Engineer's planet or "seed-race" that the Engineers "planted"?

Started by Ingwar, Mar 16, 2021, 01:44:27 PM

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Engineer's planet or "seed-race" that the Engineers "planted"? (Read 12,356 times)

Immortan Jonesy

Quote from: TNF on Apr 04, 2021, 06:00:51 PM
If O'Bannon thought of the Alien as a blood relative of the Yog-Sothoth, perhaps there is some rank of Great Ones further up the Lovecraftian hierarchy than derelict pilots and engineers that remain unseen? Humankind would be below their interest, of which the Company's careless regard for human life is a faint echo.

Yes! I'd be delighted if it's revealed that Engineers aren't exactly the ultimate Old Ones. They don't need to explain too much anyway. Just take Predator 2 as an example: the Lost Tribe Ship, the trophy room, the Elder and the 1715 flintlock pistol. These are details that tell us the Predator has hunted many species and that it has been doing so for a long time. You can do something similar in a short prequel scene, where you tell the audience through details that there is something beyond the Engineer, and that is.


bb-15

bb-15

#46
Quote from: judge death on Mar 19, 2021, 12:08:34 AM
Still no explanation how it crashed.

Correct. Ridley Scott's science fiction (not counting "The Martian") does not have multiple explanations. (For example like "Agents of Shield" or Star Trek.)
The juggernaut crashed in Covenant. I assume something on the planet caused that, like a defense.

Quote from: judge death on Mar 19, 2021, 12:08:34 AM
...a high tech civilistation easily should have lots more ships,

Not necessarily. All the ships could be away.
Notice that the population was clearly not afraid in Covenant. They were not expecting that some enemy/android took over one of their ships.

Quote from: judge death on Mar 19, 2021, 12:08:34 AM
why do they have only one small city at that point? the whole planet should be full of ... towns for a civilistation of that tech they have.

You are thinking in limited terms of a civilization that might last a few hundred to a 1000 years and then collapses due to over population, pollution, too much global warming.
- From "Prometheus" we know the Engineer civilization lasted at least millions of years and possibly a billion+ years.
- The Engineer planet civilization could have been sustainable there for eons (until David came). One small city indicates that it's population seems to be controlled.
Having a large wilderness around the planet indicates that this civilization is in harmony with its environment very long term. 

What about weapons manufacturing? It seems that was done on LV-223.

Quote from: judge death on Mar 19, 2021, 12:08:34 AM
David dropping the pathogen at the center of the one town they have is enough to wipe out the planet...

Yes. That shows how deadly the black goo is as a weapon. It can wipe out / alter the life on an entire planet.

Quote from: Trash Queen on Apr 04, 2021, 12:34:24 AM
Not much more lethal? Yeah... Right...  ::)

Absolutely right. The xenomorphs by themselves have no ranged weapons. A shotgun can kill one of them. A group of unarmed prisoners can kill one of them. A woman with a flamethrower can kill Xenos.
- Imagine a modern military with planes, night vision (infrared), large bombs, missiles. They would easily wipe out thousands of xenos. 
- In AVP one nuke killed swarms of xenos. And the Predators kept xenos around for their war games under their control.

As a weapon the xenos are relatively primitive for a super advanced civilization. Scott understood that xenos were a weapon at least since the DVD release of "Alien".

;)

BlueMarsalis79

Quote from: Trash Queen on Mar 23, 2021, 05:38:54 PM
I agree the Drone's what you get with an Alien and human, the Runner's what you get with an Alien and animal, the PredAlien's what you get with an Alien and Predator, they all have an obvious trajectory, even if we do not quite understand every aspect.

I also do not see in any way that this comes across as something the Engineers or humanity might create.

We know Ridley Scott's understanding on it's influenced by our real world, and in that respect as he often likes to say, The Pathogen's got a logic to it of clearing out the meat as fast as possible and then die out so things can start again in a way the Alien does not.

I believe David's the one that instituted the Alien having black skin and something evocative of biomechanical beginnings, The Pathogen's always produces the opposite, white skin and nothing biomechanical present.

But even if that's revealed not to be the case, the fact the Alien's a rapist's part of the focal point of it's identity with or without a creator's influence, able to spread farther through longer incubation periods, self sustain, and then stay dormant waiting for anything that's not itself to find it again in essence farming anywhere it's able to take over completely.

The Alien and The Pathogen exist as fundamentally unique from each other in this way, related in that one comes from the other, but the latter does not carry all the features of the former that much's clear.

So just applying the features of the Alien to anything you want, arbitrarily through the Pathogen's just lazy at best, and a total misunderstanding of the core at each's function.

As for the rest of your statement firstly
(lol using AVP as a form of evidence)

They can spit acid.

It's never shown in the films that fire can kill the adults.

It's fairly clear within the laws of the Alien fiction both via the films and The RPG and especially The Cold Forge, Into Charybdis, and Phalanx that victory for the humans' a rarity not a commonality.

I think your understanding's rather narrow on this.


bb-15

Quote from: Trash Queen on Mar 23, 2021, 05:38:54 PM
I agree the Drone's what you get with an Alien and human, the Runner's what you get with an Alien and animal, the PredAlien's what you get with an Alien and Predator, they all have an obvious trajectory, even if we do not quite understand every aspect.

I also do not see in any way that this comes across as something the Engineers or humanity might create.

We know Ridley Scott's understanding on it's influenced by our real world, and in that respect as he often likes to say, The Pathogen's got a logic to it of clearing out the meat as fast as possible and then die out so things can start again in a way the Alien does not.

I believe David's the one that instituted the Alien having black skin and something evocative of biomechanical beginnings, The Pathogen's always produces the opposite, white skin and nothing biomechanical present.

But even if that's revealed not to be the case, the fact the Alien's a rapist's part of the focal point of it's identity with or without a creator's influence, able to spread farther through longer incubation periods, self sustain, and then stay dormant waiting for anything that's not itself to find it again in essence farming anywhere it's able to take over completely.

The Alien and The Pathogen exist as fundamentally unique from each other in this way, related in that one comes from the other, but the latter does not carry all the features of the former that much's clear.

- As for what David did, imo he duplicated what the Engineers created before. On the relief sculpture in the shrine room in "Prometheus" there is a Xenomorph egg.
In the "Covenant" commentary Scott says that the creature (Xenomorph/"the Alien") is weaponized (from the Neomorph). Who did that? David in Covenant. Before that the Space Jockeys/Engineers did it.
In film there is no connection between David and the Derelict.   
David's story is done AFAIK meaning imo Disney will not continue it.

- I agree that the Xenomorph ("the Alien") is not a first stage creation from the black goo (the "Pathogen").
As you pointed out, there are features on the Xenomorph which are not apparent on the Deacon, or Neomorph.

However, that does not eliminate the concept that the Engineers/Space Jockeys had a hand in the creation of the Xenomorph.
- It has already been stated by Ridley Scott that the Xenomorphs were weapons of the Space Jockeys going all the way back to the DVD commentary.
- In the "Prometheus" writer's commentary it is mentioned that there is a relationship between the Deacon and the Xenomorph.
This is explored further in the Blu-ray extras by Steven Messing, Visual Effects Art Director for Prometheus, in the 3D Blu-Ray set (Enhancement Pods/Xenomorphology: The Deacon). The Xenomorph evolved from the Deacon/ultramorph.

QuoteThe Xenomorph in my mind was a descendant of the Ultramorph. It was the pure form of this kind of almost virus that these Engineers had created.

They're a lot about sacrifice, so in my mind, there was an Engineer that sacrificed himself with this virus and it created this horrific creature, this being that was gonna eradicate planets. It was like a parasite that would destroy the planet and then make it start over and rebirth it.

And they kinda worshiped it, and that's where you see this relief sculpture where it's almost a religious sculpture.

As it got kind of... the virus spread and got polluted, the Xenomorph was an evolutionary descendant that was not as pure.

Such Deacon to Xenomorph evolution would have been monitored/guided by the Engineers. After all, the Derelict is carrying Xenomorphs.

Quote from: Trash Queen on Apr 07, 2021, 11:20:26 PM
So just applying the features of the Alien to anything you want, arbitrarily through the Pathogen's just lazy at best, and a total misunderstanding of the core at each's function.

I don't think I've misunderstood anything and I certainly don't believe that my thinking is "lazy at best".

Quote from: Trash Queen on Apr 07, 2021, 11:20:26 PM
(lol using AVP as a form of evidence)

You brought up this;
"the PredAlien's what you get with an Alien and Predator,"

The PredAlien idea comes from the AVP franchise including "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_vs._Predator%3A_Requiem

If you bring up the AVP franchise, I can too.

Quote from: Trash Queen on Apr 07, 2021, 11:20:26 PM
They can spit acid.

Spitting is barely a ranged weapon effective for a few  feet / meters in the films (more about that below). In my first comment in this thread (which you responded to) I wrote;

"the Xenomorphs... are biological creatures with some upgrades but they are not much more lethal than a grizzly bear combined with a spitting cobra."

So, you should already know that I realize that the Xenomorph can spit. The question is whether this is an effective ranged weapon (In the movies) compared to what modern humans can create. No it isn't.
A spitting cobra could be killed at distance (far beyond spitting range) by a machine gun, a bomb, or a rocket. Same with a Xenomorph.

Quote from: Trash Queen on Apr 07, 2021, 11:20:26 PM
It's never shown in the films that fire can kill the adults.

Fire does kill young xenos but you are right about adults in the films. Which means you don't count the games such as.
https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Ripley_(Space_Marine)

I don't either. More about that below.

Quote from: Trash Queen on Apr 07, 2021, 11:20:26 PM
It's fairly clear within the laws of the Alien fiction both via ... The RPG and especially The Cold Forge, Into Charybdis, and Phalanx that victory for the humans' a rarity not a commonality.

In the movies the Xenomorphs would be wiped out by the full force of a modern military. In the films the Xenos are defeated every time by a handful of people.

As I wrote, I don't count the games. Imo in 50 years "Alien" will be remembered and these games will be forgotten. 

- But I can see that you have been strongly influenced by the games in your conclusions.
Fair enough. We can agree to disagree.

;)

BlueMarsalis79

Behind the scenes material does not matter though, we never see the Egg relief or Facehugger in the film itself after the atmosphere's affected in the room only in the Making of the Film, and as for the mural it's clearly either a Neomorph or Deacon.

I used the PredAlien merely as an example of the "DNA Reflex" just as with the Runner and the Drone, but the AVP films, hold no relevance whatsoever to me as with many who work on the license.

I like the way you did not respond to this part that completely deconstructs your argument:

"But even if that's revealed not to be the case, the fact the Alien's a rapist's part of the focal point of it's identity with or without a creator's influence, able to spread farther through longer incubation periods, self sustain, and then stay dormant waiting for anything that's not itself to find it again in essence farming anywhere it's able to take over completely."

Also I referenced only the one tabletop Role Playing Game, the rest's the books, nor do I equate popularity with importance as you do: if I did you can easily make the argument that lots of younger people certainly know Alien more from Isolation than the films themselves.

Wiped out? Perhaps but if you go by the films, in every case every one but Morse who encountered them died because of being in contact with them apart from Alien Resurrection that shows the cost to Earth of wiping them out as they immediately took over a military vessel, even in the most true to life depiction within the fiction neither side wipes the other out easily.

The_Nostromo_Files

The_Nostromo_Files

#50
Quote from: bb-15 on Apr 10, 2021, 08:47:36 PM
In the "Covenant" commentary Scott says that the creature (Xenomorph/"the Alien") is weaponized (from the Neomorph).
Might be time to get around to listening to that.


Quote from: bb-15 on Apr 10, 2021, 08:47:36 PM
David's story is done AFAIK meaning imo Disney will not continue it.
I lean towards thinking I'd rather see it "done," with what actually happened to those poor colonists left to the imagination.


Kradan

Kradan

#52
 "f**king hologram"

"Sometimes to create you need to destroy. You know whose line that is ? Joseph Stalin's"

:D

BlueMarsalis79

"The blowholes are like, varying."

Kradan

Kradan

#54
https://youtu.be/C5prEpOXlWg

"Dudong"

"Horses got a giant erection"

Immortan Jonesy

Aaaaay these videos are fun  ;D

Stitch

I somehow don't think that these parody edits are too far from the truth

Geonaise

I noticed a few people commented about how could this supposedly advanced species have only one small city on their home world. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is an entire PLANET we are talking about that could have easily had hundreds or thousands of cities across it. The one where David landed may have been the equivalent of a quaint country village to the engineers for all we know. David evidently captured some of the engineers for his experiments over the years, he had to get them from elsewhere didn't he?

City Hunter Yautja

Its possible the Engineers have outpost planets, I mean they had weapon testing planet in Prometheus. So I think they aren't all gone despite David's efforts.

The_Nostromo_Files

Quote from: City Hunter Yautja on Jul 15, 2021, 01:46:39 AM
Its possible the Engineers have outpost planets, I mean they had weapon testing planet in Prometheus.
Agreed, based on Yanek's dialogue with Shaw around 01:31:00: "This ain't their home. It's an installation. Maybe even military. Now they put it out here in the middle of nowhere because they're not stupid enough to make weapons of mass destruction on their own doorstep." (That was fun, dipping into that scene for a moment...)

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