
• David used what was in the cargo hold and experimented with Shaw?

On paradise

• The engineers are long gone (in connection to the outbreak on LV-223) and all that is left of their culture are ruins? The ruins might still contain egg or black goo-chambers . . . Or there are nothing left?
• Some engineers are still there when David and Shaw crash land? Judging by the reaction of the engineer on LV-223 they wouldn’t greet them . . . They kill Shaw and spare David (since he’s a synthetic)? David later kills everyone through his stealthy experiments?
• All the monsters are created from what is already on Paradise through an old outbreak (eggs, black goo, fungi with spores)?
• David creates it all (or some of it)?

David

• David is “evil” (or without empathy) which we could see in Prometheus?
• David has changed (developed) and become more human (a soul, morality etc)?

We will find out in may, though. :)

I would love to see more insight of the engineers which could be expanded with use of the galaxy map to provide more details about their origins. However I am concerned about the synopsis which states  - 'whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition'... I just hope there is more to this film and things add up properly this time and it isn't one big experiment with David as the creator of the genetically modified goo. Perhaps now that he has mastered their language he is communicating with the engineers planet and some how working with them but has an evil twist - we know he's not going to be good! 

I think what we're going to learn, at least I hope, in Alien: Covenant is that the Engineers were taking the black goo to Earth to create Xenomorphs using humans as their lab rats. The reason, possibly, is that they extract the black goo from Xenomorph eggs. Perhaps it helps them have an extended life, or they're using it for some other purpose(s). Humans are simply a step in the evolutionary chain, which is directed by the engineers. 

If you look at Fifield's transformation when exposed to the goo, he is turning into a Xenomorph or something akin to it. If you've seen the alternate Fifield attack scene you will see this very clearly. 

Something else I noticed in the scene at the end when the Engineer is awakened. When he is bent over it appears that his body is undergoing a change. The darkened blood vessels appear on the side of his face/head. This is the same thing that happened to the engineer at the beginning of the movie. He's been infected, but was fortunate enough to stop the spread of it, unlike his comrades in the other cryo units.

So, here's how the story could go. The Engineers discovered the Xenomorphs long ago, but the Xenomorphs were on the verge of extinction. They discovered that the black substance in the eggs could give them an extended life. The Engineers created humans to act as hosts for the black goo, which in turn would create more Xenomorphs. They would wait for the transformation, swoop down and steal the eggs, and extract the black substance. I may be pulling this out of my a$$. It wouldn't be the first time. :-)

Probably my most anticipated movie this year

 As Ripley once said;................Who laid those eggs ???!!!

I guess we are in for a surprise ;)

My synopsis is generally this:

covenant is a sacrifice/experiment sent after david because they are tracking HIM and know that shaw gave birth to the trilobite after sex, hence the couples on covenant, they want a repeat so they can learn about the black stuff and engineer tech. How do they know all this? Trilobite 'delivered' in the prometheus lab, ship data sent back to earth, this reveals shaw was pregnant. The whole initiative is another corporate Attempt to control the xeno weapon.

I think shaw is in the film, possibly as the original dna for the alien eggs, hence the original 'queen', she may well be a giger style human mechanoid, a big surprise.

 I also think the ship is shot down at paradise, goo escapes and wrecks the planet, to try and contain the outbreak, neutron bomb is used or cobalt 60 to kill living tissue and leave infrastructure intact.

That could be why the goo is manufactured on local moons as its so dangerous. Could the engineers who handle the black goo be a modified slave worker who is expendable if the goo escapes? The guys in the trailer look like ancient romans, they didnt need armour as they were safe in the capital.

looks like david has taken over the planet.

Great coverage BigDave. I noticed the projected leave time estimate for the Covenant in the above discussion being from 2070 to 2100.

The Covenant arrived at Paradise in approximately 2104, 5 years after Weyland Industries acquired Yutani Corporation in 2099. I assume the crew left after the acquisition because of the updated uniform but I'm sure its easy to print new uniforms in space (in the event of a company change) so this might be a moot point.

The other point is do you think the "Covenant" was in between Weyland Industries and Yutani Corporation?

They both were interested in the promise of the Project Prometheus. These two behemoths formed one and went to Paradise.

BigDave, Was anything teased out of the Project Prometheus Discover New Worlds? (http://www.projectprometheus.com/newworlds/)

This was in the notes section of one of the colonies.

"The colony was named after Captain Susan Morrison, whose deep space exploration vessel was lost in the Gliese system"

The colony furthest out in the list is POL-6362: JACOB-TELLIS and is 3249 light years out.

Weyland Industries could have put many ships in the Acheron LV-426 system. Prometheus Class ships set sail in 2073.

Did a crew, such as the lost crew of Captain Susan Morrison (a real person at NASA) get lost in the system that houses the planet Paradise?

Did David 8 cultivate eggs from the capture of another crew(s)?

Oh yeh there is so much more to say about what happened to Fitfield and Milburn....hoping to find out more perhaps it has to do with evolution of the organism and how it interacts with other DNA 

I agree Lexiejtruthseeker. In the beginning of Prometheus, Ridley Scott followed the black goo down into the Engineer's circulatory system and even further down into the breaking down of the Engineer DNA.

The way this 3rd-party technology affects the local organism (xenomorph) and amplifies the traits of it could be a movie on its own.

I think Babylonxeno may be on the money in relation to egg production, given the report of the recent description of released footage & images from the trailer...David introduces Billy Crudup to his pet "Cuddles", but the question remains who is laying the eggs? David knows what the Goo can do in a human female (under certain circumstances) & E. Shaw appears to be missing...so has David experimented on a living (or possibly dead) Shaw, mutating her into the first Queen? Hardly bears thinking about how unpleasantly this could be presented in the film...

"Hardly bears thinking about how unpleasantly this could be presented in the film..."

Yes lilmatt, I hope we all throw up from the shock of it. I project that Dr. Elizabeth Shaw will regret to the detour to Paradise (as if David was going to take her anywhere else anyway).