Want to really understand the Engineers?

In my interpretive of the film, I felt the Engineers where a race of Ritualist Scientist whom believed in sacrificing themselves so that a new evolution of experiment can flourish on an uncolonized planet.  I felt that the opening scene explained who the Engineers were going to be and what their intents were on Earth before human civilaztion evolved. The Engineer dranked the Black Goo or Biosymbio Elixar and then fell into the ocean where his own DNA grew. Hence why Ridley Scott called the Gardners of life.

The Black Goo was an experiment of the new life, which required a DNA host, so this is where the Engineer must sacridfice himself. David8 does not have a DNA but he was facinated by the thought of creation, since he himself questions why he has been created. The experiments on LV-223 never took launch like that of the experiments placed on Earth. Similar to the story of Prometheus from Greek Mythology, David steals the fire or in this case the experiment/Black Good to advance the evolution of a civilation on LV-223.

You can read more on my post;

http://www.prometheus2-movie.com/community/forums/topic/31623

@Denebra321

I really enjoyed reading all those theories. I like how you think about the engineers in the sense that they cultivate many worlds and if they do not get the results they want they use the black goo, specialized nano machines to keep that worlds DNA from spreading off world.

I really like all these theories every time I read these new threads. You guys are very inventive to be sure.

This is not a major flaw in your ideas but certainly it has to be a factor. When we begin to think about how fast technology evolves you begin to get an idea of what is possible. For example, we are building quantum computers right now with about 10 Qbits that are in super position and entangled. 50 Qbits would be faster than all the computers on the earth (x) times a billion earths full of the computers we have now.

Could you imagine a really big Quantum computer? Say one with trillions of Qbits. You begin to understand that a quantum machine like that could model entire galaxies with all their particles in real time, millions of galaxies. This is so many numbers in fact that even if you had many trillions of light years of galaxies a large quantum computer could make more numbers in one cycle or one second of operations than many billions of times of all the galaxies we have seen in on a small fraction of our tiny cosmological views of this 13.5 billion light years.

You have to be careful when saying that the Engineer technology spans billions of years. If the Engineers had technology billions of years more advanced than silicon state physics then they could take the entire engery of a galaxy and compress it into something weightless and recreate it into another type of computer that would simulate anything in 3d coordinate vector quantum states. At that point they do not need to seed any planet with anything that we would think of as biological. They could keep a world in simulation or an entire galaxy of plantes and test how it would all react in real time.

These quantum computers are more powerful than you can imagine.

@Deneba321

Excellent analysis of the film! Thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and very interesting tidbit from Ridley that helps me gain more perspective.  There are many points that I agree with wholeheartedly.  Especially the mythology about the Titans, and how Chronos didn't want his son to replace him.

You brought up something really interesting in #11, the idea that we could replace them if we're worthy enough/ don't get ourselves killed.  If you look at things in that way, the star map really could have been an invitation to a trial of sorts. Almost like a test, or safeguard mechanism left in place to stop us from spreading too far if we're not worthy enough to surpass them. David calls them "A superior species, no doubt". When humans make it to LV-223 we can either burn ourselves on the fire, or learn how to use it as a tool. However, the fire grew out of control in the past. Accidents can happen if you're not careful while trying to handle it. I also like what you bring up at the end about David becoming king. There are many reasons I think Vicker's line about how a "King has his reign and then dies" is very important.

David brings up the question: "Don't all children want to see their parents dead?" -- a reference to Freudian psychology, but also possibly to the themes from the Titan/Olympian war, and how the Titans viewed their children.  To add to that, Freud also believed that children subconsciously want to replace their father... We see David watching Shaw's dreams...In some ways David is analyzing her subconscious.. Shaw didn't actually want to see her parents dead. Her parents form a big part of her thinking. This can tie into why the Engineers expect us to replace them in the hierarchy while spreading out of the garden....But it's not always true that children want to kill and replace their parents, which is why Shaw is so puzzled...However, David did want to kill and replace his father...He did want to see Weyland die, and he got exactly what he wanted in that case. Sometimes people aspire to be like their MOTHERS or FATHERS, and David secretly wants to be a king, as well as "head" of the company...

Vickers and David wanted to replace Weyland as "King" or "Queen" of the company after he died.  Vickers had a secret agenda, she didn't want the mission to succeed. She hoped they wouldn't find anything. She wanted to wait until Weyland died and then become head of Weyland because the board members were already talking about what to do when the mission failed.. Her chance to be "head" of Weyland corp ended up being "cut off" when she died.

There are many things related to the recurring head symbolism, heads being cut off, tricked back to life, and re-attached/replaced (the Hammerpede can regrow its own head). The head is like a king/leader of the body. Vickers was there to watch the mission and expected Weyland would die if he went down there. Vickers (and Shaw) actually tried to warn Weyland that he was about to die...Which is far more than David did. His programming wouldn't allow hm to get away with killing Weyland directly...He simply remained silent and ambiguous, then he said exactly what Weyland wanted him to say and watched Weyland get himself killed by the Engineer and David's own head. David was the one Weyland favoured, and the one he would have listened to. "The trick is not minding that it hurts", David has to gain people's permission to harm them by tricking them into harming themselves, as we saw more clearly with Holloway..

Not meaning to sound repetitive here, but i also enjoyed reading your interpretation of what you think the engineers are all about.

I'm beginning to think that what the engineers view as science, us humans view as religion.

For example; Our religious scriptures ie The old testement, new testament, the kuran etc etc is a form of law, control and science, and churches are actually meant to be places of scientific study (in the engineers eyes.)

To us humans, these things are symbols of religion, (myth/legend,) but to the engineers it's all scientific.  

The murals in the ampule chamber would suggest religion to us, but to the engineers it may actually be a blue-print for their science experiment?

The engineers might view the human (christian) ritual of baptism as nothing more than scrubbing/washing ones self before going into operating theatre or the lab?

Basically, we and they have much different methods of science.

Redant

Very interesting about the quantum
Computers. That means processing
Power so huge that they could 
Load the human genome many times 
Over and be able to predict exactly
How tocreate a being of unprecedented
Intelligence.- they then simply add that
Genetic manipulation to themselves 
And upgrade themselves to become
Suiper intelligent. And voila -- 
Singularity reached. We homo 
Sapiens shouls start to get to that
Point where we can do that to 
Ourselves . 

So why would the engineers 
Remain the same for millions of
Years after sedding coutless planets ??
Except if some higher power is 
Controlling them and the absence
Of this higher power allowed them to
Start seeding for themselves -

And they messed with something
They were not prepared for and when
Mankind refused to cooperate they
Decided to wipe us out and start over 
Or perhaps as david said not to 
Destroy only but to create but restart
What the this higher power wanted.

So they have this genome for super
 Intelligence and will reapply it to a few
Humans left alive after black gooing the
Reast until a loyal faction member
Decided to sabbataged or perhaps 
There were sipmply things they 
Weren't aware of. It could
Be that bob ws the engineer choosen
To seed this superintelligent genome
Into the remaining homo sapiens and
Then to create a new race and after
Studying them extract the dna and
Add uit ti themselves .....

It is really hard to understand the Engineers and there Agenda, i had also considered them to just be Genetic Gardeners, but its a case of was we the intended flower they wanted to grow and look after? Or was we a fruit that they intended to harvest for some purpose.

There is a lot of things going on that makes little logical sense in that they went for all the effort to seed us, just to be used as Hosts for the Xeno, as well the process from the seeding to the harvest is Millions or Years and it does not make sense.

I viewed them as Gardeners and that LV 223 was simply a Watchers Outpost, Earth was simply a allotment (the those not in the UK see here) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_%28gardening%29

Basically its a Garden that is not on your own patch of land, and thus LV 223 is simply a Shed from which they keep tools to help the Garden Grow and to keep a eye on the Garden from.

Its for this reason i wonder was LV 223 always a Bio-Weapons plant?  Why the Head Statue and why the Clues left for us to find, these Engineers had visited us many times and Ridley is hinting that they have played a part in our constant Evolution and our Advances in Technology and Construction etc etc.

Something may have triggered the Engineers to be displeased with their Garden or a particular plant in the Garden that has now become a Weed to them.

Or maybe we have rogue fractions at work and one fraction has wanted us destroyed, we just dont know for sure.  Maybe we was created by a fraction without the consent of the Higher Powers on Paradise and thus the Sacrificial Scene was a Engineer Fraction using the Goo to create mankind without the consent of the leaders on their Home World.

Thus Prometheus... or maybe the Home World knew of our creation, or of the creation of life but a fraction  of Engineers went back to Earth to further upgrade and create us or that they gave us knowledge that the Home World Elders simply did not want us to possess.

It is my theory that indeed the Prometheus of the movie is something to do with either those who gave the order to seed life via the Sacrificial Scene or that it is a event of where some Engineers had upgraded us against the will off the Elders.

Thus Prometheus is a Engineer or Elder or a Fraction of them.

As far as the wider Agenda of why we was created well we just dont know for sure, was we simply a experiment?  The Engineers are hinted that they seed many worlds the same way so maybe they had some idea of what could happen.

Or did they not really know and this was simply a way of seeing hey lets see if seeding our Genetics with this Goo will bring about life.

Which ever way or Agenda, i cant see the long process being the result to simply create the Xeno, especially not if the Xeno Organism was known or was something they had planned to create right at the start of that Sacrificial Scene.

That does not rule out that they had came back to further enhance and evolve certain species on Earth until they created Mankind in their likeness, or maybe they was not supposed to had created Mankind but just life in general and so we was a unplanned Evolution, or one that happened because of further interference by a faction of Engineers. (Stealing of the Fire)

It seems however that after our creation a fraction of Engineers or Elders at the very least came back to visit and interact with us, and came back over many of thousands of years.  Surely they was not too displeased with their creation.

There must had been a point when they simply had enough of our rebellious nature, and that we are created in their likeness and we was becoming too much like them, and they worried we may see our selves as equal to the Gods.  This is just as it appears David is, and in a future you could see Androids rise up and not want to serve Mankind but see themselves as superior to us.

Maybe the Xeno is then some way to reset the Garden but it is one that would wipe out all life, or create a more violent and deadly version of life on Earth, what benefit does that have to Engineers? We dont know.

Maybe they or a fraction came across the Xeno or related Organism at a latter point after our creation and they started to worship the life form and then when Mankind had upset them for the last time, they wanted to replace the Genetics of Life on Earth that is connected to their DNA with something connected to the Xeno DNA that they or a fraction deemed more worthy.