Engineers from Earth: *Final Theory

Woah, now this is encrypted!

Did you write this in hieroglyphs :)

(Moderators, any way to fix this?)

Okay, fixed it. I didn't realize that the fan base was so large. We're definitely not going to find consensus about what is or isn't canon but this is my view which I fully expect to ruined by the new movie lol.

The engineers will not be from Earth and I assume it will shown that they are several millions of years old no matter how implausible it is. Oh well, I will still be a fan of all the movies except the last 30 mins of Alien Resurrection hehehe

Where's the evidence of their civilization on Earth?

Where is the evidence for pre-history industrial age and engineers on Earth.

1. I don't think they were as wide spread as humanity today. This all happened 100,000 years ago when the population was still small. Like 50 million total humans or less, most of them still tribal africans

2. Perhaps it was just one 1st world nation, like an Atlantis and the rest of the world was still uninhabited except for parts of the middle east, Africa and Europe sparsely but spear wielding hunter gatherers.

3. When they left Earth, they may have destroyed most of the evidence of their climb to space technology. And possibly they may have given people an ultimatum. Either stay on Earth with the rest of these stick holding idiots, or come with us to become Overmen, star travelling cool dudes. Obviously most people elected to go.

4. They purposely left Earth in a primitive state of tech. They want to preserve it as an natural selection state for humans. This would explain why they introduced false deities, religion and emissaries to control public thought and stifle science. They wanted peace somewhat for humanity but they didn't want them leaving the planet.

I have more ideas about the black goo. To me, the goo cant both be the builder and destroyer of life. I think it has one purpose and that is that its a mutagen contagion used for destroying life.

They must have another way of building up life. I can see them tinkering with genetics and cleansing alien worlds the goo (which leads to xenomorphs) but I don't see them standing around watching paint dry, that is, tweaking evolution over the course of a billion years. People don't realize how long that is.

Its okay that the Engineers are upgraded humans who left Earth 100,000 years ago. That is still quite a bit of time to create an interstellar empire. They need not be 20 million years old or even a Billion. That's overkill in my opinion.

One thing that never made it on here but is also my theory.

The Engineer outbreak or civil war happened 2000 years ago. That's quite a bit of silence from them since they don't seem to visit Earth or care that we're sparefarring now.

The reason is that the Engineers were nearly wiped out either through civil war or accidental/deliberate outbreak of goo. THE ENGINEERS ARE NOW AN ENDANGERED SPECIES. Their only chance is basically to team up with humans because all their worlds are either Xenomorph hotbeds or controlled by the Birdies (a possible sentient alien species that wants to kill all hominids). I think the Engineers have been at war with the Birdies and stole the Goo from them or developed based on some of Birdie biological properties such as accelerated growth and acid for blood. They made a super weapon and fought the Birdies with their own bad medicine. Sort of like us creating a perfect flu epidemic based on the common cold which is treatable. Well, Goo isn't treatable.

 @Determinism

As far as our DNA being a perfect match to the Engineers, I always took it as they have all of our DNA within them PLUS more DNA that makes them them. When comparing our DNA with theirs, Shaw was simply looking at 1 block of their genetic code... the block that matches ours.

"So we have ventured into space quite a bit and we're colonizing worlds yet after a century, 300 planets, no engineers, no alien spaceships, no bugs"

300 planets isn't much in the grand scheme of things. But we did find aliens and signs of Engineers on LV-426. So it took 301 planets. But did you consider that perhaps we didn't find signs of Engineers because they were already extinct by the time of the events of Alien 1 & 2?

"Is it a coincidence that 300 habitable worlds surrounding Earth show no signs of Engineers, Goo or Aliens? I think "their own doorstep" is Earth"

Just because there's no signs of them doesn't mean the area is some kind of sanctuary. I think you're reaching a bit.

"how can my theory be correct if the Engineers want to kill us? They had ample time to do so after LV223"

We don't know this for sure. It's an assumption.

"We know that other emissaries or Engineers (1 or more) visited Earth after the LV223 incident. (Mayan & Hawaiian)"

Again, this is an assumption. You could chalk up the post-Jesus star maps to information spreading after the Engineers left, from one culture to another and across the world. Or the Engineers might not have left immediately after his death. And this is assuming the death of Jesus is the reason they want to destroy us. That might not necessarily be the case.

I don't dislike your theory. It's unique and well thought out. But the basis for it is based on assumptions about a species that we don't know much about.

I totally get trying to look at it from a scientific point of view, because that's what we do with most things. But you yourself even said there are many ways to get around it. Writers could literally get away with any explanation because "they're aliens" and science as we know it doesn't necessarily apply. At some point you have to just suspend your disbelief and accept that we're dealing with beings and technology beyond our comprehension.

And if the Engineers are in fact "gods" or if they are divine beings created by god/gods to seed the universe with life, then I think we have to throw out conventional science... because do you really think we're meant to comprehend god? I think this is one of the instances where the "Fi" in Sci-Fi could outweigh the "Sci".

Your thread definitely promotes discussion though.

A couple things I would like to ask you though...

You say humans had a much earlier industrial revolution and a group of humans left and became the Engineers. But this would be much more than an industrial revolution. This would mean early humans developed spacefaring technology. Technology that is far more advanced than what we have now, and more advanced than what humans in any of the Alien movies have. So are you suggesting that early humans developed this technology and left the rest of the humans in the dust? Wouldn't at least some of this technology be adopted by the other early humans? I don't see this happening to the degree you're suggesting. It would be like some of us leaving Earth now and expecting the ones who stayed behind to go back to living in teepees.

Also, if the Engineers came from humans, how do you explain the first scene of Prometheus? Why would Engineers evolve from humans, then go back to Earth and use the black goo to make humans? I know it's been said that the planet doesn't necessarily have to be Earth. But relevant to the plot, we can assume it is. Yes it's an assumption, but it's supported by the plot.

"To me, the goo cant both be the builder and destroyer of life. I think it has one purpose and that is that its a mutagen contagion used for destroying life"

I believe the black goo is used to mutate DNA. In the first scene of Prometheus, we see an Engineer drink it and then his DNA breaks down to create life (you may not think it's human life, but it's some form of life). But the black goo we see later in the vases could be a different form of it. The goo that affects Holloway appears to have a different result. This could be a slowed down process of what happened to the Engineer in the first scene, but it seems to be affecting him differently than the Engineer. So it seems the black goo reacts differently depending on what species ingests it. Personally I think the goo from the vases is a weaponized form of the goo from the first scene. I think they added Xeno DNA to the goo to create this weaponized version. But either way, it seems there IS a way for the goo to be a builder and a destroyer of life. It just depends who uses it or what you add to it to alter it.

I could be wrong though.  A lot of this stuff we don't know for sure as of now.

"As far as our DNA being a perfect match to the Engineers, I always took it as they have all of our DNA within them PLUS more DNA that makes them them. When comparing our DNA with theirs, Shaw was simply looking at 1 block of their genetic code... the block that matches ours."

If that was the case it wouldn't really be a match would it?

It could be interpreted that way.  They don't go into too much detail about the DNA.

I think Shaw's observation that 'they're us' is about as much detail as you'd need.

Very interesting theory,just for laugh,I think engineer with all their technology couldn't cure their boldness ,that's why they are jealous of humankind so much so that they want to wipeout everyone like their owen head,in Prometheus engineer look and touches David hair and smil first and then think to himself that even human robots have hair and I don't ,it make him so sad and angry that cut David head completely,poor things ,I think it's all about boldness,even the xnomorph are bold and they have same problem.anyway this is my theory.

The first scene in Prometheus, the engineer's body breaks down completely. And then we see, once its completely broken down, its starts reforming new strands of DNA. Cells start dividing and multiplying. But we're not shown what exactly it's building. It could be forming the blueprints to kick start life or it could be forming a Xeno out of existing life in the water.

One thing to consider about the opening scene. There is a different kind of Engineer ship shown. Could it be that these are the benign engineers. Before the scene was cut down, we know that there was a ceremony. Obviously its no small deed that this Engineer commits suicide sacrifice and was being encouraged to do so. Its basically their religion.

I think the two engineer groups we hypothesize were shown clearly in the movie and that two different kinds of black goo are also shown. We're shown conflicting facts about the Engineers and the Goo. One engineer group has a specific kind of ship, seems friendly, religious sacrifice and a DNA building Goo. The other engineer group has a warship, military demeanor and weaponized Goo that turns host into Xeno infestation.

LEAVING EARTH IN PREHISTORY:

We know that the Engineers visited Earth because of the star maps scattered over thousands of years at different sites. So we can deter that they guided culture to a degree. Religion has persistently stifled science through the ages. Its very evident that if you want to prevent sentient beings from reaching escape velocity, just toss them some religious memes and they will be on about that, divided, fighting, worshiping etc...they will not be building starships. I think the Engineers kept us worshiping them as gods, indoctrinated by servitude and religious memes for thousands of years. That prevented humans from achieving the tech progress necessary star travel. But when the interference ceased, it only took 2000 years and we were terra forming and colonizing other planets. Galileo, Newton, etc...despite the age old religious ideas, persevered without emissaries working miracles and keeping the humans in religious awe. They let us stagnate too long and we broke the stratosphere.

In prehistory, the engineers (humans) didn't have false gods parading around working "miracles" and flying on ships and deliberately trying to keep the population divided by 'faith'. This freedom allowed early humans to go from carving spears to building computers in no time at all. Just look at us, we went from Bronze age to Digital age in 2000 years, despite Catholicism! LOL. I'm atheist so sorry.

So where are their 150,000 year old cities, where's the ruins of the Engineer human origins on Earth? The Earth looks essentially the same as 150,000 years ago with a few subtleties. The water line has increased. We know for a fact that humans cling to coastal areas so there may be Engineer ruins in the ocean.

Also, they may have catapulted in technology the second they left Africa 250,000 years ago. This may have occurred before we ever crossed the Bearing Straight and populated present day N. and S. America.

Without interference, the Early humans (eventually engineers) came out of Africa circa 250,000 years ago and bred with Neanderthal, spreading East and also breeding with a group only now discovered who we call Dioniavians (spelling). This is all fact that we know to be true. For some reason, all the other hominid groups alive at that time died off slowly over the last 50-100 thousand years. I believe we killed off Neanderthal and Homo Erectus.

Anyway, as soon as early humans hit the Mediterranean 250,000 years ago. They were just like us today, inquisitive, smart etc... Without a ruling species to hold us down, they went from sticks to spaceships in less than 2000 years. It just wasn't enough time to spread out over the globe and have a massive population. They probably thought, "why colonize that other continent when we can genetically upgrade ourselves and colonize multiple star systems?" They probably found a better world to live on before they'd even finished surveying the Earth.

I know Atlantis is dumb sort of but that could have been their launch pad city in the Mediterranean. Lets face it, Earth is prone to severe climate swings, volcanoes etc.... The glaciers were melting from the last iceage and it was becoming a serious annoyance so they just said we're leaving. Stay or come with us, we don't much care.

The ones who stayed behind still managed to conquer the Earth but the genetically superior humans (same DNA) made sure to keep that populace in the dark, stifling their culturally progress.

The reason is, they wanted to:

1. Preserve the natural account of human evolution without genetic tampering

2. Use the inferior genetic humans as tools. Go dig up precious minerals, build temples, worship you masters kind of thing.

3. They wanted something to love them and they needed the ego support. Remember, the Engineers (early humans) had no gods to worship or worry about if they were sinning or not. They felt alone. Now they had a companion, a project, a race of humans who loved them and appreciated them. They had a pet who they also cared for but they kept that pet in checkmate.

As far as the opening to Prometheus, seeding/contaminating the water. I don't believe we'll ever get an answer to where that was. For certain, I don't think it was Earth. Its also extremely unlikely that it was LV426 because we know a lot about that planet from the movies. It may have been LV223. It could have been rebel engineers starting a contagion on one of their own worlds.

The problem with it being LV223 is that there is no mention of LV223 in the movies besides these prequels. As some have already said, all the events we're witnessing, happening in a closed fashion. None of the knowledge of these events ever makes it back to Earth. If it does, its strictly held secret inside Weyland executives.

I think the Weyland Exec's found LV223 and know about the Engineers. The Covenant crew may be in the dark still but someone on the Covenant ship must know about the events on LV223, the Engineers, the Goo etc... There's no way that they could have tracked down the David & Shaw without having discovered LV223 or gotten Shaw's transmission at the end of Prometheus. I always forget that they left on an engineer ship and that the Prometheus was destroyed (best part of movie). But Weyland Corp knows where they went because they went to LV223, where else would they go anyway when the Prometheus didn't return?

Perhaps Covenant is not even a recovery mission. Its not presented as one but we all know what Weyland is like. They are after the weapons technology and couldn't care less about human origins. Well, they ought to have all the weapons and Engineer tech they want since they know where LV223 is, that's a potential major plot hole for the whole franshise LOL. How is it that Weyland keeps trying to get their hands on Alien tech, and Xeno stuff when the very first mission, and dozens of star maps, and a mission that didn't return ALL point straight to the place where there is a limitless supply of all of it? LOL

By the time we get to Alien on LV426, the Weyland company knows everything. The Engineers are either extinct or the few remaining Engineers are so ungodly far away that Weyland doesn't bother trying to go there, and even if they did seek an audience with the engineers way out there, the engineers are still superior technologically speaking. In Alien, I think Weyland sees the Engineers as neither friend or foe, but they know they exist out there but the Engineers are too dangerous to try and make direct missions to see them. The Engineers that are left may be entirely uncaring for the fate of humanity. They've become apathetic and indifferent to us. Even if you sought them out, they'd just ignore you or kill you. Not through malice but just because they're jaded by nearly going extinct through contagion, civil war and possibly war with other sentient life. Engineers may have even gone into hiding.

Okay thanks for reading SORRY I'm crazy and love speculating about the Engineers. :)

"that's why they are jealous of humankind so much so that they want to wipeout everyone like their owen head"

What are they jealous of?

@ S.M

engineer with all their technology couldn't cure their boldness ,that's why they are jealous of humankind .

Also there is no female in their race,that's another reason. 

Ridley theorised that they'd evolved beyond gender.

And how does one cure boldness?  With a dose of caution?

We may need a better adjective to describe what you mean by Boldness. I simply don't understand but I'm trying to. 

At first I thought the beyond gender thing was ridiculous but the more I think about it, its possible that the Engineers don't see the point in keeping women around. LOL MGTOW yo!

But in seriousness, if fiction can be serious. If they can gene edit, they can master their reproduction and direct it. They wouldn't be able to totally eradicate female engineers unless they were using frozen eggs. They probably keep the women segregated and in their own private quarters.

Its rough to hear for some blue pill people, but women aren't actually good for much. They're good at making babies and caring for them. When it comes to invention and combat, they sort of end up at the back of the bus. Its not to slight them, its just indisputable that the male brain and the male anatomy is superior. LOL Hope all you blue pill dudes hate me now.

I like the MGTOW Engineer angle! Stardusk and Barbarossa!

Leaving the moronic red pill MGTOW dribbling aside for a moment - evolving beyond gender doesn't mean women are gone.  It means women AND men are gone.

I've been reading this site for years and this is my first post. I'm grateful for all of the fascinating ideas you've shared and I want to especially thank BigDave, the most prolific, interesting poster. I think we should call him the Post-Man!

I assume everyone has read the alleged "Prometheus" script of Damon Lindelof, in which he wrote that the Engineers had a life-span of hundreds of thousands of years and were unable to reproduce. Therefore, when the Engineers discovered the insect Alien that helped them reproduce via the chest-bursting method, it was a miracle and they wanted to share that with the universe by seeding numerous planets, including Earth.

Also, wouldn't it be interesting if the Engineers in the beginning of Prometheus were bad, spreading a lethal Alien seed, while the Engineers on LV-223 were good, trying to eradicate the Alien seed?

I thing engineer they had a queen like honey bees,and that big head on the temple was the head of their queen ,probably for some reason they use goo on her in order to improve their race and then everything went wrong,as if they creat cancer .instead of evolving they went backward ,they become racist and weak and sick ,wanted to kill ,destroy and revenge.behave of the last engineer in Prometheus was more like a child not subprime race.

Earle2212, I think you have it right but inverted. The Engineers at the beginning of Prometheus at the waterfall were good. The Engineers involved at the outbreak scene on LV223 are bad. This would only be the case if we want to preserve the unreasonable hypothesis that Engineers seed life on planets.

Actually, there is no reasonable plot anymore. If you try to tie Alien to Prometheus, based on the onscreen facts, you end up with an impossible mess.

The Engineers can't be what Lindelof describes and still make sense. They can't be a billion year old species who starts life on planets yet their own DNA is from a species that's barely 250,000 years old, and that species is indisputably linked to dozens of species in the fossil record going back dozens of millions of years. This would mean that Engineers are time travelers too. Lindelof is at best, an complete nincompoop who hasn't even grasped 3rd biology. We've known about hominid origins for over 40 years so Lindelof is a retard.

100's, of thousands, year lifespan? envies the chestburster? What? If they posit that in the film, I'm done bro. We got some really bad writers in this outfit. I know I'm young (30) but I've been dissecting every Sci Fi movie Ive seen my entire life and the quality of the writing has observably gotten worse.

S.M. I see what you're getting at, but consider this. Women are XX chromosome. Men are XY. So take your pick. Unless you propose that Lindelof's magical species of Engineer looks like a human male, has the same DNA of a human man, but somehow has fewer pairs of Chromosomes? I'm pretty sure Shaw's data would have shown us if the Engineer had 44 chromosomes instead of the human 42. and if they have less, they're chimpanzes or down-syndrome or something.

I think we need to squash this genderless BS right now. Completely ludicrous my friends to think that a species doesn't reproduce, that's the whole point of a species. Even a smart species who lives on multiple planets, who has mastered their reproduction. Even if they grow their own people in a glass vat. You can guarantee that it came from an egg and a sperm. Mammals aren't reptiles or insectoids. This is just getting preposterous.

PostScript to S.M.  I don't identify as a mgtow namely because of the scores of morons who highjacked the acronym and made it into a club for bashing feminists and complaining all the time about women etc... I don't see the point in that. Im more of a just plain pro-male kind of guy who supports men and boys. Some MRA voices speak the god-honest truth and they can't be disputed. It would be very dumb to deny all of what the manosphere is saying. I do not make videos, nor do I protest. I don't even comment on YouTube or any MRA sites, I'm not involved. I don't want you to get the impression I'm some avid MGTOW troll. But I wont sit behind this keyboard and say that MGTOW and MRA intellectuals haven't posted legit facts about hypergamy and gynocentrism. They're  outspoken and their views were misrepresented, but Stardusk and others were absolutely right. Anyway, none of that belongs here so I respect you no matter what your political or sociological views are. I see you as a person who likes sci fi enough to chat about it, that's it.

Apologies for bringing up outside topics. Ill try not to do that. It was semi related to the gender dynamics of the Engineers. ....