DARK ANGELS,
THE ARCHITECTS OF THE UNIVERSE
& Humans, the unfinished project
This sculpture of the Xenomorph as seen in the temple has been driving me crazy. Why is it there? This sculpture suggests/proves the Engineers already had the knowledge of the existence of the Xenomorph, which is to say they had already tested the bacterial goo on humans and/or other organisms. I can think of no other explanation, you have to see something before you can sculpt it… Right?
Even further, how would they have known that by infecting one human, who then has sex with another, who then gives “birth” (via an extreme Caesarean) to a resulting creature, which then attacks an Engineer and the result ends up being the Xenomorph creature we see at the end of the film? Because look closely, that’s not the same Xenomorph design we see in subsequent Alien films, it’s dramatically close to what we see in Prometheus, a creature that exists through a crazy twist of fate.
So, again, this begs the question… what were the Engineers doing?
As evidenced during the film, something went wrong, the Engineers lost control of their payload, something happened and they were being killed off. One remained in stasis, others were killed and another had his head chopped off when the door to the temple slammed shut. What was chasing them we’ll never know and it’s not really important, what we do know is that it wasn’t very nice and it’s the reason the Engineers never returned to Earth.
Thus begins the only theory I can arrive at for right now…
Let’s journey all the way back to what we were talking about earlier, Darwin’s theory of evolution. An Engineer arrives on a planet, drinks the liquid, decomposes into the water and life begins. Planets evolve, grass grows, organisms form, etc., etc., etc.
Every so often the Engineers return to check on the status of the planets they are terraforming, perhaps nudging it along, evolving it. For those that don’t believe in Darwin’s theory — man evolving from early primates and fish that walk out of the sea — then think of them purely as angels of God, looking at the Engineers as being sent to move the process along as best seen fit.
Now let that simmer…
One thing I haven’t yet mentioned is the Garden of Eden. Now keep in mind the massive flowing river and the genesis of life from a pure substance at the beginning of the film while you read the following passages from the Book of Genesis:
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground — trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
Again, the potential for Darwinism and Creationism are allowed to co-exist in Prometheus as a metaphorical Garden of Eden would be the result of a planet beginning from the initially pure and perfect DNA of the Engineers, all you need to ask yourself is how Adam and Eve became the population of humans we recognize today and almost any explanation works in this scenario. Whether you believe human life on Earth began as only two, ten, one thousand, a million people or as an evolutionary result of those early cellular stages of life, all theories work in this instance.
Now how about the timeline suggested in Prometheus based on the artifacts Holloway and Shaw have found? It stands to assume the Engineers were expecting to return to Earth some time around 93 CE (Prometheus lands on LV-223 in 2093, Engineers died 2,000 years ago), which is to potentially assume mankind stopped evolving at the hands of the Engineers around that time. Unfortunately for those that believe the Engineers were coming to destroy mankind, the above screen capture shows evidence the Engineers actually did return to Earth in 620 CE and 680 CE.
SIDE NOTE: It’s curious to note the film’s use of the “less Christian” BCE/CE instead of BC/AD. I’m not sure there is much to this, but it is interesting nonetheless.
The range of dates (click here for a larger look at the above image) are as follows:
- Isle of Skye – 35020 BCE
- Sumerian – 8590 BCE
- Egyptian – 2470 BCE
- Hittite – 1760 BCE
- Babylonian – 1540 BCE
- Theoretical date the ship found on LV-223 would have arrived – 93 BCE
- Mayan – 620 CE
- Hawaiian – 680 CE
I haven’t researched these dates in-depth to find any major significance, but one thing it tells me is the Engineers were unlikely to be coming to Earth to destroy mankind seeing how they came to Earth at least two times after the ship on LV-223 was meant to arrive and didn’t destroy it then.
There are theories one could arrive at if they consider the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which has been approximated to have taken place around 31-33 CE, which might suggest a time the Engineers and/or God lost faith in mankind and decided to wipe us out. But I haven’t come up with a working theory to explain Jesus’ resurrection if this were to be the case, or an adequate explanation as to who/what exactly Jesus would “be” in this world. One of the Engineers in disguise? Maybe, but the resurrection is still a question mark.
So why were they coming? My theory is to say humans are an unfinished project. This theory accepts that yes, the goo was certainly meant for mankind and was dangerous, but it was not designed to destroy (at least not everyone), but as a way to further evolve our species.
David says, “In order to create you must destroy.” What could this mean? It could be a statement regarding adaptation and survival of the fittest. Bringing it all back to Social Darwinism and the idea that the strong survive and the weak perish.
The Engineers created a world dependent on the survival of the fittest and perhaps missing their 2,000 year mark gave the weak a longer rate of survival. Subsequent trips made an effort to get things back on track and yet we still live on an Earth made to accommodate people that go by the name Snooki, which is to say there are still flies in the ointment.
If I had to wager a guess at this very moment, the Engineers weren’t coming to destroy mankind, they were simply coming to aid in weeding out the weak, whomever they may be.
And that does it for me. Over 4,800 words dedicated to a film I’ve seen once and talked about for hours since. Hopefully some of this was interesting or new and hopefully you can bring some more theories to the table. I’d love to be proven wrong and find new meaning in it all. My theories on the film have changed over and over since seeing it and I’m sure they will continue to evolve…
Help me will you?
Comment below and further the discussion…
