It is Impossible

[SM]

If the Juggernaut is any indication, it survived this pretty much unscathed.

https://media.giphy.com/media/AW6PuIumNLhe/giphy.gif

A bit trashed inside but barely a scratch or scorch mark on the outside.

Which reinforces an idea I had for a long while that the Derelict didn't crash.

[The Old One]

You think it parked?

Why exactly, because of the impossible space in the cargo hold?

[SM]

Not parked.  Just landed intentionally.  Pilot knew he was hugged, set down and sent the warning before her burstered.

Of course flying into the sun would've been preferable but you can't have everything.

[SiL]

There was a nice big gas giant right there.

[Huggs]

There was a nice big gas giant right there.

I don't remember any big a** giant. Except for the one in the chair.

[Xenomrph]

Attacking why someone is arguing something is a pretty hefty logical fallacy.

I think you got lost. That entire conversation was about people using "Canon", "lore" etc to ignore what they don't like. Pointing out your arguments are often based on what you do or don't like isn't a logical fallacy when we're literally discussing why people argue what they do

Maybe I did get lost because that's not what I was gathering from the conversation at all.

That doesn't give his word any less weight than David's.

Uneducated opinions with no evidence are not equally valid to someone explaining a topic they're knowledgeable about.

That's basically antivaxxer logic.

1. We don't know he was uneducated.
2. He had evidence, it's the same visual evidence the audience can see.

In the past you've said that David breaking down how he made the Alien is the movie's way of conveying to the audience in no uncertain terms that he did it, and how he did it. Dallas' comment is no different - from a storytelling perspective, the movie is conveying to the audience in no uncertain terms that the Derelict is old. Suddenly saying "oh well maybe Dallas is just an idiot and doesn't know what he's talking about" is simple revisionism to discredit a movie that has equal weight as the new one.

To use a hyperbolic analogy, that's basically Holocaust denier logic.

[SM]

There was a nice big gas giant right there.

Also this.

[SiL]

1. We don't know he was uneducated.

Yes. Yes we do. Please tell me you're not about to argue that Dallas knew about Engineer spaceships and flightsuits and what they were and how to gauge their age based purely on appearance. Please.

2. He had evidence, it's the same visual evidence the audience can see.

That's an Iguanodon, constructed from the same skeletons we now believe to look like


The original interpretation is not "equally valid" to the new one. We have more information which explains why the original interepretation is wrong.

Dallas made the best analysis he could make with the information he had -- which was walking around a ship for a few minutes. He knew literally nothing else. We now have evidence Dallas did not.

In the past you've said that David breaking down how he made the Alien is the movie's way of conveying to the audience in no uncertain terms that he did it, and how he did it.

In the service of explaining how the filmmakers did all they could to establish their retroactive continuity, yes. Dallas, and the audience, had limited information. The audience has more now -- ergo the previous assumptions are not "equally valid". They were born of ignorance.

Besides which, your analogy relies on attacking my reasoning, not addressing the actual facts presented, which you kind'a just told me off for as a logical fallacy...

[Local Trouble]

Was it not established that Dallas had a PhD in exopaleontology?

[SiL]

To play devil's advocate, Dallas is actually right -- the ship and the suit are old, unless David finds some fresh-off-the-line model.

He's just most likely wrong it's "been dead a long time" (although really, a few years can be considered "a long time" for something to be dead...)

[Xenomrph]

1. We don't know he was uneducated.

Yes. Yes we do. Please tell me you're not about to argue that Dallas knew about Engineer spaceships and flightsuits and what they were and how to gauge their age based purely on appearance. Please.

He kinda doesn't need to - he made a valid conclusion based on visual evidence, a conclusion that the audience had also drawn for the past 40 years.

Dallas made the best analysis he could make with the information he had -- which was walking around a ship for a few minutes. He knew literally nothing else. We now have evidence Dallas did not.

No we don't, since what we're shown in 'Alien' is not explained in any way in 'Covenant'. The Derelict still looks old, the same as it did in 1979.

In the service of explaining how the filmmakers did all they could to establish their retroactive continuity, yes. Dallas, and the audience, had limited information. The audience has more now -- ergo the previous assumptions are not "equally valid". They were born of ignorance.

No the audience doesn't, since 'Covenant' doesn't address the Derelict or LV-426 in any way.

Besides which, your analogy relies on attacking my reasoning, not addressing the actual facts presented, which you kind'a just told me off for as a logical fallacy...

N- no? I called you out on you questioning the reason why I was reaching my conclusion at all, which is a logical fallacy. My analogy points out that the logical steps taken to reach your conclusion are similar to mine: via a character, the movie is conveying to the audience in no uncertain terms "this is X".

Could 'Covenant' give us reason to reconsider Dallas' assessment? Sure.
Are we meant to automatically do so? No, I don't think so.
Could 'Alien' give us reason to doubt David's word? Sure.

[SiL]

No we don't,

Of course we do. We now have information that the Aliens aren't older than a few decades.

My analogy points out that the logical steps taken to reach your conclusion are similar to mine: via a character, the movie is conveying to the audience in no uncertain terms "this is X".

That's not what I'm doing in this discussion at all. The only logical step I'm taking in this particular conversation is "our understanding of things changes when new information is presented that we didn't know prior." You're trying to argue that opinions made from ignorance are valid no matter how much additional information is learned.

Hence the above analogy; you're arguing the original Iguanodon is just as valid an interpretation of an Iguanodon skeleton as the modern version despite decades of additional research.

[Xenomrph]

Of course we do. We now have information that the Aliens aren't older than a few decades.

We have information that they might be - 'Covenant' still hasn't resolved the Derelict.

You're trying to argue that opinions made from ignorance are valid no matter how much additional information is learned.

Not exactly, I'm arguing that the opinions made from ignorance are *still* valid because they're not immediately disproven by one single piece of contradictory evidence.

Hence the above analogy; you're arguing the original Iguanodon is just as valid an interpretation of an Iguanodon skeleton as the modern version despite decades of additional research.

The original iguanadon interpretation was still valid in the science community when the first pieces of contradictory evidence started showing up - it just made people stop and say "hang on, maybe we need to rethink this". It was only after, as you mentioned, decades of additional research that scientists decided that the original iguanadon interpretation was wrong.

We don't have that decades of additional research for the origin of the Alien - we have a single piece of contradictory evidence. Further evidence would come in the form of additional movies or whatever, and we don't have that yet.
I'm saying we're still at the "hang on, maybe we need to rethink this" stage, rather than immediately jumping to "the new interpretation is correct, let's find ways to explain how we were wrong for 30 years".

A better analogy is if we found evidence today from a single study that Hawking Radiation couldn't exist. We don't just immediately disregard Hawking Radiation as a concept; we keep digging and see where it takes us, but it doesn't automatically mean Hawking Radiation is a less-valid or incorrect conclusion.

[SiL]

But then you're equating someone with no knowledge of a topic with freakin' Stephen Hawking's knowledge on black holes. That's way over-inflating Dallas' authority on the subject. He walked through a crashed alien ship for an hour or so and made an observation. David spent the better part of a decade bio-engineering his creation and learning about the Engineers. It is insane to try to argue that Dallas' off-hand remark is as valuable a source as David.

We obviously both agree that there's room for Ridley to pull a rabbit out of a hat -- but I can't agree it's because someone who didn't know what he was talking about said "Hey, this looks old!"

[Huggs]

We have the luxury of seeing what Dallas and crew saw. When you look at the jockey, the eggs, the ship, how does it look to fit within the current narrative? Does anyone look at the jockey and feel that Dallas was correct? It's only gotta make sense to us, because we're the one's who will be seeing it if anything gets put on film.