About that Egg...

EWATYAMORPH

Reading the Novelisation where David leads Oram to his work. So let me get this straight, David finds an Egg on the world we see in Covenant and the facehugger inside becomes aggressive so he has to euthanise it. This Egg and facehugger were created by the Engineers according to David.

The facehugger inside has no tissue thin membrane over it like the facehuggers in Davids own Eggs do, so this facehugger must have attacked David and he has had to kill it yeah?

Did he study the Egg and the dead facehugger and that has helped him on his way to create his own Eggs with facehuggers inside?.

Did he place the dead facehugger back inside the Egg and fold up the flaps neatly once he has finished with it. Certainly seems that way according to the Novelisation when he leads Oram to the Egg and then onto his own Eggs. 

Blackwinter-witch

I'm pretty content to completely ignore anything ADF 'Interprets' regarding the ALIENverse, and as for the various continuity boondoggles in ALIEN: Covenenat in general, I think the best approach is to ignore them as trying to figure them out will just tie your brain in knots.

suwhited

I would like @BigDave to elaborate some on this...I haven't seen a post from him recently...Hopefully, our collective forum depression/negativity over recent Alien events hasn't driven away...

EWATYAMORPH

I hear ya but I wanted to throw this out there to see what others thought on this matter. 

Its a big deal if the Engineers had a live Egg on the world when David arrived. I'd like to find out more on that if it's possible. 

MonsterZero

I wrote somewhere on this forum...That Facehuggers are like spiders they swarm all over the world. NOT encased in a pod. Maybe you control them by putting them in a cage/pod.

David was swarmed by tens of them...Think I had David shock them a bolt of electricity of something similar to what he used on the neomorphs. 

Being stuck in a pod is a STUPID way to reproduce!(unless they are truly just weapons of death and serve no other purpose)) Having to wait for your victim to find and walk up to you, is just daft. (You could spend millions of years waiting....swimming around takes energy...where do you get you calories...Are they radioactive? The pods would dry out after awhile....?)

Tiwaz

IMO D. found the egg the dialogue in the novel more or less states that. Since we're talking books here in "The Rage War" the Founders find a place they call Midwinter. They find ancient remains of a civilization wich are supposedly 8 million yrs old. They also find xenos there. Same goes for the underground city on LV-178 in Alien: Out of the Shadows and Alien: Sea of Sorrows. All these books are canon and written in collaboration with fox.

EWATYAMORPH

MonsterZero

Its irrelevant how stupid the facehugger being in the Egg is, it's simply how they are first brought into the world in the ALIEN universe it seems. They can roam free after that like a spider no doubt but they must lay in the Egg ready to spring when a host presents itself. 

I personally think how the Neomorph comes into play is much more efficient. The pathogen lays around and gathers mold, it is disturbed and a cloud of motes arise into the air and form a shape together and insert the Egg/Eggs through the ears or mouth etc, with no need for a facehugger to have to successfully grip your face and get the tube down your throat. The motes and formed shape are not even seen by the host. Very efficient. 

In that sense I have always wondered why anybody thought the Egg/facehugger idea was more efficient and special. Maybe it's the end result, the Xeno like Alien, that means the whole Egg/facehugger thing is looked upon as perfection by the creators. Maybe the Xeno can not come into creation by the motes/Neomorph way. 

Plus, Ridley was obviously going for the visual factor with the whole facehugger thing. 

EWATYAMORPH

Tiwaz

So going by that book Canon view, David has recreated something the Engineers had previously Engineered. 

Are we to believe he added his own touches and perfected it further? Or woukd Ridley rather us believe he was the original creator of the Xeno?

EWATYAMORPH

Tdby 

The Alien Covenant Novelisation is the official Novelisation of the movie so we have to view it's content as at least worthy of discussion in regards to Canon. 

And it clearly states David encountered an Egg that had a facehugger but the facehugger was aggressive and needed euthanised. He state this was an Engineer creation so the Engineers were dabbling in Egg/facehugger creations that would have planted a creature of sorts in a host. 

Whether that would have been a full on Xeno I'm not sure, but it's clear the Engineers were on to the whole Egg/facehugger thing before David and he capitalised on their previous achievements to further his own ambitions. The mural in Prometheus confirms the Engineers involvement with facehuggers and ALIEN like creatures way before Covenant so this shouldn't be that much of a surprise. 

What I want to know is if Ridley 100% wants us to think the Engineers were on this track to creating the Xeno but David pretty much finished their work, or if the Xenos were already a thing and David recreated it. 

Going by recent interviews it seems Ridley wants us to think that David was the Xeno creator. 

Kethol

I think Ridley just means the version of the xeno we saw in the original Alien was David's. The xeno, neo, and deacon are all just variations on the same type of creature which already existed, as caould be seen on the temple wall in Prometheus. The Engineers created the DNA for it, but it can be bred and manipulated by tweaking and breeding.

This is nothing new, as we have already seen in previous alien movies that the end creature takes on genetic traits of the host it is grown in. David just played with that ability and refined the delivery mechanisms that already existing in the pathogens genetic code.

Tiwaz

EWATYAMORPH, as I see it David bred back/reverse bred the creatures spawned by the goo-bombing by selectively choosing creatures with certain features for breeding. You don't even need high tech for that, you "just" need hosts. Maybe that's what he used Shaw for.

In this regard the question "What is the accelerant and where does it come from?" is interesting. Recently someone here speculated the goo's original source is actually the xenomorph itself and that the black stuff it is part of the xeno-reproduction process (BLACK ACCELERANT AND EGG MORPHING). 

Capt Torgo

Wish the film would have explained this more. Guess I'll just have to read the book and stay away from spoilers, 

drucea

Wasn't David's story of finding the egg/facehugger in the movie and novel just B.S. so Oram would think they were harmless and not realize that David has been trying to create murderous alien life?

Tiwaz

Ducea, maybe, maybe not.

In the movie David says "... I found it... I created it...", in that order.

David tends to lie through omission. Moreover he was bragging bout his "works". In the egg-chamber when Oram stares into the opening egg:

D.: "... it's perfectly save (for me)"

The crashed Juggernaut:

D.: "... Part of the payload accidentally deployed when we were landing ... (After i bombed the **** outta them)"

Remember they found black "puddles" in the vicinity of the ship. In the book they even find smashed urns/vases inside the juggernaut.

I'm intentionally not quoting Scott because he changes his mind frequently and is therefor not reliable.

The "found egg" would be perfectly in line with the rest of the newer canon material, even without the Space Jokey.

EWATYAMORPH

Kethol 

We are on the same page with you're last comment. This is the line of thought I am on at the moment.

drucea, Tiwaz

i know David is a manipulator and liar and all that jazz but I saw no reason for him to be lying about the first Egg being the creation of the Engineers and not being his own creation. He already gains Orams trust by throwing him a dead sac that doesn't come to life in his hands and kill him. 

David also makes it very clear he has been creating dangerous looking life forms before they even get to the dead Egg and then the live Eggs so Oram knows this and David has done nothing to hide the fact. 

The lab he shows Oram around is glaringly clear evidence that he has been doing it so there is no hiding from it really and no need to lie. Oram could unload on him simply on the strength of what he sees. 

David also makes it clear that he wishes to show Oram his own successes after he shows him the dead Egg/facehugger so he clearly wants Oram to know he is creating these things. 

There is no reason to lie then that the Engineers created the first Egg he showed Oram, if it were his own he could simply say I tried this one here but it became aggressive and I had to kill it. THAT, would make Oram trust him even more I would think as Oram would view David as something willing to kill his own creation if it were dangerous. 

I personally believe that David found an Engineer created Egg/facehugger. But I'm quite sure that had that facehugger impregnated a host, it may not have created the Xeno we know so well.

That came later from Davids tweaking of the skill/art.