David's Lab (Blu-Ray Teaser): David explains what the black goo is.

@dave

when the ship entered the atmosphere with the goo we hear a strange noise like a sonar and the only information it carries is for the dock to be lifted and the engineers to come and greet the lost heroes (only this!! not who is driving, nothing about the cargo etc), maybe they used remote control with sounds (far too limited to a small radius) and hadn't thought of digital transmissions that could travel light years to give the information. They seem to lack fail safe procedures and David knew this. Through their evolution the "engineers" (Shaw's speculation) might not have advanced in remote communication due to the conditions of their planet, if you remember their planet's charged atmosphere made communications with covenant almost impossible, that's why they hadn't thought of satellites, information transmission with wave (phase which is translated to 0 and 1 and then to pictures,text etc). Remember David's words 'the storms last for days months and they cover all the planet', that single line maybe holds the reason why they didn't invent digital transmission technology.

Why Ridley could not have logically and economically helped explain more of this just stinks. Instead we got half a film of nothing but Easter eggs accomplishing nothing new or unique. The engineers, Shaw and his experiments were SUPPOSED to be central to the film along with some CRITTERS to scare the audience and briefly show off David's new children. The goo just proves to be more ' mcguffin ' than anything a good storyteller should strive for. The goo bombing looked cool but how did it all of a sudden turn into Artificiality Intelligent swarms of virus microbe bugs when the goo drop in Prometheus surely wouldn't have behaved that way if flipped by his finger or splashed into the air on a crew members boot wading in the puddles of the urn head room. These question wether the man steering the ship cares about taking the required time and effort to tell a coherent story ON SCREEN 

@BigDave - ".. or are FOX/RS trying to send us down the route that there is just ONE GOO....  "

They have clearly been trying to say the opposite. David said in Covenant "The pathogen took so many forms and proved extremely mutable", and also said it could either kill outright, or use the hosts as incubators to spawn a hybrid. Prometheus showed us at least four varieties of the pathogen.

Actually David experimented and used the code "D(David)964 Zulu Brother' to transmit his experiments back to Earth, his transmission back to wy is shown to us in this video. He still remains faithful to his boss and he might have been programmed and controlled via movie heroes, in the movie Zulu 1(964) Michael Cane resembles David. Could it be that the Lawrence of Arabia role ended and a Gonville Bromhead role programming is starting?

@BigDAve

Those signals from the engineers' ships are man made, or David made.

Here is another strange coincidence with the same number having in mind his role as an angel of death for the engineers!

964. Verse 3. And the second angel poured out his vial into the sea; and it became blood as of one dead; and every living soul in the sea died. (John's apocalypse)

@George-TheGreek - "It states  'skelletically complex this SPECIMEN once SHIPPED DOWN (by whom or what? for which reason? how did the black goo not affected her?) "

It actually says "Skeletally complex this specimen, once stripped down, proves to be composed of an intricate network of interlocking calcifous bone like components." There is nothing written about using her for 'Mengele's like experiments', as you said. The drawings also shows an intact specimen, so she has not been infected with the pathogen that killed the Engineers in the plaza.

"and I believe that this female engineer was the one in David's lab."

If you mean the one in the statue of David pose, that is a male. David had more than one uninfected Engineer to experiment on. There is an uninfected Engineer head in a bowl on one of the tables that looks intact, other than the fact that parts of it have been sliced away. The novel indicates he had an ample supply.

"they did not invent binary logic"

Where are you getting that from?

"why didn't they send other ships back to LV-426 to continue on the mission?"

I would assume because LV-223 had been quarantined, but how do you know they didn't? The Engineer city on planet 4 does not seem to have any advanced technology, so I don't think this is the world the Engineers from LV-223 hailed from, nor is this the place the Juggernaut and than docking ship were made.

"Why didn't their ship since they possessed A.I. stop David from driving to their homeworld with the cargo"

Where was it said their ship possessed AI?

"and why at least wasn't there any remote control procedure by the time David arrived?"

How do you know there was not? That docking ship may have been remote controlled or completely automated.

"that's why they hadn't thought of satellites, information transmission with wave (phase which is translated to 0 and 1 and then to pictures,text etc). Remember David's words 'the storms last for days months and they cover all the planet', that single line maybe holds the reason why they didn't invent digital transmission technology."

Dane Hallett & Matt Hatton, the artists who created all of the drawings in David's lab, indicated that the script described that the planet did have satellites that made a quarantine net over the planet, which protected anything coming in or out of the planet. They said yhat is why the Covenant transmissions were not getting through, and also why Shaw's SOS message (if that is what it was) did not get through clearly.

They also said when you see the pathogen get released and it seems to stop form a layer over and invisible shield before getting through and descending - that was the planetary shield. There was apparently a whole subplot where the Covenant had to fix one of the satellites to take down the shield so they could get through, which is what was causing the electrical storm.

None of that made the final cut though.

But wait a minute, if there uninfected Engineers how did David capture? How did they not physically overpower him as seen in Prometheus? Or was the theme of the "mad scientist" more important than cohesion of the story?

Yet another another question. In the Meet Walter viral, there is a disclaimer that if you can't pay your synth you forfeit the rights to your dna. Now does this imply that Synth are partially organic also ? .... 

"But wait a minute, if there uninfected Engineers how did David capture?"

We don't know. There is a whole movie there that we did not get to see.

"I think the whole thing is ambiguous due to the lack of clues, to correct this FOX/RS have attempted to give explanation
and show various clues, all of which seem to change over and over and would kind of not add up to previous comments/clues."

Exactly. You couldn't have said it better. Very few clues in Prometheus, so then you have to come up with a lot of exposition that now sounds like a lot of hocus pocus.

The problem is Covenant was released before Awakenings, which has led to a lot of confusion and missing context. I guess they rushed release of the third chapter to show the Xeno? 

@Kethol

Indeed your reply to my One Goo comment is exactly what i was getting at, it appears maybe there is ONE Source Goo/Substance that can be manipulated and programed to perform various outcomes.  Where was Spaights Draft and Prometheus seemed to back up, was potentially there is this Creation Tool (Sacrificial Goo) that can be used to obtain Genetic Code from a Organism and Store this Code to be passed onto other Organisms.... The Urns containing this Substance that had already acquired a Genetic Code from something that has Xeno related DNA.. which is why i was always drawn to the Mural being something they exposed to the Sacrificial Goo to obtain the resulting Black Goo.

It was ambiguous and appeared we have TWO Goos because of TWO Effects, when i was drawn to ONE Substance that breaks down and Stored Genetic Code of a Host... this resulted in a modified Goo that can then infect other Hosts passing on Traits from the Host Sacrificed via the Sacrificial Goo.

The way they are going now can still fit with this, as we do-not know what effect the components of the Urns have or how they can be altered.   Maybe the Goo can be altered and programed via some Stage/Technology and then Loaded into the Urns.. Or maybe the Urns can be Re-coded by the Ships.

It still has not been clearly shown to us and so its not really possible to make a Water-tight theory or explanation.  One Analogy i had was to explain maybe like a Nuke the Urns have components where the Substance within the Glass ampoules is like the Radioactive Elements of a Nuke (Plutonium/Uranium) thus exposed contact to these has a serve effect on a Organism, even causing Mutations to Molecules.  But in no way do these Chemicals actually explode or cause as serve Burns as a Activated and Dropped Nuke.

So the Urns could act the same and when they are Primed and Dropped they in effect act like Bombs and Explode where the effects are different compared to just coming into contact with Stored Radioactive Material of a Nuke or in the case of the Urns the Black Goo and its effects in Prometheus.

And AC as far as Davids Experiments and the after effects on Life on Paradise (not inc the Engineers caught within the Blast Radius)

@George-TheGreek

I can see what you mean, there are things that are not clear in the movies and the Storms indeed seem to Block Communications, but we had Storms on LV-223 too.  Maybe not connected?  But i can come back to this, as i had a Source who claimed to have knowledge of Prometheus 2 who hinted at some Technology the Engineers had.

Anyway i think a thing to consider is the Bombardment Scene the Boom... appears to be the Sound made by the Juggernaught as it enters the atmosphere, well within the atmosphere and its most like a sound made as the ship leaves what ever kind of Advanced Propulsion it uses and enters normal Speed.. a Bit like in Star Trek Leaving Warp to then drop to impulse speeds.

We dont know the exact time frame of the event from when the Ship came out of High Speed Entry and then slowly headed towards the City, it appears like less than a minute, but the movie is not running or showing us a exact Second for Second Clock of Events, for example it took more than Minutes to get from the Lander to the Juggernaught for the Covenant Crew.

However looking at the size of the Courtyard which is fair large, and where those Engineers were coming from, its not exactly a quick walk and so do we assume they all happened to be in that courtyard by coincidence to just be in the right place at the right time so just as Davids Ship arrives which was unannounced or detected, these beings had already been in the center or near it of the Courtyard?

It appears David makes a quick entrance, flies over the mountains and approaches the City, and when we see the clip of his Juggernaught arrive at the city, the Hanger is already opening.

So i would assume again, the Juggernaught either Automatically or by Davids command had sent a signal to tell the Hanger to Open... but why if David planed to Bomb them?

Or something on Planet 4 detected the Ship and prepared the Hanger, this giving enough time so those Engineers knew something was arriving and so they began to head to the Hanger.

I can then only assume the Docking ship either by Protocol, Automatically intercepts the Ships prior to docking, or it was sent to intercept for some purpose... again we cant be 100% sure of what the exact Process was...

I will only assume at some point they detected Davids Arrival and prepared the Hanger, then there must be some kind of Air traffic control (ATC) device where they may try and contact the Pilot of the Ship.... which if they then get no reply would surely mean they would send the Docking Ship out to investigate.

As far as the Signals... again if they are Man Made, they are done using Engineer Technology, i cant see how if the Engineers Ships have NO Way to Transmit communications, how David manages to do so.  I doubt Davids Build in Communications would allow for such a Signal and so i think he used Engineer Transmission Technology.

But as its never completely shown the process of how this is done, it still can be debated that they dont have no communications Technology... which i find hard to believe.

@Kethol

you are right, I misinterpreted David's notes! All this work made by experts who worked for Ridley and nothing put into the film!

Somewhere in this forum I don't remember exactly I read that David told that the engineers did not come up with binary logic and that it was strange for an advanced civilization.

@red0guy@gmail.com

Some interesting Questions....

Firstly the movie has left it pretty open, but indeed those Engineer Burnt like Corpses do not look good enough to be able to make as good sketches on their Anatomy as David has, or his experiments.  There are Humanoid Baby Skulls on his desk, there are previous Neomorph Organisms he has dissected and experimented on... we have to ask where do these come from?

And so maybe indeed there are fresher Corpses or Hosts to be used, which does raise a Question as we see how the Engineer in Prometheus dealt so easy with David.   Physically David can not match those Engineers.

But David is many times stronger than a Human, but despite this he is a Mechanical Being, with Synthetic Material, Cables, Tubes and Skin and so only a Certain amount of Force would be required to pull his head off....  So we can Assume Walter could Pull Davids Head off, maybe it needed more effort than the Engineer did.

But also those Engineers are maybe purposely Engineered/Evolved Larger Solider or similar Class. Those beings on Paradise/Planet 4 appear to have varied heights and builds and not all of them are such Genetic Specimens as the Sacrificial and LV-223 Engineers.

But your point is valid, how does David overpower or be able to use Fresh, Alive Engineers?  First we have to ask where are they from?

Can we assume the City's whole Population came out to see the Juggernaught? We can clearly see many were near and inside the Cathedral Building

We see here on the steps to the Cathedral and outside the Doors are about 15 Engineers, and many more are gathered between these steps and the Courtyard, and these have appeared to notice a Ship in the sky and are not part of the group who have moved towards the center of the Courtyard, this group in this image then notice the Bombardment and they attempt to run to the Cathedral.

Latter shots we can see the Cathedral had locked down and Engineers had tried to get inside.

This building is Large, its the Center Point of the City and of great importance and looked like it had some Technology above it, the Gold like Devices.  And so we can maybe assume this place PROVIDED SANCTUARY from the effects of the Bombardment....

We know the Engineers are Genetically connected to Humans, and so its very likely they require Nourishment like we do in the form of Food and Water.

So the logical theory i can come up with is some Engineers managed to hold themselves up inside this Building like a group of people entering a Under Ground Bunker from Protection from a Nuclear Attack.

However as this Cathedral was likely not a Place of Rest/House to the Engineers, they likely lived within the City and the Cathedral was thus just like a Church/Temple/Mosque etc would be to us.. So while this place maybe could offer Sanctuary from the Effects of the Black Goo... if this Place did not have enough Food and Drink Provisions for a long period of stay, and if outside is a Infected Area.

Then over time these beings would be starved, and when a Humanoid has been starved of Food and Water they become weak.

And then i think they was ripe for the pickings..

Also David could maybe had made a Covenant with some of them, he could use the Black Goo as a bargaining tool

But i would assume David and Shaw held up in the Juggernaught, while Engineers held up in the Cathedral and David is free to wonder around eventually Malnutrition is what lead to those Engineers all dying but a few, that David could then more easily have his way with.

I will expand upon the last post, by saying these Beings look more closer to Humans, but this is for another Topic... but we see there are Females, even David Studied Females.

Now if we have to be scientific here, and these are Humanoids and we came from them or our Genetic Origins are connected.

These beings have not yet long evolved for Millions of years past the need to Procreate, because they would have not needed some of the Anatomy, not only being there are Females, but they have Breasts and Nipples....

This logical means they either Need, or if not so far ago in terms of Evolution they needed to Procreate like Humans. This means Babies, and Children and means Breast Feeding.

Davids Lab has Human Baby Skulls... it was a interesting Question to ask where did he get these?  Was he able to make Shaw Pregnant, Gift her Child Birth, did he use Engineer Seed or somehow he could have allowed her to give Birth like the Virgin Mary? Who knows...

But the other way these Baby Skulls could come into play if they are not just from Long Dead Baby Engineers, is indeed if there was Baby and Child Engineers, with these there is the potential for David to Experiment

In Prometheus the closest we saw to a Xenomorph, was via the Trilobite Face Huger which required Shaws Female Anatomy to Produce.

Looking at Most Cultures and the Ethical/Courageous thing to do in any Conflict or Disaster is... PROTECT the Woman and Children, these are the Future of the Species.

If WW3 broke out and certain ruling Leaders and Business men decided to protect themselves and only ONE Bunker Survived and this was filled with 95% Wealthy Men and the rest of the World was decimated... where do we Populate from?

Woman and Children would be the first ones to Protect and in many Disasters and Wars, its the Right Ethical thing and unselfish thing to Protect the Women and Children

And so if a number of Engineers escaped to the Cathedral and it Provided Protection from the Fall Out of the Bombardment, but then Food/Water was in short Supply... The Logical thing to do is ENSURE the Woman and Children are looked after, they are the greater Importance for their Kinds Survival until Help arrives.

And so if the Engineers are such a honorable Race, who see Sacrifice for the greater of their kind, they would (Males) Sacrifice Food and Drink so they Woman and Children Survive.

Now once Food and Water Runs dry, if i am right about this, the last to survive would be Woman and Children and so if there are survivors by the time the Fall Out has gone away then a Majority could be Woman and Children who may be weak due to Rations of Food and Drink...

This would be easy picking for David, and Woman and Children would offer David a lot for his Experiments and Agenda... and this is the best Logical Theory i can give to how David obtained more Fresh Corpses.

Guys what do you say about the code David uses in this video? D964ZB, is it a reprogramming of David? Is David controlled via patterns of characters from the cinema? As I mentioned earlier and none said anything about it, D stands probably for David, 964 for 1964 the year Zulu was released, and Zulu Brother probably for the role of the colonel Michael Cane played who resembles David too! Maybe the role David played as Lawrence took its course and another more aggressive role will come into play.

@Dave

the engineers don't seem to have a commercialized antagonistic world, their buildings, the lack of symbols like ('Coca-Cola','Pepsi','Mercedes',etc) and behavior resemble a lot a socialist ancient Spartan like way of life. Still the question remains, if they were so advanced why did their systems of defense lacked the ability to prevent a David from bombing them? They were ridiculously helpless when David entered their world.

I also wonder if David is controlled via role based programming, in the bombing scene he might have been forced to do something by WY that he was against for, not the bombing itself but something like 'kill Shaw and then destroy everything ...', he might follow a procedural based programming based on acts and missions with some ifs and alternatives. I believe that humans were not as stupid as the engineers to leave A.I. without a control in case something goes to pot.

Does this Zulu Brother in the end imply that he will follow a 'Gonville Bromhead' programming and the zulus are what is left from the engineers who will try to retaliate?

Zulu Ending

or reversed is the advanced English in the movie a metaphor of the engineers and the zulus a metaphor of humans that's why David is called a 'zulu brother' and maybe the movie's Zulu battle 4000 zulus (2000 colonists + 1000 over human embryos) against 150 British soldiers is what will come next 4000 Xenos (humans mutated by David) against what is left of the engineers (British soldiers).

David: Use security code 'David 73694-B'

73 translated in ASCII is 'I'.

David I694 B(rother)

David 1964 Brother

David Zulu Brother

is really David preparing to launch an attack with Xenos (4000 zulus) mutating the crew and the embryos of covenant against the engineers (what's left of them, 150 British colonist soldiers in the movie zulu).

Its interesting to try and make the connection with the Zulus, and i think the outcome of you post could be what we shall see as far as David amassing a whole load of Xenomorphs.

Regarding David and the AI, i think he has somewhat become free of Weylands Programing, and so now has his own Goals and Agendas.

But i certainly think we could be shown that AI that the company had/has could be playing a bit more behind the scenes and in some way i would not be surprised if RS will touch upon the rogue AI simply playing a Game of Corporate Chess and unknown to Mankind, AI is actually controlling a lot of things behind the scenes.  It could be a interesting Plot Twist if this AI is actually Weyland himself.

As far as the Engineers i did think it was odd that a Military Ships would have no defense or offense mechanism/ability and how those Engineers did not seem to react with fear until the Bombardment began.

I can only come up with TWO explanations.

1) These Engineers and their Hierarchy are very Naive and Arrogant, they go around Seeding Worlds and Evolving Worlds and then wiping out and starting again, where they control how much knowledge and information they pass on to those Worlds.

So it would be like the Zulu Analogy, lets assume African was completely separated from the Middle East  (Route to Europe via Egypt) or better still lets use Aboriginal People... if we never made any contact with them until after say World War 2 and assume these people are still living in Ancient Ways, of Straw/Wood Huts and simple Hunting Tools and so like how Europe was say 4000 years ago

The Europeans who visit this Aboriginal Tribes would have more Technology, we would have Planes, Cars, Tanks, Guns, Electronics you name it we have got it....    The Europeans could teach these Aboriginal Tribes how to use these things, or indeed how to make them but it would take time.

But if these Europeans simply assume if they left a Plane, a Tank, and say a Radio or other Electrical Appliance running off a Petrol/Diesel Generator... that has ran out of Fuel.  We can assume the Tribe if they have never been shown how the Europeans use this things... its likely they would struggle to ever be able to figure out how to successfully use them.

or we can assume that if the Europeans just left Australia and took all the Technology and Tools with them, then they assume those Tribes would never ever be able to Create such Technology etc by their own.

This is HOW the Engineers may have looked down at Mankind and other Races they created, they visit them teach them things but never nothing past Ancient 2000  year old Cultures would have.

The Engineers arrogantly know they are the only ones with the Technology and if they never teach their creations the Advanced stuff then there is NO WAY these Races could ever Evolve to a Technological Level, they would assume all created Races without the Engineers Help would only evolve as far as Mankind had 4000 years or so ago.

So they have no Fear or Concerns of other Races they created ever Evolving to such a point to be a threat and also ARROGANTLY they may think all of their own Species obey the Rules set by their Elders so there would be no Internal Engineer Conflicts.

So they have no need for Such Defense Mechanisms etc. (so they thought).

2) Those Juggernaughts was never Military Ships of sorts, they are just a more Advanced Means to Seed Worlds, instead of dropping off a Lone Engineer or a Engineer on every continent and then have them performing the Sacrificial Scene... they could have Evolved a way to instead perform these Sacrifices on Paradise/Planet 4 or taken to LV-223 to Perform them and the resulting broken down Matter then Stored into Urns.

so Sacrificial Goo, breaks down their DNA that falls into the Water to Seed Worlds... If the Engineer was standing inside some kind of VAT or Enclosure and his broken down material was collected and then stored into Jars and these Jars emptied into the Water Fall we can safely assume the same thing would happen.

so the Purpose of the Urns may be to Store Engineer DNA where they then drop these off onto Worlds to Seed/Evolve Life instead of the Sacrificial Scene.

If this is True, then this could explain why the Engineers where not to Fearful and it could explain the whole Culture and those Statues as maybe being selected for Sacrifice is considered a Great Honor and maybe only the Purest/Perfect of them get Chosen for this and they have Statues Erected around the Plaza to Honor their Sacrifice.

This 2nd Answer is what i am drawn to for the whole Purpose of Paradise and those Ships.... well this was THE purpose but a Faction of Engineers had decided to meddle in things and leads to the Xeno-Strain in the Urns on LV-223

Thank you Lilly (Svanya).

"Radical" most certainly means vastly different A.I. in regards to what we project A.I. could be and what we have been shown with Ash, David 8, Walter, and Mother under human development from Weyland Industries and Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

This ancient A.I. uses an organic vehicle to spread. Ridley Scott clearly stated that the black goo didn't originate with the Engineers and it was someone else in an interview a while back. I hope this aspect is covered in the prequel novel.

This is such an interesting thread, heres my input:

sure the goo forms a mechanical type genome. But i still see the goo as being like a transmitter and amplifier of what the person using it is thinking or feeling. The sacrificial engineer wanted to disassemble himself, the goo did what he wanted. I think its more a supernatural substance, david being N android has tried to classify it scientifically.

when david drops the goo on the engineers, it exploded and became an aerosol, so anyone or anything it didnt land on could have survived, but if it was inhaled, they would have probably perished.

the engineers may have far better memories than humans so dont need as much written records. If they can command matter using their minds then that would make shipbuilding easy?

as for the space flight, they must have some sort of gravity distortion system or they can fold space and time somehow. Like the film dune, maybe its a chemical reaction within the ship that distorts spacetime?

on youtube, someone has put the full david labs clip on from the blu-ray. David states that he 'wiped the planet clean for shaw' and that he wanted to create an eden, but she refused.

its a shame its just 'mad android' (like blade runner?) and finding a cryosleep engineer and interrogating him, using him as the link to their world would have been very interesting, particulary after the bombing.

cheers guys