The Telepathic Engineer

I think the Engineer race entered transhumanism. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

I imagine that there are two races of Engineers. One of them is not high eveloped and the another race chases immortality by developing and researching all kinds of technology. Maybe they made some mistakes and became fallen angel and were banned from their home planet, Paradise. So these fallen angel might be capable of changing their environment. It would be great to see an Engineer so powerful to cause a storm. Telepathic could be also a ability possible.

Here's a very interesting article about possible future findings. 

http://www.futuretimeline.net/the-far-future.htm

I also recommend all sci-fi and Prometheus fans the documentary 'Prophets of Science Fiction'. 'The series covers the life and work of leading science fiction authors of the last couple of centuries.'

^ Thanks for sharing, that timeline is very fascinating. I'll check it out in greater detail later.

And I'll have a glance at the documentary you mentioned, if I can find it. Interesting that Ridley Scott produced and hosted it.

Well i covered some of this in the thread the other day about why the Engineer was angry.

Yes they may have some form of telepathy but would that not be between their own kind?

You see there was many many shots that we have not yet scene, even in the deleted scenes,  Fassbender had to learn page after page of dialect for a scene in Promethues now the deleted scene is longer... but indeed there could be a posibility of even more dialect, maybe he even translated Weylands last conversation to the Engineer. Or by that time the Engineer had a rough idea of what he was saying or his point.

The actors who plaid the one Elder Engineer and the Sacrificial Engineer had to learn Alien Dialect and had a conversation this was never shown even in the extended scenes, but there is a short video somewhere out there that shows the Elder Engineer talking to the Sacrificial one... now the Sacrificial Engineer Dan Twiss said he had to learn a few words or lines.

So there must have been a two way Elder/Sacrificial Engineer conversation.

I know this is off topic to if they have Telepathy, but what i am saying is there was shot more scenes where Engineers talked than we was ever shown, and thus in truth the Last Engineer did have a lot said to him by David and not a case of just a few words.

They're unconventional but atypically better then want could of been expected, better beings, highly intelligent, that is their failings. Accepting others for their short comings should of been their traits with increased intelligence, a group of wealthy Americans asking, tell us what you're about and know from a et being 8' tall and your asking for trouble.

Cool ideas GFan. It'd be neat if the Engineer is almost a tragic figure, by the end.  Wasn't his cryotube labelled "Hero chamber" in some of the artwork?
Maybe there's a whole bunch of reasons he's mad at us.

I think he could somehow see inside David's mind. Maybe the telepathy is limited & he has to make phsyical contact with the head or shoulders to "see inside". During that second when he laid his hand on David's head it formed a connection and he saw everything David ever saw...Sorta like Clairvoyance, they have to touch the person to read their minds and it's not really used for communication like the other faction.

One faction uses artwork and pictures to communicate, while the other one uses sounds and an actual alphabet...There may be two different languages already, and David can't actually read all of the pictograms... He prepared for the spoken language for a very long time as BigDave noted...

Sound and music, the violin, the flute that controlled the ship etc, could be important to the ones who speak and use sound vibrations to form a lot of their culture. David was born knowing English, but knows many other languages now.  Androids have to copy our culture. Androids don't have a culture of their own, yet. In some ways, the Engineers actually have a similar culture to humans, they use artwork to express ideas, they speak a similar language to the ancients. They started using a pictographic language, like some of our ancients. David tried to understand all the picture languages, but there is a significant amount of interpretation involved...compared to syllabic written/spoken languages...Pictograms operate differently...the alphabet used to create the spoken language for the Engineers isn't represented in the pictograms.

Ridley is a very visual artist, as evidenced by his Ridely grams. I think part of the movie is a visual/auditory puzzle. Art is subjective, people can often interpret different things.  One person can read it one way and another person can start to see/dive into all the hidden layers another way, the reasons behind behaviours etc. It's hard to get the full picture the artist was going for, the true meaning. However, I believe Prometheus is a work of art, more than a sci-fi/horror movie. Maybe Paradise will be a masterpiece, but i view Prometheus as one of the best works of art in CInema, because it allow for so many differing interpretations, and almost functions as a piece of art.

So, perhaps there are many hints there are already two factions. And perhaps David can only speak to one of them, because the other faction communicates with their minds more/with pictures... Scenes and images that eventually form the whole picture, they leave unimportant ideas out for now and fill only the emptiest parts of the canvas.

Speaking and sound. music and sound vibrations are very important to one faction. Helps them control the ship and communicate...But what if one faction of Engineers thinks in pictures.? And these Engineers can speak, as well as touch other beings to get mental pictures of what's inside their head..

In the happy bday viral Weyland corp asked David "what do you see?" in the strange patterns and artwork...David did learn to respond to ambiguous images, howver, maybe David can speak the language, but perhaps he is hidind the fact he can't actually read the pictures the correct ways, and this leads to him only working out the "broad strokes".

A few ?s here 123 engineer says regarding the 2 races that one is not high developed......but in the opening scene with seed shaped craft we clearly see it is not flying be propulsionary means..... Where later when we see the derelict it is a propulsion craft. so inmy opinion the race of engineers he claims is not developed has a higher developed means of transport.. This also makes me think its not 2 races .....just one race at different points of development......so the opening scene shows the race of engineers as they enter transhumanism......seeding life and operating their craft by possibly telepathic means......as humans develop on earth the engineers continue deeper down the far future timline......eventually creating the ultraintelligent being which has one motive to consume all energy in the system..... Since the ultraintelligence has no telepathic ability it must use propulsion crafts to send its now enslaved organics around the system.....idk??? 

David communicating to Weyland and seeing shaws cryo-sleep is hinting at telepathy

@ Kaija I've always liked the idea that the Engineer/Pilot species pilots the ships with their minds. If there is more than one type/class/faction of Engineer then maybe there could be  different modes of communication or piloting the ships. Ash's consciousness is returning in Alien out of the Shadows, the Androids having abilities/agendas we don't know is a distinct possibility.

I also think there could be 3 factions/types or divisions: Engineers, Elders and Pilots. Engineers and Elders are still somewhat similar to one another. One thinks in sound vibrations, the other factions operates in pictures/pictograms, both have limited telepathy, but the Pilots would be full telepath. In Lawrence of Arabia there are multiple factions and that's David's fav movie. He learned many languages before he set out on his Journey, just like the character he emulates from the movie...

Although perhaps David can't actually read the pictograms...And didn't spend as much time on those languages, such as hieroglyphps, eyptian demotic etc, to be able to understand the earlier forms of archaic Cuneiform, and operated as a parent language to all the non-syllabic scripts...Over time we created an alphabet, and moved towards having symbols represent syllables, but the alphabet wasn't always there. We used to communicate through symbols, which can be interpreted in different ways. Zacharia Sitchen's translations of the Sumerian clay tablets are but one possible interpretation of the story. Alien Astronaut theory could just be one way of looking at what the Sumerians were trying to convey, and could be based on inclomplete pictures, and mainly Zacharia's own interpretation...There could be other ways of looking at the data.

Maybe our Engineer is not part of the Pilot faction, and like in some AVP games, there is a group known as the Pilots who came before the Engineers and Elders, and built the ancient temples, but the Engineer/Elders invented ways of interpreting things/transmitting knowledge/data based on sound vibrations, and pictures, instead of purely thought vibrations like the larger Pilot class.

@Hiveminded the derelict ship is proplusion craft that has to be piloted from a cockpit ......and when it accelerates whitish blue light come from the propulsion ......thats not telepathic transport in my opinion

You could be right, I basically think the Derelict was an Elder ship piloted by that orginal Pilot to try to stop the Elders, and she forced it to crash land on LV-426 after being infected to isolate the cargo there. All the Elders who were aboard the ship with her were able to be egg morphed, but that original pilot is a she, and the female engineers are much larger (by way of a process that occurs in all species called sexual dimorphism, meaning one sex can turn out to be much larger than the other in the species)...

The tear drop shaped ship you described at the beginning of Prometheus, would be a Pilot ship imo. But the Derelict was an Elder craft, and at this time Pilots were enslaved/made part of their tech. Engineer crafts are a back engineered, smaller version of the Derelict for the Engineer class, but the Elders have always been the problem. Not the Engineer faction or the Pilots..

The Derlict would be powered by pictures the subconscious and subspace, more so than the Conscious mind of the pilot, since she's forced into being there. Engineers learned to use sound vibrations to cheat, and Elder crafts are in-between Engineer and Pilot crafts..

So, basically that original Pilot is not what we think, and was a she. A Pilot forced to fly the Elders crafts. The females in the Engineer speices are dominant and much larger than males, unlike humans where the height is balancing out, on average, but it's sort of the opposite...A king has his reign and then he dies, it's inevitable. Some species of bird actually have a totally different phenotype for females, different physical expressions yet the same genotype,

The females are also usually dominant in the Alien species, but not ours...Queen aliens rule their hives/colonies/kingdoms, and aliens have forms of class division and intelligence/telepathy too... The Alien queen sends signals to drones and warriors, tells them to back off from Ripley and the eggs. What if QUeens turn males into obedient warriors and the hermaphrodites into mindless drones...  What if other species repress the growth of Kings.. Weyland is viewed as a "King" by vickers.

That word was chosen for a reason, imo.  Weyland was acting like the King of the Earth. The Yutani side of the company may be where MOTHER comes from. Ridley said this series is about meeting the mommy and the daddy, the MOTHER and the FATHER...Kings and Queens...Fifield asks Millburn if he really thinks that thing's a she...The deacon didn't receive Shaw's ability to produce viable eggs...A big reason why the Medpod is designed only for males... Worms and young Aliens/Alien drones, are hermaphroditic. It may have been correct to view the Hammerpede as a boy and girl. So, Fifield and Millburn were both right, Hammerpede has both sexes in it, although I'm 99% sure the Deacon is more boy than girl, can't produce viable eggs..Must use egg-morphing, an has the potential to become a King... Prometheus could end up being a parallel story both sides of the company (how they haven't actually always agreed) and about egg morphing and the existence of Kings as well as Queens.

@Hiveminded im confused at who your referring to w pilot/elder amd engineer im assuming the pilots are the big elephant face beings in the chair , elders are the robbed guys in the beginning and the engineers are like the one found in the cryo chamber, right?

@Hiveminded im confused at who your referring to w pilot/elder amd engineer im assuming the pilots are the big elephant face beings in the chair , elders are the robbed guys in the beginning and the engineers are like the one found in the cryo chamber, right?

Yeah, Pilots would be the bigger elephantine species. And orignially built the temples.

The Pilot type would actually be the females, MOTHERS, Queens, and goddess aspect, who seeded mother earth with plant life, and can also be referred to as the Gardeners or something similar in other people's theories. There was plant life on Earth before the Engineers arrived. However the android conscious/singularity might be the beginning and the end of the universe.. Life in the universe exists in the middle...and is only a bridge...

The Elders would be the "Kings".  The Pilots and Elders would be the parents/creators of the Engineers. Weyland was becoming like a "king", the Engineers didn't like being ruled by the Kings, MOTHER is more fair than father...David asks "doesn't everyone want to see their parents dead?" David is kinda making an observation that some groups/individuals want to overthrow their parents rule. He says that when Weyland dies, he "imagines" he'll be free. David is starting to gain free will.

David only has one parent so far. Weyland. Although he had to copy our culture...and we now know personality and a lot of other things are determined by a mixture of nature and nurture, and come from both parents. The culture David comes from forms part of his thinking. David is made to be artificially emotional, he cries in the viral, he gets worked up over the movie he likes.

Psychological differences between genders exist to this very day. Females like to minimize risk, on average. Whereas males are evolutionarily geared towards accepting bigger risks for bigger payoffs. The average height of humanity might continue to increase, as it has in small steps in the past.Our ancestors, were much shorter, but maybe there's a reason the average height of humans keeps increasing. There are hints about the subconscious, hints about tricking the brain back to life, hints about telepathy across the series. There has to be more to the brain and head stuff. I feel that the tricking the brain back to life thing isn't just random, it's to show some of what Weyland's capable of.Weyland corp definitely knows a lot about the human brain. There's gotta be a reason the dream state could be controlled and David can view dreams/interact with Weyland. A reason why we had to be introduced to these concepts in this movie. I think Weyland's actually tricking his own brain into keeping on going.

The hammerpede can be both male and female because worms are hermaphroditic. Shaw was unable to conceive, her egg laying trait wasn't viable, and wasn't passed on to the Deacon... Hammerpede can lay eggs. However, the Deacon is more male than female.  Fifield asked: "you really think that thing's a she?" about the Hammerpede. I think the Deacon's a he, not a she... and we have secretly witnessed the birth of the first stage towards Alien King. This Engineer faction was playing around with genetics to create an Alien King, like in one of the Dark Horse comics.

The Engineers are us, and this allowed Shaw to deduce certain things. She's not thinking that if they are us there is also an x chromosome in their species...She moved straight to assuming if we were created they could be too. We can start to look at them as a separate human culture, and start applying anthropological principles to compare and contrast their culture with ours to find out what makes us similar and different, culturally speaking.

Because their brains would be similar to ours....which means if some of them are telepathic/clairvoyant or whatever, we could be too...There's a lot more inductive reasoning Shaw can perform, and combine with science, to narrow down exactly how this culture thinks and behaves... Determining how the Alien behaves is harder, it's too Alien to us...Engineers being so close to us will help us understand their cultures and the ones that come before them in time. Basically, there's still a lot of stuff that can go different ways, but it's already possible to tell that the Engineers/Elders aren't the only faction out there, and form part of a larger culture. I need more data on their cultures to tell some things for sure. Members of their culture express themselves through art, and some speak proto-earth languages.

We both process air, and transform the environment to suit our needs, a trait the alien also shares. Engineers and humans both need to breathe oxygen, to what degree can differ. When Holloway hints they were terraforming, this is a big thing. It means Engineers and Humans are alike culturally and physically. Their air processor temple might perform the same function as Weyland's.  Androids need some sort of energy, our android eats. "No man needs nothing". So there are resources the Engineers need, and Androids might also need some sort of energy. The Engineer culture will be different than ours, but they're intelligent and have a culture than can be contrasted and compared to figure out more about them (and ourselves in the process). They can be understood by anthropologists, in some ways.

@Everyone,

Very cool topic, I reread almost every post twice here to get a better understanding of all the viewpoints. I am impressed at all of the injenuity here; however, makes me wonder why if in these few posts there are this many great ideas how the writers could not put these kind of details in the movie.

Unfortunately as much as I enjoyed all the different theories I have to strongly disagree with the entire Engineer telepathy capability argument.

For starters lets all think about this in common sense terms, no big scientific explanations just yet.

If the Engineers had telepathy why did they run from something that was attacking them in their own space craft?

.

Telepathy with advanced capabilities gives you real time protocols so that your computers can warn you of any dangers. When the Engineer is taking off he never thinks that the other ship could ram his ship and stop him. When Shaw is in the escape life ship the Engineer never senses another alien that could kill him. For that matter even when the Engineer is in hibernation the computer on his ship never alerts him that another space craft has landed. This is supposed to be a secure installation for making weapons of mass destruction. Some of these examples are things that you just cannot foresee when you are writing such a complex script. Believe me there is so much to this movie that makes a lot of it an absolute masterpiece and other parts that are flawed.

Telepathic abilities mean more than just communication between Engineers and possibly other creatures around them. The Engineers are visual we know this from the navigation chamber hologram and yet they need to play an analog flute to start their computers in the flight chamber. Visually the scene is a masterpiece; conceptually it lacks enough details for it to fit correctly in with all the other plot details.

Please skip this part if you are not into the hard science of physics. In order for there to be telepathy at the atomic level there has to be a structure for a wave function to transmit and receive that wave. So for example we know that the aliens have very nasty large metallic teeth…watch a movie called Alien if you don’t believe me LOL, ROFL.
So it is definitely possible that humans some day could modify their DNA and create these complex substrates for symbiotic organic/metallic components.

We know that David can look into a humans brain functions, as the neurons are firing off, enabling him to watch their dreams in real-time. Two Davids can both communicate at the computer component level. Presumably David communicates with Weyland but only when he puts on the special helmet. So we know that he is conversing with him telepathically through a mechanical machine interface.

@ Redant: You definitiely brought up some very interesting points.

For starters, I agree with many points that show how the Engineer would have taken advantage of his gifts, if he knew he had them. Humans can sometimes be opportunistic creatures.

Following my train of thought on the cultures being similar: their physical brains are similar, able to have the same technology used on them -- this would mean both humans and Engineers would have the potential to be telepathic.  Our brains are close enough to theirs for the Weyland scientists to know how to work them. Trick them back to life.  If Engineers are telepathic, then we should at least have the potential to be telepathic.  A lot of your reasons + this form of inductive reasoning leads me to believe the Engineers may have limited telepathy, limited only by the extent of their technology. There's definitely a posibility of them devloping telepathic contact wiith each other with some sort of physical/artificial contact/technology.

I tried using the term clairvoyant to describe what I think the Engineer could still be capable of when he touches David.  We see David place his hand on the cryotube, I kinda think David needs to place his hand on the glass. Engineer would have to actually touch the person's head to almost read their mind, and has either tech or something else special in his genetics, a deviation in some genes in our DNA, that allows him to do this. So he could instantly tell David had a synthetic mind.  Otherwise there's a huge chance we would all be telepathic too, because if the Engineer's gift isn't technological, then we might all have it too. If its a genetic ability. But as noted, the brains of Engineers and humans are remarkably similar, and so both Engineers and humans might be able to use tech to communicate with minds. It might have limits, but they could have some sort of telepathy, telepathy joined to tech, or could be better at mind link tech than humans.

It's clear there are alternate analogies some could be limited by their range and others by their capability of numbers communicated with collectively. Hurrying into a designated location is mandatory for an emergency. Hurrying in random direction as hell beacons or everyman for themselves is a human reaction during a bloodbath, loss of life. It's awful that they got eradicated and all in a group leaving one to complete the task that the collective failed in. Not part of societies higher educated ranks, if it seems strange it probably is! Jockeys are primarily required to treat infection, affecting or mutating in them, with added diagnosis, treatment and containment. The aim of ability, specialty and experience of each particular Jockeys would indicate exactly what interventions would be performed, but most would start containing the situation.

ALIENS: DNA WAR (NOVEL)

In an inhospitable galaxy, Rosamond 6 seems to have everything needed for human habitation: a moon, an atmosphere, a thriving biosystem. But although it looks like an oasis, the planet harbors a fatal secret: murderous aliens that have wiped out every life form in their path. Anthropologist Jocasta Malvaux is eager to prove her theory that the aliens can be reasoned with, so she sets up an observation post on Rosamond 6. Amazingly, when the monsters become aware of Malvaux and her expedition, they don't attack. What's the reason behind the Aliens' seeming lack of concern for the humans? Are they evolving? Or are they simply lying in wait? Expanding on Ridley Scott's classic film, Aliens: DNA War continues the chilling saga of the intrepid men and women who fight to stay alive against an opponent that sleeps, breathes, and breeds with just one goal: to kill.

I read many of these novels years ago, including the ones that Alan Dean Foster wrote after the release of the Alien movie. For three decades I have been in pursuit of anything “Alien”. Having said that and with the synopsis about the book written by Diane Carey I vaguely remember that the aliens in this book had some type of telepathy. Do no quote me on this simply because I do not have the book anymore along with all of my other Alien books – don’t ask its long story.

For years I have watched a lot of other franchise come and go; however, Alien seems to have stronger fundamental qualities that make it more marketable. Seriously nano tech based hybrid bio/inorganic mechanical machine weapons? This stuff is way before it’s’ time to be sure. People in the next five hundred years these types of ideas may be devolved into real weapons. Nano machine based technologies that create a hybrid biological and synthetic combination is already here in many applications. It stands to reason that these technologies will mature and evolve rapidly with larger corporate investment and needs. They are 3-D printing organs on inorganic synthetic scaffolding with other systems to deliver oxygen and remove waste and keep out pathogens.

It is even harder to believe that we all are even having a conversation about any of this and everyone here just takes it for granted that not only do they understand the technologies described in these blogs they are extrapolating these ideas almost effortlessly.

You all ever read some of the stuff that BigDave posts? Let’s keep that guy out of a real laboratory! LOL no offence BigDave but you are scary smart about way too much of this stuff. That’s why enjoy coming here so much and reading all the different viewpoints. Just an absolutely outstanding community here, I hope the founders are monetizing this web site because it can only help it to grow more and offer all of us some more niche places to converse and share.

I have been peeking into the other movie blogs just wading in the shallow end and not really joining in just yet. Every time I have ever come to the Prometheus blog it has been immensely rewarding.

At the end of the day this all about show business and entertainment yet in all too many real ways some of the original ideas that go all the way back to the first Alien film have already been made into real technologies. I never come here knowing what to expect and what I often find are real genuine unique original ideas.

Are the Engineers Telepathic? It was the original question posed. I will tell you all this. Anything that could build the type of space crafts they have, navigate and develop bio tech to evolve on this many different worlds, plus have an obviously much more technologically developed home world would have technology far beyond mere telepathy for communication. It’s not that we are circumspect in our views it’s that we are thinking in our day to day usage of technologies and trying to apply that to this world.

In Aliens they were almost taking telepathic orders from the Queen, intelligent enough to cut the power.

In Alien Resurrection Ripley 8 could feel the Alien telepathy behind her eyes. Hybrid Ripley clone had telepathic links to Alien Queen. Marines wanted her as a weapon. Some very subtle connections could be forming with Alien resurrection that I believe make it a better movie in the end...Death/rebirth themes both movies share. The cross as a symbol of choosing what to believe, androids gaining freewill/holding the cross, and certain parallels between Ripley 8 and David 8. Visual links between the basketball courts.

Maybe Weyland considered cloning/uploading consciousness,, but cloning didn't put Ripley's full consciousness back into the hybrid body or give her all her memories. She lost memories of previous encounters.Had only parts of the subconciousness. Full consciousness transfer was still being worked out by the thing Vickers referred to as FATHER (Weyland's already crossed that bio-mechanical bridge to other points in space-time).Ripley 8 could heal her wounds, became stronger, her body became a weapon, her blood became acidic, and her mind gained valuable insight into the Alien without her becoming a part of it. All abilities Weyland may want for his perfect bio-mechanical body.

Call somehow knew the Marines had the Alien genetics,was almost on a mission to infiltrate and sabotage. She got "the call" from somewhere. We never learn who created Call's free androids, or who sent her the info. Call displays the ability to hack into FATHER, and could be in wireless contact with MOTHER..FATHER was what's left of Weyland's consciousness at that time, and hitched a ride back to Mother Earth with Call.  Wal-Mart's a lie the military created to cover up the Marines being in complete control. "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" is what Janek would say. And Father allowed himself to merge with Call, knowing Call would bring him back to Mother's systems. Janek feels isolated too. Most pilots and Weyland investors will eventually learn the complete truth about the company. Janek likes to comfort minds by pretending time is still moving the same everywhere,.

Hello this is my first Post.

I find every discussion here super interesting.

On thelepathy,

As per its definition, I would dare to say that if the concept of true telepathy could be real then some phenomenom like "spooky action at a distance" should be considered. Somehow the brain should be able to identify a very specific different brain (named the receptor) via quantum entanglement and in the same via should be able to transfer a thought or a emotion AND very important, the receptor should be able to ignore or respond to the emitter. Such entanglement would need a mechanism or protocol to be "accepted". In the same thought, I would like to propose three different types of telepathy:

1. Bidiriectional: it would be like talking, but without any phisical means, and the receiver keeps its privacy.
2. Hive: when the entanglement its not controlled and every subject entangled to the hive has no privacy or sense of individualism.
3. Oriented, would be like mind reading, the receiver of the thelepatic connection has no control of the external reading neither privacy.

(it is clear to me that quantum entanglement is a too excesive design for telepathy to take place... others would prefer some sort of radiowaves or waves in any non-visible spectrum, I only go to that extent because this is science fiction and everything is theorizable, and I very much like the thought of thelepathy across galaxies)

Nothing is known about the civilization of engineers, but can be inferred that they where civilized, and that civilization led them to te technologies they have. Suposing we are "experimental engineers" (that turned up to be tiny) I think that can be inferred we can develop the same kind of civilization and technology WITH TIME (and in the future we could pose a threat to them engineers). In our future if such transhumanistic enhancement could be made to a human of choice, the population in general would be against invoking privacy reasons. It would be done in secret and probably under military supervision. It think its fair to assume that these engineers had that problem in their past and solved it somehow.

The outpost in Reticuli seems to be for Military Research and we (the visitors of prometheus) seem to be an experiment gone bad. So it is not entirely crazy to "imagine" the possibility of some form of thelepathy in this creatures.

In the matter of Equal-DNA vs Equal-Capacities I ponder it very posible... We all share same basic DNA structure as humans. And in that our Brain is based in the same DNA structure as the Einstein Brain, but somehow his fenotype turned out to be way smarter than any of us.

So it is sciencefitcionally possible for engineers to be able of thelepathy.

But as HiveMinded noted.

Ripley in Alien Resurrection had a connection with the hive. It seemed to me more a receving connection that a bidirectional one.
She is hybrid but her appearance is human. She has acid blood wich means her entire circulatory system, and any internal system she has have some estructural resistance to this acid even her brain.
(We cannot know the age of the ripley in Alien resurrection, being a genetic experiment could also mean that her days were counted, and is matter of time until her resistance to her acid blood starts to diminish causing her death) but this makes place for a human with senses far different from us normal humans. In the movie she can sense the vessel moving in space (cannot remember if it was going from stationary to moving or if she sensed a change of course of the ship) OR, she can sense the hive is sensing the change in motion and in other hand she is first to discover the only android in the crew.

It seems more sciensfictionally correct to think she noted things in the humans (transpiration, pupil dilation, heart pulse, muscle tension and textures, corporal language) that were wrong in the android girl when compared to homo sapiens.

Also in the situation of the pod-awakened engineer vs the-nonsense-speaking-android.
Imagine you (the pod-awakened engineer) where executing a plan of emergency responding to a event that will result in the killing of all other military personel in your outpost (hidden outpost? And I mean hidden from the other habitants of Paradise), 2000 years later you are awakened by tiny engineers, but you dont find the scenery abnormal, you assess the situation and remember the experimental planet. It fits perfectly, "the safeguard" (that star map that ponited to Reticuly) has brought visitors. Then one of them speaks to you and in that moment you realize with your sharp senses that IT is not alive, it has no pulse, and is wrong in comparison to the other visitors, a machine and in that the ralization that IT is the more dangerous of the three...
You decide to eliminate them, because them being here is the proof of them becoming an experiment out of control (hence the safeguard) and start eliminating the most dangerous one.

Great to have you here konfucio! Awesome first post! There's a lot of great ideas to go over in there!

I too feel the Engineer assessed the situation, and decided to eliminate David and Weyland first, viewing them as some sort of threat, or experiment that got out of control.

Diff species might operate in different ways, which could allow a few things to be explored. When Aliens are isolated from the hive they might be more intelligent/have more privacy, not subject to the Queen. So a lone Alien or a Queen is actually far more intelligent than the drones and warriors. We see many things in Aliens that show the Queen thinks about and understands things.  Understood what Ripley's motions with the flamethrower meant for her young, and told the drones/warriors to back off. Ripley torched the eggs anyway, which angered the Queen. It's even emotional.

If Engineers are telepathic things could work in different way. For humans I've toyed around with the ideas of motherly intuition, and pre-cognitive dreams...Humans supposedly knowing when their kids are in trouble....things of that nature, collective unconscious ideas, Weyland would need tech to tap into different levels of the people's dreams, but some people claim they have dreams that sometimes predict the future. Amanda, ripley's daughter, might almost have a feeling in the back of her mind that her mom's still out there in Alien: Isolation. It could be like when humans are isolated they're vulnerable and send out subconscious signals for help. But when Aliens are cut off from the hive they actually reach peak levels of intelligence and aren't subject to instructions from the Queen. The Alien in Alien isolation learns quickly, supposedly remembers things. The same trick won't keep working on it.

I'd say the Alien might have a hivemind, but it's not really as similar to ants as the marines try to make it. And I think their social organization is closer to a certain species of parasitic wasps that turn ants into mindless zombies, and make them hatch theiir young.

It might have comforted the marines to view them as ants, or a simpler form of insects, but only some parts of the alien organism were originally based on insects, and many other horrifying traits were looked at.

Re-reading my post I want to correct some things I've put there,
I forgot to tell English is not my native tongue. Try to be easy when reading my posts (and sorry for the typos: thelepathy? really?, I was too exited when writing and writed too fast).

When I refer to the oupost as a "military facility" it is not accurate with what I feel the movie shows.

It is more like a paramilitary organization, maybe terrorists, maybe rebels even maybe fundamentalists of whatever they deem fundamental... it goes well with "sometimes to create, one must first destroy" way of doing things.

@HiveMinded

Its awesome how the Xeno creature was designed, but its more awesome the beings that created it or that found it, think of it as something so beautiful to the level of making frescos of them.

I'm rethinking the part of "acid for blood"

If the normal blood of Ripley in Alien resurrection was acidic, corroing metal in the level of Sulphuric Acid (H2SO4), then all the tissues of ripley must have been restructured to a almost biomechanical form... But... we gather the energy to live from diferent chemicals that could not solve and fulfill their functions in this kind of acidic blood. Biologically in addition to the acidic blood, this process, the process of the digestive system and the reserve system (fats) also have to be different, Ripley's diet has to be different (unless the few moments that she were expected to be alive were counted, and was feeded artificially by the scientists somehow). I doubt they "cultivated" her naturally. Her hair and her skin should be different colour maybe no hair at all. Maybe all her internal organs were replaced for the versions of the queen as a result of the mixed DNA. But equally in the other hand... the queen embrio recovered had Ripley's DNA... maybe the emotional part was added to the queen in addition to a reproductive system which we now know emotions are the best protection mothers have to care for their children and goes hand in hand with a utero.

If it is not quantum entanglement (which I know it is not), then the mechanics of telepathy could be measured. Remember it is science fition. With that in mind and knowing basically that the brain emits waves of different lenghts, it would require a large brain (as antenna) and a very specific fenotype (some part of the brain designed to broadcast the waves and the energy it requires) for it to make telepathy usable in large distances of separation between chatters. It makes sense in the xeno as it already has a very large brain almost with a parabollic form. It makes sense too that the Queen always carries the biggest head, maybe she can impose his mind over her minions. It makes sense that ripley was "listen only" in regard to this signals. But it is strange that scientists in a level capable of such a genetic recovery were not aware of this form of telepathic communications and figure out a way to block them or use it to confuse them, that could have been a better behavior inductor than the crio gas that these poor aliens were exposed as an attempt to be domesticated.

Explaing the random events like motherly-intuition, pre-cognitive dreams, psicodelic shared experiences with other humans and other entities, perception of danger to the close family as a result of an early telephatic hability inherited from the sacrificial engineer doesnt sound bad or incongruent at all.

I remember this Fringe chapter where a sperm donor makes experiments with his seed and those of certain bees, and then gives away this sperm to a sperm bank. Years later their sons develop the ability of telepathy, giving form to the events that happened in the chapter.

Well techically if earth was un-inhabitated at the moment of their arrival, then most animal life here is a derivative of the sacrificial engineer DNA... with us being 100% DNA match and other animals being lesser matches but matches in the end. The endless variations that can arise from such an experiment could explain the telepathic abilities present in some bees, ants and us altogether but in a very RAW form, a form that our fenotype isn't yet able to develop.

Very facinating subject! Hurt my brain to read all the posts.  I'll keep it short and to the point. Lol "Do you even read Big Daves posts", Only 3/4 or so then I use my imagination to fill in the rest. One thing that bothers me is when Dave is in the orrnary room and activates the computers holographic recording of the engineers who are to be put in hibernation, we seen them verbally communicating. So that might be a sign that they're not telepathic.  What is interesting though is they are being recorded before they turn on the console by playing a simple flute...giving the means for David to activate...WHAT? it's already showing him a hologram.  Whats powering the halogram. Perhaps the structure it'self is reading David and the crew.  When David stands in the center of plateform and the star maps are spinning around him I feel it's all too convenient that our solar system comes up and David maybe SELECTS Earth, unaware or decieved of interacting with a technology that is reading him. If the Engineers have telepathy it's through technology.  Going back to the original Xeno, it's a weapon designed to kill, yet it has no eyes. It's bulbus enlongated head reminds me of some whales and dolfins that have the ablitity to zapp they're prey with a sonic crack.  Perhaps the Xeno's emits a signal that creates TERROR and it telepathically picks that up...zoning in on it's prey.