Quote from: The Old One on Jul 18, 2018, 11:53:32 PM
Your first point I really like, although it does remind me of how the Marker always leads to the creation of Necromorphs in Dead Space despite trying to use it for other reasons.
I'm familiar with the Dead Space video games and I've watched replay videos etc. of people playing them on YouTube, but I have never played the games myself. With that said I'm fine with the Black Goo/Mutagen/Xenomorph Essence being very much similar to the concept of the Marker.
Also, as a side note, I've followed the conversations regarding the new Alien comic ALIEN: The Cold Forge in which the main scientist discovers that the Facehugger doesn't implant an embryo per se rather than some hyper fast gene/chromosome altering/evolving "virus" (some kind of mass or LIQUID) which is what forces the host's body to turn its own components into the actual Chestburster embryo. Maybe the Black Goo is nothing but extracted, even synthesized, Facehugger implantation mutagen?
The Space Jockeys probably saw the potential in the Facehugger implantation mutagen (Xenomorph Essence) and tried to, like I already mentioned, harness and even synthesize the Xenomorph Essence for an abundance of other uses than producing Xenomorphs/Aliens. The Space Jockeys thought that they could completely override the Xenomorph nature of the source by turning into an industrialized technology (all their tech, structures and vessels seem to be biomechanoid a la Xenomorph) just to find out that even when 'controlled' and 'synthesized', seemingly evolved and utilized 'safely' for eons, the Black Goo will eventually, at some point, end up producing Xenomorphs no matter what.
In that scope, taking A:TCF (ALIEN: The Cold Forge) in account, it all turns into a literal yet quite deadly play on the age-old Chicken-or-the-Egg conundrum.
Quote2, I could take or leave- and wouldn't need to be done blatantly as that can already be inferred if you firmly establish 3 in the narrative.
I agree that there's no need to explicitly hammer it down in order for the audience to get it, but I do think it's of importance to make it heavily implied that the Engineers are prehistoric humans abducted by the Space Jockeys at some point (visually the natives of Paradise - Engineer pleb - almost look like they could have Neanderthal origins). The reason I think it's important has to do with the need of mystery and things being alien to us rather than thoroughly explained and relatable, which is the way things are now with PROM and A:C. Making the Space Jockey alien again, separating it from the Engineers, is one way to bring back the mystery of the Space Jockey and the Derelict from ALIEN, and by spelling out that the Engineers are literally humans from Earth also dispels the idea that humans (Engineers in this case) have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, maybe million years and that humans have been the formative power, drive and presence throughout the galaxy ever since. We need to be taken back a few notches and eat some humble pie.
The downside of this take is that it's pretty similar to the original concept of Star Gate (the movie), but I'm perfectly ok with that as Star Gate (the movie, not the series) is one of my favorite modern(wish) popcorn friendly sci-fi movies. It does a lot of things well on the mystery department for one.
Quote from: The Old One on Jul 18, 2018, 03:48:31 PM
My main concern is that the above stay congruent.
Maybe if you went with your idea of the SJ being something other, it could be one of many races that recreated the Alien in the past and it doomed them as it did many before them. You could fill the universe with new ruins, and new intrigue whilst maintaining the tone of the fiction.
Exactly! It would also make the Alien universe unique in a sense. Instead of introducing sentient new non-Xenomorph aliens all the time for us humans to interact with, we instead run into the ruins and remains of other races that bumped into the Xenomorph/Black Goo millions of years before we did (they were either wiped out by Xenomorph infestations or losing control of the Black Goo at some point or another). I guess the book series of ALIENS: In the Shadows and River of Pain etc. introduced this concept with the addition of the extinct "Dog-Aliens" race.
With that said: Arcturians ARE human colonists inhabiting worlds inside the Arcturian solar/star system rather than being some kind of Star Trekkish extraterrestrial race. Yes, one could argue that they (Arcturians) could be yet another slew of humans from Earth abducted by Space Jockeys (or even Engineers), but that would take away from the uniqueness and mystery of the Engineers and kind of opens up this concept of the entire Milky Way being inhabited by abducted human offshoots, much like Star Gate the TV series, which I DON'T like.