Quote from: Acid_Reign161 on Jan 27, 2024, 04:20:51 PMQuote from: Corporal Hicks on Jan 26, 2024, 09:06:35 AMOne of the bigger frustrations I had with this was that the Trilobite created a Deacon. Which the Engineers are aware of due to the mural. But it was a very specific chain of events that led to this creation.
I must confess, initially I was the same as you on this one, but I was more forgiving once seeing 'Covenant' as we did get some correlation; it appeared (to me) to demonstrate that when the pathogen adapts to an organisms reproductive system, hybridises and creates new forms; in Humans (delivered via sperm) in fungus (delivered via spores)- both organisms method of reproduction, the end result of each being not too dissimilar overall (deacon or neomorph). This is another reason I like to think the mural shows a source creature, and no matter what you do with it, it is so dominant that you will always eventually get a xeno-esque creature down the line from it one way or another (a lot like the Xenomorph; we've seen human hosts morphed into ovomorphs, and a queen lay ovomorphs, but it always gets there in the end, and the end result is always similar no matter how it gets there, or which host organism is used (human vs dog/ox for example still produces a xeno-form).
QuoteI know the point of the conversation has been whether or not the movie actually gave the audience a consistant black goo (it didn't) but I do enjoy the post-release EU attempting to reconcile it, or fan theories doing the same and I really enjoyed what you said in this entire post Acid_Reign.
I see a lot of seemingly silly or unrealistic things in films that I have seen actually happen in reality (in the corporate/I.T world) and I love those really unusual elements that people might not expect to have basis in reality. So I really enjoyed and appreciated your examples here!
Thank you, I'm glad to hear that! 😊 Truth be told, I try not to use many lab examples here on fear of coming across pretentious (or boring the hell out of people 🤣) But in truth (and going a little off topic a moment), we've *just* published a peer-reviewed paper on a topic not too dissimilar, highlighting anthropomorphic assumptions and complexities with bioassays in aquatic chemosensory research (it's in the latest edition of 'Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution') and part of the reasoning for that was there has been a lot of controversy in the science community lately with (long story short) two different teams basically accusing the others of falsifying results and that each others work cannot be reproduced (It got a bit nasty with lots of teams and universities taking sides and supporting one or the other). Our findings have been that actually, neither were wrong; there are just so many damn variables to consider, that in reality, it's almost *impossible* to reproduce another's work exactly in different lab settings.
Myself, I've had a similar experience; my research identified a sex-specific chemical we could use to trap an invasive crustacean. We tested it in the lab - it worked a dream. We tested it in the field - it worked a dream. The university put up the money and we secured an international patent, our partners in the US who are crying out for a solution have been waiting eagerly as we go into the product development stage...everything was great. I went to Portugal last year and decided to use it as an opportunity to grab more data. Same setup, same species, same conditions. It didn't work. They were terrified of it. Fearing the chemical hadn't survived the flight, I spent last year testing in the uk again, confirming everything was fine (worked perfect)... and planned another Portugal trip last September where I spent a month there testing. Once again, it didn't work, and the animals were burying/hiding from it.
I've checked every damn variable imaginable; pH, temperature, salinity, average crab size, ratio of males to females, diet, etc etc.. but for whatever reason, the same species in Portugal, does not respond the same way as the same species in the UK does to the cue. 😅 And on the surface, this makes no damn sense! Why the same chemical under the same conditions produces two totally different results - Especially when we know it's a sex cue, and both green crabs in the uk, and green crabs in Portugal will mate. Unfortunately, we can't say "this doesn't make sense" - that's what it does, we see that's what it does, so now we have to address the how/why and make logical sense of it (frustrating doesn't cover it, especially when I'm now in PhD write-up year and
now have the equivalent of a whole other PhD worth of testing to do to figure this out - argh!) 🤣
Going back to the pathogen in Prometheus/ Covenant, I confess, I do have the bad habit of approaching the fiction as if it's reality 😂 (which standing back and looking at the bigger picture must be annoying/frustrating to others) my starting point is usually "the movie shows this, so that's what it does.. so how does it do this?" And work backwards from there... perhaps I give the writers too much credit, but I always like to think there was some logic to their thinking when they put pen to paper, even if it's not explained. Of course, we all know this isn't always the case (egg on the Sulaco anyone? 🤣) but even in that situation- the movie shows an egg in the sulaco, so that is "fact" - my take is we now need to look at the available evidence and work out the most logical reasoning behind the "how" it got there; even if in the real-world was simply studio demands.
I only consider something a retcon if you have to actively change something. If it can be explained by simply interpreting what is provided on screen, or there's a suitable gap in the knowledge that leaves an opening for suggestion, I'm usually ok with that. 😊 And I think that's why I don't mind the diversity of the goo.
Thanks for the info. I have a little unfulfilled scientist in me, so I love hearing this. And this is exactly why I hate when someone says we shouldn't explore the Alien's biology, cause it would take away the mystery and make it less scary. When you can get exactly situations like you described which could be a great basis for a story. You try to learn and probe and understand. For every new bit of info, you get 2 new questions/mysteries. There's the true horror. You try and you try, you get pieces here and there, but you never can truly understand and predict the creatures.
But I guess writers just don't care enough about biology to go that rout often. That's why Scott Sigler's short was so brilliant and why Alex White's novels really struck a chord with me. They actually did some research and made the creature more compelling, made me want to know more.
Good worldbuilding is hard to come by. I mean, Ridley didn't care that his Engineers looked different in Covenant, made them look like poor Romans, and have one single relatively small city?! That's Paradise?! One Pathogen bombardment really got the whole planet sterilized? With no hints of how or why... The definition of anti-worldbuilding.
