The digital divide in the Alien franchise

I wrote this first as a reply to a YouTube video that comments about why the tech in "Alien" is so outdated compare to "Prometheus", which canonically took place many years previous to the events in "Alien".

I think, that there's a digital and class divide of sorts: the miners get CRTs on the ships they run, which is just enough to get the job done, and the scientists get all the fancy stuff. — But not always, if the company knows, that any such mission with the xenomorphs is doomed from the outset. And anyway, the most advanced thing onboard Nostromo was Ash. The most advanced thing in Aliens was the atmospheric processor.

I can guess, that at some point, Weyand-Yutani might have thought it cheaper to recycle old technology than to mine and make new stuff, because they came to be short on resources back on Earth and any colonies. The Nostromo was sent out to bring back the very necessary readymade ore to manufacture new things, but its mission failed.

A good explanation is, indeed, that for certain objectives, obsolete[-looking] tech is used.

Xenomorph points of origin

This is |from| a reply to a comment under one of the more gruesome Alien/xenomorph expanded universe narratives.

As far as I've gathered, David learned of the xenomorph from one of the murals.

My best theory is, that the Engineers had captured a presumably xenomorph specimen in order to study it, and kept the xenomorph in stasis, appearing to the uninitiated as part of the mural.

Thence, if not that the outline of the specimen was in stasis, David seems to have become aware of xenomorphs, and seeks to recreate them from the outset; thinking maybe, that the black goo was extracted _from_ xenomorphs.

Thus it's not wrong for Ridley Scott to say, that 'David created the xenomorph.' It's only, that the wayward synthetic finalised this particular version of the species, per information he could gather from the black goo during his interaction with the Engineer ship and subsequent stay on "Paradise".

It could be a plausible claim, that the black goo that we know, was perhaps developed by the Engineers on LV-223 through the xenomorph specimen kept captured in the mural.

I actually like to think, that the black goo is of a different source, which the Engineers may simply have stumbled on. I think there's a hint to that in "Prometheus".

The conclusion of all this, is, that both the point of origin for the black goo and the xenomorph species should be much earlier than the "Prometheus" and "'Covenant" films would make us believe.

The black goo spore in Alien: Covenant

This was a reply to a comment thread in YouTube discussing the effects of black goo.

The black goo reacts differently depending on what any of the other reactants are. Not just heat, but also air (+air pressure), different other gases, water or other solubles, contact with David's finger, sprakling wine, ingestion by Holloway, and contact with other Prometheus crew.

The process Holloway went through, is actually similar to what the Engineer in the opening went through, as both ingested black goo. As Holloway was "administered" much less of it and with champaigne, his 'decomposition', if you will, was a lot slower.

The "black goo" that gets into the Covenant cremember's ear, is no longer black goo, but either a spore, or a minuscule Alien life-form, as it can fly and target its flight path right into the ear of the poor colonist. I could count on the life-form being a back-goo-derived insectoid that acts as a very feeble wrapper of Alien protozoa that are to spread into a larger organism.

Canonicity of cancer and alien embryo removal

This was written in reply to a thread under a YouTube video concerning the Alien franchise, which discussed the possibilities of alien embryo removal.

The canonicity of the embryo being cancerous is up for debate: The movies never mention cancer, but it's possibe, that early on in the gestation process, the embryo works like a cancer to avoid early removal.

Only after the embryo has developed well enough to have formed a placenta around itself, would it be possible to remove it, _with_ the placenta.

The removal must be not just quick, but also clean and careful.

Because the trouble with trilobite removal from Shaw is, that right after the trilobite placenta was removed, the trilobite expanded and broke the placenta, out of which the fluid that the trilobite was in, squirted right back into Shaw's open abdomen, thus (in my view) infecting her. I expect to see a continuation of that situation in "Alien: Covenant".

High care must also be taken wrt the umbilical cord: Once broken, the creature becomes conscious and begins to move.

The different effects of black goo

This was a reply to a YouTube video comment post I wrote a couple weeks ago.

This post discusses the differences in how the black goo in "Prometheus" affected Holloway (compared to Fifield).

The thing with Holloway was, that IMO, he was actually disintegrating in a manner similar to the Engineer in the early scene of "Prometheus", because Holloway ingested black goo, which was beyond simple (well...) skin contact, and the goo began doing its intended work on disintegrating Holloway's DNA. But the black goo did so at a much slower pace, because Holloway had ingested less than a drop mixed into fizzy wine, while the early Engineer ingested a mouthful.

Note, that the sacrificial Engineer then fell into a river of water, which apparently quickly stabilised the resulting DNA strands, that went on to mix, match and become a source of all life on Earth.

And because the dosage of black goo in Holloway was small, and the effect slow, he managed to pass some already-randomised / –transmogrified DNA into Shaw. The rest, in terms of "Prometheus", is history.

Another theory is, that everything the black goo affects, makes transformed life extremely aggressive, and always with a need to procreate, seed, and spread themselves around, case in point being hammerpedes.

End of comment.

More theories from here on.

The thing about the black goo is, that it's probably a baseline material for creating xenomorphs, as evidenced by the very xenomorph-like silhouette / relief embedded in the wall or ceiling inside the (compromised) black goo repository on LV-223.

Though I do not know, why or what has lead the black goo to be like that. Theories abound...

So, my theory is, that the black goo is blood harvested by Engineers from a species older and higher-order than even the Engineers themselves.

Assuming, that this is true, then "Prometheus" offers at least a couple hints to this; one being, that this even older species was in the beginning scenes of "Prometheus"; the other is, that the head in the Engineer laboratory is the dead head of a representative of that higher-order species. And the black goo was then harvested from the head and body of the higher-order/older species. (To me, the black goo is not Engineer blood.)

What may probably run counter to that, is that the xenomorph-like relief in the wall/ceiling is actually a Xenomorph trapped. It might be live, or might not, or might be in stasis instead. Think of Han Solo frozen in Carbonite.

Now, the head of the higher-order-species appears to have been housed in the Engineer laboratory dome—or the dome laboratory was built around the head. The Engineer ships were located inside and around the dome. The rest of the body was apparently kept buried underground, until the Engineers discovered it and surveyed the dead body... for something useful.

The dangerous nature of the black goo is, because it's the blood of a dead higher-order humanoid species. The blood of such a live person would have different and hopefully more benign properties than the blood of a dead person.

As it is in real life, then in time, dead organic matter begins to disintegrate and becomes increasingly dangerous to health.

This may have been cause for religious rules that require respect for the dead and prohibit disturbing the grave.

All this is just theories, hypotheses, and speculation for your reading enjoyment.