Puff Balls?

[Denton Smalls]

Bought and watched the Blu-Ray with the commentary on yesterday and was hoping Ridley would took about the spores and how they came to be but all he really says is "puff balls."

However, something I noticed watching in slow mo and up close was that there were many more spores than I noticed both times in the theater. The scene when they are walking amongst the cut down trees toward the crashed juggernaut, there are many spores either attached to or growing out of the trees. There's also many more in the entrance where Hallet was infected. It's a wonder that only two people were impregnated.

So David drops the virus on the population in the square, but how does that lead to eventual spores? Is that an intended effect of the pathogen or is that David's doing, setting booby traps and what not?

[Baron Von Marlon]

They're local bug eggs mutated by the pathogen.
Ridley calls them puffballs because their design is based on the puffball mushroom.

[Denton Smalls]

I can live with that. Was there any explanation about how the virus traveled beyond the town square and how far its effects reach?

[Baron Von Marlon]

David "The original liquid atomized to particles when exposed to the air."

To atomize: convert (a substance) into very fine particles or droplets.

I guess it got mixed with air and the wind spread it around the city.

[SM]

It's possible the mote emitters spawned on the Juggernaut (considering there's a stack of them in the bomb bay where Hallett is infected) after it crashed and were carried by either air or water out of the ship and down the valley to where Ledward was infected.

[Baron Von Marlon]

It's possible the mote emitters spawned on the Juggernaut (considering there's a stack of them in the bomb bay where Hallett is infected) after it crashed and were carried by either air or water out of the ship and down the valley to where Ledward was infected.

Good thinking. With all the hills it's logical it would work its way downward other areas

I can also imagine David walking around with some goo and a pipette spreading droplets wherever he sees fit.
It's what I would do if I was a crazy android with too much time on my hands and in possession of special pathogen.

[Highland]

I guess the Spores also don't act terribly different to the eggs. They lay dormant until it's party time.

[whiterabbit]

I was figuring when a neomorph runs it's life cycle it would turn into a spore bomb and seed the entire area with puff balls. Like what happens in a earlier draft of Alien.

[Rudiger]

Puff and Balls. Two words that seem entirely appropriate for A:C.

[Denton Smalls]

Seeing as the next Ridley prequel will probably cap the trilogy, you think will we get hard answers since there will be no more installments to address all the lingering questions or will Awakening or whatever it ends up being called be sort of ambiguous like the previous two?

[SM]

I wouldn't have thought so.  It'll likely finish David's story but things like 'how the pathogen works' and the resulting creatures come about - I doubt it.

[Rudiger]

I really don't care what happens next.

David bores me. Daniels and Tennessee were instantly forgettable. And, of course, we now know where the alien came from.

Sure, there's the question of how the eggs got onto the original derelict. But that question has been around since the 1970s, and that was never something that I've worried about all that much.

They've had two cracks at creating an exciting new story, and for me they've failed spectacularly. Such a waste.

[bb-15]

Bought and watched the Blu-Ray with the commentary on yesterday and was hoping Ridley would took about the spores and how they came to be but all he really says is "puff balls."

As stated in the thread, there is a puff ball mushroom. More about that from Wikipedia;

A puffball is a member of any of several groups of fungi...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffball

The puffball fungus can look like this.



Which is similar to the shape of the fungus on the ground in "Covenant".

So David drops the virus on the population in the square, but how does that lead to eventual spores? Is that an intended effect of the pathogen or is that David's doing, setting booby traps and what not?

* Fungus spores are in the air in our world.
You can test this by leaving bread out for a couple of weeks and watching mold grow on it. Mold comes from spores.
- Fungus spores would naturally be in the air of the Engineer homeworld; the Paradise planet.

* The black goo alters life by the design of the Engineers. It is the intended effect of the pathogen.
The black goo released over the city by David immediately was mutating fungus spores, insects, and some of the panicked Engineers on the ground.

Seeing as the next Ridley prequel will probably cap the trilogy, you think will we get hard answers since there will be no more installments to address all the lingering questions or will Awakening or whatever it ends up being called be sort of ambiguous like the previous two?

Imo even with another film, many of the mysteries of the Engineers will remain unsolved.
Ridley's intention over 20 years ago (in his "Alien" commentary) was to give more information about the Space Jockey/Engineers.
He has done that.
- Similar with the 4 previous Alien movies; this older part of the franchise didn't explain everything about the xenomorphs (their origin for instance).

* With Ridley's two Engineer films, he has now shifted his focus to out of control AI which is represented by David. (This is discussed in the "Covenant" commentary.)
- A fear of out of control AI may explain many of the Engineer's hostile motivations towards humanity (as seen in "Prometheus").
It could be seen that a culture which is not disciplined (from the Engineer's POV) could produce intelligent machines which could lead to human destruction and then spread through the galaxy.
- This idea is touched on in several science fiction stories, for instance from the Terminator films, the Matrix trilogy, the Battlestar Galactica reboot and so on;
AI surpassing humanity, even leading to the extinction of humanity.

- David and his potential (and androids with his kind of thinking) at this point in the Alien franchise seems to represent the fear for the Engineers and the main danger to humanity. 

[Corporal Hicks]

I wouldn't have thought so.  It'll likely finish David's story but things like 'how the pathogen works' and the resulting creatures come about - I doubt it.

Aye, I think it's been pretty clear for a while that's Ridley's interest is in David, not the Alien and its associated baggage.

[Denton Smalls]

Good points bb-15. Even David states that the pathogen is a radical AI, so the theme of an out of control AI is reinforced there as well.