Let's Talk About Goo...

Hey, so I know there are a lot of goo theories out there, but I think I have a simple new idea about it, so tell me what you think. Here it is:

The black goo in the urns is the broken down remains of the sacrificial engineers.

Exhibit A: Urns are for dead people.

When people die, we sometimes cremate them, and put them into urns.

Ashes (original concept art)... 

Urns (dark angels)...

Also compare to Egyptian canopic jars, which preserve the remains of the dead (the canopic jars were always four in number, just like the ampules in the urns)

 And note the function of the urns/ampules: preservation (from the Weyland infographic):

Exhibit B: Sacrificial Engineer breaks down - into black goo!

Unlike the concept art, he decomposes into goo - we see it leaking from his ears, fingertips, flooding his brain, etc.

It has the same color and viscosity as the black goo leaking out of the urns:

We also see droplets of it swarming around his body like flies ('Beelzebub' is Hebrew for 'Lord of the Flies'), before falling in and dispersing into the water. The black goo is suspended in water, and when David flips the ampule over - it falls to the bottom, reminiscent of the waterfall scene:

Compare to the closeup of a goo droplet: 

The gold flecks swirling around in it are from the gold glop he consumed:

Exhibit C: They do the same thing

The opening is ambiguous, but basically the Engineer's DNA is either
1. Incorporated into primitive life, causing an evolutionary 'leap', or
2. It is the primordial soup from which the first forms of life emerge.

Either way, we see the same thing happening with the goo from the urns:

1. DNA that is incorporated into pre-existing forms of life, causing an evolutionary leap (remember, evolution is synonymous with *mutation* - that's the mechanism by which all living things evolve):

Or, 2. Primordial soup from which life emerges, spontaneously:

Exhibit D: Parallels between Shaw & David's analysis

These scenes are intercut for a reason - the things they are examining separetely are directly related. Each scene is answering the other scene's question (vice versa).

David pulls the urn from the freezer ('Let's have a look at its DNA' - Shaw). David unscrews the top of the urn, and sets it down on the table, symbolizing decapitation (Shaw tells Ford to isolate the strand of dna from the decapitated head). Now in the commentary, Lindelof says that if the goo was place under microscope, we would see dna (The dna sample from the Engineer matches the human sample = we are the same as our "gods" and Shaw whispers, "Oh, My God"). David pulls the ampules out of the urn (there are four, just like four Engineers per Juggernaut). He unfastens one, and flips it over. The liquid streams down -again, symbolic of the waterfall scene that begins all life on earth('It's us. It's everything.' - Shaw).

She then asks 'What killed them?' and it cuts immediately to David 'decapitating' the ampule (suggesting maybe a machine killed them? maybe an android? David & Goliath). David then takes a drop to his finger and says 'Big things have small beginnings' (Earth as the tree of life that grew from a single seed - an engineer).

(I'd love to hear other interpretations of these intercut scenes!)

Exhibit E: Parallels with Holloway

This kind of segways into what the goo does vs. what the goo is, but those concepts kind of go hand in hand, so I think it's important to review how Holloway's death echoes the deaths of the two Engineers.

1. First notice the similarities between the two engineers - both were turning black. Although the sacrificial engineer was being broken down - his dna eventually reformed again, so you could argue that he was actually 'in a state of change' just like the black cells on the severed head. Also, there was an emphasis on his brain during the waterfall scene, as the camera zooms out of microscopic level - suggesting it's the same process that the severed head was undergoing. And recall the oozing urns - they don't ooze from the seam under the lid like you'd expect (from the 'neck') - they ooze from top of the lid (from the 'head').

So my best guess here is that the decapitated engineer was poisoned with the gold glop. The only supporting evidence for this is an alternate still from the movie where Holloway discovers the sacrificial bowl in the tomb, instead of the green crystal. Obviously one bowl is not enough to break down the 10 or so bodies that are running down the corridor in the hologram, but a one-drop dose might be enough to screw them up biochemically - just like the dosage differences between Holloway and the worms/hammerpedes.

(So here is the first parallel between Holloway's death and the Engineers)

That still leaves us w/the question of why the head exploded while the other Engineers' didn't? It might be because Shaw ran an electric current through the head. Gold is a great conductor, so the current may have interfered with the process somehow - maybe supercharging the gold glop - so that instead of simply breaking down, it exploded.

2. During that scene, Charlie is drinking in the background. And the next time we see him is at the pool table, where his drink is spiked with a drop of black goo. Immediately following the poisoning scene is the scene in the caves - where Fifield and Milburn stumble upon dozens and dozens of dead bodies (were they poisoned just like we saw Holloway poisoned?)

The following scene, we see Charlie again - he walks into Elizabeth's room, and stands in the midst of the Hologram - I think this is more than just foreshadowing his own death, but illustrating a direct connection between the two deaths - because we know he is poisoned at this point:

3. He dies in his suit, just like the decapitated engineer, and he gave up his life willingly, just like the sacrificial engineer, and the pain he was suffering through beforehand was similar to the two engineers' suffering.

In forensic pathology, the three things to consider are the cause, the manner, and the mechanism of death, and I think although the mechanism was different in every case (Sacrificial = rapid cellular decomposition? 223 = decapitation, Holloway = set on fire), the cause of death was the same for the Sacrificial and Decapitated Engineers (gold glop), and the manner of death may have been the same for Holloway and the Engies on 223 (poisoning/homicide).

So that's it - let me know what you think :)

** Text and Image Assistance by Freeze **