The Derelict, Juggernaut and Elder Noobernaut-Pebble Ship: Built or Grown?

The ships DEMATERIALIZE....that's it, the word I've been looking for!

Thank you Aorta! ;)

.....and as you commented Necro, it's a horrific consequence of him having survived the Big Crush!

I think we've opened up a can of worms again Lone haha.

It's Giger's fault!

LONE - What a very compelling topic! I happen to think that the ship's are fashioned from something that we do not understand - something entirely elemental to the universe that we humans have not yet encountered. :)

Perhaps what we are seeing is the end result of highly-evolved and sentient life; a living, transcendent material that exists to ferry life through the dark between the stars. Could that be the fate of all living world's once they reach a certain level of organic advancement? Are our genetics somehow programmed to give way to planets that are wholly alive and whose biological deaths give rise to the only materials capable of surviving deep space voyages? Food for thought! :)

I hope we get explanation for the Bio-Mechanical Nature of the Juggernaught/Derelict and Space Jockey,  we can have a few theories and who knows what Fox/Ridley will choose or if they even choose to explain it.

The Elders and Sacrificial Scene these Engineers seemed to be void of any Bio-Mechanics, they where dressed in simple robes and cloaks and very primitive looking but yet their Ship (Pebble)  was very Advanced but it did not quite have the Alien looking Nature of the Derelict.

We can not ignore this difference, Ridley said maybe the Engineers Technology is Millions of years old and he was saying that in regards to the Derelict.  The Sacrificial Scene does not have to be Earth but it implies a similar event by similar means and Ship had occurred on Earth and the Scene looked like it was showing us either the Start of the Building Blocks of Life... or most likely the Catalyst to Evolve Basic Life into Complex (because the World had Vegetation already) either way this would put the Pebble Ships at Many Hundreds if not way over a Billion Years old.

So while we may be throwing out and replacing the Elders as Ridley was not impressed with the Final Look and also felt the Scene Gave to much away and he wanted to not meet God/s in the First Movie.... i think we will see that the Engineers Serve under a similar Race that would be the replacement for the Elders or even re-designed Elders.

So the Derelict and Juggernaught are Millions of Years old, and the Pebble is many more times older and perhaps Billions of years old.

So at some point they had came across Bio-Technology  but When/Where and How?  And this Bio-Technology is related to the Xenomorph One has to come from the other or both come from another source.

While not trying to discount anyone's theories i am going to take what we was trying to be shown on screen and Ridleys comments as more Factual and try and base something of this.

Derelict/Juggernauts are related, they are Brothers, the Engineers on LV-223 and Space Jockey likewise are Genetically related.

Are the Ships Build or Grown?  Maybe its a combination  of both, a Merger of Organic and Mechanics. 

The Juggernaught looked less Bio-Mechanical and Engineers too, but Ridley explained this because the Juggernauts where in pristine condition while the Derelict is well a wreck... and i would assume as maybe Biology is used within the ships, that when it dies or becomes Derelict some of the ship changes like how a Coral is created that is attached to sunken ships.

I have described the above before, but i will again if we consider like a Tree or better yet the Cactus as shown above it is alive it has a smooth, rubbery look to it (spikes on top lol)

When dead it has a different look, if we take these changes and apply them to the LV-223 Space Jockey and LV-426 now dead one then you can see how such a changes have occurred.

Up close Alive Cactus ^^^

Up close Dead ^^^^

Another Dead Cactus that has a kind of Fossilized Space Jockey Look to it, my point being this dead Cactus and Space Jockey appear similar... yet the LV-223 one was Grey and Rubbery looking... but so is a Alive Cactus and its Green and Rubbery.

So i think maybe the Bio-Mechanics are something very advanced and these ships and Technology are part living but maybe only in a way that a shell of a Snail, or Sea Shells and maybe how a Exo-Skeleton of a Crustacean works?

Another thing we could have overlooked is what if the Derelict was like the Juggernaught and more Mechanical, and unlike how Ridley said its because the Derelict is in fact dead so to speak (thus my Cactus point)

What if the Derelict crashed, and it had Goo on it and the Goo was released and it was the Goo that infected the Ship or caused the changes, like a Moss or how Coral is built/grown.

Maybe its a Goo Spillage that lead to the ships slight change in appearance?

As for how the Ships Travel, that's anyone's guess but i would assume they can go to destinations within the Galaxy Far faster than Earth Ships of that Period i.e much faster than FTL Travel but what kind of Tech or Travel we dont know yet.

I will maybe draw to what the Source said, and they implied that Paradise is not the Home of Creation, or Home of the Gods... it is merely the Base/Outpost of the Engineers and Hierarchy in our Galaxy... and so they implied the Agenda and Hierarchy goes further than the restraints of our Galaxy and they play a bigger role in not only creation of life but of Worlds themselves.

This is what was said...  and so it points to the Engineers and Hierarchy having vastly greater ways to Travel not only the Galaxy but between Galaxies.

Funny enough it was a long time after i was told this, that Ridley came out just before Alien: Paradise Lost name was hinted, he claimed and made hints about how Worlds are created, and is the Big Bang real or even a Accident, and he implied if Engineers are Forerunners for Creation, then how do Worlds become Suitable for Creation to take place... WHERE IS THE BIG GUY in all this.

So indeed the scope for these beings is far greater than what we have been shown so far.... the source also says that the Tools to Create Worlds are more Hazardous than the Tools to Create Life in the Wrong Hands.

So indeed we cant begin to comprehend the beings or who ever at the Top of the Hierarchy and their Technology and means to Travel from Star to Star, and even Galaxy to Galaxy but can they also Travel in Time?

BIG DAVE - Exceptionally insightful and compelling information as usual, my friend. :)

Great replies, as always,  BigD!

It's just fascinating thinking about what the next three movies could touch upon.

I think Covenant and its sequels have the potential for greatness. They may merge the Alien feel, the strangeness, and horror, with the broader ideas explored in Prometheus.

I bet Ridley is going to have a ball directing this! 

@Something Real.....What you propose is exceptional!

What a fantastic idea, that's what I love most about this forum, people thinking way outside of the box, and even outside of the paramaters of the known universe! :)

*Tips Nostromo Cap*

LONE - Hahaha! Thank you! I am honored to be a part of this community, my friend. There is just so much to see, learn and share! :)

@Lone; I've just read your OP again and come to the conclusion that You and i have a very similar mindset when it comes to the ALiEN universe. Every single word gets me nodding my head and thinking, 'If Only!' 

especially this part -"I have always believed that the strange Space Jockey craft is a living organic creation. The damn thing looks as if it has grown from the planet beneath it."

What a very fitting and thought provoking thing that is!

I can imagine that's what Giger himself imagined when creating that whole environment.

NECRONOM 4 - Exactly! :)

Giger on the Derelict: 

“Once the Alien was under control,” said Giger, “Ridley asked me if I could design a spaceship not made by human beings. Well how do you do that? I thought maybe it might look organic -something that could grow even, like a plant- but I didn’t know exactly what it should look like. Then early one morning I couldn’t sleep, I got up and started painting and the derelict ship was born in a few hours. It ended up like an aerodynamic bone with little technical stuff all over it, but it wasn’t anything I had planned – it just sort of ran out of my mind and my airbrush.”

    The grounded derelict. Image copyright HR Giger.

Like the other artists, Giger brought his own style to the concepts, and his proved to be the most provocative. His Jockey ship rests atop a landscape of twisted metal and bone. “I wanted it to look planted,” Giger told Famous Monsters, “perhaps in the process of maturing, a mixture of organic and mechanical stuff.”

Giger’s concept for the derelict’s interior corridors. The design is akin to a long, wormy sternum threading its way through the ship.

Thanks go to Strange Shapes for the pics and quotes!

In William Gibson's Virtual Light there's a corporation called Sunflower that proposes to rebuild an earthquake devastated San Francisco with self-growing skyscrapers that eat their own sewage. This is of course against the will of the people and backed by the tech elite. It's weirdly threatening and diabolical, but also a giant step forward in technological evolution. Like a lot of his stuff, it's oddly prescient. Gibson is a modern day Jules Verne.

I love the idea of technology being grown, and the idea that the Derelict and it's brethren were truly bio mechanical, not really alive but not really dead, not grown from a seed but still perhaps via some sacrificial scenario similar to the beginning of Prometheus? Maybe the initiation of any life creating process begins with the liquification of a living thing, from Egg to Juggernaut. Imagine that on an industrial scale.

What I love about the SJ in Alien is that it's fused to the vehicle, and maybe as a life form it's a CPU, more complex plant than being, but still inhabiting this cruel, dark reality. Maybe that particular iteration was devised solely to transport the eggs, prior to refinement in the form of ampules.

While anything that could create a vehicle like that would likely have the tech for energy barriers to seal the craft, I always loved the idea that it was open to the vacuum of space, a dark, cold flying basement with no door. Indeed, with a few exceptions there are no light sources ever shown for these beings, and Spaights' script seemed to bear that out, with their sensitivity to spectral wavelengths seeming to make mechanical illumination unnecessary.

You can see in the command area of the Juggernaut what appears to be a huge brain embedded in the desk (the pink thing to either side of the chair). To me, this is further evidence that the vehicle is on some level alive.

The seed vehicle is another story, I would love to see a detailed schematic of that thing, at least along the lines of the hologram of the Juggernaut on view in Prometheus. Maybe not, then the mystery of it is diluted. I don't know, such is the plight of the geek! But yes, although it has a more conventional shape, I imagine it would be grown too. Maybe in a huge, terrible facility like the one Gavin posted in his Zeta Reticuli thread.

This is a dangerous topic, given that probably at least some answers will be provided to these mysteries. But then again, if not, some will cry foul! Ridley has a tricky rope to walk here, and I think we should all get comfy with the idea that as much will be left to our imagination as not. That's his gift to us! It was all along, lo these 30+ years. It'll be his outgoing legacy, too. Like it or not, Ridley Scott will inhabit our minds for many years to come. Crafty devil.

A mythos enables the creative mind and the recipient to set itself free to try and come to know what we are in from an unorthodox perspective.

Giger and Scott are men of imagery. Both are/were happy with visions which are unsettling and unorthodox.

Scott's vision for A L I E N was earthbound in an important sense, what he could afford and what worked at the time. P R O M E T H E U S  enabled him more room because the opportunities were greater.

As a result the visions of Giger though no less important in 1979 were less realisable but will continue to inform all that Ridley does . One of Giger's key themes was the notion that you break the distinction down between the mechanical and the organic. That theme was hinted at in A and made clearer in P and will inform A.C. indeed its the core question why Bio Mechanical.

The Engineers in the opening shot are gardeners they sacrifice themselves break down their DNA attach it to the building blocks of life and create civilisation.

The destroyer engineers, through a fall, began their own sub creation but the thread of organic (artistic) and non organic (function) is blended into their culture. The fresco's, the control mechanisms of the Juggernaut, the use of music to stimulate the star map these represent a fusing of artistic and functional characteristics.

I am confident that BD is correct Paradise is not the core, it is where the Engineers come from. The ultimate creation myth may remain enigmatic, I hope it does, but all the signposts are that creation is not random but ordered by a great creative act. The acolyte who sacrificed himself was sponsored to effect the catalysing that was not a random act. The teardrop ship was originally perceived as a Juggernaut but we have been offered something which could be powered and move at the behest of minds moulded into the fabric of the ship. In other words something which is even more fused than the Engineer in his jockey station. Even so the jockey may transmit the destination to  the Juggernaut instinctively. He has conjured up the star map that is now impregnated in his mind. Attached to the guidance system (The telescopic rig) it aligns itself with its destination which then talks to the Juggernaut which then "sets off" for its destination. Put simply this maybe mind over matter.

So everything in Ridleys breath taking visuals and Gigers visions suggest we should give ourselves permission to rethink what we are seeing breaking down the distinction between mind/nature and mechanical function.   

I believe A C will explain more of that relationship in the discovering act of the movie and the subtext will be how the David's and Shaw have and are reacting to this connectivity. The Covenant crew will act as a point of reference so we can see this through innocent and not so innocent eyes.

So Yes Lone I think we are seeing some thing which harnesses all the wonders of creation Mind, matter and mechanical invention.

@Lone this is a great post! :) and @BigDave i love the cactus ref

Hey Lone, when seeing the preview of Prometheus coming soon it showed the Juggernaught's prongs facing upwards toward the sky and Shaw is looking up at it, the camera tilting upwards with her as she            does so. We know now this was the result of the huge thing crashing down and wheel-e-ing down the hill towards Shaw and Vickers before slowing to a halt and thats where we tilt up with the camera it appeared in the original trailer to me that the Juggernaught was rising up out of the ground for a vertical take-off. This wasn't the case in the end and due to the unconventional confuguration of the gigantic thing in the first place its hard to tell what is truely up and down, left or right. I thought maybe the entire piloting seat/area was upon some sort of advanced magneto-gimble that could orient itself in any direction to counter the occilations of the rest of the hull if it so-choosed. Or act as a shock obsorber should the hull encounter a massive structural shock due to a collision or attack of some sort which is exactly what happened in the film. It would have been so cool to see the ship lifting off "vertically" almost similar to the ship at the beginning of Prometheus re-orienting itself from hovering horizontally like the Destroyers in Independence Day to the manuervering "vertical" ascending position as it approaches the upper atmosphere.

HyperNova- I would love to have seen the Juggernaut move in a totally trippy, unconventional way, propelling itself from upright to horizontal, and moving forward in the process!

Like a giant flying bone, as Giger describes the derelict- "an aerodynamic bone with technical detail all over it. It's like a flying bone with arms stretching out in front. I don't know how it would look when flying. I just know how it should appear. It looks very aggressive, frightening."

Ridley Scott- "The derelict is a flying machine and I think if one does encounter, you know, something at some point or other, I think it will be so peculiar that it would be er, it would be like nothing we would expect. I wanted to do something which would evoke, I think an immediate spark of gothic revulsion, it's sort of spooky but it's sort of elegant but it's, there's something very worrying about it."

Lone, with regard to the Juggernaught and The Derilicts long and winding corridors I've always wondered why they are the shape of a heart or kidneys. Next  time you get a chance watch when the giant hologram is activated by David or when Fifield activates his remote "Pups" and they fly off down the long and winding corridors,  they are clearly out of proportion for an Engineer to walk down or make practical use of the narrower space on the inner track of the corridor configuration. In Alien when Dallas and Co. are navigating the Derilct the corridors have that left/right  kidney, or heart, configuration. Again, unless it plays into the notion that the ship, if at both "horizontal" and "vertical" angles can be in use while moving through these acute manuvers then perhaps in lower gravity fields the corridors are traversed while occupants are hovering. Or, while in the temple there is lower gravity in there for what-ever reason as compared to that outside so the getting from A-to-B is more of a fluidic experience.