A Closer Look at the Bombing Sequence

@Yog, I strongly disagree. We know diddly-squat about the Engineer civilisation, where they came from, how many strands of society they have, who engineered them, where the goo came from... These are all big questions.

@ hox

Nah dude, you are just drawing bigger circles. We now know what spawned the xenomorphs. It was black goo, made by the engineers, which David infected Shaw with, then mixed her eggs with neomorph DNA. Neomorphs who's life cycle also originated from black goo. We now know the engineers are god-like super tech beings, who either started evolution on Earth or interfered with it at various points by adding their own DNA. The big questions of Alien have now been answered. What mysteries we have left in Prometheus and Covenent are little points of canon only, which add nothing to the full picture or depth of story. I enjoy working out these things cuz I'm a geek who likes to know it all, but my point is...these little things should not be mysteries. Please don't make a bigger circle argument by saying "oh well ultimately everything is a mystery..is there a God?" That's disingenuous.

@Thombach - You are correct. It was Damon Lindelof who explained the Hammerpede origin on the Prometheus commentary.

"When this goop, as a result of being exposed to the atmosphere when they unseal it (the ampule room) interacts with these worms, those worms grow into much larger and nastier worms that have the capability of infecting the humans who come in contact with them - Milburn and Fifield."

Basically, just douse the animal in that form of the pathogen and it mutates. Same thing was happening to Fifield.

Oh OK @ Kethol. I retract my previous theory about hammerpedes coming from worm eggs. That is good evidence...I'm just still trying to work out what that thing was in Holloway's eye. I had a theory that it might be a baby hammerpede. But obviously that can't be the case. Maybe it was a tiny trilobite, before it left him during sex?

Interesting how Lindelof says "infecting". Obviously that hammerpede was trying to have sex with Milburn (when it went in his mouth), and implant it's version of trilobite in him. Who knows if it was successful, cuz Milburn died anyway.

@Yog, the Engineer universe is expansive, and it's barely been touched upon. Perhaps you're not a fan of history. Call that a circle if you like, but it's a circle I want to see explored in much more detail. A civilisation that spans the entire galaxy can get up to a lot of interesting stuff, with a lot of interesting history. I'd like to know more. Before even starting with...

God means different things to different people. The ancient alien civilisations in Contact made use of technology developed by a race long since gone. Likewise, we have no idea who engineered the Engineers. I'd like to know. What else did they get up to? Did they face evolutionary warfare, like most forms of life? Did they look like elephants, inspiring mimicry in their creations' reverence? Did the Engineers find the original goo in a green crystal, and if so who put it there and why? There are endless big questions and possibilities.

@ Hox

Well by that argument....every film you watch is a mystery..because most films include humans...humans were formed by evolution...but we don't know exactly how life started. And we don't know what caused the "Big bang" which started the universe we all live in. Every story is a huge mystery....wow.

I think the mysteries that were presented in the original Alien movie have now been solved. Of course you can keep asking an infinity of questions behind those questions. But that will take forever to explain lol.

@Kethol

Thanks. I knew it was in the commentary. So the goo can mutate humans and animals into larger and more dangerous versions, or infect them with an embryo that grows into an insect or neo-xeno thing. But it can also infect and form shapes on its own, as you shows in the screen caps of the bombing?

Thombach, this is how John Logan described the mote-insects in the leaked Alien: Covenant script.

"And we focus on one of the INSECTS hovering near him...
MACRO VIEW: It’s watchful, careful. It settles near Ledward’s ear, and then enters the ear canal... the soft pink flesh... quickly
attaches itself -- a feeding tube plunging into his flesh--"

"She gently bats at a cloud of INSECTS in front of her face. A haze of little mote-like MIDGES in the dappled sunlight. And we see one of the insects--
MACRO VIEW: Ever-changing in its form -- lurching and stabbing into new shapes -- oily black but beautiful ... It hovers, has intelligence."

Saying "ever changing in it's form" and into new shapes sounds like the original idea may have been to have individual particles of the black liquid form into a flying shape to make itself mobile in air. Another part of the script indicates the actual insect version came later, after the bombing.

The black fluid forms into hooked and curved spike-like tendril shapes when it erupts out the the Engineers in the bombing sequence, so I suppose they kept some of that shape-change aspect in the movie.

 @ Kethol

There you go again, inventing canon with no evidence. Where did anyone say that the black goo forms into creatures directly? Show me the source for your argument. The motes are not black goo! They are insect-like spores from mutated fungus. Macro view means zoomed out view. Zoomed out, those little midges look like a black blob, always changing it's shape. Please understand what you are reading. Also where do you get the idea that it's the black goo bursting out of the engineers? I see those as parasites which were quickly formed within them, as part of their rapid black goo mutations. You really can't admit to being wrong can you?

@ Kethol, when you have evidence, your arguments are very strong. But when you try to work things out on your own....Jeez do you get it wrong.

when the urns explode, the contents does appear to swarm yogi. it is though more inconsistencies on the topic of the black goo that are hard to come down on one side or the other. we have the sacrificial goo which seems to bubble n move, then the goo that spills out of the urns that nothing swarms out of, then the bombing scene where it 'appears' to swarm. we need something definitive from RS on screen to explain

When the urns melt, the black goo sort of churns about and flows out down the sides, onto those worms. I wouldn't say the stuff "swarms" dude. When David rains it down on the engineers, it just rains down on them....like rain would....also blowing in the wind. Rain never comes straight down. These are drops of black goo, not insects. Sorry dudes.

Sothoth, I think when Ali81 is talking about the swarming he means from David's bombing, not the leaky urns from Prometheus. I just watched Covenant again today in HD and I agree. There are definitely small flying objects swarming through the air.

I think you misunderstood kethol too. He was quoting from the John Logan script, which I read yesterday, not the movie canon. I does indeed say that about the mote-midge things changing form, and David says in the script that the insect form came later. Also the words MACRO VIEW in the script means an up close enlarged view. Zoomed in, not zoomed out.

@ Thombach

Please stop being professionally wrong. Macro view means ZOOMED OUT, as in "Macroscopic". Micro view means zoomed in, that's why you use a "Microscope" to see small things *face palm*.

Those motes are tiny insects which fly about in tiny swarms. The swarm (macro view) can change shape, but not the tiny insects (micro view). Why is this hard to understand? Also ..the black goo in David's bombing scene, shows no sign of "swarming" at all...it is not flying about in a directed group or groups, which is what swarms are....it is raining down on mass and hitting engineers. You are using the wrong words. Raining drops of black goo do not make a swarm. Rain doesn't come down in swarms, it comes down in torrents. You'll be calling it a "flock" next. Jeez.

"small flying objects" - Those are small particles of black goo. Nothing more. Nothing less.

You are wasting your time Thombach :)

A macro lens in photography is used to take extreme close-up pictures. I have a very good one myself.

In photography, macro is zoomed in. But if the script is referring a macro view of something, that would be zoomed out.

Drucea, if you read the script or look at Kethol's quote from it, every time it describes the mote cloud, then says MACRO VIEW, it describes a zoomed in close up of one insect in the cloud. It is not even questionable.

Hox, the macro function on my camera is for a zoomed in view also.

Kethol, I know, I know. I was just trying to help him understand.

The Lindeloff Quote can be taken as ambiguous, due to the way it was worded, but it does point more on the side of the Hammerpede being able to infect people.

Lindeloff did say the Hammerpedes play a role in the Xeno Origins, well he teased this.. i cant remember word for word and which interview it was.. and it was a bit ambiguous as it came across as just his personal interpretation... he also said the Deacon was a Xenomorph Ancestor.

We do-not however know if this was via the clues in Prometheus or if indeed RS/Lindeloff had actually discussed in depth the Deacon/Hammerped/LV-223 Connection to the Xenomorph.

I always felt the Hammerpedes could be a strong candidate and even made  few posts/topics on the Xeno/Hammerpede Connection.

And the basis of the Deacon being a Ancestor to the Xenomorph...  this is basically not a Direct Ancestor as far as the events of Prometheus..  But more so that the Deacon Mural Predated the Dr Shaw ==> Deacon at the end of the movie.

And the Hammerpedes Predated the Prometheus mission and so those Worms + Black Goo = Hammerpedes... be it the year 2093, the year 200 BC/AD or any year the result would be the same.

And so the potential for Hammerpedes in the past is high, and if those worms are similar to worms on Earth, then they are likely Egg Layers/Producing.  And so infected with the Black Goo, the Hammerpedes could very likely have Eggs.

Then we have to ask why did it attack Milburns Mouth?

There was a Outbreak 2000 years ago, and maybe Worms could have been infected before... maybe this explains the Cryo-Pod Chest Busted Engineers?  and maybe this is what Lindeloff hinted at?

My Re-write of Prometheus which i abandoned did show Hammerpede Eggs, and did have Milburn Chest Burst a kind of Xeno/Neomorph Chest Buster.  I was visioning using this Prometheus concept work.

Well basically it would be similar to the Alien Chest Buster but using the color scheme of the Hammerpede, with a head like some of the Prometheus concept works.. that the Neomorph also was designed from