Davids role in the fate of the Engineers home planet

Started by Geonaise, Apr 22, 2021, 12:44:37 AM

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Davids role in the fate of the Engineers home planet (Read 4,146 times)

Geonaise

Geonaise

I would like someone to put the pieces together from David's time on the Engineers home planet.

When David arrived the planet was thriving with a complex environment full of life. Insects, fish, mammals and who knows what else. David lived on the planet for many years and in this time he "created" destructive projects.

1) What we learned was that the spores that were released from the fungus, that the unwitting crew from Covenant stepped on, destroys all animal life.  I'm just assuming David engineered this fungus and it's spore and distributed it throughout the world. Did David mean to kill all animal life or was it just a necessary measure to ensure all the remaining engineers were eliminated?

2) David carpet bombed the landing site on the engineers planet with the pathogen which killed everyone in range. How far did the pathogen reach?

3) He also carried out experiments and ultimately torture on a large number of engineers. How did he capture and control them? The engineers seemed pretty tough in Prometheus and I doubt even with David's strength that he would be a match for them. 

4) How long was David there between the time he and Shaw arrived to the landing of the Covenant crew?

5) If David was in need of new humanoid life forms to carry out his experiments, why did he just remain on the planet and not take one of the ships and set out to find them himself? Why set up the distress signal in the first place? Simply madness?

SM

1) I think he just released it because he wanted to kill his creator's creator, and become godlike.  Also to see what would happen.

2) Considering the rainfall and storms that blanket the planet - I reckon after 10 years the mote pods would be everywhere and will have wiped out all animal life.

3) I don't believe he would have any issues restraining an Engineer.  We don't know if the number was large or not really.  The overwhelming majority could've been killed during the initial bombing.

4) Ten years.

5) The Juggernaut crashed.  If he could've left in another ship, then he would've (any references to other ships in deleted scenes don't make much sense, which is perhaps why they were deleted).  We don't know that he sent Shaw's signal, though it's a good bet he knew about it and hoped it would attract other ships.

Immortan Jonesy

Totally agree.

Quote from: SM on Apr 22, 2021, 02:19:26 AM
1) I think he just released it because he wanted to kill his creator's creator, and become godlike.  Also to see what would happen.

It is special with this. David didn't know how the accelerant worked, other than his "experiment / homicide" on Prometheus. He learned here that it doesn't kill plant life, only the "meat".

BigDaddyJohn

Do we even know for sure it's their home planet though ?

[cancerblack]

It's treated as such both in the films and behind the scenes, but like anything, that can/will change on a whim.

The Necronoir

The Necronoir

#5
1 ) I personally don't think David "created" the spores and neomorphs, in any direct sense anyway. From what we've observed regarding how the accelerant works, the higher the dosage the more violent and chaotic the mutations it causes. When the payload is dumped on the plaza we see the engineers literally exploding into mutated forms, but none of them seem to live more than a few seconds. The decapitated head in Prometheus reacts in a similar way once reanimated, belonging to one of the engineers exposed during the initial breach. Compare that to what happens to the engineer in the prologue, as well as Holloway and Fifield, who are all exposed to much smaller amounts.

As such, I think that the effects of the accelerant would have slowed as it dispersed into the wider environment over time, with mutations eventually stabilising to the point that they were beginning to form more sustainable organisms and lifecycles like the spores/neomorphs. From what we see of David's lab, it doesn't look like he had access to much technology beyond what we might equate with a physician of the enlightenment era, so I also don't think it's likely he "created" the protomorph directly either. More likely, we was conducting experiments through controlled exposure to the accelerant, along with some selective breeding, similar to traditional horticulture. Yes, it's still a form of genetic engineering, but it's very rudimentary compared to what the engineers on LV-223 must have been doing.

In a sense, he was applying his systematic rationale to the chaos that is the accelerant, but it still has an overall trajectory that ends with xenomorph-like organisms. That would explain the mural we see in Prometheus, not to mention the aeons-old wreck in Alien.

2 ) I don't think we'll ever know, but it must have been far enough to wipe out all of the engineers, or at least isolate them away from any means of contacting their kin on other worlds. Otherwise you think they would have sounded the alarm in the intervening period.

3 ) It's likely that any who survived the initial bombardment would have been driven into hiding, and probably weakened over time. Do we have proof that they were actually alive before he dissected them though? It's possible he just found and examined corpses that pre-dated his bombing raid.

4 ) I thought the Prometheus had been missing for ten years. That would imply that they arrived almost immediately, which seems to run counter to what David says in The Crossing. It's certainly possible though.

5 ) I think one of the reasons he wanted fresh human subjects was that the protomorph strain he'd bred hadn't been given a trial run yet. You wouldn't want to pack them into another juggernaut and unleash them on humanity only to find that they're a dud. Basically, I don't think he was confident taking them out of the lab yet. It's worth giving some thought to Walter's suggestion that he was actually malfunctioning too - basically going out of his mind.

Immortan Jonesy

Even if it wasn't David (spore creator), the accelerant finds a way  :laugh:

Kradan

Kradan

#7
Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Apr 22, 2021, 06:20:12 AM
the accelerant

TQ:





Quote from: Geonaise on Apr 22, 2021, 12:44:37 AM
3) He also carried out experiments and ultimately torture on a large number of engineers. How did he capture and control them? The engineers seemed pretty tough in Prometheus and I doubt even with David's strength that he would be a match for them. 

Well, one ripped his head off with its bare hands, so there's that

Immortan Jonesy

Quote from: The Necronoir on Apr 22, 2021, 01:43:59 PM
5 ) I think one of the reasons he wanted fresh human subjects was that the protomorph strain he'd bred hadn't been given a trial run yet. You wouldn't want to pack them into another juggernaut and unleash them on humanity only to find that they're a dud. Basically, I don't think he was confident taking them out of the lab yet. It's worth giving some thought to Walter's suggestion that he was actually malfunctioning too - basically going out of his mind.

Engineers being killed by Aliens. That was the final frontier.


Kradan

I think we all can agree that poster was a bit of bullshit

BigDaddyJohn

Yep, such a shame since it's a beautiful one.

bb-15

Quote from: Geonaise on Apr 22, 2021, 12:44:37 AM
I would like someone to put the pieces together from David's time on the Engineers home planet.

When David arrived the planet was thriving with a complex environment full of life. Insects, fish, mammals and who knows what else. David lived on the planet for many years and in this time he "created" destructive projects.

1) What we learned was that the spores that were released from the fungus, that the unwitting crew from Covenant stepped on, destroys all animal life.  I'm just assuming David engineered this fungus and it's spore and distributed it throughout the world. Did David mean to kill all animal life or was it just a necessary measure to ensure all the remaining engineers were eliminated?

2) David carpet bombed the landing site on the engineers planet with the pathogen which killed everyone in range. How far did the pathogen reach?

3) He also carried out experiments and ultimately torture on a large number of engineers. How did he capture and control them? The engineers seemed pretty tough in Prometheus and I doubt even with David's strength that he would be a match for them. 

4) How long was David there between the time he and Shaw arrived to the landing of the Covenant crew?

5) If David was in need of new humanoid life forms to carry out his experiments, why did he just remain on the planet and not take one of the ships and set out to find them himself? Why set up the distress signal in the first place? Simply madness?

1. Imo David did not engineer the fungus on the Paradise planet. The original fungus was native to the planet as fungus is native on earth. The black goo pathogen transformed the fungus so that black goo fungus + human = neomorph.
The black goo pathogen reacts with different species in various ways to create killer monsters as seen in Prometheus and discussed by David in Covenant.

2-4. Answered by SM. The black goo pathogen eventually, through natural processes, spread to the entire planet.
David has phenomenal strength as seen in the storm in Prometheus and used that to either control living/healthy Engineers or found dead/weakened Engineers.

5. David going to earth or Mars with a juggernaut carrying some proto-Xenomorph eggs would not be a good plan. On those planets David would be greatly outnumbered by humans and would be captured by them once he infected someone with a face hugger. Better to wait for a few colonists to come to Paradise who would be much easier to control.
The signal was a way to attract someone to the Paradise planet. The idea is used in "Alien".

;)

Immortan Jonesy

Somehow I was imagining David fighting the LV-426 Engineer in an epic battle during the climax of an imaginary Covenant 2. I thought maybe David managed to infect the Space Jockey.  :laugh:

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