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lizardman posted:This is just one of those caveats of the series (and I'm talking just the movies here, I have no exposure to other Alien-related media) starting with at least Aliens - that the xenomorph species represents an almost apocalyptic threat to the human race, and your only hope is to nuke all of them before they can spread further. It's not the aliens themselves that pose a threat to humans, it's humanity itself that is the problem. The idea that they all have to be destroyed is because mankind (more specifically evil mega corporations, i.e. Weyland-Yutani) won't leave it well enough alone and either accidently or intentionally kill everyone on earth with them. It's an obligate parasite that will never be capable of interstellar travel on its own. If the more technologically advanced species in the galaxy didn't muck around with them, they'd be confined to the planet they originated on and ultimately go extinct on that rock from some cataclysmic cosmic event.
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Oct 13, 2015 21:03
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From what we've seen in the films the aliens are nasty, but they're just animals. They're vicious powerful agile predators with an ant-like hive social structure. Humans have encountered lions and other dangerous predators, we've encountered ants and bees, we've encountered parasites. The aliens are impressive creatures with a fantastic ability to adapt/mutate to fit their surroundings due to their life cycle, but they're still just dangerous animals with insect-hive levels of intelligence. I don't think the movies ever wanted to show the aliens them selves as this apocalyptic threat to humanity, just that our greed and hunger for power and advantage would see us using the aliens to inflict more suffering on innocent people, or even creating our own bio-weapons perhaps even worse than the aliens. At the least it would lead to more terrible accidents, more crews being wiped out because as shown in the comics the humans of this universe are sloppy as gently caress and exist in a libertarian paradise of mega-corporations that follow zero regulations or even internal safety standards of any sort.
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Oct 13, 2015 21:24
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Also loving lol "18 AD A lone Engineer travels to Earth to instruct humans as a parent would do for a child. However, he is seen as a threat, misunderstood by many, and is killed and crucified by Romans. 36 AD Engineers learn of the murder of their ambassador by Humans and decide to exterminate all life on Earth by use of the chemical agent A0-3959x.91 – 15. Humans are considered a failed being as the murder of the ambassador is not forgivable. Humans may have developed in a technological sense but not from a moral sense and are indignant to learn it from their creator. If left unchecked, Humans may become a danger to the Universe. The Engineers use the outpost, originally intended to welcome their human creations, as the staging base for the sterilization of Earth. The remote outpost is also ideal because of hazardous nature of the preparations needed for planetary sterilization. " Is this canon? Haha jesus christ this is stupid. It's insulting to Christians and it's insulting to historians. Dumb as hell.
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Oct 13, 2015 21:53
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As an aside, while the corporations control a lot in the Alien movies, they actually don't run absolutely everything like you might think. The interrogation early in Aliens? That's a GOVERNMENT inquest - Burke is just present to represent the Company's interests since they owned the ship and its cargo. The people interrogating Ripley are actually all government agency employees. The Marine team sent with Burke and Ripley? Also government mandated. It's also why Burke discreetly sent the colonists to a grid reference without telling them what to expect, why he desperately wanted to eliminate the Marines, and why he orchestrated the plan to smuggle an Alien past quarantine- he knew he was doing illegal poo poo, and that if he got caught, he'd get royally reamed by the legal system. If the Company were omnipotent he wouldn't need all the subterfuge. The irony is that Aliens came out in an era where such corporate malfeasance would be unthinkable, but in today's real world we've got actual companies causing quantifiable greater loss of life and environmental harm than we see in the Alien movies. Yaaaay capitalism.  As for Alien capabilities, I'd put them higher up than just feral hive animals. They're pretty bright and very adaptable, even if they don't engage in complex tool use. Even in the movies they understand technology, they recognize buttons and doors, they understand electricity, they know how to test defenses, they recognize pretty quickly what guns do, or how to recognize abstract alternate routes to a goal even when it's not immediately visible. A lot of the comics make them into brainless cannon fodder on par with a swarm of ants or a pack of dogs, but i don't think that does them enough justice. They don't use tools because they don't need to, they're scary lethal on their own. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Oct 13, 2015 |
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Oct 13, 2015 22:01
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Baronjutter posted:Also loving lol As far as I know none of the comics or official spin-off stuff acted on Scott's idea, so no it's not "canon". But you can blame Scott for the idea. If you quoted that from one of the two big Alien wikis, then that explains a lot. They're both pretty much cesspits of fan fiction and bad information. Edit-- holy motherfuck autocorrect is owning me hard Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Oct 13, 2015 |
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Oct 13, 2015 22:05
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Baronjutter posted:From what we've seen in the films the aliens are nasty, but they're just animals. They're vicious powerful agile predators with an ant-like hive social structure. Humans have encountered lions and other dangerous predators, we've encountered ants and bees, we've encountered parasites. The aliens are impressive creatures with a fantastic ability to adapt/mutate to fit their surroundings due to their life cycle, but they're still just dangerous animals with insect-hive levels of intelligence. If you were in an Alien film, you'd have gotten about this far before being dragged screaming into an air vent. You are right though, both the aliens and the black goo (!!!) are really just ways for humans to undo themselves via hubris and greed. As such, their power is limitless.
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Oct 13, 2015 22:12
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Party Boat posted:If you were in an Alien film, you'd have gotten about this far before being dragged screaming into an air vent. Yeah I absolutely would and I'd totally not have seen it coming. I'd be some never-seen-combat CO that's read all the reports on the aliens and determined the problem was all human error and lax safety standards. With a properly equipped team knowing what they are up against alien samples, live specimens, and eggs could be brought back for study. And it's important to study these creatures, they're actual aliens, think of what we could learn! All the research would be done in the most secure of locations on space stations with auto-destructs and no unethical use of human hosts or experimentation. If the aliens are a threat we need to study them for weaknesses, and learn from their strengths. I mean these are just dumb bugs, the aliens got lucky but we will quickly learn and adapt to their tricks after sufficient study.
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Oct 13, 2015 22:38
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In other words, life finds a way. Chaos Theory etc, "Alien Resurrection is what happens when Jurassic Park is taken to its logical conclusion", etc.
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Oct 13, 2015 22:48
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Baronjutter posted:Yeah I absolutely would and I'd totally not have seen it coming. I'd be some never-seen-combat CO that's read all the reports on the aliens and determined the problem was all human error and lax safety standards. With a properly equipped team knowing what they are up against alien samples, live specimens, and eggs could be brought back for study. And it's important to study these creatures, they're actual aliens, think of what we could learn! All the research would be done in the most secure of locations on space stations with auto-destructs and no unethical use of human hosts or experimentation. If the aliens are a threat we need to study them for weaknesses, and learn from their strengths. I mean these are just dumb bugs, the aliens got lucky but we will quickly learn and adapt to their tricks after sufficient study. Precisely! It's such a magnificent creature, think of all the things we could learn about it. Now won't you please step away from that ledge, Ripley? Just come with us, the procedure will be painless and will only take a moment. You can still have a life, Ripley. What are you doing? I'm not a droid! NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!
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Oct 13, 2015 22:53
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Weyland Yutani spared no expense.
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Oct 13, 2015 22:54
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I'm not sure why Jesus being an Engineer would be insulting to Christians. Its a fictional story not being presented as true in any way. I mean, is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter insulting to Lincoln biographers because he wasn't really a vampire hunter?
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Oct 13, 2015 22:55
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Xenomrph posted:.A lot of the comics make them into brainless cannon fodder on par with a swarm of ants or a pack of dogs, but i don't think that does them enough justice. They don't use tools because they don't need to, they're scary lethal on their own. Peak Alien smartness is probably two of the aliens killing a third to escape using its acid blood in the 4th movie. I think the novels claimed the Queen was as smart young child and the drones where around dog level?
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Oct 13, 2015 23:00
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The Alien queen is pretty smart. She and Ripley come to some sort of unspoken agreement when Ripley points the flamethrower at the eggs. She's at least smart enough to understand the basic "just let me take my kid and go or all your kids are toast" message Ripley was trying to get across.
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Oct 13, 2015 23:05
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BexGu posted:Peak Alien smartness is probably two of the aliens killing a third to escape using its acid blood in the 4th movie. It's a bunch of little details on how they react to their environment, what they do and don't do, how quickly they adapt to new situations, etc. It's also difficult to gauge their intelligence because they react to the world in fundamentally different ways than humans. But idiot animals, they are not.
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Oct 13, 2015 23:19
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Basebf555 posted:The Alien queen is pretty smart. She and Ripley come to some sort of unspoken agreement when Ripley points the flamethrower at the eggs. She's at least smart enough to understand the basic "just let me take my kid and go or all your kids are toast" message Ripley was trying to get across. And then we see a second later that the queen was bluffing when the egg opens. The queen in Aliens had a high degree of intelligence and the Aliens can be quite smart as well. She figured out how to work the elevator and was able to find a way on board the dropship without anyone noticing. And we see one of the warrior aliens sneak onboard the first dropship as well and remain undetected until after it has killed Spunkmeyer.
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Oct 14, 2015 00:24
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Baronjutter posted:Is it explained how the aliens manage to take over earth? I know a single alien can gently caress up a bunch of unarmed space truckers, and some marines that are horribly outnumbered and clueless. But it seems unless there's some super intelligence or abilities we've never seen from the aliens that they'd just all get wiped out before they could become too big of a threat. They'd be more of a threat in rural or natural areas and potentially gently caress up the ecosystem but unless humans let them breed for years and mass to attack cities civilization wouldn't be too threatened. I guess it's my same problem with a lot of zombie situations, zombies would not be at all dangerous to an armed and organized group. This is something that's near and dear to my heart. To elaborate a little on what Xenomrph said above, One of my favorites was called "Earth Hive" and I think there was a comic book, but years ago I read the novelization by Steve Perry. Xenomrph you will probably remember this better than I do, since I read this book sometime in the early '90s, but this is how I recall it: There is a gigantic military/industrial conglomerate that has basically taken the place of world governments, and Weyland-Yutani is a part (or most) of it. They know about the existence of the alien, and they've somehow managed to get a queen which they have chained up in a bunker underneath the Rocky Mountains, in what used to be a NORAD base or something. She's chained up down there, and sits there producing eggs. I guess they are doing "bioweapon studies" or something like that. Through stories passed down through word of mouth about offworld encounters, and probably through loose lips on the part of some who know the queen is in the bunker, a sort of doomsday cult has grown, that sees the alien as a divine being. They believe mankind's destiny is to bond with the alien, become one with it, sacrifice themselves to it, something like that. Anyway these idiot cultists manage to break into the bunker in the mountains, kill the guards, and enter the queen's egg chamber. Several of them, a dozen or so, run right up to the eggs and allow themselves to be facehugged. As soon as they are immobilized, the other cultists put them on stretchers, and haul them off. Then, they spirit these guys to all corners of the globe, waiting for them to be chestbursted, so an infestation can begin in their respective areas. Obviously the military-industrial congomerate knows what has happened. They keep quiet about it, and mobilize Delta-force style commando teams, keeping them on call. They follow world news, looking for any increase in reports of people suddenly going missing. At one point in the book someone says just what you did-- that a squad of commandos who knows what they are looking for can fight them, but some farmer with a pitchfork in siberia is pretty much screwed. They are able to keep up for a short time; when large numbers of people go missing in an area, they send a team in to find the nest and destroy it. But the one of the scarier things about the aliens to me has always been that the only limit to the number of them there can be, is the number of humans there are. And each human that gets facehugged, tilts the balance a little towards the alien side of the ledger. It's just not winnable. After a while, things are getting totally out of hand. The whole world knows what is happening by this time. A few months after the break-in at the Rocky Mountain complex, they have to nuke Jakarta, as it has become one huge hive. The entire continent of Australia has become one giant hive. In other locations, cities are overrun, and small, isolated pockets of humans try to hold out. But in the end, they all go the way of Hadley's Hope. I remember one part of the book where someone is watching a satellite feed of some local news program, or what passes for news at this stage. An alien is carrying off a woman who is screaming, carrying her to a hive so she can get facehugged. Someone near the cameraman shoots the woman in the head. The alien stops, holds the woman out and examines her, realizes she's dead, then drops her and runs screaming straight at the camera. This, and some other parts of the book really disturbed me. A year or so into the infestation, the balance has shifted so much towards the alien side of the ledger, Earth is lost. The end of the book is survivors blasting off in ships, evacuating the Earth, which has basically been entirely overrun by the monsters. This was only the background of the book, the main plot is part of the Wilks/Billie (Hicks/Newt) story that Xenomrph talked about above. But it stuck with me for a long time.
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Oct 14, 2015 00:53
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Earth Hive and the two stories that connect to it also waver on how smart the aliens are, going for a middle ground of a regular one being at the level of a smart donesticated dog and a queen being significantly smarter than a human (but how this is tested and known is left vague). However in Earth Hive there are staright up humans that ally with the aliens by kidnapping and bringing people to their hives so the aliens don't mess with them. But still this is also the set of stories where it turns out there's a gigantic QUEEN queen alien that is in constant telepathic comminication with all aliens that exist across multiple star systems at all times so... In the Aliens commentary James Cameron also says that they cut the power not by causing damage to cables but by figuring out how to turn it off. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 01:05
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Yeah, Steve Perry is the author who personally thinks Aliens are like dogs. He's a cool guy, and he wrote the novelization of the first AvP comic series (and was the creator of much of the Predator culture backstory that the comics and novels draw from, including the "Yautja" species name), but he's got some questionable opinions about the Aliens themselves. Nice guy otherwise, though. He recorded an intro for one of my Let's Play videos a few years ago. He also wrote a (mediocre) standalone Predator novel, and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire back in the day. His daughter wrote a couple Aliens novels, too, including the novelization of Labyrinth. I prefer the comic over the novel; the novel changes the order of some stuff, and the comic has the awesome artwork. I got a couple other "celebrities" to do intros for my Let's Play videos, including actors Ian Whyte (the Predators in the AvP movies, the main Engineer in Prometheus) and Daniel Kash (Spunkmeyer in Aliens). I got ahold of several other actors to do intros but it ended up not working out. Jeanette Goldstein (Vasquez) did not comprehend what I was asking for, Lance Henriksen was willing to do it but his schedule was super busy, Gary Busey's lawyer said Busey wouldn't do it for free (lol), the actress who played Deitrich couldn't figure out how to use a microphone with her computer, and Ian Holm's lawyer was insanely overly polite in turning me down. Oh yeah, H R Giger's representative declined on his behalf as well. It was a fun experiment. 
Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 02:18
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Neo Rasa posted:Earth Hive and the two stories that connect to it also waver on how smart the aliens are, going for a middle ground of a regular one being at the level of a smart donesticated dog and a queen being significantly smarter than a human (but how this is tested and known is left vague). However in Earth Hive there are staright up humans that ally with the aliens by kidnapping and bringing people to their hives so the aliens don't mess with them. Also one of the earlier ideas for the ending of Alien was for it to kill Ripley and impersonate her voice in the radio distress signal... That would have, uh, changed the franchise somewhat. (I can't tell how serious that idea was, because I can't imagine it not coming off as completely laughable)
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Oct 14, 2015 02:48
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In the first and good AvP games when you play as the alien you actually get orders from the queen via telepathy, like actual specific orders to destroy a shield generator or create a distraction. This is why the aliens need to be studied. Find out how much they can learn, how smart they really are. Maybe with enough time to adapt they could use technology, or fly a spaceship.
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Oct 14, 2015 02:51
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Do you have a YouTube channel with your Let's Plays on there? I'd like to hear Perry's intro. Edit: wait, Perry was the guy who had a meltdown over people questioning his take on alien intelligence? MrMojok fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 04:58
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MrMojok posted:Do you have a YouTube channel with your Let's Plays on there? I'd like to hear Perry's intro. And yeah he was the one who had the meltdown.
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Oct 14, 2015 05:46
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I feel like giving only animal-level intelligence to the xenomorphs make them less scary. It's mor einteresting if ti's ambiguous jus thow smart they are. The original script for Alien had the movie end with the creature killing Ripley and then recording a message using her voice. Basebf555 posted:I'm not sure why Jesus being an Engineer would be insulting to Christians. Its a fictional story not being presented as true in any way. I mean, is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter insulting to Lincoln biographers because he wasn't really a vampire hunter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY-QBvy3lR8 Edit: A more appropriate scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYZIU1uIS2w
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Oct 14, 2015 06:23
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Quantifying their intelligence seems to, like much of the Alien expanded universe, miss the point. They're an unstoppable, incomprehensible biological horror from beyond, not goblins with a +3 modifier to intelligence if they're within 24' of a hive. They're as smart as they are in that story.
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Oct 14, 2015 06:39
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Baronjutter posted:The predators seem to have controlling/using the aliens for sport down to a science, which sort of defeats the whole "oh the hubris of man thinking they can ever hope to control the unstoppable alien!" theme. Predators routinely mess with the aliens, seed planets, capture and hold queens, all without their civilization getting wiped out. Well, they are literal superbeings who thrive on danger. And there is a contrast between noble savages who want an honourable and difficult hunt vs bureaucrats who just want a weapon. The Predators contain, manage, and even breed, but they don't expect to control life as if it were a machine. There's a neat implication that I haven't seen exploited that the Predators see the Xenomorphs much as they see us (or at least our alpha warriors): a dangerous, honourable hunt. e: way back, I think there was some discussion of the relationship between the black goo and the Xenomorph. When the Xenomorph form emerges from the frieze at the temple after the black goo is leaked in Prometheus, I read that as a warning: this is coming. The Xenomorph is Tiamat or Typhoon emerging from chaos of the black goo uncontrolled, and a religiously-laden biohazard symbol. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 15:24
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Hodgepodge posted:e: way back, I think there was some discussion of the relationship between the black goo and the Xenomorph. When the Xenomorph form emerges from the frieze at the temple after the black goo is leaked in Prometheus, I read that as a warning: this is coming. The Xenomorph is Tiamat or Typhoon emerging from chaos of the black goo uncontrolled, and a religiously-laden biohazard symbol. I go back and forth about the issue of whether the Engineers created the Xenomorph from the black goo, or if the Xenomorph already existed somewhere and the black goo is a byproduct of the Engineers experiments on them. Right at this moment I lean towards the Xeno as a creation of the Engineers. It fits into the themes of fatherhood/godhood and what it means to be a creator, which are so important to pretty much every character in the movie. The Engineers created a being that is better than they are, and so they put it on a pedestal and even maybe worship it. That is contrasted by Weyland who has accomplished the exact same thing, he's created a lifeform that is superior to himself, and yet he can't recognize it or give any validation to it because he is more concerned with personally living forever. The very thing he's striving for, he's already given to somebody else but he doesn't even realize how amazing that is because he's so self-centered.
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Oct 14, 2015 15:44
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Hodgepodge posted:There's a neat implication that I haven't seen exploited that the Predators see the Xenomorphs much as they see us (or at least our alpha warriors): a dangerous, honourable hunt.         
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Oct 14, 2015 15:51
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Basebf555 posted:I go back and forth about the issue of whether the Engineers created the Xenomorph from the black goo, or if the Xenomorph already existed somewhere and the black goo is a byproduct of the Engineers experiments on them. Well, going with the symbolism of Tiamat, it should be something pre-existing the father gods. But that can also be because it is implicit in the universe itself and/or the works of the Engineers, rather than having been a literal already existing lifeform. It is the feminine, uncontrollable reaction to masculine control of nature- the flood which threatens to sweep away their irrigation and cities. But those could not exist without the river. So basically it's a metaphorical, if not literal, chicken and egg question. And perhaps best left as such. The contrast with David is legit, especially in the context of AI in science fiction.
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Oct 14, 2015 16:09
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I'd be surprised if this hasn't been done before but has the EU ever tried a story where some aliens figure out a method of creating more xeno's without killing their hosts in the process?
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Oct 14, 2015 16:43
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Basebf555 posted:I go back and forth about the issue of whether the Engineers created the Xenomorph from the black goo, or if the Xenomorph already existed somewhere and the black goo is a byproduct of the Engineers experiments on them. SirDrone posted:I'd be surprised if this hasn't been done before but has the EU ever tried a story where some aliens figure out a method of creating more xeno's without killing their hosts in the process? But other than that, no, the EU never really messed with the Alien lifecycle in any drastic ways. There aren't a whole lot of alien races in the Alien/AvP EU. There's some indigenous life seen in some of the comics and games, but there's only a handful of sentient/semi-sentient races shown with any detail outside of the Space Jockeys, Engineers, Predators. I can think of like 7 that are even shown, and they're usually brief one-off cameos. It's not like Star Wars or Star Trek with some kind of "galactic confederation" of a million races, but it's not like space is a barren wasteland, either. There's enough empty space to encourage humanity to explore and colonize, but just enough weird poo poo out there that every once in a while a colony or ship will have a bad day. One thing I like about the Predators is that they're not a homogeneous race, they have a bunch of tribes and factions that do their own thing. About the only thing they all have in common is "they hunt", but beyond that there's a huge variety in what they hunt, what is considered worthy prey, the weapons and tools they use, etc. and then even on an individual level, they've got personalized armor, weapons, masks, etc. The best Predator EU book is "Predator: South China Sea". It's not based on a preexisting comic series, and it's got a Predator doing its thing against a group of mercenaries and wealthy hunters in a game preserve, and it's great. The humans are interesting characters in their own right and not just red shirts for the Predator to kill, and the Predator himself even gets some character development and is a super-competent badass without being an invincible combat god and leaving the humans with no chance whatsoever. I really enjoyed it.
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Oct 14, 2015 17:30
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Has it actually been determined if queens are the only way the aliens can make more of them selves, or can a single loose drone eventually establish a colony ala Alien Isolation / Alien deleted scenes. Because if a single drone can't reproduce if in isolation that makes them fairly useless in the long run.
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Oct 14, 2015 17:56
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Baronjutter posted:Has it actually been determined if queens are the only way the aliens can make more of them selves, or can a single loose drone eventually establish a colony ala Alien Isolation / Alien deleted scenes. Because if a single drone can't reproduce if in isolation that makes them fairly useless in the long run. Going by Aliens rules, you absolutely need a queen.
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Oct 14, 2015 18:01
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The Alien deleted scene is considered "canon", with the conventional wisdom being that a lone Alien can cocoon a victim and turn them into an egg that will specifically produce a Queen.
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Oct 14, 2015 18:08
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Xenomrph posted:The Alien deleted scene is considered "canon", with the conventional wisdom being that a lone Alien can cocoon a victim and turn them into an egg that will specifically produce a Queen. No disrespect to your no-doubt superior knowledge of the series, but I think what's canon or not is pretty debatable, especially in this age of stories that ignore some of the films.
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Oct 14, 2015 18:13
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I read some stupid wiki timelines and they all had only the events from the theatrical cut of alien 3 not assembly so gently caress "canon"
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Oct 14, 2015 18:15
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My personal theory is that there is a being that gives rise to the engineers that compels them to create xenos--for what reason, I'm not sure. It is the source of the black goo, which is like the royal jelly fed to a regular larvae to make it become the new queen in a honey bee colony. But to make the xeno form the engineers revere (note the position of the xeno relief up high in the chamber while the engineer head is on the ground level, watching over the vessels of goo), the jelly/goo has to be applied to humans--not directly to engineers. Think about it, what happens to each organism that contacts it in Prometheus? The engineer consumes a cup full and disintegrates, seeding life that would evolve into humans who only have a partial assembly of the full Engineer DNA. Perhaps just the right combination to combine with the goo to make a xeno. The worm turns into an aggressive snake thing with some xeno-esque features. Fiefield takes a face full of it and transforms into something that looks really similar to a xeno in the original design, which I think was intentionally obscured in the revised scene for the theatrical release to keep from being too on the nose with it. There are hints though: they refer to him as the Wolf-man, a mythological monster who hides within a man (in his genes) that shows itself when triggered by the moon (goo). The small amount given to Holloway is slowly transforming him, including his sperm, same as Fiefield but slower. But here's the thing; his sperm that he deposits in Shaw to impregnate her are gametes...they're haploid cells--half the chromosomes of human somatic cells that combine with the goo to make a xeno or proto-xeno. That's why it's a hosed up squid thing, it's not the way things are supposed to happen, but again it has some of the xeno traits. That's also why the Deacon doesn't look like a xeno, it's a weird bastard child of this process gone awry and born out of an engineer. The key to solving this mystery (for me) is what Holloway says to David, that humans made him because "they could". In his hubris, he's completely wrong. Humans made androids to do what they COULD NOT do themselves--like watch over them all during their time in chryo-sleep alone for years. Engineers made humans because they couldn't make xenos themselves--they need humans to accomplish their goal of creating xenos that are in the image of the god they worship--that's on display in the goo room. That would explain why the last remaining engineer was so pissed when he was woken up. Weyland committed the ultimate blasphemy and threw it right in the engineers face: our role in their ritual is to die, and here he is asking for eternal life through a false god (David) of his own creation and image. Last point in this really long post. This means the xenos and the engineers are bound to one another through this god the engineers worship, the one that gives rise to them both. Like an ant colony, the xenos have a queen and sterile (female) drones. But where are the males? The ones who can fly and whose job it is to disperse the species into new territory, breed, and die? In my mind, the (seemingly all male) engineers fill that role. Because, like I mentioned above, if an organism is confined to what amounts to an island in an interstellar sea, your chances of extinction are 100%, it's only a matter of time if you can't colonize new habitats.w
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Oct 14, 2015 18:20
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Xenomrph posted:
Didn't the queen die in that process?
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Oct 14, 2015 18:20
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wuffles posted:My personal theory is that there is a being that gives rise to the engineers Speaking of things that aren't canon...
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Oct 14, 2015 18:22
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Baronjutter posted:I read some stupid wiki timelines and they all had only the events from the theatrical cut of alien 3 not assembly so gently caress "canon" What's officially "canon" according to Fox: - all of the Alien/Prometheus, Predator, and AvP movies, including both theatrical cuts and alternate cuts of movies where appropriate - Alien Isolation and it's prequel comic - the "Fire and Stone" comics (Aliens, Predator, AvP, and Prometheus - the 6 new Aliens, Predator, and AvP novels from last year, this year, and next year - the Colonial Marines Technical Manual - the new Weyland Yutani Report book that's coming out soon (it's basically a spiritual successor to the Technical Manual) FOX has been making s point to actually oversee new authors and maintain a "canon bible" and all that crap, not unlike Lucasfilm does with Star Wars. Is the old stuff no longer canon? Fox hasn't said. The new stuff generally doesn't contradict the bulk of it, and occasionally makes little references to it, so you can kinda make up your own mind. I personally like the idea of "fuzzy continuity", where everything is an unreliable source and open to interpretation. It allows for minor contradictions (so you're not discarding things wholesale just because "oh source X shows a pulse rifle that's brown, but all pulse rifles are OBVIOUSLY green" or some poo poo) and it allows for mutually exclusive stuff to coexist. Naturally this viewpoint pisses off a lot of hypernerd fans who absolutely NEED everything to fit together perfect and need every little detail explained. 
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Oct 14, 2015 18:32
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Xenomrph posted:I personally like the idea of "fuzzy continuity", where everything is an unreliable source and open to interpretation. It allows for minor contradictions (so you're not discarding things wholesale just because "oh source X shows a pulse rifle that's brown, but all pulse rifles are OBVIOUSLY green" or some poo poo) and it allows for mutually exclusive stuff to coexist. Mad Max has been doing that for ages. It's pretty sweet.
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Oct 14, 2015 18:36
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