Why were all the murals sending us to the "Death temples" on LV-223?

@Michelle Johnston

You share same views as me our interpretation of prometheus is almost identical but in general exactly the same..in fact some of your expressed details enlightened me and my theory of the direction they going and made it seem fitting and logical towards my expectation on the sequels.

Every theory would have plot holes because they expanded the concept a lot in prometheus,such a huge concept should be perfected more before final release however our interpretation is by far the one that offers the least plot holes and makes it cohesive as a whole,upon close analysis of facts.

I dont deny there is some clashing thingys on them tryingn to explain what happened and how we will achieve alien 1 situation..ridley along this years changed his retoric and direction in some points and that ofc will cause harm to cohesive storytelling.

However finding explanation and making interpretation based on logic and facts for the less plot holes possible is the way to go rather then doing fanboy ones and thats why its always a pleasure to read from you.

@Michelle Johnston - I feel like when I read your posts you're like the teacher that lets us have our enthusiastic speculation, then pulls us all back in to line and makes us see common sense! I agree with you - I don't think there is evidence to suggest inter-species war, at least, nothing thus far - not to say it couldn't go in that direction, if as Ridley has said in the past, sequels could move away from Alien, rather than closer too it. That implies broader exploration of other connected concepts.

In any hierarchy there are different roles. To me (perhaps squeezing more out of the 'facts' than are plainly evident), there appear to be different roles Engineers fulfil within that hierarchy. This, in my opinion, is supported by the simple fact that the goo was managed on LV-223 - perhaps not exclusively on that world, but it appears the exclusive purpose of the Engineers being on that world was the goo. Was LV-223 always intended for this purpose? Who knows, but the set up with the cave murals pointing to that star system throws a big spanner in the works. 

So, 'factions' is probably the wrong word, as is the use of 'warring'. In my opinion (fanboy or not), disagreement/dissent within the hierarchy of the Engineers seems a likely story arc with regards to the acquisition/creation, management and deployment of goo in that galaxy/universe. Whether those who are primarily interested in seeing xeno related action agree or not, the Engineers are now an important part of the wider story. Like humans (even the handful we've seen in Alien, Aliens & Prometheus), not all who are seemingly there for the same reason, have the same motives, or ultimately agree on the right course of action. I find it unlikely that the Engineers are all malevolent. I don't think this suggests a geopolitical direction at all. 

@ Tiago_miami_la - "I buy time travel.i buy theory of a race that is higher then engineers. But engineers arent rebels or have 2 factions." - Time travel would kill this franchise.

The existence of a facility for building weapons of mass destruction suggests that someone is having or expecting to have a war, yes?

MuzzleNZ i woudnt be surprised if the top hierarchy gods above engineers would be able to time travel.(space jockey)

Are you saying the cave paintings and hieroglyphics were warnings? This is an irrational supposition because the best way to keep someone away from something is to... I don't know... NOT SHOW THEM EXACTLY HOW TO FIND IT . Say what you want about the realistic viability of Holloway and Shaw's methods, the drawings showed them EXACTLY how to get to a planet the engineers had inhabited.

"Don't come here, to this star system that looks just like this, see, I'm pointing right at it. Yeah that one. I know you can't see it yet, but don't go there once you can see where it is. In fact, go get a chisel, or paint this on your wall.  I want to make sure you never go there. Yes, right there." That sounds like a set up from Family Guy.

"We're from this system here. I know you can't see it, yet. Just sayin... You know, FYI. Sure! get a chisel, or paint it on your wall, it's not like you'll ever be able to get there." Isn't much better.

The simplest explanations are:

1: they want us to come there once we are able for something that will be good for us.

2: they want us to come there once we are able for something that will be good for them.

My above speculations follow the simplest explanations for the cave paintings and hieroglyphics. The state of LV-223 when Prometheus arrives implies a sharp divergence from both of those.  

This implies that a split, or radical shift in Engineer ideology occured roughly 2000 years ago, and that planet was repurposed to develop and manufacture black goo and distribute it to Earth and maybe other seed planets.  

A shift in ideology that drastic rarely comes about without conflict.

Well said, Myrddin365. I agree.

@Myrddin365 - exactly. I think what you say is logical (though, as we know, not everything in this universe is logical!). Either way, we know (based on what was in Prometheus) that pretty much every ancient culture on Earth, spanning a very large period of time, had the same image (more or less) with the same content (more or less). Regardless of how this may have been 'passed along' various cultures, there is no doubt contact with an extraterrestrial species ('Engineers' or perhaps some other 'giant' visitors) resulted in ancient humans knowing, and being able to depict, a star system with reasonable accuracy.

Whether or not there was a 'war', some intergalactic/species conflict, or the United Council of Engineers chose to ignore its shareholders, and attempt to aggressively acquire a timeshare holiday planet to lease out to Predators, the seemingly benevolent contact in the past was set to be replaced with some pretty nasty plans. In my view, this is where the biblical connections come in to play - 2000 years ago, 'God's' emissary killed on earth, 'divine' retribution etc. They changed their minds, or their plans, or their personnel. Whatever it may be, it changed.

@ Tiago_miami_la - time travel is possible, but not really probable IMO. It would introduce all sorts of conflicts and potential plot holes regarding being able to travel back in time to alter 'history'. It may be the direction Ridley's going, but I doubt it. I think it's far more likely that:

- the Space Jockey is a being(s) that the Engineers perhaps worshiped themselves, or is a 'higher form' or Engineer, and technology was stolen from them (perhaps explaining the change in plans with Earth); or

- the Space Jockey is actually an Engineer, and it is simply continuity issues with regards to size, stated age of the Derelict etc.

I see no real plausible reason to suggest time travel is the reason the Derelict (with an apparent 'cargo' of eggs) exists on LV-426. As mentioned, if this is true, the implications are that there would be other time travelling Space Jockeys who would essentially 'reset history' be travelling back in time. I think this is overly complicated, and while possible, unlikely to be the direction.

@ ifox Thanks!

@MuzzleNZ: thank you as well for the support. Devine wrath is iffy. Hard to argue that killing Jesus stopped his ideology(or some form of it) from spreading far, wide, and down through the ages.

If ridley wants to tie the story to alien from prometheus foward we have :

-Outbreak on lv 223 whatever happened is the consequence of the derelict in lv 426 2000 years ago or so its intended since time travel cant be a thing it cant happen after prometheus.( i dont buy eggs being cargo,but rather what comes from the engineer layed the eggs).

- david creating eggs and the xeno whats next and for what purpose if engineers are extint 2000 years ago and so he discovers or does it himself on paradise to the remaining ones.(altho very possible there are more in other planets why they didnt get back to Lv 223 in 2000 years and finish the deal with us by continuing what the engineer in prometheus tried asap.

- david has no knowledge of lv 426...highly unlikely honestly.since hes trying to create what is in lv 426 or probably lv 223 in other pyramids IF its cargo. However the hole melting under to the egg zone the chestbursting and how everything is set suggests otherwise or was very poorly written in logical terms.and he knows about paradise and if paradise is far away ,more then lv 426...if paradise its not lv 426 pre nuked...then what play will be at stake that makes sense.?! 

- engineers seed and destroy life...what reason why..what happened..lv 223 and paradise only places we have atm holding answers.

- space jockey larger then engineer..so it seems. Higher hierarchy different race..still waiting the answers.

- black goo able to seed life and destroy life. Catalyst for terraforming since it provides environment that supports life.

Weyland yutani want it...weyland terraforming and health evolution applications..yutani weaponary military applications.

Theory of walter creating the classic xeno..bio mech xeno is not possible or plausible. The eggs are the same the xenos are the same the protoxeno is the classic xeno..aquiring traits from the process itself and maybe environment. Acid blood the hammerpedes had it too...bio mech design can be aquired due to ship or bio mech environment. The protoxeno then is the alien we love bit differemt due to the process itself.

Bottom line.

What david really wants.what is his agenda.

What happened in lv 223.

Why engineers want to destroy us.

How was the black goo made and who invented it.

What happened to cause the derelict in lv 426 to crash and where it came from heading to where.

What was the space jockey.

@Tiaogo_miami_la - your bottom line list is all good (get back to that in a moment). But I think some of your earlier comments actually give a few answers (or at least likely clues):

- There's no evidence to suggest what happened on LV-223 is a consequence of the Derelict on LV-426 - none, zip, zero. In fact, there's nothing connecting the two in the same time reference either. That doesn't rule out the possibility that there is a connection, but rather, that we don't have concrete proof to make categorical statements. As I mentioned before, I think (given the very heavy biblical references) the 2000 year reference in Prometheus was theological. There's no theological theme running through Alien and nothing that categorically ties the two together with regards to time (regardless of comments in Alien speculating on how long the Derelict had been there). The Derelict absolutely can happen after the outbreak on LV-223, and further, after the events of Prometheus. The timing is all speculation, but my point is that we can't make absolute statements that a+b=c when we're not really sure what 'a' and 'b' are exactly, and c is a deceptive little fella we've caught but a fleeting glimpse of. As you've stated, the goo seems to have terraforming properties, but also capability to destroy life. Not a big stretch to think a planet can be 'de-terraformed', and therefore making anything on it appear to be older than it actually is. Quite simply, time travel is not the first option for an answer to the Derelict. That's a bit like saying, in the absence of understanding, an impressive card trick must be magic, because how else could it have worked.

- I agree, David likely has no knowledge of LV-426. This has little bearing on anything at this point. Ridley said it will take several movies to directly link to the events of LV-426. Lots of time and events to happen (and/or understand what has happened that we don't yet know).

- We know Engineers seed life (we saw this in Prometheus) - we assume they can also destroy it (based on David and Janek's comments). LV-223 has some answers, as does LV-426, Paradise (if that is in-fact a different location), and likely, many other locations in the wider 'universe'. We have only glimpsed a small amount so far - the rest is all speculation.

- As mentioned before, there's one of, in all likelihood, two scenarios with regards to the size of the Space Jockey - either it's a continuity issue, and the direction Prometheus went simply didn't allow 25 foot SJs; or, as you suggest, they are different than the Engineers we've seen thus far. I'm picking the former, but I do like the idea of either different types of Engineers, or a different alien race altogether. Who knows, but that's why we're devoting hours of our lives to debating these things - because the speculation is almost as exciting as the answers!

- As above, the black goo seems to be able to do a range of things. Destroying a planet, in my opinion, is likely to make any 'artefacts' appear to be more weathered/older than they are.....

- Agree. The primary objective of Prometheus was Weyland's desire to steal 'fire' from the Gods.

- Your last point kind of answers itself. There's clearly a 'recipe' with the goo. I don't think we should assume that David/Walter are the only source of biomech (clearly Engineers had this too). Further, apparently, humans share the same DNA with Engineers (actually, not just the same, but identical according to Prometheus). To me, Walter seems to be David's ticket off Paradise, so I don't think we'll see experiments with him. I think David will be fully exploring what the goo is capable of (Shaw is likely to unwillingly assist), and potentially re-creating events of the past. So, end result, experimenting with this stuff is likely to result in very similar outcomes.

Bottom line:

I'd love to know David's agenda - what he really wants. I think @Michelle Johnston has made some great comments on this, and her comments certainly seem to ring true with what we know so far;

We may not ever know more about LV-223 other than what we know now. However, what is more important in my opinion, is why the cave images on Earth pointed to this location. That's the real question that needs answering about LV-223 (the answers could we satisfy both questions).

Do we know for sure the Engineers wanted to destroy us? Granted, the events of Prometheus have led us in that direction, but I suspect there's more to it.

Love to know where the black goo came from. I live in New Zealand, and I can think of a couple of dodgy places here that the goo may have originated from!

The Derelict crashing on LV-426 is probably the single biggest answer we all want. If you find out before me, make sure you let me know!

As mentioned earlier, the Space Jockey is, in my opinion, either an Engineer (out of scale, and therefore, dis-continuous from Prometheus); or, as you say, something we haven't seen yet.

So, my friend, there are some hardcore questions we need answers too. I have hope that AC will give us some of them, but we need to make a deal. Whatever those answers are, they are the right ones. As my mother used to say - 'shoulda, coulda, woulda, but didn't'. Can't lament the answers being not what we want.

I will take the space jockey as a normal engineer in my theories further until theres enough proof its another race.might just been a size issue indeed. And a time related prop design. 1979-2012

I will also take the derelict carrying eggs as cargo like he said.

I will also take the derelict thousands to millions years old as stated by them (movies and ridley) as fact too.

I will take alien 3 and 4 as dreams.

I love prometheus and what he taught me.

Now lets see how many changes of heart ridley has and if the story telling is cohesive with what he said before.

Alien covenant will answer something and will point to where we going.

So im looking foward for it.

Yep - me too!

With regards to the Derelict's age - we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think there's a lot of 'fact' around the age. The movie noticed the SJ was fossilised - that's not correct. Bottom line is that they found something that looked old, organic and had a 'creature' with bone-like features. Based on the events on Prometheus, we now know the Engineers suits look like that (note I'm deliberately not saying they are the same!). So, if they thought the SJ was a bunch of fossilised bones, they would assume a long period of time to become that way. Basically, it was flawed speculation.

Ridley's said a lot of things outside of the films. I don't think that necessarily makes it fact with regards to the content of the film. They are snippets of info intended to make people wonder. They are not definitive explanations, and even if they were, history shows us they have changed over time.

LV-223 was attacked by Predators. I can supply three obvious clues.

1) Green goo in the hallway? Only place in this universe (well, expanded) I've seen green goo is Predator blood. The sound / scream you hear isn't a deacon, it is an unhelmed Predator doing his war cry.

2) Those chest holes weren't bursts. They were high-caliber weapon shots in the back ... since they were running from something with a gun. Exit wounds. Remember the big holes they made in the humans in the Predator movies? Makes more sense than chest bursts because ...

3) Why the heck would 20+ Engineers end up in a dead end and then all chest burst, but fall in a neat pile? They would at least writhe in pain, fight, partially run away, etc. They were piled there by their attackers.

Theory, yes, but makes far more sense to me.

Someone or something could have piled those engineer bodies there.

Hmmm, true. Even a xeno could technically pile them there. The green goo and the holes on all parts of the engineers bodies still makes me think Predators. At the least, another life form (green blood) with guns (the random holes). One even had a hole in the side of his head ! Seems more a gunshot to me. And the way the engineer at the temple door fell looked to me like a shot from behind as well. We don't see a hole on that one, but they never turn him over or anything either .. they just collect the head.

Maybe Shaw would have understood if the Engineers spelled it out for her:

@DK LOL

;)

Also Predator Writing

But joking/trolling aside...

I honestly dont think the Predators are and will be connected to the Franchise...

We cant rule out a future AVP movie that may act as a expanded universe that takes Prometheus into Canon... but should not be taken as Canon to Prometheus itself.