Important reading: Everything that explains \'Alien\' and it\'s connection to \'Prometheus\'.

How to get well informed?

This thread explains how to get well informed about the Alien / Prometheus franchise.

Very handy

Posted 27 May 2015

#crazy idea 416. The egg started as something else .

I here speculate that the eggs on the juggernaut might actually be grown by the juggernaut or derelict.

Big Dave

As far as Prometheus being canon to the rest of the Alien franchise is concerned: it doesn't matter to me that much. It is HOW Prometheus relates to the alien franchise that concerns me.

Because then reading the Starbeast script knowing about the Mountains of Madness  and knowing about the Necronom IV Dark Star etc. (in other words any literature that has a possible importance in understanding the creation of Alien)  would make sense to me.

Otherwise what is the point ??

Big Dave

Hi there

Thanks for your responses.

Alien dc = Alien Directors cut.

Then would you say that knowing what was behind the creation of Alien is necessary to know as to understand what Prometheus is about? If I didn't know about Alien and the rest of the franchise would Prometheus matter to me at all? Would it then just be another movie that made very little sense and would be resolved in the sequel?

The purpose of this thread is so that I can post its link and save newcomers all the time of finally realising that there is far more to Prometheus than just the engineers and it is related to Alien but more importantly how it relates to Prometheus and what literature and videos can aid in my understanding of this.

Well what has been said so far is already very insightful to me and should be to any newcomers.

I will later add links to threads that I feel could be helpful to newcomers. I am simply trying to save people all the trouble I had to go to understand the significance of Prometheus in the Alien universe.

Once again Bigdave no one could have said it better than you did. Invaluable to me and to any newcomer.

Thanks

Here is a couple of links of threads I started.

This thread explains what canon is

This is a link to a thread I started trying to establish if Prometheus has staying power like alien does:

Was that a spider’s web next to the control panel? Can spiders survive in the tunnels on lv 223?

This thread asks whether or not the virus was airborne based on a file released by fox

This link indicates that oxygen has an effect on the ampules in the ampule room : very garbled but have a look at it

This thread asks if there was any resemblance between the scream of the deacon and the scream heard in the holographic replay of the running engineers

The following discussion wasn't started by me but is an invaluable resource for anyone starting out here: 

Ridleygrams

Ridleygrams part 2

Ambiguity questions

Final canon debate

Alien origins discussion

This interview with Spaihts indicate that it may not have been Ridley's intention to move away from the xeno . Lindeloff's inclusion it seems might not have been Ridley's idea.

Starbeast script

Plot hole and answers thread

Prometheus lesser known deleted scenes.

Strange post-production edits; SJ Sacrificial cups changed to green crystals.

Well I hope this helps you as a newcomer.

Please also read the stickies in every section

 These threads i started but they arent relevant to this thread but just for recored keeping:

Matrix existence the norm ?

"NASA and the Vatican agree that is almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way," Scott said.

Of what movie was the following reviews written ?

Space Jockey on screen representation: imposable ??

Prometheus analyzed by Reddit

so what is the black goo ??

Oh yes

Dark Star

A few notes

My theory is based on what I saw in Prometheus and Alien. As it (seemingly or hoefully) pertains to Ridley's vision and finally doing what should have happened many years ago: Ridley explaining the sj and the origins of the eggs and therefore the xeno. I do not think that it necessarily so that Ridley does not consider aliens canon but I think he draws the line there.

So the above mentioned is my take on the canon issue as I believe Ridley intended/wants it to be. I could be wrong but that's only my opinion on the matter.

The one thing that sticks in my mind is in one of the deleted scenes Milburn notes that the young hammerpede has translucent skin as the xeno had in alien. From the storyboard it was shown that the xeno was in its final stage of development before it reached adulthood where its skin would have been white (I guess) like it was with the hammerpede. I believe this to be part of Ridley's vision/intention but maybe he left that out so that the rest of the franchise could remain canon.

Don’t know the starbeast script seems to be the most relevant to alien. So the xeno was discovered.

Please note that my theory will have many holes.

Especially as to what happened to the engineers on lv 223.

It is virtually impossible to make everything fit at the same time. Yes it may even not be a complete or encompassing theory.

At least it is the same place I can go to every time to expand on my ideas.

My theory goes:

The engineers are a race that is enslaved by a superior race: the elders. The elders are under the super elders which are very much beings of energy . At least 5000 - 6000 years ago they reached the singularity to become pure energy beings. They themselves became like the beings that created them . They become like q of star trek.

With their disappearance the elders are left alone and they quickly mobilise to get all the technology and know how left behind by the super elders. A vicious power struggle emerges and they are immersed in total war leaving behind many seeded worlds that they forced the engineers to seed and re seed. So that they can test and grow different aspects of their own genome. As such the engineers are only left behind not knowing what happened on the worlds they seeded and only getting dna updated as deemed necessary ny the elders.

With the disappearance of the elders the engineers also break up into factions and the xeno the elders discovered that was initially a way to force them to obey the super elders. As the elders help the super elders approach the singularity they give genome improvements that allows the elders to stop being controlled by the xeno but now to conquer it as they are now physically able to beat and subdue a xeno at will. this is where humans come in : we were seeded by the engineers in service to the elders and when mankind reasches a certain level of development they extract the dna and add it to the elder genome: that is our purpose.

Therefore the engineers must now continue to worship and bow to the xeno's until they themselves are given the ability to conquer them.

2200 years ago and elder mission to drop eggs on an another elder controlled planet went awry as a space fight with other elders juggs causes stasis fields to malfunction. The elder lands on the closest planet to he can finds realising that the ship will be overrun with face huggers as the movement of the hydraulic ram that controls the telescopic unit will automatically be drawn back into the ship and could activate the eggs to open and the suit opens up in the same process .

But this suit is part of the chair and if he wants to leave he has to leave te suit to go to the entrance to the orrery where other suits are stationed so that he could possibly attempt to restore the stasis fields. By the time the engineer scans the ship he realises that many huggers are at large . He informs his high command of the situation and they tell him to back to his chair and into hibernation until a ship can arrive to help him. As he gets back into the chair to hibernate the telescopic unit emerges(and a facehugger getting a ride along from the lower level) and to his horror a facehugger jumps on his face just as the suit closes around him and he is unable to move. He is paralysed and by the time he awakens he realises he has minutes to live . He activates a warning through the computer and dies when the xeno emerges.The xeno goes down splits a hole in the floor and after the metal melts away he disappears through the hole sensing high level of nitrogen below.

As it was the elders who made the cave paintings and visited earth the engineers was well unaware of human society but they learned enough to know that they wanted to elaborate on the work of the elders and knew that the latest improvements could be applied to the humans and then extracted dna could be extracted and applied to themselves.

So they decided to take elder dna and infuse that to the humans so that dna extraction could be done and then applied to themselves. The humans refused to obey the lesser engineers and the engineers decided to implement a plan of planet wide wipe out of humans. They liquidised the xeno to drop that on earth and there after drop elder dna virus on the planet ensuring that there was a couple of humans left. The resulting creatures would be xeno'd and the dna extracted via the ampule xeno virus.

After 200 years the engineers realised humanity would not willingly cooperate and therefore decided to send a final warning but this engineer was crucified.

After finishing their research and adapt ion of the dna the engineers decided to leave for earth only to discover that someone had already poisoned their water and oxygen supply with the ampules that contain xeno dna virus. As to exact happenings on lv 223 with regards to the engineers: I given up to try and explain that , my big problem is what caused the holes in the engineers hyper sleep chambers ? If it was facehuggers where did they come from ? A queen ? Were engineers morphed ? How was the huggers brought to the Orrery to impregnate the hyper sleeping engineers ? Why was bob not impregnated ? Does infection occur via airborne or oral ingestion routes .

I believe something happened on the cargo hold because there was something that catches David's attention that he looks at.

Maybe bob was from a different faction and got himself into a chamber that would no be infected. So roughly An engineer form a loyal faction (bob) had slipped into the cargo bay and took an ampule and emptied its contents into oxygen and water supply system. The engineer that wasn't in hibernation yet (the pilot engineer) alerted all the other ships and their crews. He probably dropped an ampule after realising that they were infected (and got 2 drops on his face) or that bob in the cryo chamber has infected unknowingly. He just has enough time to put on the bio suit and the engineers from the other ships join him and they head for the Ampule room where they know they might possibly be safe from the infection if it is airborne .

So where does the screaming creature come from ? An engineer turning into a xeno ? Too little info.

Did worms become hammerpede and eat their way out of the engineers or did they get the little worms into them from infection like holloway did ? Maybe his sperm becoming big and swimming around his body and eventually becoming so big that they broke free ? They eventually leave the ampule room as the oxygen supply in the suits becomes used up only to be eaten alive from the inside by sperm growing to big ? Was it maybe an engineer turning into a xeno ? That chased them ? Then after they died the one nope .........going insane this is not solveable.

Wayland discovers a weak signal from a deep space probe. But when would this have happened ? Somewhere from 2040 - 2060 ? They send a android manned mission to investigate the source and discovers the derelict . However under mysterious circumstances the android mission is lost and nobody really knows what happened. The super God like being stepped in here . Wayland sends a follow up mission with Yutani close behind them. Yutani decides not to go to lv 223 as they pick up the beacon on LV 426 and experiences the first facehuggers on an android . They collect as much data as they can. After wards Wayland does the same and forces a merger with Yutani. After they compare notes they realise that the goo and the xeno are the same thing but they need a live specimen of the xeno on earth to properly analyse its dna so that they can remove the xeno part of the black goo so that they can reverse engineer the to get the substance that the sacrificial engineer drank at the start of the movie.

I think this is why they wanted a xeno on earth.

UPDATE: 15 April 2015

In short the engineers were once like us - were used by other engineers to be destroyed and reseeded so that the engineers could upgrade their own genome or of the elders above them.

Bigdave Well the evil laughter is what concerns me?

By whom and why?

Almost like the devil knowing he is doomed making his minions sacrifice himself just for the hell of it.

I like the idea of the sj being an elder.

It explains the size and maybe also the differences of the size of juggernauts.

I will here start working on my p2 theory.

For now: The main ideas for me is:

When will Shaw re attach David?

What will he do once he is reconnected?

If he entertains Shaw then what will they be able to learn form the available technology?

If they find an engineer will this engineer assist or destroy?

Finally I believe a God like being will step in eventually and assist Shaw - maybe she will meet her father again?

As Bigdave said: what the time frame or year will this happen in?

P3:

WY merger and follow up missions ending with how they came to know about the base liquid the sacrificial engineer drank and the need to get a xeno back to earth. So that they can reverse engineer the black goo.

The movie ends with an android finding the holographic recording of the happening of the sj and how he crashed and maybe where the elders discovered the xeno?

Maybe the xeno were genetically engineered by the super elders and it wasn’t an accident the elders discovered them.

I forgot to mention that I believe that the engineers created the ampules as replacements for the eggs as to prevent the happenings of the juggernaut on lv 426. Safer way to transport and easier to drop. I believe the xeno in the mural in the ampule room is not a deacon but a xeno very close to the one in alien.

I apologise because there is no dude standing behind the crucified xeno. I still believe that there is a creature behind the crucified xeno. It may be a depiction of the engineer god as a bio mechanical representation of the being/beings that created the elders/super elders. 

Links to confirmed scripts.

This is very important : Anyone who hasn't read the confirmed Alien Engineers draft from Spaihts Please do so ! As well as the confirmed Lindeloff draft If you haven't done so then you are seriously missing out.

It’s interesting that Fox wanted the script removed from this blog. It does reveal a lot about the initial intent by both writers. It seems a lot of chopping and changing was done at the last moment to really the make the movie over ambiguous. I think Fox wanted it that way. Lindelof’s draft wasn't that ambiguous. Here are the link to two threads I started with regards to the scripts:

This one asks how many scripts were released (Fake or otherwise)

And here I ask a few questions regarding the two confirmed scripts

The two things that now really bug me is that in both of these scripts the engineers are 12 - 15 feet tall and that there were no evil laughter in them. It seems that Prometheus really was butchered and many parts and showed out of sequence as it was originally was intended for.

I would kill to know whose decision it was to make the engineers 8- 9 feet tall in Prometheus?? Why was that done??? I think it was done on purpose. How much more would the movie have cost if they had to create engineers 15 feet tall???

I think a lot things were thrown in at the last moment to make the movie over ambiguous. Still I love Prometheus and it must remain. But I now doubt we will see a movie that has extended deleted scenes that will provide answers .

If they remake it could probably happen.

So finally I guess I will have to do a lot of rewriting on my theories but now I can lay Prometheus to rest as I finally understand the true nature of the movie as in why it was made the way it was.

Bigdave

Yes it is obvious then that they made many scenes fit even if they did not work so well. I still love Prometheus. But why did they not find a way to bypass that - like cgi if only for a few scenes?? I mean why change the sj size to such a degree that it really begs the question is this in the same universe or are they just doing this on purpose to create more confusion??

Another example is the helmet removal scenes.

In Lindelof’s draft the only time they removed their helmets was when Weyland arrived in the juggernauts cargo hold. They changed this in Prometheus and then releases an info file saying the black goo is also an airborne pathogen.

Same with the deacon mural.

All of this was just added to create more confusion and mystery and I am not so sure that they really have answers for those.

Because god knows I have racked my brains trying to find answers to the mysteries.

Prometheus is a mixture of the two confirmed scripts and seemingly a lot of very late changes coming in. I think they deliberately wanted to create uncertainty as whether  was actually in the same universe as alien. And accordingly the script changes and they throw a whole lot stuff in there at the end. I am not saying it’s bad it does show you that that is exactly what they (fox) wanted - controversy (because of uncertainty and over ambiguity).

If Spaihts draft was the one that Ridley wanted after many changes were made by Ridley then that shows that Ridley wanted to tell the story of the xeno and where they came from (squid like face huggers weaponised to become the traditional face hugger producing the xeno). He answered that. The engineers seeded mankind and wanted to punish them for exactly what I don't understand. So this draft shows what Ridley initially had in mind as he wanted there to be 8 different of eggs. In this script David indicates to Shaw that there is 8 stasis fields and that each field contains slightly different eggs. That's why I think this a draft from Spaihts after Ridley told him to make changes. So Ridley wad telling the engineer story and xeno story. Right?? But it simply wasn't ambiguous enough and would kill the mystery of the space jockey and the origins of the xeno. This is wanted Ridley wanted to tell. And in the process destroy what caused the franchise to be such a success. Therefore I am on no doubt that Fox stepped in said no. Because I think Ridley wanted to finish it but was not allowed to. I don't think he had any say in the matter.

So the ambiguity and changes in the Lindeloff script I believe was intended and as the filming began to finish Ridley saw that there still was too many clues given that fox probably wouldn't agree to it. So they really made it too ambiguous to protect the mysteries of the franchise. It seems than that the origins of the xeno as Ridley wanted to tell it was from squid like face huggers that was weaponised by the engineers. I believe that is why Fox asked Chris to remove the Spaihts draft as it really showed the story Ridley wanted to tell. He never moved away from the engineers he simply explained how the two met.

Maybe the engineers found the squid like face huggers thousands of years before and it doesn't mean that the xeno we know may have been around for a long time but this does show how they came to be. Maybe the stasis field of the juggernaut simply malfunctioned and a face hugger that was maybe able to go through thin crevices or underneath doors as it was the case for the squid like face hugger (of which the chestburster itself could squeeze through very tight spaces) and maybe that's how the engineer on lv 426 got face hugged. During flight a face hugger closer to the original squid like face hugger got loose - squeezed his way through the crevices and when the engineer went to investigate got him when he returned. He landed and then got chest busted and the resultant creature simply melted his way through the floor and maybe got trapped and simply excreted acid to melt the metal and disappeared below. Maybe that how he got inside the suit by simply melting and his way into the suit??

I think Ridley has given us the answers because he knows he is getting old. But Fox knew the damage that would have done to the cash making ability. Well that's what I choose to believe.

Posted: 18 May 2015

https://alienseries.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/gods-monsters/

Start quote

“Their civilisation is millions of years old. Once, the Engineers expressed themselves as humans do, taking pleasure in music, colour and story, but they’ve long learned to see in more dimensions than we do. Their art and ornament exist on planes imperceptible to human senses. Their constructions look dark and grim to us; but the Engineers’ eyes see far more than our own. Individual Engineers live for a hundred thousand years. Ages ago their race abandoned sex and gender, reproducing by more abstract methods. In recent millenia they have ceased to reproduce altogether.”
~ Jon Spaihts’ “Alien Master Narrative”, script notes.

End quote