George-TheGreek
MemberOvomorphJul-20-2017 4:55 AMHere are some observations I made after watching the new movie.
1. The black goo origin.
It is a weapon of mass destruction designed to destroy mutate and degenerate all life forms on a planet in the 'habitable zone', I don't know about other eco-systems which might evolve nearer or far away from this zone. It is based on the mutagen virus engineered by the species encountered in 'Prometheus' and eggs of various insects from the beetle family. A proof of this is derived from 3 scenes:
a) When David8 enters the temple (head room) we see him touching the black goo and some worms and a fly like creature come out of it in another vial from the one he observes. I believe that the worms are beetles' larvae and that the 'fly' is a beetle ready to fly spread the virus and eat all the meat it can find.
b) The fact that the black goo contains condensed eggs of mutated beetles is seen in the bombing scene when those urns break and after seconds those billion black insects kill everything at sight. The temperature rises the vials are broken, the mix is exposed to oxygen and then the accelerator the white liquid creates in seconds the first level of attack from the air.
c) When Walter enters David's room we see him starring at the wall a 'megasoma elephas' and a 'goliathus regius', the last one is known as golden scarab or royal beetle found in Africa, the funny thing is that when David touched Earth in the Orrery scene in the last second before the graphics stop we see the continent of Africa, the origin of the DNA of this weapon.
d) David explains in the laboratory how the spores create those insects in seconds after the virus is released and how the sophisticated attack takes place by spreading the virus before entering the egg room in 'Covenant'.
So the black goo reverses the evolution of life as known from biology sea-ground-air and degenerates everything in the opposite direction air-ground-sea. You might wonder how it is spread in the seas, the Xenomorphs are there (mix of beetle and human DNA) to do the dirty job and in David's words 10 years after the bio attack the only thing that remains out there is those spores ready to infect all visitors who might come to the planet (maybe they thought this for attacking advanced civilizations which might posses space ships and might come back to retaliate). So one thing is for sure, after the holocaust the Xenos Neos + ... morphs don't live long enough they kill everything and just spread the virus, when all the meat is consumed they kill each other and just die leaving the planet clean from all non botanical life forms and after 500 years it is ready for their experiments.
2. The engineers - Limited almost primitive and Arrogant although Advanced.
I believe that because of the charged atmosphere in their homeworld, they didn't come up with the binary logic and the transistor technology. This explains how easily David managed to sneak into their world and bomb them. No transistor - no remote communication - no computing and it is something that can be seen from their ships which are a mixture of mechanics and advanced biology. If they couldn't communicate remotely, that's why they hailed the ship as if they were expecting news for thousands of years about the outcome of a mission from long lost war heroes and if that is the case the central data bank on their planet did not have any other means to be enriched than those ships which 'come and go'. David had all the time to study their technology which although advanced had limitations in the fields mankind advanced, he found their Achilles heel and knew that there was no way they could find out who was driving the ship and what happened prior to its arrival without getting inside to watch the records of the ship and released the deadly cargo which was meant for us. He did the right thing 'get them before they get you!'.
3. David did not kill dr Shaw, in a glimpse of an eye in the notes with the depiction of Shaw's head inside a conic like plant we read something like 'concurrent xenomorph creation ... the host sustains ...' , maybe she died on their trip to their planet since she was infected by the sperm of her boyfriend. David believed that he was responsible for her death and he would be burned in hell ('better rule in hell than serve in heaven') for killing the only human that loved his kind, found out the engineer's history and held them responsible for the mess he was in with the known results.
4. The engineers don't seem to know anything about quantum computers, nuclear plants etc they produce electricity by other means unknown to us and seem to have a primitive Sumerian like architecture and way of building cities. For sure they visited us in the past since their city resembles a lot the Sumerian perception of the universe and the after life. I have an explanation for this found at wiki which explains the four statues which show the four corners with the disc like hole to park the ships that come and go.
From wiki we read.... about the Sumerian civilization.
Cosmology[edit]
Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a dome. The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netherworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).[44]
The universe was divided into four quarters:
- To the north were the hill-dwelling Subartu, who were periodically raided for slaves, timber, and other raw materials.
- To the west were the tent-dwelling Martu, ancient Semitic-speaking peoples living as pastoral nomads tending herds of sheep and goats.
- To the south was the land of Dilmun, a trading state associated with the land of the dead and the place of creation.
- To the east were the Elamites, a rival people with whom the Sumerians were frequently at war.
So if the statue facing to the west to the temple is a metaphor of the tent-dwelling ancient semitic speaking peoples, then the opposite facing statue must be facing to the east that's why we see all those statues with weapons in their hands on the Ionian style pillars depicting their enemies the Elamites (from which David came too with their ship! Or was that the only root followed as metaphor of crushing the Elamites their enemies and come back victorious?), then the other praying like statue which faces to the paramount is facing to the north (hill dwelling subartu) and the last one to the land of Dilmu.
5. David mistaken Shelley the writer of Ozymandias on purpose, Byron and Shelley had spent some time together in real life, did he see himself as Byron and shaw as Shelley? Also his obsession with Lawrence of Arabia, gives me the impression that he perceives himself as a larger than life character who is writing history and will live on as a memory since his circuits will leave him some day too! Was he living the same thing Lawrence experienced in Arabia, Lawrence encountered a more advanced civilization in the past the Arabian which was in a decadent nomad like state (remember when an Arab told Lawrence 'Damascus had light in the night when you ....'), he sees the engineers in the same way, a species which had its time gave all it had to give and now it is the time to be eliminated, 'they are a dying species grasping for resurrection ....' goes for the engineers in my opinion, the whole thing started because the baby aged mankind started to search for answers and found a race which wanted to wipe us out to steal our young sun.
6. The engineer in the first scene in Prometheus must be Prometheus the titan himself punished for saving humanity, he did something and saved us from extinction thousands of years ago and maybe he is the one depicted in the stones found by Shaw on Earth, since as I said earlier their other ships (not in Lv-426) could not communicate remotely their race lost the position of Earth and the position of LV-426 to continue with the plan to destroy humanity, that savior came to tell the story and warn us not to go there in the future. Their solar system is presented as very very old and from what is shown to us most of their planet must be covered by water maybe because their sun started to increase in volume.
Ati
MemberPraetorianJul-20-2017 10:39 AM'David did not kill dr Shaw, in a glimpse of an eye in the notes...'
David's drawings revealed in the movie show his dreams and nightmares.
Did not kill? And they were in love, enjoyed a beautiful relationship, etc... :)
Seriously, everybody has the right to his own version...
ali81
MemberNeomorphJul-20-2017 10:45 AMu would imagine in the next instalment david will have a flashback scene maybe with daniels to explain what really happened during the crossing. his way of explaining to daniels why she is going to die and why david is doing what hes doing
BigDave
MemberDeaconJul-20-2017 4:49 PMNice theory and i can see how some of this could fit, indeed the Bombardment scene did look like the Black Goo was a formation of a lot of particles that seemed to swarm down on the Engineers.
Alien Engineers the Black Goo was instead Scarabs, Nano-Scarabs, and in Prometheus the Component that was in the Vials appeared to be like dirt/dust in water and when he got this on his finger we could make out tiny like organisms moving within the Goo, and we can see that Semen is a Goo like substance but really it contains Hundreds of Millions of Sperm Cells. So the Black Goo could be similar as far as the inner component and so its actually some Nano-Parasite, maybe Worm-like.
I will try and pick a few problems though, but this is just my interpretation on what you are saying and some flaws, and it does not mean to discredit your theory ;)
1) While indeed we can see how the Xenomorph could be seen as having some traits of a Beetle, or Scorpion as far as Exo-skeleton etc.... If the Motes from the Spores are the same kind of DNA then we have to ask why the Neomorphs are more Flesh-like.
2)I think the Engineers possessed such Technology and hence why the Covenant received that signal from the Juggernaught, to me it appears there are a Hierarchy who govern and have the Technology for a Purpose, and that the beings on Paradise live a more Ancient way, were they do not have Advanced Technology.
The Cathedral has some Technology as the Gold Device looks like Technology, there may be the odd piece of Technology in other places but it appears only the ONE Hanger (intended for visiting ships), and the Monitoring Docking Ship are the only places where this World has Technology as if only a selected group are allowed this Technology to Watch over the other beings.
3) Indeed a lot of mystery still surrounds Dr Shaw, the various images of her do not add up to what the Corpse was like though, maybe these images are what David was thinking about doing to her?
Its indicated things took a turn for the worse, and their relationship soured, and we dont know if David intended to kill her, but it appears he intended to capture and keep her incapacitated and eventually he had decided to experiment on her but we dont know if this lead to her death or if she was already dying.
I am not sure she was suffering badly from the infection in Prometheus due to her Hair being at least 6 months growth longer, i would assume that Nutrition is why she looked worse for wear, and after the crash, she had to remain in the Juggernaught until the outside was safe to explore
R.I.P Sox 01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017
BigDave
MemberDeaconJul-20-2017 5:01 PM4. I think the Engineers Technology is so advanced it may be beyond our comprehension but it does appear the use of the Technology is only limited to a selected group.
The Sumerian links are nice, my theories touch upon these more than other Mythos, and who knows how deep this goes. I would indeed say maybe Paradise could be Dilmun I think the whole four quarters could be used to fit in with the Engineers and other connected beings... its something i considered, and maybe we could get some connections in future movies.
My interpretation of those Statues are they are like the Buddha Offering Statues, and they are surrounding the Hanger for a Good Reason, i think these beings are offered in Sacrifice and this is a Great Honor for them, and so every now and again a Engineer Ship returns to dock in the Hanger and Take Sacrifices.
After seeing AC, i ponder if the Juggernauts were just a more Advanced Seeding Method than the Pebble Ship and dropping off a Engineer, and so the Urns contained Broken down Engineer DNA to seed Worlds more efficiently than the Sacrificial Scene in Prometheus... But a Faction of Engineers had rebelled and perverted this Technology and Eventually got infected with a Parasite that created the first Xeno-like Organism, which the LV-223 Engineers then worshiped and maybe saw as a way they could create Life by giving Birth.... and Re-engineered it and then Sacrificed it (Mural Deacon) to then use its more Perfect DNA rather than Humanoid in the Seeding Urns..
Hence why the beings on Paradise did not look in fear or concern regarding the Juggernaught arrival until the Bombardment
But this is just my interpretation and so its not to say its correct and a lot of my basis for this does tie in with how i saw the Black Goo/Sacrificial Goo, which then months latter when Alien Engineers Draft was leaked in 2012 it seemed to add up to how i saw the Goo work.
R.I.P Sox 01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017
BigDave
MemberDeaconJul-20-2017 5:15 PM5) Totally agree.... Davids conversation with Weyland is key, you see when we die the only thing we leave behind is LEGACY, If we have Children we can live on in their memories, our Life and Tales passed on Generation by Generation, if you have no Children then you leave Behind NOTHING...
Unless you become Famous for various reasons, Arts, Music etc like Mozart or indeed Michelangelo or say Shakespeare, Then also inventing or creating something can leave a Legacy, Edison and Tesla.. or those who Cure Diseases Hippocrates or Fleming etc
Also having a great stature for either being part of a Monarchy or Achieving something Great be it Military or Exploration so we are talking Henry VIII or a Alexander the Great or Columbus
Weyland is dying but he leaves various Legacies, and its some of his Creations and Inventions that makes him feel he is a GOD.
When people and civilizations are long gone, its often the Legacy they leave behind, that can Immortalize their name, the same applies to Monuments built in Great Peoples Name/Image.
David knows he is superior to Weyland, and Mankind, but David is not Mortal, he may live for a long time but eventually he can be destroyed, and so David has no Legacy... i feel how he was treated by Mankind and how he saw Weyland view himself, that David has grown ambitions to leave his own Legacy and this is why he is Interested in Creating his own Life/Legacy.
After he is Gone, his Legacy will remain. And this is what the Ozymandias Poem is about and why David quoted it.
R.I.P Sox 01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017
BigDave
MemberDeaconJul-20-2017 5:28 PM6) I think the Prometheus scene is to show how these Engineers create life, well at least how they are USED to create Life, and this Scene is showing us this is there purpose and its something that has taken place on Many Worlds for Many Many years.. The Sacrificial Scene could be over a Billion years old, Millions, Thousands and could even be happening in the Time-line as of Alien Covenant.
LV-223 is of great importance, its not where these beings came from, but its a place they visited Earth From, and its seen as connected to the Prometheus Mythos.
How? its open to debate, we can connect the Biblical Tale too, and how Mankind was created after Gods previous Creation (Angels) had become or proved some could be Rebellious and against GOD and his ways, and they was punished, they was kicked out of Heaven and Turned into hideous Monsters.
Satan had then chosen to corrupt Mankind by tricking them to gaining Forbidden Knowledge not intended for Mankind, which resulted in Mankind being expelled from Paradise.
So maybe the LV-223 Engineers Rebelled against their purpose, had been kicked out of Paradise but had obtained the Technology of their Hierarchy and they either Created Mankind against the Will of the Hierarchy or Evolved Mankind to a Level against the wishes of the Hierarchy are are punished... (LV-223 Fresco)
Or maybe it was their theft and misuse of the Forbidden Technology that lead to their Hubris where this Technology (Sacrificial Goo) got infected and contaminated and leads to the Fresco.... which these beings then start to Worship and Re-engineer.
Again this is just my interpretation though.
As far as why they did not interact with Mankind, as far as those on Paradise, maybe those above the Engineers are not aware of Mankind, and LV-223? If they are maybe they decided to make a Covenant to never attempt what they did due to how costly this proved and to merely Abandon us and leave us to destroy ourselves.
These beings arrogance is they felt without the Engineers/Hierarchy Help and Teachings we would revert back to Cavemen... well we would not Evolve and Advance to the Level we had done so.
I think this is why those Paradise beings live more Ancient Lives, because the Hierarchy has them kept to this Technological Level out of fear that they could overthrow them if they are allowed to be Technologically advanced.
The Technology is limited to those few selected for a certain purpose, who watch over those beings on Paradise.
R.I.P Sox 01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017
Space JOC
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 12:01 AMI don't think it has anything to do with beetles to be honest! Way off in my opinion
George-TheGreek
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 6:24 AM@Space JOC
Then how do you explain the insect like creatures that ate the engineers and how do you explain that in David's room there are depictions and stuffed beetles (the two biggest of their kind the royal and megasoma elephas) on his wall. Look again at the scene in which Walter observes the wall in the flute scene. The Xeno has an insect like behavior a like bees' social structure.
Space JOC
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 6:31 AMI'm not saying I'm right but I will be extremely disappointed if the black goo comes from a beetle, or the xeno is just a giant beetle
Space JOC
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 6:33 AMI know what you're saying about the alien:Engineers script but it was scrapped so technically isn't in the Alien universe.... yet ha
George-TheGreek
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 7:15 AMIf Scott had this in mind I think he is a genius, the engineers didn't advance in the fields we had advanced and seemed to have created a technology based on biology, I wouldn't be surprised if their ships were made from the DNA of seashells. So their weapons since they don't have missiles, laser beams, nuclear bombs etc must come from nature directly and what better choice than those monster like microorganisms being mutated to human like size. I have read somewhere that in David's notes it is written that although advanced hundreds of thousands years ahead of us, binary logic never occurred to them, that's why I believe that their ships couldn't transmit information remotely about cargo-pilot-mission status and had to go back to handle it to their database in paradise(?), unlike our transistors and silicon circuits which can transmit info without having to go back like David did in the end. David knew that until they understood what was going on, they would have been eliminated he found their weak point. Advanced yes but limited to a small fraction of science, maybe they feared mankind's cunningness and decided to eliminate us before it was too late for them and they proved right since David did it for us. Even they had a weak point, no binary logic not bits no bytes no remote control, no defense systems (there was not a single trace of a satellite like construction in their planet), no transmission of information from their ships (that's why they were so happy to see a ship from which they didn't hear from for thousands of years and didn't know where it was and if its mission was successful), advanced but primitive at the same time with those ancient buildings ancient aesthetic and lack of electronics.
Space JOC
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 7:46 AMBut if the beetle originated in Africa and is obviously the source of their ability to create/destroy, why would they wipe it out by dropping the goo on earth? Or maybe that's exactly why they were trying to destroy life on earth to spite the elders or ruling Engineers, I'm not arguing with your theory but more so trying to understand it if that makes sense? Maybe the lv223 Engineers wanted to destroy the source so but then if the beetle was the source, I'd imagine they would have successfully introduced them to a new ecosystem/planet of their own so as to have easier access besides travelling half way around the universe! It's intriguing really!
Space JOC
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 7:49 AMJust about them being primitive as far as the eye can see, I recall for some reason was there an interview in the Prometheus extras or original script that the Engineers have a heightened sense of sight so maybe we just aren't able to see? As I say, I'm only speculating but as far as I remember, I definitely heard/saw that somewhere that their sight is different to ours? Love the topic too by the way!
Finnish
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 7:59 AMThey see the fourth dimension? So the concept of beauty/elegant etc of their world is not similar..?
George-TheGreek
MemberOvomorphJul-21-2017 11:11 AM@Space JOC
Breeding beetles on Earth is not practical, but since they visited us in the past, if that species did not belong to their world they might have been impressed by its size and qualities that they might have taken specimens to breed to create the best weapon suitable for the destruction of life on Earth. Anyway I don't buy this 'the engineers created us and suddenly they changed their minds' stuff I think they are an arrogant brutal race like the Titans in mythology. As I said earlier their sun was dying and they were searching for a place to start again '...they don't deserve to start again and I will not let them...' in David's own words.
As I also said earlier they are more advanced than us for sure, but still there might be technologies that they hadn't explored like electronics, computing and telecommunications (their atmosphere was charged and that limited the capability of transmitting voice and picture and they might have never come up with idea of transmitting waves---interpret them with computers in bits .....and then bits into bytes and each byte in a color of a pixel ...) like the ones we have (not a single satellite around their planet, not a single industrial era like building etc). The distress signal sent by Shaw had to do with David in my opinion, the engineers as absurd as it may sound didn't posses this 'magic' that proved to be their doom, David learned their ways and used human cunningness to destroy them. They were also arrogant because they didn't think that someone else other than them might be capable of using their ships and didn't develop a safe procedure for that case i.e. if the ship spotted other life species willing to take control to follow a self-destruction process, they thought they were the gods of the universe.
George-TheGreek
MemberOvomorphJul-22-2017 10:27 AM@Big Dave
The first scene in Prometheus reminded me more of the Athenian philosopher Socrates who drunk the conium after being accused by the Athenians rather than seeding life by simply destroying himself into simple particles. I think that guy was punished for something, he was left alone on a planet and the only choice he had was to drink the 'conium' (poisson). Did he save us by sabotaging LV-426 mission? Was he punished for something that betrayed them? Only Ridley knows, but I don't buy this seeding story, they surely must have had more intelligent ways, they were the masters of biology. If it is the seeding method though, it would be more logical to sacrifice an old guy like weyland, not a teenager like the one we saw.
"Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt." -last words of Socrates-
George-TheGreek
MemberOvomorphJul-24-2017 2:09 AMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyuAt-_Nj_o
listen to the sound the beetles make when they fly, this resembles a lot the sound of the insects that were created seconds after David released the cargo.
And maybe this explains the worms in the temple room in Prometheus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtU6VLFaiN8
The engineers created bio weapons by mutating insects and low level organisms.
goliathus regius-megasoma elephas-rhino beetle and others of the same species mixed up and mutated in the suitable proportions to destroy a planet. If they visited us in the past, this explains why in some cultures like ancient Egypt the beetles were considered to be a religious and royal symbol (as a honor to 'their' ways according to the alien saga).
This one is the best, that sheds more light on the 'black goo'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-2s-2Veixs
I have seen some pictures of the art on the walls of the entrance of the cathedral and noticed that on the wall the first scene of the Prometheus is depicted, a young engineer with that cup (or it could be a face!) that the engineer drunk and a few other carry his dead body! Was the first scene of Prometheus actually realized on the planet that David bombed as a ritual for reallocation? Are the engineers actually dying and are searching a way to start again by destroying other planets to make them habitable for them? Is this cathedral a temple dedicated to the man who gave them another chance to start again?
David: Why are you here Walter? (In my opinion this is not told) Because mankind searched for its creators which are..(and now back in the movie) a dying species grasping for resurrection. They don't deserve to start again and I'm not going to let them. (by destroying what's left of them).
