Forum Topic
Karstenphd
MemberOvomorphMay-19-2012 7:43 PMLets look at some basic tenets derived from the footage we have seen, and postulate on who is more menacing, superior, or ends up winning a head to head war. The Engineers have Spacecraft that can traverse Galaxies, so do we. Holograms, us too, spacesuits, us too. They manipulate DNA, we manipulate DNA. They terraform Planets, we terraform planets. I know we have weapons, we can only speculate what or if they posses weapons once we watch prometheus, as I have not seen these guys use any. I realize that our weapons used by the merks didn't seem to affect their suits, but I'm sure Weyland or Yutani has bulletproof armor. The Chair rising in the Orrey is impresssive, and looks pretty cool, but as of yet we know not it's function. I'm sure we could build a chair to accomodate Janek in the same fashion, spiraling out of the deck, no problem. I don't know if the creatures seen such as the Vagisnake or, Space Cobra are bio weapons they created as of yet or not. They are scary, I would not want to get infectedby their particular form of "Jock Itch" as it seems to mutate you, if the creatures are controlled by the Engineers, which I honestly don't know, if a flamethrower wont work, I'm sure a nuke will. And common sense tells me that a guy that muscular, prying open space craft doors will beat me in hand to hand. But it appears that for some reason inn the Alien universe they havn't "Occupied" earth as of yet, being it takes place 30 some odd years after the original Alien. These beings are doing uncivilized things, have been around a while, and maybe like all Empires, Rome, etc, rested on their laurels and get their asses handed to them by us. I'm sure the movie will answer questions and hopefully have Prometheus II. Maybe this race is dying and can't compete with the new kids on the block. Or they might just decide to stop playing games and put out our sun or something of that magnitude, or just decide that the lost of one space ship or station isn't worth bothering us about. The thing is, I'm hoping for another great Bladerunner, Gladiator type Epic movie and hope to understand the Engineers strenghts, intelect and weaknesses. I do think there will be a home for us to go back to, anyone think not?
18 Replies
Frantz
MemberOvomorphMay-19-2012 7:55 PMI think the basic error is when they were called GODS ...they are not gods ...they play with already existing things ( DNA , organic matter ) ...they were kings ( and probably a bit mad scientists ) , so they were powerful beings , as the trailer say . totally totally wrong ( imo ) to call them Gods .
Karstenphd
MemberOvomorphMay-19-2012 8:13 PMGods with a touch of cabin fever, possibly. Too much time on our hands! I really wonder about their capabilities,
Tokyokid
MemberOvomorphMay-19-2012 8:19 PMI am sure the people who made the cave paintings considered them Gods, and there is no reason they cannot be considered Gods. The difficulty in modern religious thinking is also the analogy that humans are Gods as a result of having comparable technology.
Frantz, I think you are applying you own concept of God...the creator of everything. That concept also applies to the creation of man. If human creation is Godlike and the engineers created humans, then the Engineers are God.
Applying the same analogy/falicy, we humans are Gods for the reasons discussed in the OP.
allinamberclad
MemberOvomorphMay-19-2012 8:24 PMI read this aloud to my cat and she started running in circles...
Karstenphd
MemberOvomorphMay-19-2012 8:29 PMWow, I'm wondering now if the Engineers, if in the movie they do create us, or give us a boost, have souls, spirits, in the sense of what we consider our essence, or concience. Or are these guys just analytical scientist. They could be religious beyond our imagination and take their religion seriously. Gonna be fun to find out.
Karstenphd
MemberOvomorphMay-19-2012 8:31 PM@allinamberclad what does that prophecy!?! Give us the answers we want kitty!
BigDave
MemberDeaconMay-19-2012 9:19 PM@Frantz
I think this movie is touching up that, that indeed the term God who has magical powers (sorry Miraculous) and would apear to be a imortal Gandalf whoes powers are far greater than Gandalf could ever wish for... simply does not exist.....
In the context of this movie...
This movie may touch upon them being a race that can create and manipulate life to a degree that we cant comprehend...
Compared to Cavemen we are Godlike now....
As far as the limits of their race... well thats because they are nearly all dead.
If we experimented and managed to create a ape/human Hybrid, that does gain more inteligence but only to a level inbetween that of Man and Ape and so no Planet of the Apes here.... but a race that would be like say Neanderthal man with little or no scope to advance to our level any time soon.
If there was only say one Man left alive and Millions, Billions of these Cave Men, then the surviving Humans time on Earth and as its Kings would be in a very dire position.
My point being that if there was like hundreds or even say half that number of Engineers and they had say 10 Derelicts and that Flying Saucer then yes, they could destroy is with ease....
Well that last Engineer and his Ship are such a threat that if it reaches Earth there pretty much would be nothing left of us if it completes its mission.
R.I.P Sox 01/01/2006 - 11/10/2017
Karstenphd
MemberOvomorphMay-19-2012 10:11 PM@BigDave, Shaw does state that if that ship leaves there will be no Earth to go back to. So these guys are obviously capable of destroying us, I am truly humbled. This is giving me the idea that some MEGA event happened that
A. Rendered the Engineers unable to reproduce, thus needing host or
B. Another race holocausted them and their home world(s) and the few remaining survivors soldiers whatever need to get themselves and maybe their womenfolk to a hospitable planet.
C. They holocausted themselves and are bunkered up waiting for the invite.
D. None of the above.
sukkal
MemberOvomorphMay-20-2012 1:46 AMI'm kind of repeating what I've said before about this, but the situation with the Engineers on LV-426 (#?) seems pretty desperate. This final Engineer on this world could be in possession of this spaceship, hella dangerous bio-weapons, DNA-mutating technology, but be the [u]very last one[/u] of his kind and have no EFFing idea how any of it was originally made. The last Engineer who understood anything detailed bout the original "god-like" technology could have died 5 million Earth years ago; just to throw a number out there. Their last Renaissance could have been 78 million years ago.
Our civilization as we know it (sitting here in who knows what country typing on the Interweb) is FAR less than 100 years old. We lack perspective on interstellar time like no tomorrow.
For anyone who is really interested in trying to expand your understanding on the dynamics of the rise and fall of civilizations over millennia, I suggest getting your toes wet with the concepts in
[img]http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/io9/2008/10/anathem.jpg[/img]
Frantz
MemberOvomorphMay-20-2012 5:23 AM@Bigdave .... Technically they are not Gods ( and it doesnt matter if God exist or not ) . A God is someone who can CREATE things , is not a superhero or a superscientist . Even if you dont belive in God ( and im agnostic ) you cant give that title to everyone who have some ..skills .
@Tokyokid .... again , the GOD by definition is someone who have : omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.
No one of that can be applied to the Engineers ...so they are no gods .
Ghorgul
MemberOvomorphMay-20-2012 7:41 AM@Frantz:
It's all about perspective.
When humans were in stone age, beings capable of flying and moving around fast, making wonderous things = creating (no matter what it is, but still through genemanipulation or other ways), building big monuments with ease, breaking mountains would be equal to god.
Magician is called a Trickster when you know how he does his magic. Similarly in this case God is called engineer when humans have a vague understanding of how he does his miracles.
Of course, we could move even further and be more philosophical:
Lets talk about omniscience, God knows everything. How can we measure that he know everything? Only logical conclusion is that we would need to know all the possible answers already, meaning we would need a God to question God to see if one has infinite knowledge (if we dont know the answers, how can we know he knows them?)
Same thing with omnipresence, we would need something that can be present everywhere to make sure God is omnipresent.
I could go on with this.. But the bottom line is your Definition of God is nice, but without value. Because it's only dependent on perspective of the person who wants to see if someone is God.
And continuing on same logic, the more humans learn about energy, genes, atoms, light, quantums, the more amazing things the God will have to do to prove himself.
In the end, I would say that Engineer/s can be referred as God.
And when there is enough technology, Creating world (=Terraforming some planet later to be known as Earth) and Creating Humans (Making some clone/genemanipulated copy of yourself, as your own image), isnt really a big deal.
As Weyland said: "We are the Gods now" (or can/will be in the near-future)
Ghorgul
MemberOvomorphMay-20-2012 8:04 AMAnd actually in the we have only logical failure:
It would need a God to know if something/someone is God. But then we would need another God to see if they both are really Gods who are just tricking us together. And the cycle goes on..
In the end, humans can never know if there is a God who has
-Omnipresence
-Omniscience
-Omnipotence
Making that particular definition of God useless. What use is of definition that can't be used to find out if something fits in the definition.
Example: Cellphone, definition: A device that fits in ones pocket and one can call with it. In this case the definition isnt very broad, and it's easy to verify if some device indeed is cellphone.
Haha, actually one funny thing came in my mind:
You have foolproof way of making sure God is really God. You just have to make him end the world.
Though still you cant be sure, as God might only end you or whole universe. In either case, you won't know if the world did end. And if the whole universe did end, no one will know it happened, except the God himself.
Frantz
MemberOvomorphMay-20-2012 8:54 AMGhorgul we are talking of absolute powers ...we are talking about the everything ...that thing that rule all ( call it God , Allah , Nature , the thing as they are ) . Even if there is not God there is ANYWAY a system tha rule all ...and only that is God . I know that for dumb people even a rockband can be God ( from their perpective !! )but that was not my point .
plus you statement
""But the bottom line is your Definition of God is nice, but without value""
is a bit arrogant ..isnt it ? ...even because is not my definition but the commonly accepted definition by people a bit more acculturated that us .
TheEgg
MemberOvomorphMay-20-2012 9:39 AMI can sum it up from the game Assassins' Creed, the protaganist is in search of answers,the Gods, who created them. In a phrase they basically said, we're very much not gods, we simply came first.
Ghorgul
MemberOvomorphMay-20-2012 11:25 AM@Frantz:
"But the bottom line is your Definition of God is nice, but without value"
Agreed, that sounds too arrogant. Badly phrased by me, I'm sorry.
I meant to say that if we use that definition of God, it shuts down all the discussion based on logic, as you can never be certain if the God is truly God, or just a Being that is technologically far far ahead of us.
And If you go to the max with that definition, you could "discuss" this topic for example like this:
"God is omnipotent, he can end humanity in less than 0,0000000001 secs"
Not much of an discussion, don't you agree? As it adds no value to the discussion, this I was trying to say earlier.
Haha, I was trying to avoid this physics-card, but I use it anyway, sorry already (This is supposed to be joke):
Current knowledge of physics prohibits all the faster than light transfer of information (Faster than light being the speed of light in vacuum, stuff has travelled faster than light, but in medium, with the light having speed slower than its speed in vacuum). So far this "law" (still actually a theory though) has been unbreakable. So God can't be omnipresent, according to currently known physics :P.
/joke
Frantz
MemberOvomorphMay-20-2012 2:58 PMi show you my point ...if you are a kid ..from your point of view the earth is flat ... that wont mean that the earth is round right ? ...so there is always a "truth" at the end ...not only point of views ...so God is the ultimate truth , the explaination to all whatever its ( nature , muslim allah , horus , nothing , the christian god ) ...so is totally and absolute power because is "everything" ..thats why i find a bit silly ( but imo !! ) to call a powerful race "gods" ...just that ..shake hands my friend ..everyone will remain of his opinion anyway
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