Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamman. This is The Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. In
Speaker 2: the previous episode of The Monster Fact, we began our
Speaker 2: alien series with a look at the mysterious Engineers. Today
Speaker 2: we'll turn to this Elder race's most dangerous creation, a
Speaker 2: highly volatile genetic accelerant classified by human researchers as Agent
Speaker 2: A zero thirty nine fifty nine x point ninety one
Speaker 2: dash fifteen. In its purest form, this so called black
Speaker 2: goo does in fact resemble a viscous tar like material
Speaker 2: or liquid. Human explorers first discovered the substance amid the
Speaker 2: ruins of an engineer outpost on the planet designated LV
Speaker 2: two twenty three. They found the gou and core TETs
Speaker 2: of glass like vials secured in steatide ampules or urns.
Speaker 2: The engineers had secured it there like a precious treasure,
Speaker 2: like the remains of the dead, like a devastating bioweapon,
Speaker 2: the pinnacle of the engineer's advanced biotechnology. We can even
Speaker 2: think of Agent A zero thirty nine to fifty nine
Speaker 2: x point ninety one slash fifteen as a kind of
Speaker 2: biological AI that reprograms everything it touches, perhaps following specific instructions,
Speaker 2: general directions, or left entirely to its own generative impulses.
Speaker 2: As revealed in the film's Prometheus and Alien Covenant, and
Speaker 2: as discussed in Freely Publishing's Alien RPG, the black Goo
Speaker 2: aggressively recodes DNA, rapidly transforming individual organisms, species, and entire ecosystems.
Speaker 2: When exposed to the atmosphere, it atomizes and spreads as
Speaker 2: an aeros but may also be further manipulated in liquid
Speaker 2: form if handled with proper expertise. High level exposure to
Speaker 2: the substance generally spells instant death for organic beings. Select
Speaker 2: engineers are thought to have ritualistically ingested the substance in
Speaker 2: its pure concentrated liquid form to seed new worlds, allowing
Speaker 2: the black Good to rapidly break down their bodies and
Speaker 2: spin new life forms out of the genetic pieces. Likewise,
Speaker 2: when weaponized, aerial bombardments of the steatide ampules quickly lay
Speaker 2: waste to entire populations, finally twisting the life forms at
Speaker 2: the peripheries of the attack into dangerous new creatures. At
Speaker 2: lower exposure levels, the black Goose steadily mutates human beings
Speaker 2: into zombie like forms known as abominations, noted for their
Speaker 2: increasingly aggressive behavior, enhance strength, elongated limbs, and swelling craniums.
Speaker 2: They are also able to pass on their rampage in
Speaker 2: genetics through different infection routes, as will explore in the
Speaker 2: next episode. It's impossible to know exactly how the engineers
Speaker 2: regarded the black Goo, but we might best understand it,
Speaker 2: like many forms of technology, as having tremendous potential to
Speaker 2: destroy or create. It can enable the seating of whole
Speaker 2: new worlds with the divergent genes of a single donor.
Speaker 2: But it can also be a weapon of terrifying power,
Speaker 2: wiping out most life on a world and reprogramming the
Speaker 2: surviving biome into aggressive monstrosities that steadily grind all life
Speaker 2: to its end. But let's set aside metaphors and interpretations
Speaker 2: and consider a few additional takes on black goo. With
Speaker 2: all of these extraterrestrial horrors now running through your brain,
Speaker 2: you might find it a bit unnerving to realize that
Speaker 2: here on Earth, outside of the sci fi horrors of
Speaker 2: the alien franchise. We actually do have to contend with
Speaker 2: strange black goo within the buried creations of ancient civilizations.
Speaker 2: As Kate Fulcher reported for the British Museum back in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, the goo in question here would have been
Speaker 2: poured warm into the caskets of mummified individuals, effectively cementing
Speaker 2: their linen wrapped mummy cases into the encasing casket. Museum
Speaker 2: scientists analyzed more than one hundred samples of the now
Speaker 2: long dried gou and determined that while the exact ingredients varied,
Speaker 2: the main components tended to be plant oil, animal fat,
Speaker 2: tree resin, beeswax, and bitumen, a viscous or solid form
Speaker 2: of petroleum. Egyptian black gou was reserved for royalty and
Speaker 2: those rich enough to afford the very best in their
Speaker 2: funerary preparations. We've even found the stuff on the golden
Speaker 2: mask of Tutin Common. According to Fulcher, its pitch black
Speaker 2: color was associated with mythic osiris and concepts of rebirth
Speaker 2: and regeneration. It's clear that a certain amount of Egyptomania
Speaker 2: went into conceptions of the engineers. It even goes all
Speaker 2: the way back to artist hr Giger's late seventies concept
Speaker 2: art for Alien, which includes a hieroglyphic inspired alien life
Speaker 2: cy called Tableau. Look it up, and it makes sense
Speaker 2: in later ruminations of the franchise that filmmakers might have
Speaker 2: found inspiration in the real life black Goo of Egyptology.
Speaker 2: It's rather fitting, after all, given that the ancient Egyptians
Speaker 2: seemed to have viewed the journey into the next life
Speaker 2: as something cosmic and transformative. There's sarcophagus in many ways
Speaker 2: like a cryo chamber, and monstrous entities like Ahmet awaiting
Speaker 2: the passage of the dead. Black Goo has, of course,
Speaker 2: another larger life in sci fi in general, sometimes as
Speaker 2: a catch all name for just black inky evil, or
Speaker 2: other times more specifically as a self replicating meta material
Speaker 2: graphene oxide. Jason Kahey profiled the notion in a twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two article for Wired Magazine, drawing on sci fi
Speaker 2: usages of the stuff on TV's Westworld and TV's Severance,
Speaker 2: and if we go wider than that, he points out,
Speaker 2: we see dangerous black goos in the original X File,
Speaker 2: as well as in Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Elsewhere, we've watched
Speaker 2: it drip onto Gary Olben's head in the Fifth Element
Speaker 2: and Yes, the low budget nineteen eighty five alien knockoff
Speaker 2: Creature features a scene in which the stuff leaks from
Speaker 2: an alien tube shortly before a monster breaks out of it.
Speaker 2: What is Marvel's venom but a slightly more stylish black goo,
Speaker 2: and the Sorcerer egg Shin in Big Trouble and Little
Speaker 2: China warned us, matter of factly, not of oil, but
Speaker 2: of the black blood of the Earth. The examples are endless,
Speaker 2: though they often betray a Western prevalence for the negative
Speaker 2: connotations of the color black, which dates back through the
Speaker 2: Middle Ages and into humoral theory with its black bile.
Speaker 2: But black also represented power in secrecy during this time
Speaker 2: period as well. Colors are in the end multipurpose, culturally
Speaker 2: dependent and based on context. The color black may be
Speaker 2: invoked to convey everything from darkness and mystery to beauty
Speaker 2: and power, and when we combine all of that with gooiness, well,
Speaker 2: visually there just seems to be something otherworldly about black goo,
Speaker 2: and so it's the perfect visual manifestation of the underlying
Speaker 2: power in the alien universe, a kind of anti blood
Speaker 2: and anti seed. As dark as the spaces between the stars.
Speaker 2: Tune in for additional episodes of the Monster Fact each week,
Speaker 2: especially as we roll through the various creatures of the
Speaker 2: alien Universe. More episodes of the Artifact and Animalias Stupendium
Speaker 2: will return on Wednesdays after that. Thanks to the excellent
Speaker 2: JJ Possway for producing this episode, and as always, you
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.
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