Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is how it goes...

1. Begin with mysterious canisters of BLACK GOO on Engineer "weapons silo" planet.

2. Black goo, when ingested by a human and spread through sexual intercourse, creates a FACEHUGGER in the female human. (In Prometheus, the facehugger would have likely burst from Shaw's womb if she didn't c-section it first.)

3. Facehugger does just that - attaches itself to a human/Engineer face, doesn't matter if it's male or female - and then somehow "impregnates" the host with a CHESTBURSTER.

4. Chestburster obviously bursts from the host's chest (though, in Covenant, we see one bursting through a victim's back), eventually grows into a XENOMORPH.

5. Queen Xenomorph lays EGGS with facehuggers inside... rinse and repeat.


The question is, does DAVID create the (first ever) facehugger by altering the black goo in some way (which he eventually gives to Shaw's boyfriend, who then has intercourse with Shaw) - or - was the black goo ALWAYS intended by he Engineers to create facehuggers through the same process, and had they created them before?

Also, where does the queen come from? Does David create her as well?

TCTTS said:

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So the black goo was basically a virus-like substance that Engineers were going to use to wipe out all of humanity? But then David took a sample, did something to it, and somehow created a facehugger via human reproduction? Or was the black goo always intended by the Engineers to create facehuggers on Earth via human reproduction? I guess that's what I'm still confused about, and we may purposely not know yet.

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Here's the wiki for it. It's been awhile since I've seen the film, so I can't remember if David did anything specifically to create a facehugger. I think David's goal was to experiment with the substance and observe its effects. Personally, since we were given Prometheus there's just so much unknown about the Engineers overall that I don't know if we can really say one way or the other about what the goo was originally supposed to do.

And with that, I dare anyone to come up with a nerdier post on this board in 2017.

Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot they purposely haven't told us yet. Just trying to piece together what we know so far / come up with certain questions going into Covenant.

jabberwalkie09 said:

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TCTTS said:

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So the black goo was basically a virus-like substance that Engineers were going to use to wipe out all of humanity? But then David took a sample, did something to it, and somehow created a facehugger via human reproduction? Or was the black goo always intended by the Engineers to create facehuggers on Earth via human reproduction? I guess that's what I'm still confused about, and we may purposely not know yet.

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Here's the wiki for it. It's been awhile since I've seen the film, so I can't remember if David did anything specifically to create a facehugger. I think David's goal was to experiment with the substance and observe its effects. Personally, since we were given Prometheus there's just so much unknown about the Engineers overall that I don't know if we can really say one way or the other about what the goo was originally supposed to do.

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I don't believe David did anything with the goo other than to put a drop of it in the drink that Shaw's boyfriend drank.

Ha, touche. That entire convo made me quit reading that thread for at least three days.

TCTTS said:

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And with that, I dare anyone to come up with a nerdier post on this board in 2017.

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It will require the return of muckraker before TLJ.

I think of it as strictly a virus that mutates very rapidly.

It effects all species differently, within a species it's the same effect though, (engineer who drank it in the prologue disentegrated, human who drank it turned into a whatever he turned into (genetically not human), human who was impregnated by infected human grew genetically altered "fetus" ie. facehugger, facehugger then metamorphosizes into a chestbuster after a short period of time incubating in a human, which is basically a mini-xenomorph solider, with food and time it becomes full size.

Think of the scene in AvP when all the xenomorph soldiers and attacking the temple and the predators are shooting them then end up getting over run. Those were all the same xenomorph, I get that this is not in the same story line but I think they actually somehow stayed true to this premise, that those all came from human hosts, thus their the same.

So, to me, the xenomorph/facehugger is the combination of black goo and human DNA that's gone through human gestation and DNA mixing.

There aren't any eggs in Prometheus (I don't think). And I don't think David did anything to the goo, I think he just wanted to see what it could do or did.

This doesn't answer the question about where do the eggs come from... that solider xenomorph laid eggs???? Ehhh not really getting behind that. I think that it's possible, in this weird science world that David could extract the reproductive organs out of the woman and somehow put them into another xenomorph... but where did that one come from? They killed the only one that was around.

The clip does show the little puff ball thing releasing some spores... could be black goo got disturbed to this planet and morphed into this state (spores are known to be the longest surviving non-active reproductive issues in the history of the world)... maybe the time from Prometheus to now is WAY further than what we are thinking. The woman died of starvation or something (old age, David, etc but let's say it's 100 yrs old or more) so the black goo was disturbed by David, well it needs to go dormant to survive so it mutates some plants into spore producers and violation; aeroslized balck goo.

Awesome, and crazy. Something big happened on that planet other than the engineer ship crashing, extinction level it looks like. Seemed to have a little too much exposition in the trailer dialogue, hopefully the whole movie isn't like that. Bad stuff going to happen in wide open spaces, and in the claustrophobic ship. That's actually what has me hooked, the doors closing, not knowing where the alien is, that's what has the feeling of the original. That last alien is BIG, feel like it has to be the product of an engineer, perhaps the Ultramorph that was in the original script for Prometheus. Also the head looks almost skull-like, not sure if anyone else saw that. If there are eggs there must be a queen, but was it there before David and Shaw, or did David do something to Shaw?

That's a good way of putting it. Makes sense.

But what soldier xenomorph? If you're talking about the thing from the original Alien, that was likely an Engineer, in hindsight.

Shaw apparently has a cameo. I like the idea of David turning on her (again) and doing something to her.

Read new addition to the post. I one upped you on the nerdiness!

By soldier xenomorph, I'm just talking about a full grown "alien" that goes around killing folks. Sharp tail, claws, acid blood, that great set of steely greys (teeth/inner mouth).

At least in most of the movies that is the only alien there is, aside from the queen.

Are we assuming this group of colonists finding the planet where David is has to be by design, yes?

I'm not sure if has been discussed in this thread but in the original Alien there is a deleted scene that shows that the Xenomorph was creating a nest/eggs with its victims. Basically in the absence of a queen a solider/worker Xenomorph still has the ability reproduce under the right conditions. To steal a line from Jurassic Park, life finds a way.

Apparently David sends some kind of signal out and they're the ones who respond. Whether he is targeting them, specifically, is unknown.

I doubt it. I think he is hoping for a bite from anything.

Ok, so back on which came first, the facehugger egg pod or the xenomorph.... what happens in Alien 3? How does Ridley get "infected"?

Question, are the xenomorphs asexual? Or does one out of every x-number burst as a female?

In AVP, at the end when a chest burster came out of the dead predator, wasn't it different somehow from the ones that come out of the humans?

Intersting reproductive cycle, though? Queen lays eggs holding face huggers...which can't do anything until they find the face of a host, which then allows for the next step into a chest bursting tiny xenomorph.

Back to Prometheus...what was the snake like thing that killed the 2 scientists? Was it already there or was it the result of some of the goo leaking out onto something else?

welp, I just watched the trailer. And of course it looks like there will be cussing in the movie. So I can't go see it with my 10 year old. Hopefully VidAngel will still be active when the Blue Ray comes out.

redline248 said:

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Question, are the xenomorphs asexual? Or does one out of every x-number burst as a female?

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This seems relevant.

The chestbuster that comes of the predator looks like a predatorXxenomorph.

I'm telling y'all the black goo and it's baddies use and abuse whatever "DNA" they can to create a "product".

Snake thing, xenomorph, shaws BF, pred X xeno...

The metamorphosis of Alien is like that of a horsehair worm, which is a nematode and is real. An insect picks up the nematode spawn by eating vegetation with an encysted (that's basically like a cocoon) larvae. Once it is eaten and partially digested the cyst breaks open and the larvae hasn't molted into a sub-adult worm. The sub-adult eats what the insect eats and then eats the insect inside out. It then hijacks the insects brain and makes it drown itself. The worm then emerges from the host body, mates and dies.

The Xenomorph is an adult chestbuster, the chestbuster MUST come out of a human, and only gets into a human via a facehugger. The facehugger is basically just a vessel, and the essence or whatever that's in the facehugger is physically then implanted into a human.

CJS4715 said:

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TCTTS said:

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And with that, I dare anyone to come up with a nerdier post on this board in 2017.

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It will require the return of muckraker before TLJ.

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I miss Muckraker

I wasn't questioning your logic/explanation...I couldn't remember what the predatormorph looked like.

I should watch prometheus again (unrelated comment to AVP comment). Lots of stuff I've forgotten, and still a lot of questions, probably none of which will be answered by this movie.




So, is it safe to assume no xenos existed before David pollutes Charlie's drink, and infected Charlie bangs Shaw? Or do we, rather, think the Engineers designed the goo to create the xenos. I still can't remember how the Engineers all died on that depot planet. Wasn't there a mural of a queen xeno on the wall or something?

Good question about the mural.

I think they made the goo a weapon, not knowing what it would do to humans.

Very well put.

Found this while googling.

That's right. I knew there was some kind of Alien reference I was forgetting. So the Engineers definitely created at least a type of xenomorph. David just seems to be running with it.

TCTTS said:

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Whatever this is, it looks amazing. A hooded David walking through what could be an entire field of xenomorphs or something...

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That looks like a field full of engineers that are dying or already dead. In the background is their city.

Yeah, in the HD version it became obvious that the figures aren't moving / there's a city in the background. Pretty freaking cool. Just a hauntingly beautiful image.

Speculation:
Random speculation but I could see David using Shaw's DNA to create the first xenomorph queen

That last xenomorph face bashing the plate glass sure looked like more than a warrior caste. Juvenile queen?

Those are defintely more human-ish shapes than xeno shapes. You can see slender limbs and smaller human like heads on a few near the center aisle.

Also there is a statue in the near background and an even bigger one we can barely see on top of the dome in robes.