LV-426 or NOT?

Mmmm - not sure that's the simplest explanation ;). Your theory is as good as any @chli. I love reading peoples take on what has/will happen. But it is, like my own views, largely conjecture.

I think you make some assumptions about LV-426 ('fossilised'; 'same outbreak'; 'something had evolved in the cargo hold'; 'this happened around the year 93AD') and 'Paradise' ('homeland of the Engineers'; 'also wiped out about 2000 years ago....because of the same outbreak on LV-223').

Occam's Razor would suggest that the Derelict on LV-426 resembles the Juggernaut we see in the AC trailer, and LV-426 is right 'next door' to LV-233. Therefore, the simplest explanation would appear to be that David crashed the Juggernaut on LV-426 shortly after leaving LV-233, and the Covenant comes along later to an area already known to have a moon that can support life, and subsequently LV-426 is destroyed by the events that occur in AC (such as David's gardening).

I think it's a less likely explanation that David and Shaw fly to a more distant location (assuming long range scans from Earth haven't discovered this planet due to its distance from Earth), with a planet already able to support life, and the Covenant just happens across this planet (whether summoned there by David or not). The Universe is massive. There's a lot of variables in that explanation.

@ali81 - I agree, I think there will further exploration of the Engineers in future films, but I get the feeling AC will be more than David just experimenting with goo. I think there will be enough in there to give us some answers, and tease us with further questions about the Engineers.

One important point I made earlier that everyone missed.

Paradise obviously has liquid water on the surface. The only catastrophe that may have turned Paradise into LV-426 would have to be so explosive that every drop of water on the planet would be dispersed into space so far out of orbit that it didn't even leave a ring. (Probably into the gas giant.)

Anything that powerful would have blown away all of the atmosphere on the planet as well, but LV-426 HAS an atmosphere. It also would likely have blown away a significant portion of the planetary mass because LV-426 is only 1200km in diameter and has a two hour rotation.  Life will not exist on a planetoid that small naturally. That explosion would also have had to atomize that planetary mass and send it into the gas giant as well. Because there is no ring around LV-426

@queen I find it unlikely that any ship could survive an event that DESTROYED EVERYTHING ON A PLANET and atomized a significant portion of it regardless of the quality of construction and materials. 

myrddin....definitely adds weight to paradise NOT being lv426

Myrddin365

The event I entertained doesn't have to destroy anything on the planet. That suggestion was more about the planet being coated in volcanic ash and lava. When Mt. Vesuvius erupted, Pompeii was coated and encapsulated in volcanic mud and ash. Preserved for almost 2000 years. For the sake of further exploring such a scenario, we can look at two possibilities.

1. The lava flood isn't that deep and the juggernaut does not get submerged. The life on the planet dies due to the ensuing nuclear winter you get with a massive eruption and furthermore is coated in a layer of volcanic mud/ash (turning it into a rock.)

2. The lavaflow is deep and the juggernaut ends up floating atop the lava until such a time where everything cooled.

In either of these scenarios, it seems the ship could still have a chance to remain (mostly) intact.

Now for the sake of looking at other possibilites, we can also trash the volcanic activity idea and go with a much simpler explanation. The idea that an event occurs (perhaps triggered by Daniels, David, or an engineer) where the entire planet is exposed to black goo to a point where the native life doesn't even get infected but is simply destroyed. We've seen what black goo can do but considering it's varied outcomes, we can't say we know EVERYTHING that it's capable of doing.

Let's go a step further and remove black goo from the equation. Let's just look at the idea that Engineers (according to some of the original ideas for Prometheus) are also supposed to be terraformers. Who even knows what their terraforming technology is capable of.

Simply put, we just don't have enough reasons to say that the planet in AC is definitely not LV-426 prior to some transformative event.

QES, so what ur saying is maybe the black goo seeps down into the core of the planet? hhhmmmm interesting theory, any volcanic activety would be a mix of lava and goo and would most definitely destroy the entire planet

Mars - no surface water (but evidence of past oceans); has an atmosphere and weather events/storms; catastrophic event in the past causing the ejection of virtually one hemisphere of its crust. Science supports this on LV-426, but we're talking about science fiction, so anything is possible (FTL travel anyone)

ali81

I actually wasn't saying that at all, but now that you mention it, that is indeed an interesting concept.

I was discussing black goo infecting the planet as a means to wipe out all life. It was a separate theory from the volcanic activity. I could see it upsetting people if that happened. A chemical or mutagen seeping down into the core and not being destroyed by the heat would likely set of a lot of logic radars.

Also molten rock isn't alive. I don't think it'd work

true don't see it working and after id posted it the heat aspect donned on me, the organic matter would burn up long before it got to the core

It did make me realize it'd be fascinating to see something massive transformed by black goo. Take an elephant or whale for example.

Something I'm hoping we'll have the opportunity to see in one of these films is what it looks like when other animals are exposed.

Well if a SJ can dramatically change in size and design and be reduced to a tall albino called "an engineer", I wouldn't be too surprised if the planet in AC turns out to be LV-426.

I doubt it though as the environmental differences are too vast, and I hope not because I'd love to see more planets introduced in the series.

neo, we don't see the SJ out of its suit so nothing has actually changed. the size thing, doesn't really affect anything as they could all very well be different sizes like humans differ. the SJ may have been an older engineer, depending on how long they live. the engineers in Prometheus may be the equivalent age to say our 21-30 age range and they don't stop growing till theyr in theyr 50s or 60s, which the SJ could be, and may live for 150 or so years. we just don't know enough to say either way for certain the SJ isn't of the same species as the engineer but RS has stated they r the same

Y'all just aren't getting the level of cataclysm that would be required to turn an earth-like planet into LV-426. It's not just volcanoes it's blowing off 90% of the planetary volume and liquifying the rest. 

Is it possible? Yes. Would the derelict have survived it with eggs and lazermist intact? No way.

I get what you're saying @Myrddin365. I guess my point is with all the other things that just can't happen, as we know it (faster than light travel, cryosleep, black goo, terraforming, finding numerous planets, planetoids and moons varying greatly in size, but apparently having the save gravity) - the possible 'destruction' of LV-426 could happen in any number of ways, fudging the laws of physics/nature, or something we don't know about. More fiction than science.

We've actually seen very little of LV-436. Who knows what kind of past it has. basically, we've seen Hadley's Hope and the area between the Nostromo and the Derelict.

Personally, I think it's entirely feasible that LV-426 could have been 'de-terraformed'. As I've said in previous posts, Ridley likes his symbolism, patterns, history repeating aspects. The fact that they chose LV-426 and not, as we know now exists, LV-223 to establish Hadley's Hope suggests a bigger story we're not yet privy to.

@MuzzleNZ it's not about whether it could happen or not. It totally could. What I'm convinced could NOT happen is the derelict sitting pristine in the EXACT same position after this cataclysm happens around it with all the eggs intact..

We know Juggernauts can be forcibly moved with enough momentum from Prometheus. We know being on the wrong end of the right physics can damage them.  We know Xeno eggs cook and die in flamethrower discharge.

If Paradise became LV-426 there is NO WAY the derelict and egg chamber survived that process. So Paradise cannot become LV-426.

Myrddin365

On the other side of the coin, we have no way to verify what the heat shields of a civilization who's technology surpasses ours by billions of years are capable of withstanding. Furthermore, the scenarios I described don't need to be explosive on a magnitude that it would evaporate oceans or obliterate surface objects.

For the sake of discussion, lets set a planetary lava flood aside. Even something as simple as a caldera eruption could create the conditions we see on LV-426. We know that if Yellowstone erupts, it is expected that the entire North American continent would be plunged into nuclear winter. Have an event like that take place on a small planetoid and such conditions could possibly envelop the entire thing. The sun could be heavily blocked out and the vegetation on the planet would die rather quickly. That would likely create the exact conditions we see on LV-426.

You could even take a caldera out of the equation and leave the nuclear winter intact (by way of terraforming technology or a variety of other possibilities for that matter.) All you really need is for the atmosphere to change in such a way that the local vegetation can no longer be sustained. This could be part of the reason why Covenant's chief terraformer is the lead role.

You could still be correct and this AC planet may not be LV-426 at all. There just isn't enough information to confirm either way.

@Myrddin365 - I'm thinking less geological cataclysm, more environmental breakdown. Basically, the environment becomes toxic rather than geologically destabilised.

As mentioned before, they can do what they like (and probably will), so science (and possibly disbelief) be damned - it could happen!

whether its lv426 or rq522. what does it matter? the real matter is, does this movie become the direct tie into alien so that scott can get on with his engineer stories? he said the beast is cooked! then he changed his mind.....why? because he knew nobody will care about the other stories until they have their grubby little hands on the true backstory! he wants the alien out of the way. so what? so he was gonna dilly dally his way to it with 4 movies. the he changed his mind! why? maybe he got tired of reading about the sad faces who poopooed prometheus because it didnt say how the ship with eggs got to 426. 50 bucks says hes giving them what they want so they hush and watch the other movies. WAKA WAKA!

Id you are unreal ahahah

But 

You might be right indeed! My eyes Are open

I think debating whether it's LV-426 is the point of this thread. You guys feel free to start another thread on your mutual dislike of Ridley. Be good to keep it all together so it doesn't get mixed up in every other thread.