Future Fate of (Current) EU ?

[Kurai]

A lil alien magic is okay, the creature itself is infused with traits that don't seem possible. I just wish the "xenovirus" was a little more consistant I guess.

From all life creation, Trilobyte std's, Fifield monstering, deacon birthing, xeno-jungle ecosystem creating, Mt. Deacon making, elden thing-ing, Cancer hulking, alien / human body melding, brain deteriorating, all animal life killing, to neomorph creating. There just doesnt seem to be much of a rhyme or reason to it all.

Circumstances of infection are all different, there is also the factor of quantity of Black Goo involved in each occasion.

It's actually very easy to scientifically reconcile how the pathogen works but people tend to get clouded by the results without looking at the process of exposure/infection.

I've actually made a post in the past with my hypothesis that seems to still be mostly valid:

Spoiler

I skipped over a few pages so forgive me if someone brought this up already.

I read a few posts where people were saying that they were backtreading on what has already been established, changing how the Black Goo works and decanonizing Fire & Stone... This couldn't be further from the truth.

First of all, the Neomorphs are perfectly in line with what was established in Prometheus. As was clearly stated, this is the result of Black Goo mutating local wildlife, something that was entirely absent on Lv223 apart from perhaps those worms. What we do see is Holloway infected with Black Goo and proceeding to inseminate Shaw. His "Spore" infects Shaw with the Trilobite which could very well have burst from Shaw if it had been given the chance. Is the Trilobite a Neomorph? No. From what I can gather, the Neomorphs originate from a Black Goo mutated variant of local flora rather than a human so differences are quite acceptable in result of "cross polination". This all fits perfectly with Prometheus.

As for Fire and Stone... Lv223's Black Goo Monsters are the result of natural evolution accelerated by Black Goo on a planet totally absent of life outside of what was introduced by humans and the little Worms. We can also include alien micro-organisms that may have been spread by the awakened Engineer. The Spore Bearers, or whatever we want to call them, on Paradise are the result of an already established ecosystem becoming infected by the Black Goo and, as I stated in the above paragraph, as that matches with the effects in Prometheus it can match with the effects in Fire and Stone.

There's also the case of the unknown "Terraforming Device" discovered in the Engineer ruins during Fire and Stone. I don't have the issue with me right now, unfortunatly, but IIRC  it is stated that it is both an atmosphere generator as well as a biological seed injector working in tandem with the Black Goo.

Nothing has been invalidated, the EU is fine. 

[close]

You are reframing the previous info using the current info to make it fit. And it doesnt really. The snake showed a completely different weird cylce of worm, snake, monster/alien, to the one from that ended in Shaw. Liquid, man, woman, thing, alien.

Like i said, the liquid seems to have been created for the writers to come up with the stories as they like. Apparently, egg, facehugger, chestbuster, alien, was a bit limiting when it came to their imagination.

Not at all. The snake showed pretty much the same cycle, yet only one part of it. The snake started as a worm, perhaps a single-celled organism before that but that's reaching too far without evidence. The Black Goo caused it to mutate into a larger and highly aggressive form, the complexity of which was caused by the worms being drenched in Black Goo.

More Black Goo = More radical changes.

Holloway received a single drop of Black Goo which radically altered his DNA, drastically affecting his gametes. If he wasn't burnt to a crisp, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd have gone full on Goo-Zombie later.

Fifield ended up with his whole face in Black Goo after the snake incident, resulting in him turning into an aggressive zombie like Black Goo Mutant.

Black Goo Monsters:
Creatures evolving from Black Goo mixed with whatever biological matter was left over from the dead Prometheus crew members, Hammerpedes, Engineer and Engineer related micro-organisms. Possibly also related to the Deacon, as the BG-Sharks highly resemble it, and also related to the Engineer terraforming device.

Black Goo Mutants:
Organisms infected by the Black Goo. These include the Hammerpede, Fifield-Zombie, Horny-Holloway, Elden, Francis-Hulk, Xeno-Luiz, Pred-Hulk and various mutated Black Goo Monsters probably. If there are any I missed, let me know.

The Deacon Cycle:
This is a very intricate web of events which would be hard to replicate... First we have the infected Holloway spread infected gametes to Shaw via sexual intercourse. Shaw was barren, so chances are she didn't have any viable eggs and the mutant gametes instead fused with her uteral lining. The creature which was produced was the Trilobite. The Trilobite the proceeded to deposit an embryo into an Engineer through his mouth and the offspring of that match-up was the Deacon... Which lived happilly ever after as a mountain...   

Neomorphs:
From what I have seen, and so far the information is scant, only just the article we have here...
Neomorphs are the result of Black Goo Mutant plants spreading their gametes in the form of Spores. These Mutant Spores are breathed in by the crew of the Covenent and travel throughout the infected's body before something causes them to activate (speculation based on varying positions of Burster, though this may be wrong). Once activated, the spores begin merging with the genetic material of their host before reaching a level mature enough to violently eject themselves from their host. These juvenile 4-legged Neomorphs then grow into the big scary bipedal Neomorphs.

So yeah, again, I don't see how it contradicts anything.

You are reframing the previous info using the current info to make it fit.

Well no. I'm taking established depictions and pointing out that no new info has changed anything that was depicted. The current info matches the cycle that was presented in the old info. If new info reframes old info, well that's just how things work in real life.

For what it's worth I've always thought of the above as how the Black Goo works so the addition of the Neomorphs and the fact they line up so well with the above has little to do with new info.

The faunacidal effect is a bit of a head scratcher, but that could have a few causes.

A Modified Black Goo
David loves to tinker and we have, by his own statement, that he "learned their secrets". It would be no surprise if we learned David experimented along the way on the Black Goo for it to have this effect. I don't buy into this hypothesis but it should be noted as a possibility.

David was talking Bull
Look... David was seriously unhinged, and it would come as to no surprise that he could have been simply wrong. We know for a fact that there were no animals making an appearence in the movie, though we do know that there were once insects during David's 10 year stay which he experimented on. In the flashback scene I'm fairly certain that there is vegetation (I may be wrong) within the Engineer city whilst in the movie's present it's a barren wasteland. There's also the case of the spore pods which again suggests that it does indeed affect at least fungi (though they may be plants)

Black Goo is Cellulose-Intolerant (or similar)
While this may seem silly, it is a real world thing. If the Black Goo is indeed a biological thing, it may be that the bark of trees and the leaves of plants are capable of withstanding the mutagenic effects by being toxic to the mutagen itself. This could be the more fun choice.

These are just three off the top of my head. While I doubt the people working on the films actually care and are indeed making it up as they go along, there is nothing that can't be reconciled with looking at the case studies and how they relate to eachother. 

[Ultramorph]

Just a few thoughts I've had regarding the EU and Covenant since the home release:

I know that the writers of the comics and novels had limited access to information about Covenant while it was in production, but I can definitely see how Fox guided the EU in certain ways to tie-in with what the film would be doing.

The biggest example for me is Davis in Defiance. The entire arc about Davis going rogue and reprogramming himself to become a more human individual has definite echoes of what we would later see with David in the recent film. Davis is almost a fool to that arc: he's David if he became a protagonist and not a villain.

Looking at the special features, specifically Advent, also raises interesting possibilities about some of the mysteries in Defiance. If we assume that David's transmission is actually canon, and that he was in contact with WY in the period after Covenant, that possibly explains where the xenos in that series came from. Maybe WY got them directly from David, or followed his instructions and made them. Maybe Big Ugly was the result of their experiments.

Looking at Advent again, David confirms that the goo is a "radical AI," so it makes sense why they allowed Abnett to confirm that the goo is artificial in Life and Death. The urns also float in Life and Death the way they do in The Crossing, so I do wonder if Abnett saw that particular viral.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into things, but it's looking to me like Covenant might actually add to the current EU rather than detract from it. Here's hoping we get some new stuff announced later this year.

[Naginata]

Honestly, at this point? I really don't care about the canon question anymore. If they wanna tell stories set in this universe, they're just gonna have to accept that not everything might fit 100% come the next movie. I think they should just go with the flow and have the comics/novels/etc. follow their own continuity. If curve-balls from the movies can be made to fit with some creative retcons, fine. If not, also fine. The comics all "happened" exactly as much as the movies did, which is not at all.

Suspension of disbelief can cover inconsistent acid potency or the dates being 'off.' What it can't cover is this constant (and tedious) marketing-speak about what will and will not be considered "official to the current EU." That way lies madness and every story having tying into Aliens in some convoluted way.

[Xenomrph]

Honestly, at this point? I really don't care about the canon question anymore. If they wanna tell stories set in this universe, they're just gonna have to accept that not everything might fit 100% come the next movie. I think they should just go with the flow and have the comics/novels/etc. follow their own continuity. If curve-balls from the movies can be made to fit with some creative retcons, fine. If not, also fine. The comics all "happened" exactly as much as the movies did, which is not at all.

Suspension of disbelief can cover inconsistent acid potency or the dates being 'off.' What it can't cover is this constant (and tedious) marketing-speak about what will and will not be considered "official to the current EU." That way lies madness and every story having tying into Aliens in some convoluted way.

This guy gets it.

[Ultramorph]

As long as the stories are good, I don't really mind if the films and EU go their own ways. It was the case for almost 20 years anyway. I'm just surprised the latest crop mostly survived Covenant.

[Naginata]

This guy gets it.

Not a guy, but thanks anyway. 

[EJA]

Honestly, at this point? I really don't care about the canon question anymore. If they wanna tell stories set in this universe, they're just gonna have to accept that not everything might fit 100% come the next movie. I think they should just go with the flow and have the comics/novels/etc. follow their own continuity. If curve-balls from the movies can be made to fit with some creative retcons, fine. If not, also fine. The comics all "happened" exactly as much as the movies did, which is not at all.

Suspension of disbelief can cover inconsistent acid potency or the dates being 'off.' What it can't cover is this constant (and tedious) marketing-speak about what will and will not be considered "official to the current EU." That way lies madness and every story having tying into Aliens in some convoluted way.

This, basically. And we can't really trust Scott anymore anyway.

[SM]

What 'constant marketing speak about what's canon'"?

[EJA]

The EU and the new movies by Scott simply cannot coexist. It's one or the other.

[426Buddy]

The EU and the new movies by Scott simply cannot coexist. It's one or the other.

Why?

[GreybackElder]

i think the EU is effected( I know I said it wasn't but the more I think about it, the more it is).Doesn't most novels occur after the events of Alien? The idea of an "Alien Homeworld" in some of the novels would have to be retconned because there is no homeworld because the Alien would be David's creation(if that is what Ridley's intent is) .I'm not sure how Ridley is planning on rectifying the scene in Alien with the space jockey and the ovomorphs.It would seem that all the AVP movies(If you consider it cannon)including predator 2(if you consider predator cannon)are no longer cannon if the xeno is a "new" creation. In fact does the prequels retcon the whole alien life cycle? If Ridley removes the queen from the life cycle(a James Cameron idea) it would completely retcon Aliens. I've mentioned this before I think these prequels are going to be just like the starwars prequels. They exist but change a fundamental notion that may ruin how you view the movie. If everything is explained away in prequels it leaves nothing to the imagination and the mystery and allure that made a character or franchise so appealing is lost.

[SM]

All the pre-2014 stuff hasn't been regarded as canon for sometime anyway.

This film and the directions those in charge of licensing choose to take will dictate what's canon and what's not in future.

And the next film will likely change things yet again.

[426Buddy]

Covenant still works with Fire&Stone and everything since I believe. But it doesnt really matter since the films have always invalidated the EU.

Besides, being canon or not has no bearing on my enjoyment of EU material anyway.

[SM]

Nor should it.

The presence of Predators in things like F+S can be a little muddy though.

[Corporal Hicks]

Covenant still works with Fire&Stone and everything since I believe. But it doesnt really matter since the films have always invalidated the EU.

Besides, being canon or not has no bearing on my enjoyment of EU material anyway.

I'm in 2 minds about this. Your second point is completely spot on and can never take away from the quality of the product but sometimes, it's just satisfying to know that more care is being taken.