Did you feel Alien Universe better before Prometheus?

[PredBabe]

Tiebreaker! 

[Stitch]

I think Prometheus was better than A:R, AVP & AVP:R. I also think it was better than Covenant.

If it was a graph of quality, the alien series would be like a rollercoaster.

And, yes, I know AVP isn't in canon, but we're talking about before and after Prometheus, which Chan GE d the canon.

[Voodoo Magic]

I think Prometheus was better than A:R, AVP & AVP:R. I also think it was better than Covenant.

If it was a graph of quality, the alien series would be like a rollercoaster.

And, yes, I know AVP isn't in canon, but we're talking about before and after Prometheus, which Chan GE d the canon.

I would agree with that. All five films have problems to varying degrees but Prometheus to me is by far the best out of the bunch.

[P-Rock]

With the first four movies you didn't know anything about the alien universe except that they f**k your face and lay embryos inside you and they have a queen that lays the eggs. With Prometheus and Covenant they expanded that universe with the Èngineers, black goo and spores that come from those small egg sacks. So yeah, prequels FTW!

[SuperiorIronman]

With the first four movies you didn't know anything about the alien universe except that they f**k your face and lay embryos inside you and they have a queen that lays the eggs. With Prometheus and Covenant they expanded that universe with the Èngineers, black goo and spores that come from those small egg sacks. So yeah, prequels FTW!

Except we still know little about the wider universe. It may be expanded with new facets like the spores, goo, and living Engineers, but the films offer no explanation as to what they are and why they do it only offering vague musings about religion in place of the answers to our questions.

The Engineers created man; Why?
Why did the Engineer want to destroy man?; We don't know.
Why did the Engineers show us where the weapons base is?; We don't know.
What is the black goo supposed to do?; We don't know.
Why did David create the spores if they require life to function but nothing animal is alive on planet?; We don't know.

Introducing new facets is fine, but a sequel/prequel is supposed to do that in the first place. With no explanation and run-time devoted to it its merely an exercise in being vague about the universe and gets us no further than the original films. Further complicated by the fact that the major contribution of David creating the Alien is undone by the mural in Prometheus depicting them, and David still not having made the Xenomorph in Covenant with it being the protomorph and not the Alien proper. So as far as what it does for the wider franchise, it accomplishes as much as Alien: Resurrection.

[dave1978]

Nope,  the space jockey and derelict could have been put to much much better use

[SM]

What is the black goo supposed to do?; We don't know.

Cause mutation.

Why did David create the spores if they require life to function but nothing animal is alive on planet?; We don't know.

Which spores?  The motes that got Ledward and Hallett?

Pretty sure David didn't create them.

[The Old One]

What is the black goo supposed to do?; We don't know.

We do know.

"The pathogen was designed to affect all non-botanical life forms.
All the animals, the 'meat', if you will... either kill them outright
or use them as incubators to spawn a hybrid form, highly aggressive."

[Samhain13]

That's the Covenant retcon, if David isn't lying. In Prometheus the gooze did more than that.

[The Old One]

No, it doesn't. Aside from making those it infects aggressive.

Spoiler

David sacrifices the Engineers against their will- wiping the planet clean and bringing forth Neomorphs.
And the Neomorph has every feature the Deacon has, except it also has back spines and a tail.
Generally in appearance is closer to Carlos Huante's concept art.

Deployment of Pathogen on a planet:

Spore Pod = Egg
Notes = Facehugger
Bloodburster = Chestburster
Neomorph = Xenomorph

I believe that in a planet wide infection, Deacons do get created-
Perhaps it even bypasses the Trilobite if the reproductive system is functional.
But it still requires indirect contact- drinking from a river that became infected for instance-
Then if sex occurred, we know the rest- the woman likely dies in birth and the man turns into a raving lunatic and is going to explode.
If it creates a Trilobite the Trilobite needs to survive until it's fully grown and then infect someone else.
If it goes straight to Deacon, which it may well do- sure.

Unlike the Neomorph being generated though- this requires two people to have sex; 
Which is far, far more unlikely than some poor sod being in the initial blast radius or
looking for food in the wilderness and getting infected by spores.

This all said;
I actually believe the Deacon of Prometheus is one of a kind, and owes its skin colour to the fact it was
generated through two distinctly different beings, the Engineer and a pair of humans.
Considering literally everything else that was generated solely from one species
in the prequel films is pale white and partially translucent.

The Pathogen always creates a creature slightly different yes, but the chaos is consistent- for example;

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

"The pathogen was designed to affect all non-botanical life forms.
All the animals, the 'meat', if you will... either kill them outright
or use them as incubators to spawn a hybrid form, highly aggressive."

"From the eggs, came these parasites... shock troops
of the genetic assault.Waiting for a host, entering the host...
rewriting the DNA... and ultimately... producing,
these enviable unions."

Apply deductive reasoning and you start to discover patterns in all things it creates;

The Neomorphs and LV-223 creations all have:
-Acidic blood/saliva
-Pale, translucent skin
-Elongated limbs
-Extra appendages; back spines, extra fingers and a pharyngeal jaw in the Neomorphs' case.
(The unfolding appendages around the head hiding an attack method
in the case of the Hammerpedes and Trilobite, much like the pharyngeal jaw.)

Where-as I'd say the infected personnel of those on LV-223 all shared similar qualities.
The infected Sean Fifield is quite obvious, he became bloated in the cranium, with veins rising to the surface.
In behaviour became extremely aggressive and violent. It's unclear if his proportions were effected.

The infected Charlie Holloway carries many of the same traits, with veins rising to the surface of his skin
and becoming aggressive when crew members of the Prometheus tried to assist him.
I hypothesize it likely that he would have became what the "Fifield Monster" was if given time.

A prolonged death sentence.

Why death? No incubation?
Essentially because it's been stated by the production that Holloway and Fifield
were on the same path that the decapitated Engineer was on.
They showed many of the same symptoms as the infected Engineer, so I supposition that with this usage of the Pathogen;
That if infected it will; (depending upon dosage) increasingly send the victim into a violent rage,
increasing their physical attributes while returning the mental ones to that of the entirely primal;
until their cranium explodes and they finally die. Potential incubation unknown.

[close]

[Samhain13]

Making those it infects agressive is different from making them incubators to spawn a hybrid form, highly aggressive.

Fitfield became an violent zombie, it wasn't killing him outright or making an incubators for something. The worms were mutated and got exponentially bigger and alien like, humans/engineers didn't suffer the same. Holloway seemed to be slowing getting sick and was going to just die.

There were engineers that were chestbursted. Trilobite? Hard to believe considering that thing requires a female to have sex with an infected male to get "pregnant" with it. We didn't see the bodies of any Trilobites or Deacons around. That chestbursting must have been caused by the goo itself.

There is the another type that the sacrificional engineer used. Which kills the host and seeds life on a planet.

[The Old One]

"The pathogen was designed to affect all non-botanical life forms.
All the animals, the 'meat', if you will... either kill them outright
or use them as incubators to spawn a hybrid form, highly aggressive."

After;
"The original liquid atomized to particles when exposed to the air."
Aka, the intended method of deployment.

The Engineers weren't chestbursted, they exploded as the decapitated Engineer exploded.
Owing to the holes in their, arms, legs, chest and head.

The eventual fate of Fifield and Holloway, which both started becoming aggressive and losing their senses.
But Holloway received a minute dosage, and Fifield received a massive dosage.

No mutation.
The worms birthed the Alien worms,
as the Humans birthed the Neomorphs.

Yeah, the sacrificial Engineer utilized a different liquid entirely.

[Samhain13]

"Man, this thing is opened up from the inside." That was a reference to Alien. I think that was their intention on that scene. The chest of the one that Milburn gets close to looks like it was chestbursted. The Engineers were suppose to be running from something, there must have been some kind of alien-like creature there to cause that. Miltburn also found a piece of molted skin, another Alien reference.

Holloway never tried to kill anyone, he just pushed others aside because he was in pain. He never lost his mind and became a raging animal, his body just seemed to be breaking down and has going to just die.

No mutation.
The worms birthed the Alien worms,
as the Humans birthed the Neomorphs.

Seems like headcanon. The Xenopedia/other wikis article implies the Hammerpedes are mutated worms, I think that's what I mostly heard from others about the movie in these years. In Prometheus the goo wasn't making any creature that was directly expose to it give birth to anything, the worms should have died or just become violent like Holloway.

In Covenant they just pulled another explanation that might not have been their original intention while making Prometheus.

[The Old One]

"Man look at them, look at the holes, these things opened up from the inside."
Aka, a Alien reference yes but the situation is completely new.
Positive the skin's a deleted scene, and a red-herring.

Holloway was sick and becoming aggressive, Fifield was sick and aggressive.
Anything beyond that is an assumption, but with the context of Covenant,
we know they must have been undergoing the same thing.
No necessity for a Alien creature at all, no evidence of one.
The dead Engineers were likely running from each other,
as the Prometheus crew ran from each infected crew member.

The original intention? Irrelevant.
Implied? Irrelevant.

Depicted? Relevant.

[Samhain13]

Positive the skin's a deleted scene, and a red-herring.

Don't know, I only have the extended fanedit on my pc. That's what I used to confirm the Milburn line.

Holloway was sick and becoming aggressive, Fifield was sick and aggressive.

Holloway wasn't going to kill anyone, pushing people out of pain isn't what I would consider agressive. We can't know what the infection on his body would lead to. Fitfield didn't seem sick, his body wasn't getting weaker like Holloway's, he got stronger.

No there mustn't have been a Alien creature, that's not the case.

I think there was, and if it was born through a different method than the Deacon, it bring another random aspect to the goo. If you want to take Covenant into account, why couldn't some Neomorphs have been born during the LV-223 outbreak?

They could've been running from each other, as y'know. It shows people doing from Fifield later.

We didn't see like... an Engineer running after the others acting like Fitfield. Well I don't know, that was left open. I have my own take on it.