WEBVTT - The Monstrefact Omnibus: Alien 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.439 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:10.920 Hi, my name is Robert Lham, and this is The 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.720 Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:18.400 Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.760 We recently finished an eight part look at many of 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:27.400 the various creatures from the alien universe here on The 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.240 Monster Fact. We did that mostly leading up to the 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.080 debut of the twenty twenty four film Alien Romulus, and 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.640 now we're busting out the omnibus episode of The Monster 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.199 Fact Alien Episodes that lines up with the video on 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.840 demand release of the film. So I hope you enjoy 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.559 these episodes if you listen to them previously or if 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.040 you are listening to them for the first time. The 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.760 omnibus episodes of The Monster Fact are all about taking 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.400 the previous shorts and stitching them together Frankenstein style into 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.760 one long episode. I understand some of you prefer to 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.160 listen to these episodes in that format, and so this 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.640 is for you. Without further ado, let's jump right in, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:16.039 beginning with part one. The Engineers in this episode will 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:20.720 begin a multi installment exploration of the various strange forms 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:25.560 found in the Alien universe. I previously wrote about xenomorph 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.760 biology in the article how the Alien Xenomorph Works back 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.560 in twenty twelve for the website how Stuff Works. That 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.680 article is still there in full, accompanied by illustrations authorized 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.960 by the hr Giger Museum, and as I work up 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:45.119 to various considerations of how natural world biology is reflected 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:48.600 in or matches up to the xenomorph, I'll likely draw 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.200 on some of the same ideas, but I also plan 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.360 to touch on various additional natural world and mythological connections, 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.760 as well as such sources as the twenty seventeen film 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.800 Alien Covenant and the excellent Alien RPG source books from 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.640 Free League Publishing. I want to add the caveat that 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.160 I am not setting out to wrangle all the lore 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.960 here or to provide you with a one hundred percent 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.720 canonical take on everything. You have no shortage of wikis 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.320 and lore videos for that. The Monster Fact Journey will 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.200 touch on a lot of the same themes and information, 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:27.399 but will also reflect my own thoughts and obsessions as 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.280 a fan. With all that in mind, let's start at 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:35.680 the beginning with the Enigmatic Engineers, an elder race of 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:40.000 spacefaring humanoids. The Engineers have largely vanished from the portion 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:44.520 of the galaxy traversed by twenty second century terans. It 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.640 is unknown what they call themselves, but accounts whisper the 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:53.680 names Malakak and Ossians, While informal names such as space 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:59.079 jockeys and universal pilots also abound. The term engineer, used 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.320 by doctor Ilizzabeth's Shaw of the Doomed Prometheus expedition, has 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.799 stuck in the few circles allowed to know of them. Pale, 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:12.960 hairless giants of uncanny statuesque perfection. The engineers are thought 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.120 to have worn modest clothing on their home worlds, but 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:22.239 donned more exotic, biomechanical space suits during their interstellar voyages. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:27.519 Suits that seemingly melded with their bodies, fused with their organs, 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.280 and via their strange helms, gave them the outer appearance 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:36.840 of a trunked elephantic head. They were or are, masters 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:41.520 of not only interstellar travel, but also biotechnology, able to 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:46.760 generate new forms of life, program genetics, master evolutionary process 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:52.000 augment their own bodies, and craft terrifying bioweapons beyond the 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.720 scope of even the most advanced whalen Utani weapon lab 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.840 within the wrecked Juggernaut found on planet LV four T 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.400 one twenty six crew members from the Nostromo encountered the 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.120 long dead remains of a very large engineer, with evidence 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.800 of an explosive emergence from its chest, as well as 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.800 thousands of eggs. Prior to this, the crew of the 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.440 Prometheus encountered even more artifacts of the engineers, and even 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:21.520 a lone living specimen preserved in some advanced form of 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.760 suspended animation. The android David, one of the few survivors 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.080 of that mission, went on to study their works more exhaustively, 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:34.080 decimating one of their inhabited worlds in the process. As such, 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.320 we have much more to go on than the crew 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.719 of the Nostroma, but much about the engineers remains clouded 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:44.239 in mystery. Members of their species seemingly seated the planet 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.200 Earth with life long ago, and as such are our progenitors, 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.839 and then much later members of their species seem to 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.640 decide to end that life instead. The rationale for either 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:58.559 impulse is a matter of debate, but we find many 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.560 ideas in the realities of human nature and our own 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:06.160 impulses to murder and create. We know from various engineer 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.159 artworks that they held their own form in high regard, 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:13.440 perhaps even worshiping themselves or deities dreampt of in their 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.560 own image. But they also held strange and dangerous forms 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.320 of life in seemingly high regard as well, forms that 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:26.480 resemble the xenomorphic creature spawned from their biotechnology. Did they 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.720 use their advanced understanding of life to create life forms 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.360 that reflected their dark beliefs? Did they harness the raw 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.840 biological power of some pre existing life form? We simply 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:42.000 don't know. The Alien RPG source book ruminates on these 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.039 questions as well as others. Is there indeed a single 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:50.240 engineer species and or culture or many? Are there? Different breeds? 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.560 Are there different casts? Is the space jockey individual found 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.200 on LV four to twenty six merely a large specimen, 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.920 a subspecies or something else? Again, all this is shrouded 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.880 and delicious mystery, as it should be. The engineers are 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.120 often invoked as gods, demi gods, or, indeed, as the 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:14.920 invocation of Prometheus implies, Titans. The Titans of Greek mythology were, 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.640 of course, the pre Olympic gods cast down by Zeus 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.440 in the Epic War known as the Titanomachi. Afterwards, the 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.920 gods imprisoned many of the Titans in Tartarus, while others 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.960 remained free. The individual nature of the Titans varied from 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:35.200 brutal Chronos to the culture bearing tricks, to Prometheus, who 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:39.200 in some tellings created human beings but is also credited 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.600 with giving them the gift of fire or fire technology. 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.280 This is a common trope in many different cultures, so 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.400 even in invoking the Engineers as Titans, a certain mystery remains. 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.840 Are they are creators? Are benefactors, cruel former masters of 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:59.640 the cosmos? Maybe all of the above. In the film Prometheus, 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.520 the Ers are explored in a manner clearly partially inspired 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.960 by the pseudoscientific ancient astronaut hypothesis, and I personally think 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.240 science fiction is the right place to deploy these concepts. 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.400 While the idea that aliens visited the Earth in ancient 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:19.480 or prehistoric times carries no weight in serious consideration of history, mythology, 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.800 or science. Please see our past Stuffable Your Mind episodes 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.760 for more on this. It's all fair game. In a 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:30.800 twisting tale of futuristic fictional space horror, the Engineers provide 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.080 us with a great Elder race for the alien universe, 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:39.880 shrouded in mystery, ultimately unknowable and untrustworthy. In the films 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.520 that follow the life of the Android David, they also 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:46.239 serve as a fitting contemplation point for humanity's own place 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.920 in the universe as a creator of artificial life and 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:55.320 an expansionist terraforming civilization in decline. Look on their works, 0:07:55.560 --> 0:08:02.480 Ye Mighty and Despair. All right, now, let's move on 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:12.240 to Part two, The Black Goo. In the previous episode 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.640 of The Monster Fact, we began our alien series with 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.200 a look at the mysterious Engineers. Today we'll turn to 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:23.120 this Elder race's most dangerous creation, a highly volatile genetic 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:28.200 accelerant classified by human researchers as Agent A zero thirty 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.960 nine fifty nine x point ninety one dash fifteen. In 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.400 its purest form, this so called black goo does in 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.680 fact resemble a viscous tar like material or liquid. Human 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.200 explorers first discovered the substance amid the ruins of an 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:49.240 engineer outpost on the planet designated LV two twenty three. 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.479 They found the gou and coretets of glass like vials 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:58.560 secured in steatide ampules or urns. The engineers had secured 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.559 it there like a precious tread me, like the remains 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.920 of the dead, like a devastating bioweapon, the pinnacle of 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:10.120 the engineer's advanced biotechnology. We can even think of agent 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.800 A zero thirty nine to fifty nine x point ninety 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.559 one slash fifteen as a kind of biological AI that 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:22.720 reprograms everything it touches, perhaps following specific instructions, general directions, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.559 or left entirely to its own generative impulses. As revealed 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.200 in the film's Prometheus and Alien Covenant, and as discussed 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:36.640 in Freely Publishing's Alien RPG, the black Goo aggressively recodes DNA, 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:44.160 rapidly transforming individual organisms, species, and entire ecosystems. When exposed 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.800 to the atmosphere, it atomizes and spreads as an aerosol, 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.160 but may also be further manipulated in liquid form if 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.440 handled with proper expertise. High level exposure to the substance 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.760 generally spells instant death for organic beings. Select engineers are 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.240 to have ritualistically ingested the substance in its pure, concentrated 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:08.079 liquid form to seed new worlds, allowing the black good 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.160 to rapidly break down their bodies and spend new life 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:15.680 forms out of the genetic pieces. Likewise, when weaponized, aerial 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:20.400 bombardments of the steatide ampules quickly laid waste to entire populations, 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.400 finally twisting the life forms at the peripheries of the 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:29.320 attack into dangerous new creatures. At lower exposure levels, the 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.199 Black Goose steadily mutates human beings into zombie like forms 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:38.600 known as abominations, noted for their increasingly aggressive behavior, enhance strength, 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:42.800 elongated limbs, and swelling craniums. They are also able to 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.240 pass on their rampage in genetics through different infection routes, 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.679 as we'll explore in the next episode. It's impossible to 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.600 know exactly how the engineers regarded the Black Good, but 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.679 we might best understand it, like many forms of technology, 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.360 as having tremendous potential to destroy or create. It can 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.360 enable the seating of whole new worlds with the divergent 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.679 genes of a single donor. But it can also be 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.240 a weapon of terrifying power, wiping out most life on 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:13.120 a world and reprogramming the surviving biome into aggressive monstrosities 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.440 that steadily grind all life to its end. But let's 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.680 set aside metaphors and interpretations, and consider a few additional 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:25.240 takes on black goo. With all of these extraterrestrial horrors 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.480 now running through your brain, you might find it a 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.439 bit unnerving to realize that here on Earth, outside of 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.600 the Sci Fi horrors of the alien franchise, we actually 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.080 do have to contend with strange black goo within the 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:41.600 buried creations of ancient civilizations. As Kate Fulcher reported for 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.240 the British Museum back in twenty twenty, the goo in 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.760 question here would have been poured warm into the caskets 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:53.079 of mummified individuals, effectively cementing their linen wrapped mummy cases 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:57.680 into the encasing casket. Museum scientists analyzed more than one 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.920 hundred samples of the now long dried goo and determine 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.199 that while the exact ingredients varied, the main components tended 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:09.160 to be plant oil, animal fat, tree resin, beeswax, and bitumen, 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:14.040 a viscous or solid form of petroleum. Egyptian black goo 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.440 was reserved for royalty and those rich enough to afford 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.440 the very best in their funerary preparations. We've even found 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.520 the stuff on the golden mask of Tuton common According 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.520 to fulcher. Its pitch black color was associated with mythic 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:34.320 osiris and concepts of rebirth and regeneration. It's clear that 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.600 a certain amount of Egyptomania went into conceptions of the engineers. 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:41.440 It even goes all the way back to artist hr 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.400 Giger's late seventies concept art for Alien, which includes a 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.360 hieroglyphic inspired alien life cycle tableau. Look it up, and 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.160 it makes sense in later ruminations of the franchise that 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.520 filmmakers might have found inspiration in the real life black 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.760 Goo of Egyptology. It's rather fitting, after all, given that 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.480 the ancient Egyptians seemed to have viewed the journey into 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:08.760 the next life as something cosmic and transformative. The sarcophagus 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.480 in many ways like a cryo chamber, and monstrous entities 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:17.000 like Ahmet awaiting the passage of the dead. Black Goo has, 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.600 of course another larger life in sci fi in general, 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.920 sometimes as a catch all name for just black inky evil, 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.760 or other times more specifically as a self replicating meta 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:33.960 material graphene oxide. Jason Kahey profiled the notion in a 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.880 twenty twenty two article for Wired Magazine, drawing on sci 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:43.000 fi usages of the stuff on TV's Westworld and TV's Severance, 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.400 and if we go wider than that, he points out, 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.280 we see dangerous black goos in the original X Files 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.880 as well as in Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Elsewhere, We've watched 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.480 it drip onto Gary Olben's head in The Fifth Element, 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.800 and Yes, the low budget nineteen eighty five alien knockoff 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.840 Creature features a scene in which the leaks from an 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.079 alien tube shortly before a monster breaks out of it. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.760 What is Marvel's Venom but a slightly more stylish black goo, 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.560 and the Sorcerer egg Shin and Big Trouble in Little 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.560 China warned us, matter of factly, not of oil, but 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:18.160 of the black blood of the earth. The examples are endless, 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.000 though they often betray a Western prevalence for the negative 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.080 connotations of the color black, which dates back through the 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.440 Middle Ages and into humoral theory with its black bile. 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.360 But black also represented power in secrecy during this time 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.880 period as well. Colors are in the end multipurpose, culturally 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.600 dependent and based on context. The color black may be 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.320 invoked to convey everything from darkness and mystery to beauty 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:49.440 and power, and when we combine all of that with gooiness. Well, visually, 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.080 there just seems to be something otherworldly about black goo, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.440 and so it's the perfect visual manifestation of the underlying 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:02.360 power in the alien universe of anti blood and anti seed, 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:14.720 as dark as the spaces between the stars. Up next 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:22.360 Part three, Trilobide and Deacon. In the previous episode, in 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:27.080 this special alien themed monster fact series, we discussed Agent 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.040 A zero thirty nine to fifty nine x point ninety 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:35.440 one slash fifteen. The Black Goo, a powerful evolutionary accelerant 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.600 created by the Engineers and deployed as both the creator 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.760 and destroyer of worlds. We consider the various ways that 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.120 it worked itself through a host, spawning zombie like abominations 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.960 in the process. As witnessed in the film Prometheus, a 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:57.440 mixture of pathogen infected hosts can lead to truly strange forms. 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.560 The android David infected the human crew made Holloway with 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.760 a mere drop of the black Goo. The infected Holloway 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.960 then impregnated his partner, doctor Elizabeth Shaw, who then employed 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:14.040 appalling medpod to surgically remove the resulting squid like embryo 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.680 before it could burst out of her on its own. 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.200 Left to its own devices. The resulting creature rapidly grew 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.880 into an enormous, seven tentacled monster, sometimes referred to as 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.120 the trilobite. The creature has virtually nothing in common with 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.480 the prehistoric arthropod of the same name, which we previously 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.280 discussed on Stufftable your Mind. If anything, the creature looks 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.560 more like an octopus. They will find very few seven 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.320 armed organisms in the natural world. The seven arm sea 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.160 star comes to mind, but we also have to consider 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.120 the so called seven armed octopus. Some call it the 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:56.720 septipus or the blob octopus, but Halifron atlanticus actually does 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:00.480 have eight arms. It's just that the males hectocotylus, or 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:05.440 specialized fertilization arm, remains coiled away in a sack beneath 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.359 the right eye, thus giving the creature the appearance of 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.119 having only seven arms, at least in the males. But 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:17.080 back to the monster, we quickly learn that the alien 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:21.440 trilobite is merely an intermediate stage in the creature's overall 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:27.040 life cycle. When the trilobite overpowers a surviving engineer, incapacitates 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.440 the host and implants its own embryo, orally, the tentacled 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.280 monster then covers the host's body in a posture that 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.120 the Alien RPG from Free League Publishing describes as a 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.800 protective posture. There's already a lot to unpack here. I 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.000 don't want to get too ahead of ourselves, but the 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.160 creature here is essentially more of a body hugger than 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.440 a face hugger, though it still depends on oral injection 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.600 of its embryo. It also feels as if the trilobite 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.439 form developed expressly for the purpose of infecting larger than 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.560 human prey, that its juvenile form somehow detect the presence 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.760 of a much larger engineer in its midst and morph 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:09.280 into a form capable of taking one down. It's unknown, however, 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.800 we do know that the black goop pathogen seems to 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:17.240 ultimately result in more stabilized xenomorphic creatures with distinct life cycles, 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.600 and we can suppose that these stabilized forms in life 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:26.200 cycles are informed by environment and host survivability. Certainly, engineers 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.480 or rogue android scientists might manipulate this development, but it 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.400 seems to be a typical pattern. But the resulting creatures, 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:38.199 as we'll discuss, remain highly adaptive to host availability. But 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.080 I will go ahead and speculate, and I'm sure others 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.800 have speculated along these exact lines as well, that the 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:47.239 Trilobyte is a specialized engineer naver, and that Holloway and 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.679 Shaw's genetic contributions were marginal at best. The android David 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.760 in his covenant recordings at least mentions in passing that 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:59.440 the engineers are perfect carriers and perfect mothers. We're also 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:03.400 to understand that the engineers are genetically somewhat similar human beings. 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.800 But perhaps there is something else about the Elder race's 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:11.360 biology that draws the pathogens and creatures of their own creation. 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:13.960 I wonder if it might have to do with the 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:18.600 various other biotechnological alterations that the engineers have made to 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.800 themselves or are made via their suits. And of course, 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.600 in Prometheus's closing moments, we see the Trillabite crumpled and 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.480 dead and watch a juvenile's xenomorphic organism emerge from the 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.520 engineer's body. It has indeed grown quite large in the 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.159 giant body of its hosts. The alien RPG describes the 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:42.960 gestation as effectively hollowing out the host creature's body, reducing 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.080 it to little more than a husk. The new form, 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.360 dubbed the Deacon, emerges as a more typical bipedal eye 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:54.080 list xenomorphic creature with an elongated head, though lacking a 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.760 tail and various other key features associated with its kin. 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.560 It boasts protrucible jaws like that of the deep sea 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:05.680 goblin shark, and its nickname derives from the sharp point 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.439 on the end of its head, which resembles the pointed 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.560 miter worn by some Christian clergy. The creature uses this 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.600 point to violently rip its way out of the host body. 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.359 In this regard, we might reasonably compare the Deacon's headspike 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:24.399 to the egg tooth, a temporary sharp protrusion that various birds, reptiles, 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:28.560 and monotremes use to penetrate their own eggshell and break 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.680 free spiders, too, are known to develop an egg tooth 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.000 like spike to aid in their hatching. The Deacon's spike 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.119 would seem necessary as it has to emerge not only 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.960 from the body of the engineer, but also through its 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.840 biomechanical spacesuit, which again may to varying degrees, be biologically 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:50.200 integrated with the engineer. Just as birds quickly lose their 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.800 egg teeth. It's possible that the Deacon loses its key 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:57.719 feature as it develops into its no doubt gigantic adult form. However, 0:20:57.760 --> 0:20:59.879 we have no idea what this form might look like. 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.720 Perhaps its full development puts in more in line with 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.200 other xenomorphic forms, only on a scale devoted to prey 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:10.199 on giant humanoid hosts. We also have no idea what 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.320 the Deacon's life cycle would consist of in whole, but 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:15.840 we might assume that it would resemble that of a 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.600 stabilized xenomorphic life cycle, which we'll discuss in the weeks ahead, 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.440 only with larger eggs that produce a body hugging embryo depositor. 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:29.639 The engineers might know for certain, but fortunately humans remain 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:35.199 in the dark. Now it's time for part four, the 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:42.879 neomorph our journey through the alien universe. This time brings 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.480 us to the mysterious planet for the rotting paradise of 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:50.119 Alien Covenant. Once an occupied world of the Engineers, the 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:52.840 planet suffered a mass extinction event at the hands of 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.440 the rogue android David. Descending from the sky in a 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:01.280 stolen Engineer starship, he unleashed a devastating bombardment of the 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:06.960 skeetide ampules eradicating most non botanical non fungal life with 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:11.439 the dreaded evolutionary accelerant agent a zero slash thirty nine 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:15.200 fifty nine x dot ninety one slash fifteen. But as 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.800 we've explored already, the black goo doesn't destroy everything in 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:23.520 such incidents. No, it also creates new dangerous organisms to 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.240 prowl the lifeless borders of devastation, and it tends to 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:30.000 find its way back to the basic form of a 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.600 xenomorphic predator, in this case working its way up from 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:38.520 fungal and possibly insect life. The neomorph begins as a 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:42.680 fungal growth that produces small pods or egg sacs, which 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:46.600 release a swarm of moats upon disturbance. These moats are 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:48.600 able to move through the air by their own volition, 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:53.200 sometimes synchronizing in murmurations to zero in on a potential 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:58.119 host organism's vulnerable orifices. The moats are often compared to 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.280 plant pollen, though of course pollend on vectors such as 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.159 wind or other organisms to move from one plant to 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.360 the next. We might instead be tempted to compare these 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:11.760 moats to fairy flies or fairy wasps. The smallest known 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.359 flying organisms. As pointed out by Julius Klarr in a 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:18.919 twenty twenty four article for The Sierra Club, fairy wasp 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:22.160 body length can measure as little as zero point one 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:26.120 three nine millimeters, equal to the thickness of a human hair, 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:28.800 so it's not out of the question for something so 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:33.640 small to be capable of powered and deliberate flight. According 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:38.080 to Freely Publishing's Alien RPG source books, the neomorph moats 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.879 make their way into a host body, where they deliver 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:44.679 microscopic amounts of the black goo to the host's blood stream, 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:48.760 and then the moats die. In the blood the evolutionary 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:53.000 accelerant mutates white blood cells, forming a tumor like mass 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:55.760 that rapidly develops into an embryo, referred to as a 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:59.760 blood burster. When this small quadruped is ready to emerge 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:02.640 from i'm the host, it bursts out through whatever part 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:05.960 of the anatomy is most accessible the mouth, the back, 0:24:06.280 --> 0:24:09.600 even an eye socket. It depends in large part on 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:14.359 where the tumor develops. If it survives, the bloodbuster rapidly 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:20.600 develops into a neomorph. These medium size pales xenomorphic predators 0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:25.240 boast goblin shark like protrusible jaws much like the deacon 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:28.760 that we previously discussed, along with a whipping spike tail 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:33.520 in a cluster of dorsal spikes, which as a blood burster, 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:37.080 aids in its emergence. Let's talk a bit more about 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:41.560 those goblin shark jaws. Though the deep sea mitsucarina o 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:46.479 stony isn't alone in having protrusible jaws. Shark jaws are 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:50.280 not attached to the organism's cartilage skull and move as 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:55.280 separate parts, allowing for varying degrees of protrusion when attacking prey. 0:24:56.040 --> 0:25:00.000 The goblin shark nearly boasts the most extreme jaw protrusion known, 0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:03.720 both in terms of reach and speed. According to a 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:08.119 twenty sixteen article by Nakaya at All published in Scientific Reports, 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:12.240 the jaw sling shots forward at a maximum velocity of 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:15.320 three point one meters per second to eight point six 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:18.480 to nine point four percent of the total length of 0:25:18.560 --> 0:25:22.639 the shark. They cited the phylogenetic evidence that suggests the 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:26.280 adaptation involved in response to their food poor deep sea 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:29.680 environment and is a possible trade off for the loss 0:25:29.680 --> 0:25:32.679 of strong swimming ability. It might not be able to 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:35.879 catch desired prey in an all out pursuit, but if 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:39.120 they get close enough, their jaw length can make up 0:25:39.160 --> 0:25:42.960 the difference. As seen in Alien covenant, Neomorphs can act 0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:46.920 as both pack hunters and solitary stalkers. While they may 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:51.359 enter prolonged states of hibernation, they're ultimately short lived and 0:25:51.640 --> 0:25:55.080 don't seem to engage in any form of host recurement 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:59.480 or parasitic reproduction while alive. When they die or are killed, 0:25:59.720 --> 0:26:03.760 their corpses simply produce more sporesas ready to release more 0:26:03.800 --> 0:26:07.480 black moats when a potential host ventures near. Now, in 0:26:07.480 --> 0:26:10.879 the natural world, we certainly have organisms that die after reproduction, 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:15.080 what we call simularity. These organisms reproduce but a single 0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:18.480 time and then die. The Pacific salmon are a great 0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:22.000 example of this, along with certain insects and molluscs. The 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:25.760 neo morph, however, would seem to reproduce through death, which 0:26:25.800 --> 0:26:29.639 is of course a fitting xenomorphic and gigresque twist on 0:26:29.720 --> 0:26:33.800 everything it kills, it dies, and through its death it 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:37.080 ideally spreads more of those moats that will produce new 0:26:37.080 --> 0:26:41.200 blood bursters, and new neomorphs, presumably until all life on 0:26:41.280 --> 0:26:44.480