Was the Deacon shown to us right from the beginning of the movie, on the Mural?

There are LOTS of Christian/Biblical symbols in the film. — The 2,000 years ago connection — The foot-washing of Weyland — The rose — The Sacrificial Engineer drinks from a "cup" Elizabeth (barren), miraculously the mother of John the Baptist, predecessor of Jesus Christ Elizabeth (barren), "miraculously" the mother of Cuddles, predecessor of The Deacon ("Spike") ...

Just as Abordoli stated, I see this Deacon as the evolved and advanced creature, much smarter then it's predacessor, the Alien as we see in the original Alien. After all, that ship has been there for 2000 years, like all things, their weapon evoled or they perfected it and truly made the "perfect Organism", which is why it is on the mural, it truly is perfect as Ash stated.

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It all comes together...

@Mr.J; Thanks to you, actually. I was looking over your wonderful posts and realized the freaken' thing was right there all along.

The engineers seem somewhat artsy-fartsy with their decorative choices and ocarina instrument in which they activate their ships. Could be that this "dome" facility was charged with the design of the "deacon" on the mural.

Let me blow your mind... yes..because it was a Prophecy.. they realized that the earth life creation was their demise but alas they found this out too late. muahahahahh the reign has ended B*TCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! here come the ants. ok...maybe not but makes you think... dontcha think? ; P

That actually looks a lot like a queen to me, which raises the question of what the even bigger and meaner looking thing in the robe behind it is.

I noticed this on the 2nd viewing. I also noticed on the first viewing that when Holloway is standing in front of the mural he looks over sees what looks like an open ampule. You can see what looks like the things David breaks open to get the bubble that he infects Holloway with. Holloway says "This is just ANOTHER tomb" which led me to think that the mural wasn't on a wall but a door. On my first viewing I thought it was just a reg-xeno on the mural and that the door would lead to xeno eggs and that what was in that ampule displayed in front of the door was xeno dna. Now it seems the door would lead to Deacon dna.

@loseyourname...How does that look like a queen? Really, not being a smart ass. Just wondering.

With all due-respect, the "Deacon" is NOT a "proto-xeno". The "proto-xeno" was the one we saw in Alien, Aliens, Alien3 & Alien:R. It was an ancient prototype of the "deacon" found on a force-landed derelict juggernaut bomber that had been there for at least 1 million years (if not considerably longer). Original xeno = old bio-weapon. Deacon xeno = the latest bio-weapon (well at least 2,000 years old). The "container" on the altar in front of the "ancient/proto-xeno" mural is the original 1 million plus year-old bio-weapon. The container is not an ampule, but a green gem/stone/rock/amber/fossil much like the DNA extraction method in Jurassic Park 1 (in my opinion). An altar exists because it is the SOURCE DNA code for their current "deacon" bio-weapon. All the urns in that room contain the same exact life-form along with catalystic/mutanogenic "black goo" (primordial slime). Remember, you have the ampule containers which inside contain a "yolk", the 4 (possibly 8, double stacked in the taller ones) "inner ampules" with break-off necks surrounded in a by the "egg-white"....the "black goo". These "urns" are "synthetics eggs"....a much more controlled system of launching the bio-weapon (using pourous/breakable-when-impacted "urns") then their fore-fathers did playing with the actual "ancient xeno eggs". There are images in that mural that show the "ancient" egg/face-hugger/xeno life-cycle....therefore it cannot be the "deacon". If there were images of the body-hugger, then I'd be 100% on board. ...and that mural being a door? I disagree. All doors get opened by David whether desired or not.....LOL. And when he says this is just a tomb, he is correct. It is the tomb of their greatest accomplishment. The urns are ceremoniously surrounding the head like eggs used to be stored. The head in the middle isn't just any engineer's head. It is the face of the "bio-weapon" creator millions of years past. In all, this room is left a mystery in much the same way as the space-jockey was left a mystery in Alien. These questions will be answered in the sequel, I'm sure. Interesting and fresh debate! Let's work it out.....

Yes it was... like a lot of things, our explores rushed the whole gig. Places like this take time to (check safety protocols/scout the entire area/take samples/read all the walls etc./post guards and setup communications and an outpost with supplies - basically a base camp). Simple but never followed due to Weyland and the fountain of Youth hangup....

I agree about the resemblance. But how it went from black ooze, to infection, into sperm, into a human gestated squid (not squid like an actual squid) which gre into a large squid, infected a space jockey, and then burst out looking like a Tim Burton creature from The Night Before Christmas part 2 is beyond any and all logic. It was comical.

Niiiice abordoli. I think you may have hit the nail with parts of your "thesis". Regardless of what I think you may be wrong. That's why it's called a thesis lol.

There is a concept art image of an egg [img]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/protoxeno86/p310.jpg[/img] And in the movie we can see a bag connected to the umbilical cord. I'm wondering if that's an egg? [img]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/protoxeno86/egg.png[/img]

And if Deacon is an updated version of the Xenomorph, then ... will we see more of this creature in a sequel? ... Or ... will we see a new creature? I wonder this because the carbon-14 analysis indicates an age of 2000 years, so there may be a new version much of the deacon.

[i]Niiiice abordoli. I think you may have hit the nail with parts of your "thesis". Regardless of what I think you may be wrong. That's why it's called a thesis lol.[/i] Absolutely, I expect 50% of what I throw out to be wrong....but the exercise of throwing stuff out and being proven wrong is the fun in it. LOL!

[img]http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/protoxeno86/egg.png[/img] Yes, when I saw this I was thinking..."oh look, it comes complete with an egg accessory" (like it probably will in the action figure line). Either that or it's "placental". But coming packed with an egg is such an advancement to this "bio-weapon". All it has to do is bring the host back to the egg to get the next generation going while it takes a dirt nap (they probably still only live 24-48 hours as so programmed by the engineers). So say this thing is taking the egg to the derelict 2.0.......Deacon-boy will die, but the egg could remain lurking in stasis for millions of years....Waiting for the next round of explorers.....Muwahahahaha!!!!

@Abordoli; That OR like some fish and sharks, the newly birthed/hatched "baby' continues to feed off the placental yolk for a few hours/days.

You know what...I agree!!! I believe that the mural is a morphing representation of the current "bio-weapon" within all of those urns. The mural changes to look like the current adult version of the "product"....thus it is why it looks like the deacon. That green gem probably contains a droplet of the latest and greatest's DNA thus making it a "VHS Player" displaying the "image" upon the "screen" (mural). This is not just a tomb. It is their laboratory. It just makes you wonder what is in the other 5 "facilities".....More of the same?

The word "deacon" is derived from the Greek word diakonos (διάκονος),[1] which is a standard ancient Greek word meaning "servant", "waiting-man", "minister" or "messenger".[2] One commonly promulgated speculation as to its etymology is that it literally means 'through the dust', referring to the dust raised by the busy servant or messenger. THE BUSY SERVANT!

ok, am going to try to elaborate my thoughts around that, many points to address... I noticed the deacon/mural similarity early on, just because people here already debated 2 interpretations of the mural, as either a full-body xeno-ish figure or a stylized facehugger-ish creature. From the beginning, I was only convinced by the 'xeno-ish' theory so watching the movie, and in the eventuality of a xeno-ish apparition linking to Alien, then I was expecting it to look precisely like that. Made sense. Now, regarding abordoli's theory. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding being carried on about Scott's declaration regaring the LV-426 Derelict. Too lazy to find the vid, but if you pay attention and I recall right, he only states that *the technology* is millions years old. Not that the ship built out of this technology has been crash-landed and lying there for Myears. Unfortunately people caught on that over-interpretation and peddled that info around. We know for a fact such ships have existed for Myears ('genesis' scene etc) but if you remove the rest from Scott's statement, there is no argument left giving any hint as to how long the LV-426 derelict has been there. Am also very very doubtfull regarding both the bioweapon and the "a la J.Park" stuff. Not straight off saying it can't be right, but to me it's built plain out of the blue with no support either. I think it's only carried by the recurring "Weyland Corp" project to turn it into a bioweapon and by Janek's statement that LV-223 is either a scientific or military outpost. To me, the idea of a "bioweapon" seems very far-off from the engineers plans. Seems they have plenty ways to annihilate us and/or other (a priori, less advanced than us) humanoids they seeded with the rest of the stuff available to them (#1-black goo). Plus, to wipe us out, I doubt turning earth into a "xeno-deacon" swarming paradise is the most effective way for them if they have any subsequent plans for it. Also, I think hints show that the LV-223 installations are not distinctly 'scientific' nor 'military' but more like a mix of both with 'worship-activities' like old time religion and ancient philosophers. Have no specific idea yet as to how/why the deacon is planned, if it really is. First, I am pretty convinced it is indeed a proto-xeno, not the other way around. Contrarily to abordoli's theory, it is slightly backed by Scott/Lindelof/SFX artist's statements in interviews. They said it was tying into Alien and also how the creatures share some design DNA with Alien but more along how it could/would evolve into the facehugger/chestburster/xeno than exactly featuring these. All in all, even if they are counting on the fanbase, I think the general audience wouldn't be able to understand/think about it at all the other way around. And we shouldn't forget the general audience is also part of what the movie is aiming at, overall. As an evolutionary biologist, I was quite interested in how the engineers could seed life in the entire galaxy and control the fact that humanoid life-forms will evolve on each of these planets, at some point. Well, predictably, it wasn't explained. So what we are left with is that engineers can probably program one evolutionary pathway into their biotech so that the evolution of an relatively precise life-form can be somewhat planned. I think a similar thing is involved for the deacon, which explains why it was on the mural already. But the creature also is influenced by it's previous hosts, as designers explained they made it somewhat more feminine to recall Shaw, and evocative of the clumsiness of a foal to give it a weak but terrifying and beautiful aspect. very long post already, will do another tomorrow if more things come to mind.

Give me the sequel.... NOOOW - or just a tease for it :D

@iaeptus...I really don't think RS meant what you think he meant. I think when he said that he was talking about why the SJ was fosselized and that it had been sitting there for a long time. I don't think he was talking about the ships tech. Why would he mention the age of tech when he was talking about how old the SJ had been sitting there? Makes no sense. And the spacecraft at the beginning was not the same as the jugg.

Abordoli — I kind of like your theory about the Deacon being an [u]innovation[/u], however... Cuddles is REALLY inefficient compared to the traditional facehugger. Would have to eat a ton of something to grow that big. Adds an extra step (host)... The eusocial xenos with one hugger-laying Queen is a more efficient species. There is one archetype hugger and genetic diversity comes from the chestburster inheriting DNA from the animal/mammal host. I do think that the "green crystal" (in Jurassic Park "amber" fashion) may contain something that is worshipped/revered because it started the whole thing. That item may be something that the Engineers found somewhere else entirely. More than a "prophecy" it may simply be that to produce the Deacon, a full cycle of goo ››› sperm (male (Charlie)) + egg (female (Elizabeth)) ››› Cuddles ››› Engineer host was needed. But, we can guess ’til we're blue in the face, because 3 of the sarcophagi clearly featured burst chests. That's an additional mystery.

Moreover, if that is the Deacon on the wall mural several more additional things have to be true: 1) David knew the life cycle of the Deacon and its requirements for both conception and birth. He would have acquired this info from inscriptions on the walls of the facility. Therefore his behavior was deliberate, making more meaningful his inquiries of Shaw regarding her recent sexual life with Holloway, and explaining his deliberate inspection of her for evidence of an "alien" pregnancy. 2 )The engineers had abducted human hosts previously, conducted experiments, and understood the Deacon's etiology, perfectly. 3) Then a human host is responsible for the deaths of all the engineers on LV 223. Perhaps this is the meaning of the viral citation of Nietzsche's Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, or as BSG would put it : all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again. 4) The engineers are likely infertile or require other hosts for reproduction. It is also possible that the wall mural doesn't represent the Deacon, but the Deacon resulted as a consequence of an experiment gone wrong. In any event, the first stage of that 'experiment gone wrong' would have required human hosts. These are sufficient reasons for the engineers to eliminate humans, humans can reproduce the perfect bio-weapon that will kill off the engineers : "Don't all children want their parents to die?' It is also obvious that the engineers can't complete this life cycle without human intervention. Well, there you have it: "Diiiie!!"

Hi again guys actually I did pay specific attention to that when the video was out, precisely because right then I figured people were already hearing what they wanted to hear. In the end I fought my lazyness and found the video that started this all 'the derelict was there for millions of years' craze back then. The general part about that is from ~5:30 to ~7mn and at no time is he talking about how long the derelict has sat there. He mentions it crashed at some point but after that, him mentionning millions of year is a distinct thing and only regarding the age of the technology (crash landed [blablabla...] distress signals are necessary Myears in the past or My in the future [...] technology that is Myears old). youtu.be/NnAiIqWsyAo Also yes, I know the saucer ship is not the same, but it does not invalidate what I say, considering what Scott was talking about and I was addressing is technology VS the time the LV-426 Derelict rested there. I wouldn't pay too much attention to the term "fossilized" cause fossilisation is turning into non-organic compounds which doesn't occur that way. I think it's just abusive language when they actually mean "mummified" which also look more like what we see in Alien. All in all, sorry to insist but realize how much people have jumped into that misunderstanding, spread the word and convinced themselves they were right by making up facts, just because it suited their theory. Try not doing that people, stick to what we have only, otherwise it's just a weird game of constantly making up and reviving crazy theories.

@fox, iapetus, Engineering, sukkal: All greats posts with some really good information based on observations, etc. I look forward to many months of debate (and even changing and re-canting my own theories) between now and Prometheus 2 when, hopefully, we'll get some more answers to the multitude of new questions. Regarding the inefficient "body-hugger" that produces a deacon+(assumed egg). Maybe this "body-hugger" is a "kick-starter" stage that occurs only when a host (Holloway) is directly infected and impregnates the next host (Shaw) which then produces this unique "body-hugger" stage. Then afterwards, no more "body-huggers", just "deacons" and "deacon-face-huggers". It's like we're being shown a part of the lifecycle that we have never seen before. Just like what they did in Aliens with the queen. I'm going to hang on a little bit longer to my "egg/face-hugger/ancient-xeno" pre-dates the "urn/host1/[host2(if Host 1 wasn't female)]/body-hugger/deacon+egg/deacon-face-hugger/deacon" theory for three simple reasons (prove all 3 wrong and I'll switch back over; of course this all hinges on whether or not the LV-426 is older than 2000 years even if it isn't 1 million years old): 1) The pilot's suit was fossilized into his chair with his suit hollow because the engineer inside was dust lying in the boots. This takes a long time to happen. 2) The eggs in the cargo-bay hold (which are bio-weapons because Ridley stated so in a fairly recent interview; I can find the video link if need be) are in a stasis hibernation mode and it has been said somewhere (I forget where I heard it) that the eggs can hibernate as long as necessary surviving in the most inhospitable environments. 3) The Juggernaut on LV-426 is an older model than the Juggernauts we see on LV-223. The new models come with 4 stasis modules and a console and chair. The old model was ancient and even had a different way to access the bridge as we see in the newer model. These points, and even more, make it such that the Juggernaut on LV-426 is vastly older than the Juggernauts on LV-223. Thus the style of cargo on LV-426 (bio-weaponoid-eggs) are older than the style of cargo on the Juggernauts on LV-223 (urns that can be launched, and shatter like synthetic eggs complete with "yolk" (the thing David put on his finger to infect Holloway) and "white" (the mutanogenic, primordial "black-goo"). Thus, the "egg/face-hugger/ancient-xeno" pre-dates the "urn/host1/[host2(if Host 1 wasn't female)]/body-hugger/deacon+egg/deacon-face-hugger/deacon". This is too complex for general audiences to grasp? Maybe in the 50s. This is 2012. Audiences are smarter.....though not by much.. ; )

@[b]Svanya[/b] Good point. Maybe Fox wasn't smart to show the mural in the trailers....because, now having seen the movie, it truly was "given away". Blame Fox? Or blame the mainstream movie-going community who requires to be spoon-fed and to see everything in order to understand? @[b]Shambhala[/b] My friend is wondering if we'll see the Deacon in Aliens: Colonial Marines.....because Gearbox Software said that Colonial Marines will have some ties with Prometheus. I imagine the Deacon will be a taller creature, though I don't know how much more formidable, let alone if it multiplied.

[i]All in all, sorry to insist but realize how much people have jumped into that misunderstanding, spread the word and convinced themselves they were right by making up facts, just because it suited their theory. Try not doing that people, stick to what we have only, otherwise it's just a weird game of constantly making up and reviving crazy theories.[/i] Hold on now. Let's have the debate first, OK?...LOL...I haven't declared anyone else as having "crazy theories". Let's debate, present the evidence and we can all chime in as to what we believe...or something completely different....Hey, even I might swap sides.....LOL. I just watched the "Ridley Scott talks Prometheus with Geoff Boucher" again for like the tenth time and also paid extra special close attention to Ridley's words. English is my native language of 40 years and tone, inflections and emphasis have a lot to do with what the meaning of what is being said (as it does in ALL languages). So I'll leave that at that.....Each member will have to decide what they feel he is trying to say. If the derelict juggernaut on LV-426 was manufactured 1 million years and has still been running within the last 2,000 years then THAT's the manufacturer that I want making my next vehicle.... ; )