Black Goo DNA Breakdown

It isn't Black Goo the Engineer swallowed at the start of the film. As we've seen, when David opens an ampule from the Urn he brought back from the building, and the droplet on his finger, it looks VERY different from the substance the Sacrificial Engineer swallowed.

But it would make a helluva weapon in and of itself!

Blackwinter-witch, it looks like the amount the Engineer took in in the small bowl was about equal to the total quantity of black goo in an urn, all four glass ampules worth (see David 8 below).

I think the bowl sealed lid dissolving made it look a little different from what was on David 8's finger.

Good points, but between the Chromatic shiny-color effect we see in the stuff the Engineer imbibed, and it's effects, as well as the speed of such, I suspect they're two different (but possibly related) substances. Black Goo as we've seen is a uniquely powerful Mutagenic substance with wide-ranging and unpredictable effects but not lethal in and of itself. The Sacrificial substance seems to have a singular, very specific purpose which is absolutely lethal...perhaps a DNA 'unpackager/decompiler', specific to the single task of seeding a world with the starting point of complex lifeforms?

Yes, the effect of the substance we see in the beginning of Prometheus appears to differ from the Black Goo, causing me to agree that they're different yet related (and separate from the Green Goo).

These strange substances weren't part of Spaihts' original ideas for how humanity's evolution was accelerated, so I have no real clue how it works...  I do think the unknown chemicals are related to each other and the ALIENS in some way -- similar to royal jelly.  That's just my guess, though.

I think the substance at the beginning of Prometheus and the substances in the ampule room are both black goo, but the goo in the ampule room is a weaponized version.  Basically the regular black goo is meant to mutate DNA, not necessarily for sinister purposes.  I think the Engineers ran across some other alien race who's DNA had some crazy properties.  Then either that race was exposed to the black goo or the Engineers experimented with it by adding the DNA to the black goo.  Then the Engineers realized they could use it as a weapon.  

So far we've seen quite a few different ways the goo can affect people, so my big question is... how consistent is it?

Does X+Y always = Z?

For example, the Deacon...

Does an infected human male + intercourse with human female always = trilobite?

And does trilobite + male engineer always = Deacon?

What if you replaced a human female with an Engineer female?  Things like that...

I think it's hard to predict things when dealing with such an unpredictable (or so it seems) substance.  

Hmmm, perhaps the engineers did find the xeno, and took its dna to make black goo, which effectively turns any life into a drooling lunatic.

but in the convenant thrown by David the  Black goo is sprayed in the air, it attacks humanoids and acts like the one from the beginning of Prometheus - it dissolves and destroys the body. again the worms that fell into the black goo turned into snakes that probably impregnate the victim. again swallowed probably by Holloway (we do not know exactly what David added to the drink and in what dose) causes the body to spread worms similar to those of Black goo white snakes later and so holloway's body as engineer's head dissolves veins and blood. And Engineers from lv 223 was poisoned by Black goo and their bodies explodes like on Convenant.

@Michart.....how best to help you with the black goo...

The black goo is many things and maybe this analogy will help you.

You have a cell phone and it has a small capacity cpu. We also have super computers that can make a phone call too through software; but, they have hundreds of thousands of powerful cpus and can do much more than just a phone call.

First of all the black goo is far more advanced nano technology that is tens of thousands of years past our current understanding of physics in general...so it could be just about anything.

In the scene with the sacrificial engineer he might have been thinking the thought for the black goo to reorganize it's matrix for it to break down his dna, his entire cellular matter and seed the planet. This is a more powerful sub atomic computer, many millions of times more powerful than the current cpus we use in all the super computers on our entire planet....obviously.

When we see David deploy it from the cargo hold...the black goo is programmed to be used as a weapon of mass destruction....it senses its rapid movement towards the ground and when it appears to form a black vapor it swarms to anything organic rapidly converting to baser elements like fixed carbon...you see them rapidly consumed and in a burned fixed state, charred chemically.

Hope that helps and gives you some ideas...the black goo is really what ever you want it to be....this technology is so advanced it can be what ever you need it to be. So dream big! Enjoy!