Alien Covenant Is the Origin Story – Planet 4 Is the Engineer Homeworld

"...reverse engineered the superior lifeform...", did I read that right?

Tiwaz - Yes, you did. I wanted to highlight that as well. :)

Reverse engineered as in recreated it based on "blueprints"? That is what it says for me at least.

Reverse engineering was mentioned in the novelization as well, the dead egg from David's lab was supposedly created by Engineers. The did not clarify this in the film probably to keep more options open. As to planet 4 as Engineers' home world, I believe it would frustrate a lot of fans.

A lot of ambiguity and last moment changes.

If the only surviving Engineers are the ones who went shopping during David's 10 years reign on planet 4 they must return with the discoidal ship.

I still don't get it: if the heads carved on the mountains represented the sacrificial engineer and his 'father' (from the delered scene at the beginning of Prometheus), most probably the barren planet they seeded is planet 4. So they were coming from somewhere else to seed life on planet 4. How can planet 4 be their home world?

There is something fishy with the story, like they wanted to get rid of Engineers and after the loud fanbase outcry they try to reanimate them.

Honestly, I don't care much about the Engineers now, I just want a good new story. 

The David's Lab:The engineers video contains clues as to the possible story to come.  https://www.alienuniverse.com/post/engineers

It would appear to be parts of a transmission from the Covenant by David to the board of Weyland-Yutani explaining what he has done and why.

"I come to you with an olive branch" 

David wants to be left in peace to continue his experiments so is offering WY a deal?  Perhaps he offers WY xenomorph eggs? 

"However, i did discover a suprising..."

Suprising what? The goo comes from a long extinct race of aliens? and not the Engineers?

"files told of ancient ceremony" "very cruel"

Did the early Engineers use facehugging (the sketch shown at the same time suggests this) techniques to implant fellow Engineers.

"once thrived" "long since frozen over"

A non-Engineer alien world now gone? 

"given passage to timidity"

Is David talking about how the Engineer race became less cruel and more peaceful?  after a civil war long ago?

"the cost of progress"

Again, the engineers became soft and not worthy of existence?

"must be absolute" "not for the weak"

Maybe David wants WY to seek out and destroy the remants of the Engineers for him?

"If you do this, there will be no turning back"

Did WY refuse to help David destroy the Engineers? or does he mean once they agree there can be no u-turns by the company? 

"my creatures will be set loose, to rule this galaxy"

David's explicit threat to Weyland-Yutani (and humanity by implication).

Hmm... There's one thing that bugs me, the LV-426 derelict (again). It's signal been known prior to the Prometheus mission.

It's said David reverse engineered the morphs. Ok, but why going through the hassle of reverse breeding instead of fetching a living specimen from Acheron? Did he not know there were eggs? Didn't he have the opportunity, wich is unlikely given Shaw's stasis. David had plenty of time while she was asleep. 

Were the eggs on the Derelict placed at a later point, if so by whom? It seems, on the derelict, there happened a lot more than just the Jockey being killed by a chestburster. Wich is actually suggested in A:RoP.

I'm inclined to go for the "simplest" answer. He knew the signal was there but didn't want to risk his ship and Shaw in an attempt to investigate. Or maybe he deemed it unnecessary since he was heading for "their" home world already.

I think there's a glaring connection between the Sacrificial Engineer, the Deacon, the Mural, and the Pathogen. What if the species that created the Pathogen were, in fact, the Deacons? It would make more sense if the Engineers - although superior to humanity - had merely stumbled upon the biotechnology, and the Deacons were in fact the Space Jockeys the whole time. The Hive Consciousness that David unlocked on Planet 4 through his experiments (they were more theocratic than scientific, however) was in fact a derivative of the Deacons which had transferred their collective consciousness via the Pathogen into organic life, and had become immortal. But, they needed a new body. A new "form" if you will, the Xenomorph. The Xenomorph is the Supreme Being, basically, of Gnostic Creation Myth - that the creator of the universe is evil, and the angels (Engineers) had been cast down for attempting to steal fire from the Gods (Deacons). And, in attempting to fallaciously 'tame' evil (just as the humans attempt to do) their technology had turned against them, the moment they used it to "grow" their ships, their experiments, and assert themselves as the new Gods. Nature came back, and seized control of the technology that they had infused themselves with, and thus - seized control of the Engineers. Now, the Engineers realize that they are being used as pawns to create hosts for the Supreme Being, the Deacons. So, basically - the Hammerpedes were Proto-Facehuggers. David has been being utilized by Weyland-Yutani, and the Engineers are the power behind the throne, so-to-speak. The Deacons, through the Engineers, recruited Weyland to unlock the signal. The Deacons of the Queen Mother are effectively cross-species royal guards, and the Xenomorphs (which includes multiple species such as Neomorphs, Hammerpedes, Protomorphs, Pathogen/Xenovirus the Trilobite, etc) are a genetic nation-state attempting to reclaim their fire.

Who agrees?

Thanks for the comments, awesome ideas!

It can be claimed that the notes of the David's Lab videos seem to be contradictory:

'the mind that reverse engineered the superior lifeform'

'The synthetic. The creator.'

'he takes the legacy of the Engineers, and their home world, and uses their knowledge'

'David succeeds - the Xenomorph is born'

'ALIEN: COVENANT is much more than a prequel to Ellen Ripley’s ALIEN. It is the origin story.'

I believe the ambiguity is intentional, let's look at Matt Hatton's words from his instagram page again:

'Yep great guess and I absolutely did the flora stuff intentionally making a bridge not just between the native life and Giger shape language but also as my way of explaining the discrepancy between the different aesthetics we've seen and giving an internal logic. But also wanted to honour the ambiguity inherent in Giger's work where you have an idea but it's not spelled out literally. So it's funny the face-sucker art which was pretty ambiguous (and Ridley liked for that reason) has been taken so literally as not just rebreathing prototype but insemination = eggs from Shaw. A lot of people are being reductive and very literal and yes I like the idea but I like it thematically. Like Blade Runner it's not that Deckard is or isn't, the point is he MAY be. Metaphorically much stronger. Same here! Does that make sense? I think Ari is pretty on the money!'

The key phrase is: ambiguity!

As for the 'engineer homeworld' question, I've found another interesting comment by Matt Hatton:

'Another after/before, going from Giger's babyhead landscape to an Engineer version. Swipe to see original!'

'I guess we only saw a couple in Prommy (and they were played by the same guy). But remember the alternate opening (which I like better)? With the other engineers? They were all dressed in burlap and there was the old dude too... I know some people out there think the ones in A:C must be an entirely different race. That's a pretty extreme reaction I think!'

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVsAzmSldPo/?taken-by=matthatt0n

Yep, I think its more like a class system. The Engineers are a civilization of the Ancients. Well, more like servants/slaves of the Deacons. ;)

Great ideas IndyFront, I believe the pathogens ultimate form is the xeno. Remember the mural and remember what David was saying about the black goo: "evolutionary algorithm". You just have to have a bit of knowledge to get to the peak of existence, which is the xeno. We have Davids xeno and I'm sure if the Engineers were smart enough they would have produced their xeno as well..

Maybe it is their home world,  but we can expect they establish colonies elsewhere, kind of Origae 6. As long as it is in their power to seed other worlds why should it be impossible that a habitable planet as Origae 6 was not meant as one of their colonies?