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

I think earlier posts are right, this mural depicts the entire life cycle of the xenomorph. The first progenitor of the first chest burster must become a queen as someone stated earlier. I forget who, but someone mentioned markings on the skull of the deacon. This allows for rapid propagation of the xenos after first infection with any host. It rapidly adapts to its host, making it ideal for dealing death on any planet. As a sideline, I have a small set of theories regarding the engineers. They all appear male and pretty much identical to me. As does the giant head statue in the urn room. I suspect we have not seen the engineer's maker but will in the next film. The film is highly self referential and references religion frequently, particularly Christianity quite a bit. My theories/interpretations are intended as food for thought: I believe the Engineers are not a race, but a collection of clones of an original singular male Engineer. An Adam without an eve. Whether Adam had his Eve lost, destroyed her or was denied her, we won't know until Prometheus 2/3. Eve took forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, attempting to become godlike and evade death. Instead her sin and Adam's cause God to curse women to painful birth, and men to a life of toil. If the Engineer female died at the hands of their creator, the Engineer is likely attempting to become a greater creator through this goo. Perhaps the goo is the modified remains of the engineer Eve or the after birth that killed her. Someone mentioned placentas earlier, and the images are nearly all of an empty dark red/black sack. Sick imagery, but seems very relevant. The engineer is blessed with gifts of physical and intellectual prowess except for the ability to reproduce after loosing his eve. The self sacrifice of a male engineer via the goo is a painful birth and the only way for the engineer to create life. In fact it may be the experiment he is performing, trying to find a way to recreate his Eve. We see the engineer clutch his rib cage as he falls down in the opening death scene, evoking the image of Eve being created from the rib of Adam. ***Highly Speculative**** 2000 years ago the engineers decide to wipe out man. Some people think its because we crucified one of them, which became our myth for Jesus. It might be possible the story of David versus Goliath is more likely. Get it, David versus a gigantic humanoid or engineer. The film does suggest that the engineer's experience with us echoes our experience with the xenos. Another possibility is that the virgin birth of Jesus is really referencing the first human-goo offspring. The film does take place during Christmas and calls back 2000 years. The virgin birth in the film is of the Engineer and the Deacon. So what exactly is the virgin birth of the bible really? ************************************************************* I suspect the Engineer is trying to recreate his Eve, and all experiments are failed attempts. My observation was that both Charlie and Fifield were not turning into rage zombies but seemed to me mutating into malformed Engineers. They threw people around as though they had Engineer strength. So the whole point of creating life from their own DNA and the goo is to try to create something like a Engineer Eve. They may have tried to give a human female a small dose in an attempt to elevate a human female to an Engineer female. The results from planet to planet may all be the same, Xenos. This could explain why the Engineers have highlighted so many planets, they are in an endless pursuit to stave off their own mortality. This results in the worship of the xeno and the goo. The rough form of goo representing the experiment from the original Eve strain, and the refined form being the termination formula. David may realize all this from the inscriptions he can read. He then conducts his own experiment on Charlie and Shaw. I believe he may have revealed this to the Engineer who then promptly rips his head off. It is fun to speculate. I hope at least some of this postulating can fill in some gaps or help flesh things out. However we wont know if any of our ideas, theories and canon facts fit without a sequel. I just hope box office is good enough to get us some answers.

One more crackpot theory of mine, I suspect that it is possible that the landscape being terra formed in the opening is not Earth but LV-223. The clouds appear similar to the atmosphere of LV-223 later in the film. Scott also often says in interviews that the planet in the opening is not necessarily Earth. One of the read outs by the Prometheus crew states that atmosphere is being generated inside the temple. It was terra forming the planet. There is a primitive atmosphere on the moon, and that would also explain the presence of a worm in the chambers. It could have been brought in by the humans from outside the temple, but not from Prometheus which in all likelihood had none of those creatures inside of it due to decontamination procedures.

I have a theory (not unusual for this site, I know). The fact that the Engineers gave humans an "invitation" to this planet, which is most likely not their home planet, makes me believe that the entire setup on the planet was meant for the humans. Now, someone brought up the fact that there may have been a prophecy concerning the "Deacon", which is obviously some form of a Xenomorph, prompting the mural which seems to indicate, given the context of the picture, that the Xenomorph may be a "child" of some sort to the Engineers, their magnum opus. Could this mean that humans were meant to enter that room and get infected with whatever was in the ampules and later give birth to a new race of Xenomorphs? I don't know, but it seems semi-plausible to me...

[quote]I have a theory (not unusual for this site, I know). The fact that the Engineers gave humans an "invitation" to this planet, which is most likely not their home planet, makes me believe that the entire setup on the planet was meant for the humans. Now, someone brought up the fact that there may have been a prophecy concerning the "Deacon", which is obviously some form of a Xenomorph, prompting the mural which seems to indicate, given the context of the picture, that the Xenomorph may be a "child" of some sort to the Engineers, their magnum opus. Could this mean that humans were meant to enter that room and get infected with whatever was in the ampules and later give birth to a new race of Xenomorphs? I don't know, but it seems semi-plausible to me...[/quote] I agree with DoCats... In fact, I think that the mural is an oracle...it's not a depiction of the past but a prophecy for the future. I also feel that it is an oracle since these are prevalent elements in Greek Mythology which the movie is obviously strongly hinged on. And the fact that Shaw mentioned that the mural was changing might suggest that the future or the prophecy was changing due to their arrival.

@Iapetus : well, I can't divine the point you're trying to make, it seems to revolve around a distinction you're making between "facts" and "theories." You seem to think "facts" carry more truth than "theories." Everything that we take as "fact" gathers its truth because it is an element in some theory. Theories are overturned from time to time. "Facts" change accordingly. For instance, this entire thread is an extended conversation about the Caldow mural. For him, it was just an altar area that pays homage to Giger inside the "Head Room." "It is a relief sculpture hanging from the wall and has the impression of an alien form with flowing structure surrounding it." That was Caldow's intent. Does that mean the mural is used in just that way in the film? That's hard to say. Does Caldow's intended purpose invalidate other meanings that viewers may find in his mural. Do we need to precede every conjecture with, "Warning, Theory Coming, Beware!" My problem isn't with you, my problem is with your reasoning. It's flawed, self-regarding and circular. If you've been privy to unique conversations with the creative artists behind aspects of Prometheus, I suggest you write those up and share them with the forum. Most artists don't care to constrain the meanings of their works. Artistic works are "prevalent." They have many and multiple meanings and these meanings are worked out over long periods of time. They don't have a single meaning. I don't doubt that Caldow intended one thing when he conceived the mural. But is that how the mural is used in the movie? Doesn't Holloway say, "It's just another tomb?" Leading the audience to think there's something behind the mural. By the way, there was no prior tomb. So this misdirection of meaning changes the meaning of the mural. It seems to me that Ridley Scott is using the mural in an altogether different way than Caldow, just as did with Giger. Many fans around the net are calling those slits in the neck of the engineer's suit, "gills." Not just me. So, if you have some privy info you'd better hurry up with it.

@Wurnman : I saw the mural that way, too, as a birth scene. But of what?

I think the Alien (alpha xeno) in the mural is the creator of the engineer. The engineer is used to as a host to propigate the alpha xeno species. The alpha xeno in the mural seems to be connected to a machine which releases facehuggers to impregnate engineers (note the mural victims are bald). I also think the engineers found out that humans were used to breed facehuggers so they decided to wipe humans out in an attempt to gain freedom from the alpha xenos I also think that the derelict on LV 426 is a failed attempt by the engineers to design a different way for the alpha xeno to reproduce using humans as hosts. The failed result was a xeno which could use both engineers and humans to reproduce and was also hyper aggressive.

@Gahlaktus No, you are wrong ; facts, theories and beliefs are distinct things and Im not here to make your education about that, but you're the one asking me to back my claims. A fact is nothing else than the observable occurence of an instance, its interpretation is subjected to its context, to the observer and to the orbserver's context. However the fact itself will remain unaltered by changes in any of these external factors. A theory is a set of statements of which an associated set of direct consequences can be tested (experimentally or else) ; a test is always structured to prove a theory wrong as you cannot prove a theory right ; a theory is hence only 'corroborated/supported' by tests as long as it has not been proven wrong by a test. A belief is a set of statements which cannot be tested and hence lies out of the scientific realm (eg religion, art). You can find some of the most enlightening insights about that reading Karl Popper's work on the progress and structure of knowledge ([i]The Logic of Scientific Discovery[/i] and mostly [i]Conjectures and Refutations[/i]). Thomas Kuhn, comparable but maybe closer to your way of thinking with his 'scientific paradigm shifts', would however not get his facts, theories and beliefs mixed neither. exemple: [b]- Fact -[/b] [i]a white swan[/i] - the white feathers reflects all the wavelenghts of the spectrum. This holds true even in pitch black darkness where it can't be observed. [b]- Theory -[/b] [i]all swans are white[/i] - I can test that by looking at all swans, in theory. In pratice, I will only see the most extensive set of swans possible. If all of them happen to be white, my theory is not proven but holds true. However, the day a single black swan would be observed, the theory collapses. But the facts remain: white swans are still white. [see Thomas Huxley's inspiring quote: “Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact."] [b]- Belief -[/b] [i]swans are graceful[/i] - this cannot be tested as it is part of a personnal system of beliefs, which hence lies outside of science. Now regarding our off-topic discussion, facts are facts. Multiple facts and multiple meanings can coexist in art, which is out of the scientific realm. But even in art, when 2 facts/meanings are mutually exclusive, the authority of the source or the context will make one prevail. If nothing makes one prevalent, then it depends on what one chose to believe. That means that, even though your personal feeling about Prometheus has an undisputable value, I am allowed to chose and value Ridley Scott et al's opinion more than yours. Here, we are in the context of a film, directed by R. Scott and 'made' by dozens/hundreds of hands. In that context, the facts/meanings in and out of the film do not overlap in the least because that mural in and out of the film is not the same object, so I am not going to discuss who the artist made an hommage to when making it. In the film though, it has a single set of clearly defined and non-mutually exclusive meanings, which is what we are trying to elucidate here, supposedly. Again and again, no problem with you thinking what's on the engineer's neck are gills. I was just trying to get you and other people to change their way of speaking/doing because it reveals a lot about the way your mind works. And you just proved it repeatedly telling how your stuff was fact and not just a theory that you chose to support (with which I have no problem). See all that is not a big problem and I am responsible for driving this all so far off topic, but there is just so much I can take when so many people here obliterate logic and arrange stuff the way they want, so things look the way they like. Not saying you do that constantly but I just used this one as an example because it's the way the thread was taking and which made me post my first comment. Now, regarding the gills and other stuff and supposed 'privy' info you want me to share. You are the one not providing elements that non-ambiguously support your stuff. I have provided links to stuff dealing with neighbouring issues and that are 100% reliable as it is right out of the film crew's mouth. I too have come across other of your posts and thought they were well turned, but here you are turning passive-aggressive and your replies are insincere and plain full of bad-faith. I did not mean my remark personally and think things just got heated up. This is definitely my last off-topic post about that though, I have said all I think needed be told on my account. Now back to the film.

I'll ask again -- lol -- HOW did that Deacon fit inside the Engineer? It was way too big!! Did it come up through the floor? LOL!! That's my main issue with the Deacon...and I have the Deacon Blues thinking about it...lol!! Also, I think if there are Xeno eggs on LV-223, then they are behind that door with the mural...

I think the Deacon birth was the worst thing about the movie. There were moans and groans in the audience. Not only did it feel forced, it looked stupid. Not scary at all. Nothing like Giger's alien. And the pointy head was just goofy.

I intend to call The Deacon "Spike" and Cuddles will always be Cuddles to me. I wasn't impressed with the design either, though I understand why they did it.

Hi everyone im new here. I am also trying to learn more and more about the series. What is DEACON ? Is this code name for xeno?

Greetings all! I've been reading around here to get a feeling for folks' reactions to Prometheus, and registered to comment on this thread. So, knowing a good little bit about the Sumerian Legends and how some believe they are the precursor to modern Abrahmic religeons got me thinking. Could there be any hidden clues anywhere if one looked at things with a Christian slant. I thought of the planet, LV-223 and immediately saw "Leviticus-223" Since there is no Leviticus Chapter 2 Verse 23, I looked up Leviticus Chapter 22 verse 3. It says: "3 Say unto them, Whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, that goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord." So what do we have here? I interpret that to say that any man, no matter how evolved, that travels to the holy place reserved for the Gods and leaves any trace upon it is in real trouble. Just food for thought. I'm loving these discussions! Edit to add: I figured, what the heck... let's check out LV-426 :-) Leviticus Chapter Verse 26 states: "26 And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an aatonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him." Could this indicate that the SJ in Alien left with the eggs with the purpose of destroying them? An atonement for the "sins" of the engineers?

More concept art of the Deacon!!! and great IMO... [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/Prometheus_Deacon_005.jpg[/img] [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/Prometheus_Deacon_006.jpg[/img] [img]http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj636/skybeast3/ivanmanzella-4fd7812c10fd84a.jpg[/img] and the source... [url=http://www.weylandchronicles.com/]Your text to link here...[/url]

Love painting #2...very elegant and yet still scary!! That's the best design I've seen...should have kept it for the film....

Is DEACON the new xeno that came out of the Engineer?

@Hitman1303 Yes. The Art Department and Ridley called it that because of the way this kind of deacon's head looks in vestments: [img]http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2010/02/ovenmitt1.jpg[/img]

I'm with ArchEtech on this one. I kind of get the squid but how does squid plus Engineer equal xeno?! He looked nothing like his Mum and Dad :-)

I believe that the Xenomorphs already existed a long time before and they were found and experiment on by the Engineers. That crystal in front of the Xeno mural may just have some kind of fossilized pre-historic Xeno inside. The Engineers found them to be creatures with remarkable and unique carachteristics and started engeneering on them. Through their experiences and combinations they were able to come up with a couple of extraordinary substances, both in form of a black goo. One of the goo, more concentrated on the creatures acid blood, would cause the desintegration of an individual if he ingested it. the other, more consistent on the creatures agression and adaptability to anything, would interact with any life form that got in contact with it, causing this life form to act as an host for it to grow and adapt/evolve/change into something diffrent, more agressive and with unique carachteristics. The first goo, after more research started to be used by Engineers to dissolve themselves molecularly, in order to create life from thei own DNA. The second goo, was used to create species/weapons of mass destruction. With its unique composition, the Xeno became sort of Idolized and worshipede by some, because it would allow the creation of live and hated by others because of leading to the creation of very dangerous Bio-Weapons. I think what happened later was that something went wrong and it was decided to stop the experiments with the species and exterminate what was left of them, as it was too dangerous and many lives had been lost in the process. But a group of Engineeres didn't accept that too well, they were sort of "Satanic", they worshiped the Xeno as a "devil" for its capability of both life and mainly death! So, this group, retired to a close by moon, established a base, and continued experimenting, trying to recreate the original Xeno, inspired by murals they made of it. After many attempts they managed to replicate it, and started gathering large amount of liquified Xeno goo, stocked in urns. Their goal would be to unleash the Xenos in Earth to exterminate humans, as a revenge on their Elders who created life on Earth from the creature and then ordered its execution. For a Satanic group this would be like unleashing the Devil. Meanwhile, they were too confident on their experiments and somehow one of the creatures broke free and started to kill them all, they didn't even defend themselves, some just ran in fear as they wouldn't confront their "God/Idol". The two Engineers that went in the safe room, probably ingested the goo and dissolved, that's why no remains ere found. the others with head explosions must have had some direct contact with the changing Dna goo.

I want to point out that the Engineers never knew that a human would produce a squdish thing which in turn created the deacon. So I believe that the deacon was a freak accident and the mural, has everyone forgotten about all the engineers that ran into that room where did they go. I propose that the mural is a door or perhaps like the walls in the room dissolved and when everything else went back to normal it reformed and behind this 'door' of sorts were escape pods.