We were a mistake!

We could be.... Or we could be a creation that was created without the consent of the Hierarchy of the Home World.

Bobbycorwen In the sense that the engineers didn't know about us or that we were simply an accidental by product of an experiment ?

Big dave I love the idea of shaw and david rocking up in the middle of a full blown engineer civil war! That would be very interesting

oduodu Yes, we just evolved into a form that the engineers didnt envisage as it hadnt occurred in their previous terra forming efforts, some loved and nurtured us, left us maps and showered us with gifts, like maths and engineering and the other half hated us for taking away their terra forming focus,

Bobbycorwen Could be

Well i think that some how Prometheus has to tie in with the Movie... The opening scene if its the seeding of the beginning of life as we know it, is many hundreds of millions of years ago, a long time before Mankind. The scene shows the Earth has Trees which means CO2 and CO2 can be produced by basic life forms like Bacteria. If we assume the Engineer seeded his DNA so it fused with and mutated/evolved basic life into more complex, then thats a long time before mankind, but Ridley said the Engineers visited us many times to UPGRADE us.... Could that mean further tampering with the Petra Dish that was Earth, then led to our creation? The Earliest Cave Painting in Prometheus was 35'000 years old thats a time when Mankind started to develop better skills, and they visited us many times after leaving same kinds of hints to the same Star System.... Why if it was a trap or for creating Weapons.... Why set up a outpost or indeed point the location out 35K years ago, to then 33 thousand years latter start to develop a Weapon on that base to wipe mankind out? Why that date? Why the Statue of the Head, Why the Tera Forming inside the Temples if the Engineers can breath outside or have Technology in the shape of the Space Jockey Suits... Also if the Engineers had all planed to wipe us out, then surely the Homeworld would be wondering why they have not heard from LV 223 for so long? Furthermore should Shaw and David go to Paradise and the Engineers want us dead and go like "how did they get here, i thought they was dead" then how long would Shaw last? And surely they would set off to investigate LV 223 and maybe carry out a attack on Earth and thus how would that tie in with Earth and Mankind in Alien/Aliens..... Maybe just maybe the Engineers seeded Earth, and a group of them was ordered to watch over us from LV 223, but these Engineers got fed up of carrying out Tasks given to them by the Elders and they wanted to be worshiped themselves and they then created Mankind at a latter date using the same Fire that was used to Seed Earth at the start of the movie. The LV223 Watchers/Gardeners basically Stole the Fire, they created us they taught us, they even made a Shrine on LV223 and a invitation... but we became rebellious and we become less sub servant and worshiped these Engineers as Gods far less, and we did things that upset them, broke the rules etc etc. They then changed the Paradise set up for us on LV 223 to a Weapons Testing and Research where they re-engineered a Weapon their Race uses, in which they was going to wipe us out. Maybe these Engineers had also attacked Paradise, or maybe the Elders on Paradise do not know of our creation because we was created by stealing the Fire. There really is so so many possibilities.

@bigDave The opening scene has no trees. RS even makes a comment about this in the DC that he needed a landscape with no trees, and only lichen on the rocks. It's a fair assumption that the engineer's "seed" needs some sort of simple life already in existence for replication.

Someone said there were trees in the alternate opening. I think that's how that factoid spread if it's not true (hadn't noticed it myself watching the preview and my blu-rays on its way in the mail still). Great post BigDave. You make a really good point. I've been calling the star map a trap possibly instead of an invitation or warning, but I think you just nailed it. The purpose of the message-- the purpose of the symbols and even the meaning associated with it changed over time without ever changing the symbol. It ends up being more like a deception in the end, not really a trap. An invitation to be involved in the war against the true Fathers... Out of all the scenarios I think Shaw and David wandering into a full blown civil war is very, very, likely. What with all the ties to mythology and the Engineers being hinted at as being not the true gods. Add that to the plot of Lawrence of Arabia and how David seems to be acting out that movie... and I think it's almost guaranteed that there are... differences between the Engineers and Elders now. This is all important because the cross is a symbol of death & rebirth since the times of Jesus and the Roman Empire. Before that, it had many different meanings. During the time of the Roman empire it became a symbol of death until Jesus came along. The Romans would crucify ALL their enemies-- or those who rebelled against them... They would leave them up on the cross to die for days. In public display to dissuade their enemies-- while birds pecked at them... The Romans were a bloody, war-mongering Empire, and they had a lot more enemies than Jesus. So for the Romans the cross originally had a different meaning all together. It was a symbol of oppression, death, and the rule of an Empire. If people saw it they couldn't help but bring up the death associations, because that's what it was used for. However, once Jesus defies the Romans by somehow being reborn after his death on the cross the symbol takes on completely different meanings. Now it's most commonly seen as a good symbol because of Jesus' words/actions and association with it. it even slightly morphs meanings again when Emperor Constantine adopts Christianity. It's important because I think the meaning of the message did change over time, as BigDave pointed out. It started as an invitation-- carrying a "good" meaning. But ends up as more of deception --carrying a "bad" meaning. So the opposite of the cross stuff. The cross Shaw wears around her neck is not only a symbol of God/Jesus, but also a symbol of death once associated with that powerful empire that killed Jesus. To be clear I don't think Jesus was an Engineer. I do strongly believe there is a form of hierarchy though, and Jesus was seen as a free-thinking human who rebelled against the selfish leaders of humanity. Not only do I think the Engineers have a form of a hierarchy-- I also think that they were once part of an Empire that they rebelled against. They don't want to see us become like the Elders. They wanted to kill their parents like David. But also like David they are becoming more and more like the fathers they hate... They are opposed to the humans being ruled by unjust kings, dictators, or Emperors. So they weren't really mad at all humans for killing Jesus. They were just mad at the chaotic Empire that was spreading and slaughtering many who chose to believe something different... They wanted to actually upgrade humanity in the beginning and move us away from our somewhat irrational and war-mongering leaders. Welyand was a brilliant king but he was also incredibly foolish and irrational... He had an improper balance in his ratio of illogical vs logical actions, chaos vs order, and science vs belief/intuition. The Engineer meets Weyland and he instantly thinks that our leaders haven't changed. So he goes forward with their version of the plan to upgrade us now. If he'd met the leader of Yutani, the current Queen of the Earth-- things might have been different. Like the Emperors Weyland just wanted to rule/live forever. Had the Engineers somehow given him eternal life he would have abused it. His rule would have extended and he would have gone from a king to being the Emperor of Earth and all her colonies... In the beginning 35 000 years ago it absolutely could have been an invitation. Now, however the message seems to have morphed meanings-- at least to the Engineers. After we started becoming more and more violent and continued treating each other terribly they sought to bring us into the civil war in a different way. At first they wished to upgrade us and invite us to their sacred grounds so that we could be told the truth about who really created us and how chaotic and irrational they are... This was not as much of a deception or trap-- in the beginning it's really like an invitation to join in their battle against the fathers. Leading us to the light to bring us into their war against the fathers. However, their perspective changes some time around when the Roman Empire is conquering other kingdoms and killing jesus, + many early christians. They decide that too many of us are becoming like the Romans, becoming like the Elders instead of the Engineers. They witness this sort of Empire building going on in later times as well-- as the wars get more destructive. At some point it was decided to give us an upgrade of a different sort, but they never got around to it. They continued to visit a few more times, leaving the original message-- only the meaning for them had changed. Instead of inviting us to join in their war, they've moved closer and closer to the chaotic side of things, after being locked in a war with the Elders and wish for nothing but to finally overcome them. This means they now wish to use us in a different way in their war. It's still an invitation, only now it's also deception to keep that door open because they've decided that the best use for us is to trick us into being used in their war directly-- allowing us no choice in the matter. No choice to be upgraded and used in their war this time, or in the new form of "upgrade". Instead of inviting us to join them in their civil war they simply take us and use us anyway they see fit in it, because from their perspective we're becoming too much like the Elders. If we are in fact now planned to be used in this way-- as a weapon or part of the bioweapon... then who are we weapons for... Yeah it would kill us but re-create us as monsters and then what? If we become the bio-weapon, who are we becoming a bio-weapon for?? Were the bio-weapons all originally intended for us? Or do they use the fire in multiple ways. Do they fight fire with fire?

We wer a mistake? Speak for yourselves....lol sorry just had to. It will be interesting how the scene in the beginning plays out. I am on the religious bandwagon that the engineer indeed was a chosen one to seed complex life And thus becoming immortal in a way. Also its interesting how the young enginners look alike except the elders

@Apex Like the Davids... we're told in the timeline there are millions of them-- all male, all identical (more identical in the Androids' case); and all servants to the god-king who created them. At least at first. This would be another parallel between them and David. They both rebel against their masters, want to see their parents dead, and attempt to overthrow the current head of the level of the hierarchy directly above them. The Engineers are failing though and are almost all wiped out. Leading to their desperation 2000 years ago. What if their form of the fire was created so it can't be extinguished... So that it can't be destroyed by the flood in the normal way the Elders use to clean up the bio-weapon after using it on a planet... Or extinguished easily like in the match-trick. These Aliens could have some death and rebirth properties... What if their form of the fire was only tampered with to weaponize it further and give them an edge... What if this fire can't be extinguished as easily, and they wanted to control it-- but failed miserably and the outbreak happened. Killing off all but one of the Engineers on Lv-223 and giving the Elders a temporary victory that they didn't have to work too hard for. The Engineer numbers are low but they had a better weaponized form of the fire than the elders, until it grew out of their control and drove their numbers down even more. David has millions of semi-emotional androids on his side-- quickly shooting Androids (the current lowest level) all the way to the very top of the hierarchical ladder-- what the ladder he pulls out symbolizes... The Engineers have been locked in a war with the Elders for millions of years. A war that the humans just re-ignited, although they don't know it yet. By accidently tricking the Elders into coming out of hiding. They found out the Engineer on LV-223 was awakened, but don't know what his fate was... They think he's in Shaw's craft coming straight to Paradise...

wow that was a long long post, i think scott is just trying to incorporate a lot of accepted theories, like how the egyptians built the pyramids and how the romans became so technologically advanced. With help from a higher power. They pushed along each stage of our evolution. Faith is spiritual, you can ask until you are blue in the face, it will always be contradicted but that shouldnt diminish how you love your god.

Yeah, I think they must have been guiding our development for a long time, so I don't think that would be an accident.

Yes, invasive vermin can be a lot of trouble. A 70,000+ year ago super volcano took humans down to 5, 000+ then they quickly went east with one language, and threatened the engineer again. His bio super weapon that killed the speech centers stopped that again for only a short while. Then they came back again... Read "Speech Sounds" by Octavia E. Butler in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 30th Anniversary Anthology then Genesis 11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+11&version=NIV: P.S. If the system were Alpha C. then the travel timing would be fine.

".... take us and use us anyway they see fit in it,..." Mala'kak... You wrote an interesting line of thought. Now David,,,Shaw...and a sh**load of ampule filled with WMD are heading to the next stop in the Engineer world... So I could see how humans are being used.... ....Even the Last Engineer..had difficulty (for whatever reason) to wipe us out! This may be the result of some manipulation by some unseen entity..that is willing to sacrifice the Last Engineer..to let David and Shaw continue the storyline.