SPOILER**creature pics + new gif**SPOILER

[deezelboy]

Any idea why the same thing didn't happen to Milburn?

[Tryfan915]

My own view, which is no doubt completely wrong, is that the Engineers come across our Alien Alien before that. The Jockey ship on LV-426 is carrying a specimen of the Alien species for analysis when it comes a cropper. The Engineers finally get a specimen and start weaponising it - turning it into something far more mercurial and deadly - and it all backfires on LV-223.

Thus what Shaw and her crew find on LV-223 is a genetically engineered version of the Alien from LV-426, vastly more advanced. The Alien series deals with the original species, and Prometheus deals with it once the Engineers start tinkering around with it.

I like this idea.

[Neltharion]

Any idea why the same thing didn't happen to Milburn?

He got acid on him as well from the Protohugger didn't he? Perhaps the protohugger stopped it? Or he didn't come into contact with the black goo in his mouth area?

[deezelboy]

I am really going to have to watch it again at some point!

[Neltharion]

So am I... I need to find a jumpy person to go with

[Sebastian]

The blood splashed on his face and started eating through it, he turned and dipped his face into (a whole lot of!) black goo. Immedietely thereafter the visor caved in, as we all saw in the trailers.

[Hieronymus]

I'm liking the pharyngeal jaw.  Looks a lot like that of the moray eel.

[Dutch90]

Well I was under the impression that the acid blood didn't actually do that to Fifield. I thought that the acid just melted his helmet to his face, killing him, and then he came into contact with the black goo which then did something to him.

That's what I thought, too. Especially since contact with the black goo also led to Holloway's condition. The acid was just a plot device to create an opening in his suit for the goo to seep through (and to give us Alien fans a nerdgasm, of course ).

[Sebastian]

Mal just posted this on Facebook.

[Dutch90]

But we don't get any similar dialogue for Prometheus - in face we're shown that there's no mummification or petrification process going on even with the Engineers' biology. And Dallas was basing his assumption not just on the Jockey suit, but on the huge gaping wound in the torso.

Hm, good point.

I'm referring to everything. The worm things are, as far as I can see, just another part of the Black Oil lifecycle - a biological form it uses when a host isn't apparent.

Xenopedia suggests these "Hammerpedes", as they're apparently called, are mutated versions of the indiginous (?) worms seen inside the Juggernaut vessel before the Black Oil starts leaking. This fits with Fifield being mutated by the Oil as well, except his mutation was less dramatic.

My own view, which is no doubt completely wrong, is that the Engineers come across our Alien Alien before that. The Jockey ship on LV-426 is carrying a specimen of the Alien species for analysis when it comes a cropper. The Engineers finally get a specimen and start weaponising it - turning it into something far more mercurial and deadly - and it all backfires on LV-223.

Thus what Shaw and her crew find on LV-223 is a genetically engineered version of the Alien from LV-426, vastly more advanced. The Alien series deals with the original species, and Prometheus deals with it once the Engineers start tinkering around with it.

I like this theory because I prefer the Aliens to be a natural species rather than a genetic experiment. However, I'm seeing some clues suggesting the Aliens - be they from LV-426 or LV-223 - may be Engineer/Black Oil creations, after all. Note that the Hammerpedes, which originate from the Black Oil mutating LV-223 worms, possess unusual strength for their size and, more importantly, molecular acid for blood. Also, their "mouth" looks oddly similar to the facehugger's - as well as a vagina - and their skin texture looks quite similar to a chestburster. Okay, that last one's a bit of a stretch. But these similarities seem to suggest that the LV-426 Aliens are Black Oil mutations of some unseen original species, just like the Hammerpedes. Seeing as the LV-223 Alien also came from the Black Oil, we haven't seen the actual "proto-Xenomorph" yet.

[Darkfox]

Hm, good point.
Xenopedia suggests these "Hammerpedes", as they're apparently called, are mutated versions of the indiginous (?) worms seen inside the Juggernaut vessel before the Black Oil starts leaking. This fits with Fifield being mutated by the Oil as well, except his mutation was less dramatic. I like this theory because I prefer the Aliens to be a natural species rather than a genetic experiment.

Oh yes, there are those worms and whatnot. Completely forgot about those. I think that's one of the main problems with Prometheus: there are TOO MANY DIFFERENT LIVING THINGS It's confusing, and you have no idea what can mutate and what can not and how and when...

Also, how did those random worms get there anyway? Do they live on the planet, or what? (That would be very surprising.)

And of course, the obligatory question: so what the heck exactly is the black oil?

I would also prefer the Aliens to be original species, but who knows. Well, it is still vague enough, but...

But we don't get any similar dialogue for Prometheus - in face we're shown that there's no mummification or petrification process going on even with the Engineers' biology. And Dallas was basing his assumption not just on the Jockey suit, but on the huge gaping wound in the torso.

Speaking of that - is it just my impression (or bad memory), but doesn't the Space Jockey in Alien seem way bigger than those fellows in Prometheus? Just a curious remark...

[Dutch90]

Nah, the Alien Jockey is about the same size as the Engineers. There's room for size differentiation, anyway. As for the worms, they're either native to LV-223, came on the ship from the Engineer home world or were created out of nothing by the Black Oil. Since they're thriving in the oxygenated atmosphere generated inside the Juggernaut as opposed to the harsh conditions of LV-223, I'd say they're not native to LV-223.

The Black Oil, from what can gather, is a biological weapon designed to mutate any organism it touches. The Prometheus opening seems to suggests it has some generatio spontanum-like qualities, "creating" new life from the dissolved Engineer's remains. If it's engineered by the Engineers (hehe), it may have a different effect on them than on other organisms. That's an interesting question, by the way - did the Engineers create the Black Oil, or was it a naturally occuring substance on their home planet or some other planet where they found it?

[deezelboy]

Human and Engineer DNA is apparently an exact match, so we have pretty much identical biology. Whatever the Black Oil does to them it should therefore do the same to us.

Assuming the Black Oil doesn't key into the host's psychology, there are two options I can see:

1) There are two types of Black Oil - the stuff we see at the beginning and the stuff we see through the rest of Prometheus. The former destroys its host but out of that creates new life. The latter mutates its host, and does some other things as well like the creation of squid babies.

2) There is one type of Black Oil. An overdose causes all the host's cells to disintegrate and evolve off in separate directions, as at the beginning. A lower dose mutates the cells but leaves the host intact (Fifield, Holloway). Holloway's sperm cells go their separate way during intercourse, evolving into the squid baby in Shaw's womb, which grows into the proto-facehugger in the med bay, which then does the Alien-style impregnation eventually resulting in the proto-Alien torso burster (with umbilical cord).

This is interesting:

Q: What’s up with the arch-shaped display in the pyramid? Was that an altar?

A: Yes, it was an altar, with the depiction of an adult Giger-like alien at the center, apparently crucified. This indicates that the creatures from Alien have been around for centuries, and not first introduced in the final moments of Prometheus as some have speculated. The book is strangely coy in regard to the carving: “[The crew members] look at it and speculate briefly about it. But it’s not very clear what it is.”

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3147596/omfg-prometheus-secrets-revealed-movie-tie-in-tells-all/

YMMV with the above quote. But it is kind of interesting. In the Alien films the Alien is a hybrid creature - it combines whatever it has for DNA with that of its host, and so you get dog-Aliens and human-Aliens (which incidentally shouldn't look any different to Engineer-Aliens now). It's basically mutational. So maybe Black Oil is essence of Alien?

[Dutch90]

YMMV with the above quote. But it is kind of interesting. In the Alien films the Alien is a hybrid creature - it combines whatever it has for DNA with that of its host, and so you get dog-Aliens and human-Aliens (which incidentally shouldn't look any different to Engineer-Aliens now). It's basically mutational. So maybe Black Oil is essence of Alien?

I'm really liking this idea. It would explain why the Hammerpedes - the mutated worms spawned by the Black Oil - have acid for blood and a somewhat facehugger-like mouth, and also explains the familiar appearance of the proto-Alien.

On a side note, the process from the infected Holloaway to the Trilobite (the "squid baby") doesn't necessarily involve impregnation. Maybe the Trilobite embryo just traveled from Holloway to Shaw in Holloway's semen, and would otherwise have simply grown further inside of Holloway. This makes sense since Shaw is infertile (unless the Black Oil has Virgin Mary-like properties).

[deezelboy]

I agree - I don't think there's any impregnation going on there (and there's no need to be fertile or infertile - given what can grow in the very infertile compartment of the Engineer's torso). I think its Holloway's sperm mutating once its outside his body and forced to survive in a different environment.

Admittedly the last bit is to prevent the more unpleasant idea of Fifield and Holloway's eventual fate as being victims of ball-bursters, as millions of sperm develop into squid-babies. And there's no evidence that the dead Engineers were victims of the process - the crew comments that they've got holes in their chest, and we see holes in their helmets, and some poor Engineer's head explodes, but nobody ever comments on the ghastly damage done to their scrotal area.