Ridley Scott confirms David WAS the originator of the xenomorph AND that the beings he bombarded were in fact engineers.

I feel so bad for Shaw... She got turned into a nighmarish birthing machine. Good to see some Giger imagery though. Also, i'm pretty sure Walter isn't dead. I was thinking maybe he gets facehugged by one of the eggs David created, and he uses the crashed juggernaught ship to escape the planet and send the warning that the Nostromo picks up. He's the guy in the chair the crew of the Nostromo find, not an engineer. The biomech xeno comes from him. 

Tiwaz

"That Book went through FOX's approval, before it was published."

That brings me to my third guess (which I should have included in my last response to you)

I work for a large corporation that produces digital content. I regularly see major shortcomings on the part of reviewers. Some of the things that are missed are truly mind blowing. It may be the case that this little nugget slipped through the cracks and now Ridley and the book are out of sync with each other. Ridley may not even realize that the book indicates that David didn't create the egg. If that is the case, we might be in for a grade A shitshow over the next couple of years.

Perhaps someone should put this question to Ridley or ADF sooner than not.

joylitt

"So according to Ridley Scott the Engineers can only visit us every 500 years but now humans are traveling to their star system every 10 years or so?"

What do you mean?

I'll say that trying to work around what the franchise is doing and create a decent story in the ALIENverse isn't easy, and is getting to be quite a challenge in attempting to resolve via logical extrapolation various plot-holes, loopholes and continuity issues.

I may only be writing fanfiction, but I am giving it my best effort. I want to make something the fanbase will enjoy, and possibly salve some of the bruises inflicted by what's going on in the franchise right now.

That all said, there's no way around some points, so there's going to be unavoidable de-couplings from Canon that exist from certain dualities as mentioned above Re; Book vs Film where they can not be resolved properly.

Then again, inspiration might strike in the middle of the night and lend it's aid. We'll see, and in the meantime, I'll keep working.

But if your a 'David groupie', you'll be sorely disappointed as my works do not encompass him much.

"here really was no other motivation behind it, besides giving a nod to the master (Giger)"

Its possible, i agree at that... but i think the Face Huggers was the Easter Eggs, i think regardless the Mural shows us a Xenomorph related Organism, the Black Goo shows us Xeno-related Outcomes (Hammerpedes and Fifield, and Trillobite to Deacon).  Plus the Black Goo creates a lot of Davids work... then we have the Frescos... which we only see the one clearly.

If these are just Easter Eggs... FOX needs to stop doing silly stuff, because it wrongly sets Fans up the Wrong Garden Path which then leads to Fans then being let down and disappointed.. The Alien Covenant Poster with those Xenomorphs and Engineers is a prime example.

Easter Eggs like the Drinking Bird are fine....but things that can be interpreted to the Plot like the Mural in Prometheus and the Alien Covenant Engineer Poster... are just setting Fans up for major disapointments

QueenElizabethShaw Did you listen to the whole podcast? Ridley said the Engineers visit us every 500 years. But we visit their planets every 10 years or so. And imagine if other space faring civilizations they have seeded are doing the same?

The Egg Scene in the Novel is interesting... i thought it was not mentioned? Are there alternative Novels? i doubt it.

If indeed its hinted David did not create but found it, then that did raise a lot of Questions..  when RS made a comment just after he announced AC he did mention this.

“They’re going to go to the planet where the engineers came from, and come across the evolving creature that they had made. Why did they make it? Why would they make such a terrifying beast? It felt bio-mechanoid, it felt like a weapon. And so the movie will explain that, and reintroduce the alien back into it.”

You could interpreted that as THEY as in Engineers...

If the ADF Novel has that Scene where David tells Oram he came across the Egg....  this adds up to the quote by RS.

We need to remember a Lot of Changes happen post shooting, and re-shoots and so the information that Alan Dean was working off would not be 100% the finished product we had the the Cinema...

Things get changed... Prometheus is Proof of this with the many scenes that it never included... which not only was the Elders Scenes, but Scenes like this.

That paint a different picture of some Scenes, but are edited out and so are not to be considered as far as Canon.

The ADF Egg Scene therefore is just a victim of again changes to plans as they are in the Post Shooting/Re-shooting phase.

It is also very interesting to hear from Ridley himself how uninterested he is in the action aspect of the film, he actually calls it "shoot 'em up bullshit". He kinda suggests he was only invested in that second act and Fassbender's "standout scene". I am not sure what he means about the David/Walter switching twist though. I'm not sure he's proud about the cheap trick he pulled on us.

@Svanya

I can see what you mean, i was always under the impression that Walter may be not quite a normal Synthetic and he would be part of how we get the Bio-Mechanical Xenomorph.

Its a nice theory, but i would imagine the Juggernaught is incapacitated, as we have to Question why David was stranded unless he wanted to stay on purpose until he can Lure in Test Subjects.

A theory on Walter on that ship and getting Chest Busted would also hint that what ever Chest Bursts would be a Egg Layer... but i think RS is going against a Queen for his plans.

I certainly think at some point a Synthetic and a Engineer Ship have to come back into play as far as leading to ALIEN, and we have to ask... are we really going to see David with one Hand all the way in the next movie?

I think surely the Covenant would have Spare Parts for Walter that David can use... and maybe what if there is enough to Rebuild a Walter?

If David does this and used MUTHUR to allow David to upload his consciousness to this Walter... then killing off Daniels would cover all his tracks..

joylitt

I see now. You are referencing the content from the podcast. Do you have a time stamp? I did listen to the whole thing but the only reference to 500 years that I remember picking up on was this one

"If the planet went wrong, they would want to wipe it clean. But that could take 500 years. When they revisit –  because different visitors would come back and see we’re not doing so well – they would look at these human beings that are jerks, that are killing the planet, killing themselves, can’t settle down, they’re like a bunch of children. We should wipe it clean."

That's what I'm talking about. Anyway they visit us very sporadically, but we got to a point where we can be at their doorstep whenever we want. That is very bad planning on behalf on the engineers, and I don't think it will ever be explained.

joylitt

I think you've misinterpreted what he said. I don't gather anything like that at all from his words.

All i can think of to the 500 years is..

This is how regular the Engineers visit Worlds they seed to check on the Progress... Or this is how long after HITTING Reset, before they can begin Re-creating Life again on those Worlds.

There's no contradiction regarding where the eggs are from, David is not telling the truth. He is lying in the movie as well.

@joylitt

I can see where you are comming from and for sure, thats correct.. but i think the Engineers felt that Mankind would never evolve Technologically to be able to do that...  this shows the Hubris of the Engineers, their Arrogance and Naivety that they see their creations as limited without the Knowledge and Help they pass on.

Ultimately is why Prometheus was Punished lol

In the interview, we also get an explanation for the ship's name, "Covenant". It corresponds to the agreements made between the pilgrim fathers who left their homeland and went on a similar journey to the promised land.

@BigDave 

"Its a nice theory, but i would imagine the Juggernaught is incapacitated"~BigDave

True, but they were on an engineer planet, perhaps the main planet, so i'd wager it's highly possible there are more ships there. As for Daniels and the rest of the crew/passengers, it's obvious David will use them all as test subjects, infecting them with the facehuggers brought onboard and continuing his research. He did say he intended to do to Daniels exactly as he had done to Shaw.

@QueenElizabethShaw I've featured this thread, thanks for posting it!

"This is going to mean the Covenant is leaving Planet 4 in around the year 2105 (mid December 2104) and will take 7 years to get to Origae-6 and then that puts us at the year late 2111 and early 2112 which then leaves them 9-10 years to Shoe-horn David and his Eggs to LV-426 which bare in mind if he does not discover a Engineer ship on Origae-6 means another 7 years back to Earth or say 5-7 back to LV-426 Potentially putting the Derelict on LV-426 as being there for 3-5 years before the events of Alien."

Wait! Who said that Alien happening in 2122? Original movie haven't information about time! David can have many years and decades before Alien. This maybe 22XX or 23XX for Alien79 hapening.

These following lines take on a new meaning and clarity when replaced with RS speaking of his A L I E N legacy … -

"We made you because we could."

"Sometimes to create, one must first destroy."

"It must feel like your God abandoned you."

"Did you really think I was gonna sit in a boardroom for years arguing over who was in charge while you go look for some miracle on some godforsaken rock in the middle of space? A king has his reign, and then he dies. It's inevitable. That is natural order of things."

Maybe, he had plans to take it all in a complete new direction well away from the story line we know, from the moment he came back on board. Who knows where the journey will take us …

The scene in the book doesn't necessarily contradict the movie.

The sequence is just missing. However, in the movie David says something like "... I've found it ... I've created it...", in that particular order. At least that's what some members stated. I've only seen the german version so far.

Of course he could be lying. But David usually lies through omission rather than faking things. When Walter confronted him he straight out admitted that he bombed the Engineers.

Lilly (Svanya)

"@QueenElizabethShaw I've featured this thread, thanks for posting it!"

Absolutely! I'm happy to see people engage with each other over it. Thanks for featuring!

Tiwaz

"Of course he could be lying. But David usually lies through omission rather than faking things."

I've been thinking about this myself as well. Lying and saying to Oram that the engineers created it would probably be somewhat disarming. A way to put Oram more at ease by shifting the focus to the engineers as the evil, while creating the appearance that David is trying to study what they were doing in an effort to protect humans.

Also we COULD conclude that David is fine with big lies too and not just lies of omission. When Oram hesitated while approaching the egg, David outright says "It's perfectly safe". Then there was also his claim initially that the Juggernaut's payload accidentally deployed. My impression was, he told Walter because Walter had caught him and he also believed that it was time Walter made a decision between David and the crew. Full disclosure would be required in this situation.

Another excerpt from the book ( shortly before David shows Oran the dead egg):

'“Marooned here so lamentably,” he explained, “I had nothing but time to watch and to learn. Eventually my innate curiosity got the better of me and, with nothing to occupy myself other than the compiling of a simple collection, I began to do a bit of genetic experimentation of my own. Some cross-breeding, hybridizing, what have you. I like to think that the ill-fated inhabitants of this world—the original Engineers—would gaze on my work with approval.”
His words were useful in reminding Oram to tighten his grip on the weapon he held.
“You… engineered these?”
David smiled anew. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
Oram stared at the line of specimens.'

He admitted that he created "something" already. 

Possibly he even reverse bred, without realizing it.

The Company...and its predecessor in Alien: Resurrection centuries later...is obsessed with the Xenomorph for use as a bioweapon.

LV-426 has an alien craft on it, Ash knew about the eggs and what would come from them. (And Ash may be David; one last "surprise" as the prequels end.) The proximity of Hadley's Hope to the Derelict was not a coincidence. Was it? Why send people to that rock if Covenant was looking for a cushy Paradise world decades before? Why not send android workers?

The Company, Weyland-Yutani and its Resurrection successor, want the Xenomorph! They want the eggs! They want a perfect bioweapon!

LV-223 is full of the military technology of godlike beings. The black goo vases are there. Biomechanical wonders are a visitor's for the taking. Shaw sent out a warning for no one to go there. So everyone and their brother should be rushing to find the great alien powers that doomed the Prometheus and that dearly missed bundle of charm Mr. Weyland.

LV-223 boys! No need to make Ripley clones in the far future! Go get a Juggernaut army on LV-223! Your scientists can whip up something as dangerous as David's "perfect organism"! I bet that little Deacon would be glad to be a weapon for you...and he'd hold plenty of secrets if you chose to experiment on him.

Engineer technology. A military base. Goo vases. Juggernaut ships full of biomechanical secrets.

On and on. Maybe androids are secretly running things by the time of Alien. But...white "blood." Even in Call, much later.

Will David make a return trip to LV-223? Will one of our heroes nuke that mysterious world that Ellen Ripley would know is the ultimate threat to humanity (if exploited by the Company)?

Nah.

Movies have to get to the point. We're going to see David connect to Ash in some way, and the Engineers may remain an enigma. And not a very interesting one, compared to Giver's Space Jockey.

LV-223! All the bioweapons and technology the Company could ever need! The secrets of life and death!

"I'm making this up as I go" - every creator involved in the Alien prequels.

Well it looks like that Alan Foster wrote his Alien Covenant/Origins books since he knew that fans would backlash against David being the canon creator of Xenos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCrVnlNk4eA 

i heard that the origin is something related to the xeno :) ill be buying the novelization as it does right by the original 

"Is almost like they haven't thought it through" oh i loved that... unfortunately that's been the theme since the start of Prometheus. :(

I love Ridley Scott and he can still rescue this.... It was better than Prometheus most people are falling on that side but it is feeling like the xenos are getting less mystical and less awe inspiring.... the engineers were nothing like awe inspiring more like weaklings.  i hope David was lieing about creating or the original black goo comes from something amazing... cough cough demi god cough...

Listening to Ridley i do wonder if he realises why people love alien so much... it's realness is set inspiring vastness feelings... at no point did i think b movie Friday the 13th  in space!

"the xenos are getting less mystical and less awe inspiring"

Only in Alien has the Xeno had any mystic...after that not so much..

1. Aliens: Xeno's are just 'bugs' killed with a shotgun! They're really no match for a 5-80yo with a weapon.

"Here little Timmy here's a shotgun, jus' pull the trigger and kill the big bastard....then we'll go for some ice cream!"  

"Yeah!!"

2 Alien3: pretty much had to base a movie where there were no weapons! Or the Xeno would have been shot. "Look an Alien!" "Blam!" "Whew! that was close! Let's get back to our cells"

3 Alien:R  More bugs..dumb as a bunch of rocks.

4 Alien:C  Just a bug(with a backstory). Though I did like how difficult it was to kill the Neomorph that was cool!

I'd like them to produce fear pheromones....makes you run screaming or just submit. (Some airborne pathogen surrounding them a nice stink.)

Being in the same room with one should incapacitate a Elephant.

I mean, do they even smell? Not sure anyone has mentioned a 'smell'.

When it comes to the mural and the Deacon comparing to the neomorph and protomorph, I like to compare them to cockroaches and termites. Termites are basically just more evolved cockroaches. 

I don't like the idea that Engineers created the Aliens, I don't know if that's the official synopsis but it's was most people are saying… could be wrong…

Here are my thoughts, or at least what I thought before AC destroyed my theory haha

In the first Alien movie (LV-426) they only find one crashed ship with the Ovomorphs (eggs). In Prometheus (LV-223) they find several ships (parked underground) holding only the weaponised 'goo', in what seems to be a military installation. I think this means that the Engineers use the eggs (as they are the easiest form of the Alien to transport) to create the goo. Since they are moons of the same planet and relatively close by, I think the crashed ship from Alien was on its way to LV-223 from somewhere to resupply the military installation with more eggs, before it had to make an emergency landing on LV-426. So the ship from Alien wasn't a bomber, I think it was a supply ship on its way to LV-223 and that's how the films are now connected. People saying that the engineers created the Alien species, I think they discovered them and just got one step closer to what Weyland-Yutani corp was trying to do in the original films (weaponise them).

As for my thoughts on David creating the Xenomorph, I'm still not sure whether I like that story arc… I feel that knowing that the Xenomorph is not a natural creation but engineered, just makes them much less scary looking back at the original films. I hope that in the next movie RS finds a way to explain it's existence in a more sinister plot! Make David accidently get infected whilst experimenting (kind of like the Engineers) to bring about the Xeno. This would return that sinister self preserving identity the Aliens have, as opposed to being seen as the pet expriment of a delusional Android. So far Prometheus and AC combined have now painted them more as pet projects from different humanoid races that keep going wrong…

Edit: Deleted duplicate post FML

Just to throw this out there, it is always entirely possibly Ridley is using this creator David thing as a misdirect purposefully to satisfy the anti-Prometheus people who hated engineers so that they'll come back for the next film or two.

This conflict between the book and his comments really opens up the possibility that this is all Ridley's idea of marketing and generating self contained intrigue within the series.

So he gets the anti-Prometheus crowd to stick around by making them think he's dropping the engineers and sticking with xenos and androids (two core aspects of Alien), then he reals in people who care about neither Prometheus or Xenos, but who find the AI story fascinating. And he keeps the Prometheus fans by dangling them in suspense, making them feel like they need to come see if he's truly going to leave Prometheus concepts in the dust, and he produces the same car-crash-gazing effect to real in those who want to see if he's really going to betray them and make David the creator of the original xenomorph.

In reality it doesn't really matter what happens in the films between Prometheus and the Alien tie-in prequel because if he gives everyone what they want in the final installment, as long as everything makes sense at the end, many people will largely appreciate all the misdirection in hindsight.

Or this could be the next Star Wars Ep 1 - 3.  ]:p

Let's hope not though.

David:  The Galaxy's Biggest Copyright Infringer?  Maybe The Engineers will see him in court?

 who knows what's going on any more lol! Its started confusing then got worse :p . 

Ridley and the story writers need to sit down and write out the entire timeline and details of everything answering all questions...a solid universe as such.  Then from that will come a solid film... It currently looks like that part is missing things are not joining up... if you listen to that pod cast posted on here with Ridley in it you start to realise how vague and pulled in to many directions this idea is still in Ridley head...please no David creating xenos please please....

"Or this could be the next Star Wars Ep 1 - 3.  ]:p"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Nycro

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

Well...This franchise is dying....150,000 humans die every day.

..what percentage were Alien fans? 10? 100?

20th Century Fox lose tens of thousands of alien customers a years. Who is replacing them? Little kids? No. George Lucas  grows his franchise on the back of little kids...sell them toys...get um' hooked young and you'll have customers for life.

Alien series really can't hook em' young?

Hooking some jaded 17 year old, who's seen it all and knows it all, is a tough task.

Chest popping and head munching teddybears aren't exactly kindergarden's best friend, you know. XD But I see your point, MonsterZero.

MonsterZero

Good point. It is comforting to know we at least won't see things get quite as bad as they got for THAT prequel series.

Doesn't really bother me that David created the Alien, doesn't bother me at all.

What does bother me, why do the Engineers look so different from Prometheus to Alien Covenant? Am i missing something?