Space Jockey/ The Pilot- Leave it a Mystery or Reveal the Mystery?

I would keep it a mystery....

But something that hasn't been talked about: IF the Space jockey had been infected with the black goo...wouldn't he/she/it be transformed ala Fifield or Holloway? Can't imagine the horrors the pathogen would inflict on a Engineer!    And IF the BIO suit is 'alive' then the black goo would effect it as well.....Zombie Space Jockey with an infected biosuit.

Mystery. But isn't the point of the prequels to answer the story of the space jockey??

Here's my fun theory that I just came up with and want to throw it out there just in case  it's close to what happens lol.

This would be if they decide to make the derelict not as old as it seemed originally.  Maybe the derelict driver seat is an actual biological suit that rots as soon as it dies, like bodies. I always felt the close up images of the space jockey looked more deteriorated than fossilized.  I'm having a hard time coming up with the descriptive words for it, but it was almost cobweb like or soft/fuzzy looking around the eyes and ribs area. I know fuzzy isn't the word but it's what comes to mind lol, like a felt type fuzz.  This would allow it to look the way it did in the first Alien after about 10 years sitting on LV426.

So somehow, through some turn of events, the derelict full of eggs was on a delivery to meet David and supply him with enough eggs to use on all of the colonists on the Covenant ship.  Maybe some deal is made with whichever race is still interested in using the Xenomorph creatures.  What good are all of those bodies and how do you make an army without either a queen, or a ton of eggs/facehuggers.  The two embryos David brought are only good for two Xenos, and it disn't seem like he brought anything he would have used to create the eggs on Planet 4 if they weren't already there to begin with.

That, or the sad reality of the original Alien movie is that all of the thousands of eggs on the derelict were created from all of the colonists on the Covenant, being transported somewhere before crashing and remaining in a stasis until the Nostromo crew comes across another distress signal that David created to lure passing ships as he did with the Covenant crew.

Well, if there's mystery we want, then I guess Scott has already ruined it. In Prometheus we learned that the space jockey wasn't a skeleton or a fossil - it was a space suit and a helmet (looking like a fossil). And in Alien: Covenant we learned that David created the xenomorph. What mystery is left to leave out or reveal? Who's in the pilot chair? Well, if it isn't an engineer you'd have to search for him in the left leg or so of the space suit (because of the size). :)

I have one thing to say: TWIN PEAKS (1990/1) was ruined after we knew who killed Laura Palmer - at least, audience numbers said so.

I love David Lynch and I know he was against letting people know the murderer's identity - WHO didn't matter, and as soon as it was public knowledge, all the fun was lost, back then.

But I don't think it's the same here - or it might just be? Let's check it in our hearts.

TWIN PEAKS 2017: Out of the blue, we had TWIN PEAKS 2017, and it entaintained loads of people, although everybody knew who killed Laura Palmer.

My opinion: it takes courage to face and expose all the "mystery" some want to keep "secret" - TWIN PEAKS again - and, yet, you have a significant part of the audience asking for more. A face, a motive... what, where and when...

Or just accepting a different movie from what we had expected at first.

I don't think knowing will ruin anything other than the people that end up not liking whatever the explanation is.  I think it would be more intriguing to know, then you can expand more on the when and why.  You can only speculate on these things for so long before you get the real answer.  You know that once the space jockey identity is revealed, that will give this forum another year(s) worth of new material to speculate about and come up with more fanfiction, polls, etc. 

There is a lot to cover in this subject but first i will cover the "keep it a Mystery"

Here is the whole deal with why it was not to be.....  the Franchise after RS had not taken the Helm had evolved into something that maybe was not quite what RS would have done, had he taken control and made Alien 2, Alien 3 etc.   He lost creative control of how the Franchise Evolved.   The Beast had also been done over and over, included the Alien vs Predators and Comics, Books, and Games.

But none of the movies ever answered Big Questions.

*Who was the Space Jockey?

*Why did he have that Cargo?

*What was the purpose of the Cargo? (this one kind of covered)

*Where was he going?

*Where did those Eggs come from?

We also have the Question, What happened? But this really was quite straight forwards, The Space Jockey got infected with his Cargo.. more than likely..

From those Questions which no other movies answered, we could evolve them to be asking.

*What was the Space Jockey Race and Agenda/Purpose

*Where did the Xenomorph come from? (was it found or created).

so from these unanswered Questions, there was something to cover that had never been answered before.

Ridley Scott lost input on the Franchise after Alien and you bet you can be sure it does get to him a bit regarding how the Sequels had been explored compared to his ideas, he had no input and cant change them unless he attempted to Re-boot all ALIEN sequels..  HOWEVER... Ridley Scott could still have his own INPUT on HOW the Xenomorph Came to be and WHY the Space Jockey had those Eggs as well as explore who the Space Jockey Race was... which is something that had never been covered on screen.

Ridley Scott would surely know, that if he did not Answer those Questions, and if he went on to make a Alien R Sequel and intend to leave the Whole Xenomorph Origins and who the Space Jockey was as a MYSTERY  then RS would know that down the line, once the Xenomorph has been cooked, that THIS MYSTERY is something FOX could Cash in on, to bring some life back to the Franchise.

This could be done in many years time, even 10 years from now... when RS would maybe be too old to work on the project or (hopefully not for a long time) when RS has passed on, and so eventually you can bet that FOX would have Cashed in on that MYSTERY to make $$$$ out of a Drained Franchise.

so RS would have rather had Answered these Questions in a way that pleases him, rather than leave it for someone to do so at a time when he is long gone, or to old to be able to do so.

THIS^^^ is the very Reason RS was keen to work on the Project, Alien was one of his Babies, he lost creative input in how the Franchise Evolved, and so he was not going to pass up the Chance to Cover the Orgins of the Xenomorph and who the Space Jockey was.

Onto the Space Jockey, there has been a share of people disappointed about the SJ being a Space Suit, but this is something RS had considered it has a long long time ago, RS has even a long time before Prometheus, explained what the Space Jockey was and the Event...  He even mentioned it again at the time of Prometheus and even added a little to it after Prometheus..  This being the Ship did not Crash, it had intended to land on LV-426 and something in the Cargo Hold Evolved.

The answers were staring us in the Face all along too.

Behold HR Gigers Space Jockey Concept in all its Majesty.

Note the Bubble around the Head, some kind of Glass? some kind of Barrier? But ok the Face looks like a Skull Face a little, but the Head has Cables/Pipes and Wires, only the Face and Rib-cage look like a Skeleton, the Hose looks Synthetic/Mechanical, the Arms do not  look like a Skeleton, especially if you study anatomy of Skeletons.

We only need to look at HR Gigers Mural.

To notice the suit (not so much helmet) is similar to the Space Jockey Suit. The helmet likewise apart from a few differences.

Then we need to cast our eyes at the Face Hugger concepts.

To notice the suit is the same as that in the Mural, and is similar to the Space Jockey... and Behold, the Bald Humanoid....  It would appear maybe our Engineers inspirations came from HR Gigers Concepts after all.

@drucea

Interesting point regarding how the Suit Dies... i have made this point a number of times over the years, looking at the Engineers Suits, they appear to be a suit that has bonded with their bodies... so its not like when we put on a Snake/Crocodile Skin Coat and Bottoms, or like a Fur Coat.

It would be like if we had a Fur Coat that when you put it on it would actually attach to you and become part of you, just like it was to the Animal it was removed from.

If we take the Skin of a Snake, or even look at if you cut away your own skin from your body and left it to dry out, then its appearance is very different.

Also if we consider the Engineers Suits have a like Leather/Rubber look to them, more like the Flesh of a Dolphin or Shark.   Or almost like the texture of a Cactus.

If you look at a long dead Shark Skin or Cactus then the color changes to a more light brown kind of Space Jockey color.  And so indeed i also think their Suits become part of them, and they have a Organic Atheistic to them, maybe like a Cactus Flesh or Whale/Dolphin/Shark.

And so when they are dead, these to deteriorate and change texture and color.  I feel this is what the Space Jockey suit has become.

@Monsterzero

Indeed AC also showed a different effect too, why did those Engineers not break down or become Fifield Engineers?

I think there was a lot of clues with regards to Prometheus which lead me down to TWO Explanations for the Space Jockey. The Chest Busted Cryo-sleep Pods also apply in Prometheus.

1) Worms from the past had been infected to become Hammerpedes (Worms + Black Goo had been on LV-223 way prior to Prometheus) and thus a Hammerpede had infected the Space Jockey/Engineers.  Hammerpedes Evolving from Worms who are Hermaphrodites and Egg Layers.  Maybe the Hammerpede went down Milburns Throat to implant a Egg/Embryo?   My Prometheus 2 Re-write was to show this.

2) The Black Goo as far as the stuff inside the Glass Vials, are Nano-Parasitic Worm like Organisms, a large collection of these, much like a large collection of Sperm Cells (Semen) appear as a Goo, but they are just Millions of tiny Cells/Organisms.    These Nano-Parasitic Worms passed from Holloway to Dr Shaw and either

a) Fertilized/Mutated her Egg Cell (likely)

b) Used her Womb to Gestate

Thus these Nano-Parasites could have infected a Space Jockey/Engineers and Incubated inside and Evolved into either Face Hugger type Chest Busters (like the Trilobite) or they evolved into actual Chest Buster like Organisms  (Trilobite was a infection of these Worms with a Egg Cell).

I thought that one of these was the most likely candidates for the Space Jockey Incident.... BUT ALAS, along came Alien Covenant!

BigDave - I like the idea of the space jockey suit being similar to the LV223 engineers and that when they die, the suit dies. Thus resulting in the brownish fossil color.  Very similar, like you said, to cacti and how they turn from green to a dead brown color.

I also just now realized that the humanoid figures in the life cycle mural also have a kind of bubble around their heads as well.  Althoguh this could just be the aesthetic Giger was going for when he made it.

They could give us some more clues to it but they should not reveal the whole answer. One of the things that I like about the franchise is to sit down and think about how the SJ turned out the way it did. Some people might think that Prometheus ruined the whole SJ experience, well I am not sure that it did but it could probably have been done better. A reason why it wasn't totally ruined is because it was close to how many fans probably in general imagined it to be but the movie was underwhelming so if it would have been better then maybe they wouldn't have been as annoyed by it.

“Can't imagine the horrors the pathogen would inflict on a Engineer!“

I guess that it is very painful if they experience pain the way we do. A guess is that maybe it takes more for them to experience it so if we would be subjected to the same amount of pain then we would maybe die while it takes a lot more for them to feel something. My guess is that it could be like a long torture experience before they die. The closest that I can imagine it being like is if you would slowly being eaten up by some pathogen from inside and while that happens you feel like you are slowly burning up. Nasty!

Speaking of this makes me remember how Holloway died, that must have been very painful for him even though Holloway sucked as a character.

Indeed the Engineers do appear to suffer with Pain, we could see this with the Sacrificial Engineer, we could see it slightly with the Last Engineer, we definitely could see it on the Reanimated Engineer Head.  And we certainly see it with the Engineers killed in Alien Covenant.

The effects of the Black Goo is something that has not been cohesive, so must must take into account all the infections we have seen over the TWO Prequels and safely assume the results on a Engineer would not be too different to those on a Human.

The Space Jockey had been for a long time a Space Suit, what surprised some was how Human the beings inside looked, but then we can see from HR Gigers Concepts that he envisioned a Humanoid Space Suited Race connected with the Xenomorph/Derelict that clearer were not Humans.  But Bald Humanoids.

One of the Biggest Sense of Disbelief i feel a lot of fans could not get over was the Space Jockey Size compared to our Engineers, but Ultimately this is down to Errors in Ridley Scotts Photography and how he felt the use of Camera Angles would create the Illusion of a Larger Species... The Space Jockey was supposed to be 27ft Tall, but as the Nostromo Crew Enter the Pilot Room the SJ looked massive but its actual scale was something like 21-22ft tall, created by the use of Child Actors..   This Illusion was spoiled when we got to the Adult Actors Close ups, which only showed us the True size of the SJ  which would be between 13-15ft tall

When the Prequels began, the idea was our Bald Humanoids but 15ft Tall, this was scaled down to 12ft in Lindeloffs Draft, and well when Prometheus came out we was all lead to believe these Engineers are about 10ft tall.

But again RS wishing to not use Special Effects (like Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings) and cutting costs by only creating and using ONE set of Engineer Cryo Pods and Pilot Room Set (inc Chair) this only created the Illusion of a 8ft tall Engineer Race, which again was in some scenes shown as only between 7-7.5ft, these are the close ups of the Engineer next to some of the Humans on the same Level of Ground.

I feel if they could have pulled off showing us a Race that looked even just 10ft Tall, it would have helped to create a Race who were more Awe inspiring.    Alien Covenant with its various Engineer Sizes (between 6-7ft) and the more Human look they had, has for some made these Potentially Mystical Beings now only appear at best as a cross between a NBA and NFL Player.

The answer is obvious: REVEAL THE MYSTERY!