The real nature of LV-223

what i was thinking about was the whole issue of the star map if a star map lead them to a particular star system how did they find the correct corrdinates to the pyrmaids.....and there is no proof that there isnt anything else there its a planet for god sake visiting the desert in nevada isnt indiciative of what the land scape is like in China...and the weather looks pretty nice from what i can tell until the sand storm comes and that seems to be a reaction to something done once there.....the planet looks pretty calm as they are crashing ships and shaw and vickers are running on the terrian>???

Well, it could look very barren and lifeless after it's been abandoned for millions of years. If they were the beings who started life, or even just human life, that would have happened hundreds of thousands if not millions of years in the past. I know that it doesn't mean that they went extinct or abandoned LV-223 right after they made us, but still, that leaves a whole lot of time left to leave the planet. I mean, just look at the civilizations that have been covered up simply from the amount of time it has been left alone. Also, if you factor in that the giant sand storm is a fairly natural and regular occurrence on that planet, then that is plenty enough to leave the place lookin' like my apartment if no one was there to clean it up after a couple thousand years.

I think the weirdest part is all the structures on it's surface seem to be made by a bronze age level culture. Look at all those stone temples and the weird idols inside them. What kind of high tech, spacefaring society builds those? I hope the film answers (or at least hints at) why this is so.

i did not read anything but the question, and that way I thought my answer would be true to you...and to myself...and what my answer would be is it is only natural for any number of random planets to not have rings or other defensive postures built into their nature. It's gonna be fun for me now to go back and see what everyone else answered.

I completely agree... Why such structures on the surface yet no signs of life. If that doesn't even barely get spoken of I will reject a lot of the rest of the plot personally.

Aliens can't have nostalgic aesthetics? ....

Yeah someone let it slip in an interview that it was an outpost and not the SJ's home world. I think the Engineers think about time much differently to us, they have infinite lifespans and while colonizing the galaxy (as we have seen from the star map) gazillions of years pass. Therefore LV223 is more or lees abandoned and left to decay/hibernate much like a lighthouse with a sleepy immortal evil lighthouse keeper.

Although I do not believe it to be the same planet, a NYT Online article says "The star map leads to the same planet that the ship in “Alien” will visit 30 years later" [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/movies/prometheus-returns-ridley-scott-to-outer-space.html]NYT Article Here[/url] Most likely, jumping to the conclusion that it is the same planet.

Perhaps Human life started or was created there as most of the structures seem to come from a bronze age level civilization as someone here just indicated (@Juston thanks) but a much closer possibility is that this is a long dead city or complex or even a sacred site to the Jockeys or Engeneers.

@fanboy79, I suppose that an advanced exploratory ship like Prometheus would be very able to spot any kind of structures and interesting things over the surface of a subject planet. We still don´t know the specific conditions of Prometheus trip to LV-223, but if they landed near the Domes (I really prefer this to "pyramads", which these constructions clearly are not), probably they were the most interesting feature over the planet. @Athy16, Sorry but I don´t understant what you mean by "abandoned". Intelligent creatures can´t happens for nothing, they pressupose a biosphere and ecology to happen. Even if the Engineers left LV-223, the other lifeforms that evoluted there would still be there. @juston, I do agree. It was just after seeing the skull at the top of the dome, that I developed a sense that things will be very, very wicked at LV-223, and made me feel that the planet will be something very different of what we were expecting. @nate, Of course _ look at Vegas....

Hasn't someone "in the know" said that LV223 was an "outpost"? Might've been RS himself, maybe Lindelof. Either way, one of the "storymakers" has said as much, I just don't have a link...

@AlsoKnownAsNate: "Aliens can't have nostalgic aesthetics? ...." LMAO Now seriously, there are two things that don't fit IMHO: [list] [*] The planet is too deserted; shure, millions of years could have passed, but those particular structures survived, and no others? Odd (I do agree the Prometheus should have technology that would allow it to detect structures from outter space)... To me it looks more like the kind of place you'd conduct experiments on. If something went wrong, no arm done! [*] Ampules? Really? We're not a space faring society (I don't think going to the moon a couple of times counts...) and we have better containers!!... I'm really hoping for a good explanation on this one... [/list]

What if the top of each dome has a carving of a different species. One for every race that has been trapped. And there are a lot more than the hand full that we have seen in the trailer.

Not only is LV-223 an "outpost", it is the "tinkerer's off-world laboratory". Essentially, this is Dorothy (the "human race") going to a side room on the side of the Great Wizard of Oz and pulling the curtain back revealing "the wizard's closet". I believe we will see the SJs homeworld in the second installment following Prometheus.

@fanbot79...lol..."what the land scape is like in China..." @athy16...lol..."then that is plenty enough to leave the place lookin' like my apartment" @Juston... good question..."What kind of high tech, spacefaring society builds those?" @Freeze Him!...Can't wait to hear Your take on the plot..."I will reject a lot of the rest of the plot personally." @AlsoKnownAsNate...Huh?..."Aliens can't have nostalgic aesthetics? ...." @Xenophobia... Can you elaborate on how this pertains to the planets defenses for me?..."his is a long dead city or complex or even a sacred site to the Jockeys or Engeneers." {I think it does do this by the way} @centrosphere Right but the OP's talking about how it could have so little or No defenses at all. .."suppose that an advanced exploratory ship like Prometheus would be very able to spot any kind of structures and interesting things over the surface of a subject planet." @CouchJockey...What about the planet, shouldn't the planet have signs at least indicating if it ever did have defenses built onto it's structures or even it itself, such as rings? @Mungo...And..the fact that planet has no apparent defenses...?..."What if the top of each dome has a carving of a different species. One for every race that has been trapped. And there are a lot more than the hand full that we have seen in the trailer." @Otto...wow..someone is thinking hard in here..."Hasn't someone "in the know" said that LV223 was an "outpost"?..." @Enderwiggin...Brilliant..."I think the Engineers think about time much differently to us, they have infinite lifespans and while colonizing the galaxy (as we have seen from the star map) gazillions of years pass." @Anc...so if it is the same planet why does it have no apparent defenses?..."Most likely, jumping to the conclusion that it is the same planet."

oops missed one... abordoli wrote.."Not only is LV-223 an "outpost", it is the "tinkerer's off-world laboratory". Essentially, this is Dorothy (the "human race") going to a side room on the side of the Great Wizard of Oz and pulling the curtain back revealing "the wizard's closet". I believe we will see the SJs homeworld in the second installment following Prometheus." My answer...And the planet having No apparent Defenses...?... LMFAO !!!

Hey Centrosphere, YOU, were the "OP" I referred to up there and you came into your own post and proceeded to NOT answer your own question...LMFAO...YOU MADE MY DAY BRO. awesome thread you made by the way very thought provoking...... for some of us...lol.

I didn't mean to ignore the TC's question regarding LV-223's planetary defenses. I was simply adding my two cents in regards to the Topic title "The real nature of LV-223". So here goes: Why does LV-223 not have an orbiting planetary defense system? My answer: It doesn't need one. The defenses are down on the surface. In the "Silos" (yes, I'm calling the "temples" silos. ; ) )

@centrosphere I read your analysis and most of the other posts but I'm back to you to ask you if you see this planet as barren, primordial, no water to sustain life etc. Do you beleive possibly at one time that it did?....or if it had water that would change the conditions for life?

Perhpas the planets inhabitants prefer to remain elusive and hidden to the rest of the galaxy. I dont understand how they decided which planet was LV-223. There are 5 or 6 of them in the caves and temples on earth. Do all of them have life or just this one?? To build an a massive base inside a mountain takes some skill and technology. The hologram in Prometheus shows massive tunnels and rooms inside the mountain. Where is everyone that built it.

Spartacus, Sorry. As I have already said in another thread, I´m not a native speaker of english. Of course by "ring" I didn´t mean "planetary rings", but "defense rings", [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringfort]a concept[/url] commonly used in military issues. Concerning the "answer" to my "own question": How could I answer a question that I don´t know how to answer? I asked in bona fide, just to see what other people think. For the rest of your talk it seems you´re trying some irony, which I will politely ignore because they are ill placed. Also I must say that it is very strange for a staff to treat a visitor like that... Abordoli, Two takes on your idea of subsurface defenses: a) We know that in the movie, the Prometheus lands, the crew visits the Domes, etc. This is letting a lot more of a lead to potential enemies than the US Air Force would concede to a unregistred airplane approaching the american airspace. So I think that if the Engineers or whatever race uses LV-223 as an outpost (nice, I forgot this), they left it strangely vulnerable. b) It´s my conviction that any space defense system must be based in orbit if you want negate access to the planet surface. Planets are "gravity wells", rockets or other kind of propeller-based artifacts must spend much energy and time to reach the escape velocity of planets, and it´s not rational to have your defenses there. But I do agree that we know close to nothing about the Engineers offensive capability (although we know that their ship seems to be a dead duck unable to evade or take offensive action against Prometheus, by what we see in the trailer). @forever war, Well from the little we can see, the planet seems barren indeed. I don´t know if there isn´t water; we can see clouds and even snow, but we don´t know if this is condensed water. From the solar system experience, moons gravitating gas giants (as the big ringed planet in the sky seems to be) use to be icy moons or sterile rocks; LV-223 is a different kind, maybe. @BioShock, They don´t seem so elusive; after all, they visited Earth and left an "invitation"... Yes they are mighty builders. Also, the very Domes also seems artificial.

If I'm not mistaken don't most 'rings' or Perimeter Defenses need the use of personnel or armed sentries to be effective? Take Area 51 for example, it's basically a bunch of sensors that are set off when you breach the perimeter. . . . THEN the guys with machine guns show up to either scare you off or shoot you and feed you to the dobermans. Military bases may have razor wire, but without armed LIVING personnel the fences would fall into disrepair, and there would be no one to stop an intruder. Wasn't there a recent post about this Jockey/Engineer being a survivor? Kinda like waking up a mummy. . . The Ancient Egyptians wouldn't have let an archeologist any where near the Pyramids a few thousand years ago . . . but now. . . . Maybe the crew would have had better luck if they let Brendan Fraser lead the expedition.

Wait a minute......there are people on this thread questioning the alien [i]aesthetics[/i] of this movie........as if they have any more idea than anyone else would?! At least the weathered, monolithic forms, "classical" motifs and, [i]cavern[/i]ous interiors of the Engineer artworks and spaces, all suggest something very ancient and timeless. By comparison, the 8 wheeled SUV in this movie looks no more "futuristic" than stuff that was being dreamed up in the 70s. I'm not dogging the design, it's fine....I'm just sayin' I don't think we are remotely capable of imagining what alien "aesthetics" might be like......assuming that notion had any meaning for them at all.

centrosphere Thanks for the comeback, I was curious as to whether you took note of the snow specifically that's in the opening trailer shot, the "contrail" shot. From the beginning of the publicity onslaught for the film I've been as wary as anyone else as to "what is " " what isn't" and "what might be"...especially the trailers. I don't think it is Prometheus making that contrail, I think it's another ship from Earth and the contrail shot is actually near to the end of the film. The trailer is quite willing to show us Prometheus airborne many times, but not in closeups along that particular trajectory. This other ship finds a planet with an abundance of water, under which now lie the temple complex...no visible trace. The area in which Prometheus lands has a resmeblance to a lake or ocean floor..flat with odd rocks dotting its surface. Possibly when the ground opens up in the large scale mechanical action scene, the planet is flooded with water. causing the dust storm seen racing towards Prometheus, a shock wave of global dimensions. The waterfall scene is part of this flooding. Somewhere in this film is the result of filming large scale water sequences done in Spain....there is a huge amount of the story unseen in images and the subject of extrordainary secrecy.

@artyoh "Wait a minute......there are people on this thread questioning the alien aesthetics of this movie" Sure, why not? We've been questioning everything else about this movie. "I don't think we are remotely capable of imagining what alien "aesthetics" might be like" And yet the people making this film have clearly done so. I think this is a fascinating subject for discussion. Perhaps if we were talking about actual aliens I might agree with you but we're talking about fictional aliens with fictional aesthetics given to them by screen writers/production designers/etc. I'd like to understand those people's motives for making such a large gap between the aesthetics/apparent level of technology on display in the temples and in the alien ship.

The planet used to be green and lush and full of life... until the SJs arrived and hoovered everything up to make their bio-materials. Damn those SJs!!! Someone needs to take an axe to them.

@Spartacus: "..And..the fact that planet has no apparent defenses...?" I was responding to Centrosphere's thought that no orbital defences could = planet sized trap. I was following this thought and wondered if each dome is (or becomes) a personalised trap/headstone for each visiting species. So the SJs could have set the traps or just be a dead mouse in the next trap along.

@TexasDeathTip, "[i]If I'm not mistaken don't most 'rings' or Perimeter Defenses need the use of personnel or armed sentries to be effective?[/i] " You´re right; this is the very reason I think LV-223 isn´t a base or outpost. @Forever War, "[i]Somewhere in this film is the result of filming large scale water sequences done in Spain[/i]." I didn´t know but...are you sure? This information doesn´t appear at the leaked credits of the movie...there is a "Iceland Unit", but not a "Spain Unit"... Personally I think that we will not see a second human ship in the movie. I have some reasons, see: This is the original "contrail" scene, with snow in the mountains: [img]http://greglouden.net/reel_contrails.png[/img] Here, you see Prometheus producing the contrail: [img]http://greglouden.net/contrail2.png[/img] Also, if you examine closely some of the scenes in the "temple complex valley", you will see that there snow in the mountains, also: [img]http://www.projectprometheus.com/assets/2/245409.jpg[/img] Of course in the end you could be right; we simply don´t know much about the movie, actually. But these are my hints.

"@TexasDeathTip, "If I'm not mistaken don't most 'rings' or Perimeter Defenses need the use of personnel or armed sentries to be effective? " You´re right; this is the very reason I think LV-223 isn´t a base or outpost." Well that's the thing . . I think it IS an outpost. An outpost devoid of defenders because they're either dead, or have fled for their lives, or both. Whether it was abandoned, or the SJ's/Engineers were overrun by whatever they were tinkering with, or a combination of the 2. That would leave the outpost left alone for possibly thousands of years without the necessary personnel to repel borders. One of the interviews with RS referred to a "survivor" they find there. We've seen the stills of the dead SJ's which would indicate that they fell victim to their own creations (or collected organisms). Or possibly even experimented on each other. For whatever reason there is a mean son of a b!#(# remaining. It's also probable that we're going to come away with more questions than answers, especially since they seem to be setting up a sequel. . . . Cliffhanger Ending?

I must have read here quite a few times but why do you all keep coming up will LV-223? Unless you are refeering to one-or-moe of the ringed planetary system I was under the impression that the small planetoid both the Nostromo and the Sulaco went into orbit over was called LV-426. Ripley say's so to the board of inquiry, unless she is refeering to the gas giant as Polyphenus is to Pandora so LV-426 is to the smaller planetoid so in the regard, I could be wrong on that one though I think I am instinctively correct on this one and that you are all pronouncing the name wrong for the planetary systems own officila Terran designation. But if there is evidenced information that points to the contrary I would like to read-up on that to see where exactly I may have missed that one... Keep me posted if you can but I do think the correct terminology is LV-426 for the small planetoid that all three expiditions vist succesively...