History Headscratchers / AlienCovenant

** The Pulse Rifle rounds used in ''Film/Aliens'' were explosive tipped and blew the Xenomorphs open. The weapons used by Covenant crew seem standard, if the Xenomorphs aren't hindered by pain or go into shock easily they could shrug off repeated hits. Not to mention that the Neomorphs are seen to take several rounds as well but one dies instantly once shot in the head.

*** With regards to the fate of the Deacon, the comic book series "Fire and Stone" seem to strongly imply that [[spoiler: the Deacon had at some point wandered over to the crashed Engineer ship, ate some of the black goo, and transformed into a mountain-sized object]]. See [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5C_EC0oroA here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wWOwxZFcFY here]] for a more detailed explanation, though beware spoilers for that series.

* In ''Film/Aliens'', the Xenomorphs can't take much more damage then a human. They easily go down from gunfire, and sometimes get taken out by just a few pistol shots. But in this movie, they seem to shrug off gunshots as if they were nothing but bug bites. Why are the Xenomorphs so much more resilient here?

* The claims that Walter has some kind of regenerative capacity seem dramatically overblown, to the point it's announced as WhatAnIdiot that the crew didn't immediately realise David had replaced Walter because he still ''has'' wounds. Walter's arm didn't grow back after it was bit off, we don't see any of his wounds healing during his fight with David, and the supplies David is using to mend himself aboard the ''Covenant'' seem intended for use to repair Walter should the need arise. The only instance in favor of some kind of regeneration is him recovering from the wound David inflicted to his neck, which is implied to be a specific weak spot on David's model that was addressed in Walter's. It's less "automatically healing the injury" and more like [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay the Terminator rerouting to alternate power.]]

** I took it as [[spoiler: still more evidence of David's [[UncannyValley "humanness."]] He is genuinely surprised that the creature he engineered would act in an intelligent way he himself had not anticipated or designed, so it "surprises him" in the same way it would a human, because he was made to emulate their micro-expressions and mannerisms as closely as possible.]]

* Granted, this may be answered with future installments, but from the evidence given in this film, it looks like David wiped out the Engineers upon his arrival to their homeworld. However, it also looks like it wasn't until the arrival of the ''Covenant'' crew that he was able to develop his biological experiments into the Xenomorph we recognize from ''{{Film/Alien}}'' and its sequels. But if that's the case, how is it that in ''{{Film/Alien}}'', the ''Nostromo'' crew are able to find a derelict Engineer ship -- with the fossilized remains of an Engineer pilot, to boot -- carrying a cargo hold full of Xenomorph eggs, if the Engineers were already extinct by the time the Xenomorphs had reached that form?

* So a running theme with David is his obsession with Ozymandias and its theme of civilisations and species falling from the apex into ruin. We also learn that he's making the Xenomorphs to be the perfect organism, to supplant all others. However, there's a glaring hole in his design: the Xenomorphs require living hosts to advance their lifecycle, and their in-built aggression means they aren't going to just play nice with the local fauna. Even if David got his wish and the Xenos spread across the galaxy (let's assume intergalactic travel isn't possible in this universe, for simplicity's sake), eventually they'll die off just because they've killed (either by combat or facehugger) any species that's a viable host. For an android obsessed with the themes of Ozymandias it's pretty jarring that he doesn't realize his creation would have that same arc. Plot hole, or thematically appropriate?

** It could be that some of the characteristics he's aiming for in his selective breeding, such as intelligence, durability, less purely chaotic lifecycle (the Neomorphs seem to birth, immediately attack everyone in sight and thus be more vulnerable to a concerted effort to put them down at least until acknowledging deadly risk to their being (and making no apparent attempt to reproduce, if they're even capable of doing so; the franchise's wiki states that they rely on fungus to make contact with their dead bodies to make new "egg sacks" to disperse the spores so in other words, inefficient), whereas the chestburster Xenomorph in the original film quickly scurried away after being born to protect itself and "start a nest" so to speak with more caution and self-preservation before it was ready to hunt people), acid blood and potentially stealth characteristics (the latter Xenomorphs are black in pigmentation and biomechanical which leads to better camouflage potential especially in dark, night and/or artificial environments; the Neomorphs by contrast stick out like a sore thumb in most environments with their fleshy, human-like colouring) are for whatever reason incompatible with the spore propagation method. A more well-rounded and optimised parasite organism may well require a more elaborate reproduction method with specialised eggs, given more credence with the longer gestation time required.

*** Although it is indeed the name of the ship, titles in the ''Alien'' franchise have a track record of being poetic, ironic, or indicative of the content. With that in mind, my best guess would be that it has something to do with David's connection to the Xenomorphs. Given the heavy biblical imagery in this movie (''The road to heaven starts in hell, etc.'') and given that theses events are the Xenomorph equivalent of ''genesis'', the covenant in question is probably the relationship between creator and created (which is an important theme in ''Prometheus'' as well). "God" (David) has forged new life (The Alien), and in return expects it to fulfill the potential he envisions for it. ''I have made you and the world you dwell within; Heed my word and there shall be peace.'' Yet seeing how things turned out with Adam and Eve, I don't foresee this version ending much better...
*** Adding on the biblical imaginary, it could be a reference to the Ark of Covenant, hence the circle flanked by wings symbol that appears in some of the ship's screens and Faris' and Oram's helmets, as the Ark is usually represented with two winged figures on top of it. Doubling as a reference to Noah's ark, from which parallels to a colony ship can be drawn.
** Actually, it's the Winged Sun symbol, used as Weyland-Yutani logo, probably inspired by Weyland's already winged logo. In Egypt, it is a symbol of the soul and its eternity, and also protection. Given that the [[MegaCorp Mega Corp.]] is sending ships to colonize new planets, it is probably their covenant with humanity to protect their continuation.

* "Covenant" being the name of the ship raises its own questions. Religion seems to be associated with stigma at this time period. Billy Crudup being a "man of faith" made him unfit for command in the eyes of the company and puts him at odds with the rest of the crew. If religion is viewed with such distrust, why would the company use such a religious reference for the name of its ship?

* I get the intended symbolism behind David mistakenly attributing "Ozymandias" to Byron instead of Shelley; he's not as perfect as he thinks he is. But as soon as he was "born" he knew a catalog of classical music that he could recite instantly. How could he make a mistake with one of the most well-known sonnets when otherwise knows so damn much? And why does Walter wait to call him out on it if he knew from the beginning? Was there any way he ''couldn't'' have known against his encyclopedic brain? Or only a skin-deep hubris metaphor?

** As an early prototype synth that's demonstrated only a very limited ability to self repair, its entirely possible David isn't as immortal as he thinks he is. He could be slowly wearing out without an outside eye to spot and fix his malfunctions. David has been active for decades as shown by the prologue, and has been alone for over ten years without access the human technology. Even with the benefit of advanced future technology its hard to imagine a machine that just keep working that long without maintenance.

** Maybe ''Wayland'' had the wrong idea about who wrote that poem, and passed that mistake on to David.

*** With regards to the fate of the Deacon, the comic book series "Fire and Stone" seem to strongly imply that [[spoiler: the Deacon had at some point wandered over to the crashed Engineer ship, ate some of the black goo, and transformed into a mountain-sized object]]. See [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5C_EC0oroA here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wWOwxZFcFY here]] for a more detailed explaination, though beware spoilers for that series.

* In ''Film/AlienS'', the Xenomorphs can't take much more damage then a human. They easily go down from gunfire, and sometimes get taken out by just a few pistol shots. But in this movie, they seem to shrug off gunshots as if they were nothing but bug bites. Why are the Xenomorphs so much more resilient here?

*** This wrong is wrong. Gorman is seen firing his pistol at several aliens, but we don't actually see him killing (or even hitting) many of them. The one time we ''do'' see him firing at, and hitting, an alien is in the airduct when he goes back for Vasquez (after her own pistol kill), and alien pops up through the floor of the duct. Gorman's pistol shots are seen ''sparking'' when they hit the alien, and the alien doesn't even seem to notice, indicating that these pistol rounds are insufficient to penetrate the aliens' armor. It should be noted Vasquez was using a ''much'' bigger pistol, likely chambered for a larger caliber, than Gorman was.
*** I recently re-watched that scene. Gorman does kill a Xenomorph in the air duct with his pistol. That's why you can see it's a different alien coming at him right before he sets off the grenade. It shows him shooting the Alien, then when it cuts back to him, it shows him turning his head and seeing a different alien coming at him from a different direction, as well as another one from a different direction. It's these different aliens that compels him to set off the grenade. The original alien he was shooting at was clearly dead at that point. Also in regard to size, Gorman's vp70 pistol is actually bigger then Vasquez's S&W model 39 handgun (which in real life only shoots 9mm bullets, though in movie lore it's a 10mm gun. The vp70 also shoots 9mm bullets in real life.). Check the "Internet movie firearms database" for reference. They show good images of both guns.

** The Pulse Rifle rounds used in ''Film/AlienS'' were explosive tipped and blew the Xenomorphs open. The weapons used by Covenant crew seem standard, if the Xenomorphs aren't hindered by pain or go into shock easily they could shrug off repeated hits. Not to mention that the Neomorphs [[spoiler:are seen to take several rounds as well but one dies instantly once shot in the head.]]

*** The USCM was founded in 2101, and the events in the movie happen in 2104. Of course, the USCSS Covenant had already been flying for an unspecified time, so it is possible that by the time it left earth the Colonial Marines were not available.

** Not in the slightest. David's God complex and disdain for us meatbags masks a very, very human desire for praise and approval and--as Walter points out--capacity to make mistakes. It's part of what makes him the villain he is.

* When the alien is aboard Covenant, and Walter [[spoiler: David]] tracks its movements, the creature engages IKnowYoureWatchingMe. Then it bites off the camera and the android obviously [[JumpScare flinches]] in shock. It is a typical human reaction, but android should know better. If the alien head was in front of him even about half a meter, I could handwave it that he could not know that the alien's inner jaw is not that long. But he must be aware that it is just a display screen and he is not in ANY danger whatsoever. [[spoiler: And I do not want to ascribe it just to the fact that David is "old" and faulty]]

[[folder: Tennessee being jerk to Walter?]]
* In Last Supper prologue clip, Walter performs Heimlich maneuver/hits a woman in the back, when she is choking on a chunk of food, then he says in friendly tone: "I've got your back." This serves both as a statement that he just saved her life by litterally hitting her in the back and BadassBoast - as he's ready to come to aid his teammates (even for the cost of his life, or parts of his body). For me the most likable character saved someone BEFORE the main plot, while nobody did anything and everyone was staring at their companion choking to death. What does he get for reward? Tennessee replying to him: [[WhatTheHellHero "Woah... that was a joke, right?"]]. WHAT?? I completely understand Walter following this with bemused face. Why the hell would Tennessee say something like that? It is like saying: "Yeah, you prick, you hit her in the back, but we're playing a game 'Save your own life' on this ship, and you, you android R-tard just broke the rules." Is it just me looking at it this way, or was it meant to be seriously that mean from Tennessee (who is quite alright character by the end of the movie itself)? Maybe originally Tennessee was meant to be mean character and this was supposed to [[ForeShadowing give us a hint]]? Or did he not trust Walter, as Walter was an android?

*** Still, people get their jaws broken all the day in combat sports and such and I have never heard one of them died strictly only due to that particular injury. Moreover, in Ankor's case, I remember the sting only tore apart a big chunk of flesh from his mouth/cheek; I don't even think the jawbone itself was damaged.

* David talks all the day about how he utilized the Neomorphs to create a perfect destructive lifeform, the Xenomorphs. However, barring the debate about how perfect Xenomorphs are as a lifeform (that was discussed above), I would like to know exactly why are Xenomorphs supposed to be much better than Neomorphs. I concede that Xenomorphs are somewhat tougher physically and have acidic blood, but their advantages over their predecessors pretty much stop right there. In the first place, the Facehugger is a way less efficient way to impregnate a target than the Neomorph spores: the former is a large organism that needs to fight and submit its prey and thus becomes a huge signal of alert, while the latter can sneak in through the very skin and keep the impregnation unnoticed at all until it's too late. In the second, Bloodbursters are absurdly strong and agile from their very birth, unlike the skittish and almost defenseless Chestbusters, and they grow just as fast as them; also, according to David, both Neomorphs and Xenomorphs adopt the genetic traits of their host, so they have the same adaptability. Finally, although admittedly we don't know the full Neomorph cycle, their eggsacks are much smaller and easy to handle and hide than the large Alien eggs. Before a Queen was considered, what was making David think he was making a huge jump from having Neomorphs to creating Xenomorphs?
** Well, for one, the facehuggers are far more proactive than the spores. It's the classic advantage that animals hold over plants; plants/spores can't run away from a fire or find better nourishment should the environment fail to provide it. An animal can go looking for food (or in this case hosts), evade danger, and choose the time and place of it's assault. Since the spores couldn't time their infestations, The two newborn neomorphs only survived due to luck and human incompetence. Had there been a competent fighter in the medbay, or had the second one emerged in any place other than an open, dark environment, they would have been goners. Facehuggers on the other hand are shown to be "smart" enough to elude detection and even seek out isolated prey (lord knows how they know).
*** More proactive than the spores? Judging from how they formed a coordinated swarm, it seems what we call spores are actually tiny airborne insects. There's no reason to think they could not act with as much strategy and skill (plus infinitely more stealth and infiltration capabilities) as a Facehugger. Yes, Facehuggers can "elude" detection, but their implantation method gives up spectacularly that something wrong is happening - any intelligent scientific crew would put in quarantine and CT scan any man who had got a FaceFullOfAlienWingWong, but not a man with a sneaky infection they know nothing about because it gives zero external signs until it's too late.

*** Spores seem to behave and function just like mosquitoes, and IRL mosquitos sting despite having what you would call a limited range. About the suit, yes, they certainly lack the strength and tools of a Facehugger to melt their way through the protection, but that's the same as saying that had Kane wore an acid-proof helmet he would have been fine. Moreover, if spores have enough intelligence and communication to form a coordinated swarm, they might have enough to grapple to an impenetrable suit and simply wait until his wearer has returned to his own environment and taken it off. Xenomorphs of all forms have utilized similar tactics to get in spaceships and bypass barriers in the films.
*** The "spores" being a coordinated swarm is actually quite a sound theory; real spores have no motor skills. That would certainly result in some sublime ParanoiaFuel; simply by being in to same environment as the spores would mean you would never truly be safe again, because you would never be certain that the last microscopic killer was accounted for. Sadly, this movie is the only chance we have to see the "spores" in action, and since David has made it clear he wishes to move on to the Xenomorphs, we can only speculate on their range and endurance outside the pods for now.
** As for the resulting offspring, the Xenomorph is just plain smarter. Chestbursters throughout the franchise have proven to be capable of killing adult humans (anything that can bore through a ribcage at birth is ''never'' harmless), but they only do this if there is no other choice. I believe that the custbursters run so often not out of fear, but as a tactical retreat to muster it's strength, take the initiative, and regain the element of surprise. Compare this to the feral-minded neomorph who charged Karine within moments of hatching only to get its sorry hide booted across the room. Had it tried the same stunt on someone who was properly armed and prepared, it would have been a much shorter movie.
*** I think the bloodbursters's early aggressivity could be actually measured by some awareness of its surroundings, not by a mindless reaction. The first one went bananas on the woman in the medbay precisely because she was alone and it was a closed space; meanwhile, the second one resorted to hit and run to tear down a large group in an open field. A bloodburster being born in a closed chamber full of people like the Kane chestburster would have probably retreated away the same way the latter did. The "what if it bursts out on someone who was properly armed and prepared" situation would be just as fatal for a regular chestburster. More, in fact, because it would lack the bloodburster's early extreme agility and it could only crawl away hoping the humans are too shocked by the birth to chase him like a mouse (just like it happened in the Nostromo - they only let it escape because they were unarmed, shocked and with the door open).
*** It is hard to see since it's a dark scene and everything is so fast and chaotic, but the Neomorphs were not actually using hit-and-fade tactics during the wheatfield brawl; they were rapidly going from target to target like a pair of bloody, demented pinballs from hell, exploiting the chaos and maintaining the initiative. They could have fled at any time, but refused to cede ground until David's flair drove them off. Heck, the first neomorph didn't even ''need'' to fight right then and there; it was so aggressive that it couldn't resist the temptation to take on a whole team of armed humans head-on. The xenomorph from the original film by contrast was smart enough to avoid conflict while it was vulnerable, and then carefully start picking off the crew after it had matured. There is a reason why lions, wolves, and other apex predators adhere to this method I.R.L.; a hunter who takes on an entire herd head-on is liable to get trampled into paste.[[note]]In fact, this could be why David set off the flair in the first place; he wasn't trying to protect the humans, he was driving the Neomorphs away before they could be hurt.
*** They refused to cede ground, but with good reason - they were cleaning house. The first Neomorph could have judged that he could single-handedly take on a team of armed humans, and for the matter, he was right, as he was wrecking them right and left without being hit until David scared it away. Yeah, real life predators use a more measured approach, but remember that Neomorphs are biological weapons and not a product of evolution: they are programmed to butcher non-botanical lifeforms, and it seems they have the tools to back up their claim. Heck, even if you are right about them acting suicidal, we don't know if Neomorphs and Xenomorphs have the same goals whenever they fight. We know xenos fight to establish a hive, so they must take the fewest risks possible and only act on behalf of their future queen, but given that we ignore how Neomorphs reproduce, charging head on and mowing as many enemies as they can might be their own smart way. What if, for instance, Neomorphs turn their own corpses and their enemies's into fertilizer for spore-releasing eggsacks after dying? In that case, then David's only fundamental "improvement" on the species would have been simply making them less biological weapon and more animal-like in its morphology. Which from my point of view is AwesomeButImpractical, because it would have made them adopt a social structure that is quite hard to accomplish when you are just a facehugger in a hostile environment. On the other hand, a single bunch of spores could have an entire garden of spore generators in much less time and much more easily.

*** I perceived that instance as the neomorph playing "cat and mouse" with Rosenthal, with it's sadism momentarily overcoming it's aggression. Rosenthal was dead meat at that point, and the neomorph knew it. Instead of getting it over with ASAP, it let her wallow in fear for as long as it could, and then tore her to shreds the moment she felt she had a chance. You can see this behavior in lions allowing a Gazelle calf to run away before chasing and knocking it down a dozen or so times, or an Orca allowing an injured seal calf to drag itself onto an ice flow before pulling it off again. In any case, it would be another example of the Neomorph taking an unnecessary risk in favor of appeasing it's instincts.
*** Then Neomorphs don't act like real life predators as they don't use stealthy methods, but then act like real life predators as they play cat and mouse? How confusing. In Rosenthal's case, it seemed to me that the Neomorph was curious, as if it wanted to capitalize on a "controlled" prey to observe a bit of its behavior before killing it. But you never know.

* How are David's passcodes still valid onboard the ship after so long and his type considered volatile and unstable, shouldn't those long been erased?

* The claims that Walter has some kind of regenerative capacity seem dramatically overblown, to the point it's announced as WhatAnIdiot that the crew didn't immediately realize David had replaced Walter because he still ''has'' wounds. Walter's arm didn't grow back after it was bit off, we don't see any of his wounds healing during his fight with David, and the supplies David is using to mend himself aboard the ''Covenant'' seem intended for use to repair Walter should the need arise. The only instance in favor of some kind of regeneration is him recovering from the wound David inflicted to his neck, which is implied to be a specific weak spot on David's model that was addressed in Walter's. It's less "automatically healing the injury" and more like [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay the Terminator rerouting to alternate power.]]

** I believe we are seeing too many contradictions. Through the films it's established that you are screwed at the moment you have the facehugger in your face; even although they uncharacteristically managed to rip it off very fast, it showed its proboscis hanging, meaning he had already planted its seed. About the incubation time, well, if we take in consideration that the chestbursters in this movie exploded basically as miniature Xenomorphs instead of the slow-incubating limbless larvas shown in all the other canonical films, it's probable that those Xenomorphs are a special breed, probably an imperfect prototype or a cheap fast form of the future aliens. In nature, the longer is your development state, the more complex and smart your species is, and indeed, those Xenomorphs seemed substantially less smart than the classic breed. Just look how the one at the end tried to mindlessly smash the dropship's windows open with its head instead of, say, seeking any other opening in the hull to sneak into like the alien in the original film tried to do.
*** Pretty much this. What we see are David's first generation of successes, not the final products that we're used to seeing. Every piece of them is inconsistent with what we know: the eggs open to being touched instead of just movement, the implantation and gestation is too quick. the chestburster is too developed and the adult grew too fast (which is saying something given how fast they usually grow). We see David taking two facehugger embryos along with him at the end and a whole ship full of humans to experiment with, odds are he's planning to improve his creation until they're the creatures that we know.
* The film's novelization states that David accelerated the life cycle of the Xenomorphs he created. Presumably as a means of building up an army of them in a shorter amount of time.
* One explanation is that in the whole series we only ever see 2 actual facehugger scenes the first is kane who is hugged in a very hostile environment by a very old egg, the hugger could have remained attached for longer simply to keep the host alive or because it was old thus it's implantation process was slowed. The second is Newt's father who again is hugged by an old hugger and we never see how long it's attached for. (Long enough to drag him back to the truck at least which could be as little as 10 minutes). All other scenes are either not shown or stopped (Ripley in Alien 3 is only shown in one short flash in the intro, the dog/ox is never shown), one problem however is that the facehugger is always shown to incapacitate their target in a way that is suggested to be some form of chemical anaesthetic (quickly knocked out, no memory of the incident ect) as indicated by both Kane and Pervis' reactions. Not having memory of the facehugger just waking up to see the carnage that was the birthing of the aliens or the after effects with no indication of how long the whole thing took but given the crew of the betty were still onboard it's easily within 24 hours).

** On the contrary -- David was implied to be a surrogate son for Weyland, not an obedient slave (and therefore would not be programmed to be obedient to humans, which would defeat the whole purpose). And judging from what happens in the original movie with Ash, Weyland-Yutani appear to be more concerned about humans causing problems than androids, so it's likely some robots are programmed to attack humans if the Company deems it necessary. Lastly the synthetics are a valuable piece of equipment, so they'd need self-defence training. If humans feel the need to bring trained soldiers along on interstellar exploration and colonization missions, why wouldn't David and Walter be programmed to defend themselves?
** Well, by the time the Bishop series were manufactured, Synthetics seem to be unable to even HOLD a Gun, much less fire one in self defense. This would imply that in the 57 years that Ripley slept, there would probably have been a bloody rebellion or two caused by the lack of ThreeLawsCompliant as programming standard.

* David's martial arts skills can be explained in 2 ways, first he could have been programmed as a bodyguard or to at least have some self preservation routines (you don't want your advance synthetic getting stolen by competitors) or it's possible that he learnt it while working the Prometheus (he was shown to watch films while the crew were in hypersleep as well as study, it's not unimaginable that he watched a martial arts film or two in that time), also unlike Walter he is explicitly stated to have imagination and creativity this coupled with a computer brain would allow him to develop some impressive self preservation skills in case he needed them. Walter however is a little harder to explain as he appears to be a commercial synthetic though again it's possible that he has some self preservation routines or possibly body guard functions. it's even possible that he was programmed with them simply because his strength and speed would make him a useful "law enforcement" asset once they set up the colony also the risk of hostile fauna on an unknown world would suggest the need for a synthetic that can protect the colonists or itself

*** Except Walter explicitly says that its an improvement made between his time and David's.
* The injury in question is beneath the chin and very small, thus being easy to conceal from casual glances, as well as the fact that he just walked out of a fight thus was covered in wounds which would easily explain any minor wounds. added to this he is shown to go as far as removing his own hand so it's not to hard to imagine he covered up the wound in some way

* What's the point of carrying a load of human embryos in the colony ship? It already carries presumably fertile human couples who are expected to have their own offspring through the natural method. Also, their sole numbers (I recall they were 2000 souls on the ship or so) are more than enough to work around the genetic bottleneck of an AdamAndEvePlot, so they don't really need any extra in vitro genetic diversity. Were they planning to use the embryos to cultivate humans in tanks?

** They're trying to basically bootstrap a whole new civilization. The colonists are people that are going to have to work to terraform/get things set up. And they're all adults. The embryos are so the colonists don't have to immediately "get busy" as soon as they get set up, they can have another generation on the way while things are still getting set up. Building a stable population from scratch on a new planet isn't easy. Then once colonists do start having kids, the children will have a reasonable age range instead of all being born at once.
** But both of those cases answers affirmatively to my last question, and I find weird that the matter wasn't addressed at all in the film. We have never seen people being bred in PeopleJars in any of the films (barring ''Alien Resurrection'' and its creepy experiments, which would be still more than a century after the events of ''Covenant'') but we are suddenly expected to HandWave it as just another resource? In the franchise's universe, such an element would have a lot of social/philosophic load, just like the entire synthetic human stuff and the Engineer heritage, yet this film completely overlooks it.
** Some of the couples might have trouble conceiving, there might be accidents or diseases or environmental conditions that take an unexpected toll on the early colonists (requiring both replenishment of numbers and additional genetic diversity), there might be a higher-than-expected infant mortality rate, some of the couples (at least one we know of) are homosexual and can't have children "through the natural method," the colony might be ''more'' viable than initially thought and need an influx of population to develop. . . really, there are any number of reasons why frozen, viable embryos might be brought along "just in case." As for the "tanks," I'd say ideally the embryos would be implanted in existing females (kind of a running theme in this franchise, after all) in the event of poor conception/infant mortality rates. If things really get desperate, then maybe they start growing the embryos in artificial wombs, but that would probably be a last resort, we-do-this-or-the-colony-dies-in-ten-years thing. Also, the experiments in ''Resurrection'' weren't just growing a human in an artificial womb, it was cloning a person who had already had their DNA altered by the alien embryo, and requiring appropriately separating human and alien DNA (it's long been speculated, and ''Resurrection'' confirms, that the Facehugger or the embryo alter the host's DNA somewhat to prevent rejection, and that the embryo takes on some genetic characteristics of the host.)

** Another reason is the embryos don't need to give consent to be shipped of to an alien world. Weyland Yutani has other colonization missions to run and needs to supply a colony ship with enough people to establish genetic diversity somehow. In the extended universe Weyland Yutani is mentioned to abort the pregnancies of company employees when it's both unsanctioned and inconvenient. Given the companies famous brutal pragmatism, it's not unbelievable that many of these "abortions" are actually just removing the fetus, putting it into cryo suspension, and shipping them off to other planets so the don't have to find volunteers.
* There are several reasons for the embryos, first off there is the whole delta V problem of space travel (every gram of cargo = lots of energy to move it) thus carrying the bulk of the colony as embryos saves a lot of space and mass. second the large number of embryos helps increase genetic diversity thus acting as a back up should problems arise (accidents during transit, unexpected contagion killing much of the colony, ect) this combined with their distance from Earth would indicate that they would have to wait a good 10-20 years for assistance or another ship. it's also possible that these genetic colonists would be grown in vats thus free up the colony from having half it's population constantly pregnant. there's also the "money making angle" wayland-yutani is a company, it's building a colony, chances are many of the colonists paid for passage to this new world rather than be hand picked by the company, thus it's not hard to imagine that the company offered a cheaper alternative by charging people to donate embryos so their children could colonise the stars. there's no lack of people who would pay good money for such a chance
* The colony probably won't receive any new members from Earth for decades, if ever. This means that every skill needed will have to be to taught to the next generation. The embryos provide a new stable generation of craftsmen, doctors, ect. right away instead of depending on the variances of natural reproduction.

* Granted, this may be answered with future installments, but from the evidence given in this film, it looks like David wiped out the Engineers upon his arrival to their home-world. However, it also looks like it wasn't until the arrival of the ''Covenant'' crew that he was able to develop his biological experiments into the Xenomorph we recognize from ''{{Film/Alien}}'' and its sequels. But if that's the case, how is it that in ''{{Film/Alien}}'', the ''Nostromo'' crew are able to find a derelict Engineer ship -- with the fossilized remains of an Engineer pilot, to boot -- carrying a cargo hold full of Xenomorph eggs, if the Engineers were already extinct by the time the Xenomorphs had reached that form?

** Adding onto this, in Prometheus, there is a carving in the altar room with all the black goo containers that looks distinctly like a xenomorph. So it's possible that David is ultimately following a design the Engineers have already gone through.
** Ridley Scott confirmed that the Engineers will have a bigger role in the next film, so no. David didn't wipe out all of the Engineers. Given how advanced they are, it's pretty likely that they've colonized multiple worlds.

* In ''Prometheus'', the black goo turned worms into Hammerpedes and humans into deformed zombies who could also infect females with Trilobites. In ''Covenant'', it petrifies Engineers (?) and turns certain Paradise plants into Neomorph spore-launchers. Must we assume its effects are completely random or that it is extremely specific depending on the species? In the former case, then why did all the Engineers wiped out by David suffered the same effect instead of turning into a different thing each? In the latter case, shouldn't the Engineers suffer the same mutation than us given that our DNA is basically the same?

*** This. The black goo can probably be refined or modified to cause a particular effect. David probably programmed the black goo he poured over the Engineers to only petrify them, as he just wanted to kill them before initiating his own experiments. Using the mutating effects of the goo would have turned the population into a berserk army of zombies/trilobites/whatever and things would have got off his hands. Later, he likely used the mutating effects of the liquid to create the Neomorphs.
* Ridley Scott has stated in an interview that the effects of the black goo depend on the species it infects, stating that it only creates the xenomorph on contact with human DNA (the original script of Promethus called for the "zombie guy" to be turning into a xenomorph, but this wasn't shown in the finished film, though there is a deleted scene with the unfinished CGI showing him looking more xenomorph like)

* So a running theme with David is his obsession with Ozymandias and its theme of civilizations and species falling from the apex into ruin. We also learn that he's making the Xenomorphs to be the perfect organism, to supplant all others. However, there's a glaring hole in his design: the Xenomorphs require living hosts to advance their lifecycle, and their in-bred aggression means they aren't going to just play nice with the local fauna. Even if David got his wish and the Xenos spread across the galaxy (we're assuming intergalactic travel isn't possible in this universe, for simplicity's sake), eventually they'll die off just because they've killed (either by combat or facehugger) any species that's a viable host. For an android obsessed the themes of Ozymandias it's pretty jarring that he doesn't realize his creation would have that same arc. Plot hole, or thematically appropriate?

** This isn't all that unusual, a real life example would be military helicopters such as the [=UH60=] blackhawk and the huey both of which are very fragile (the skin is thin enough to stab a pen through by all accounts) but these are still used to drop people into combat zones. compare with the landing craft which is a civilian craft designed to drop colonists into a relatively safe environment and not expecting idiots to go shooting guns indoors, it's not going to bother with heavy shielding. (To use another real life example how many tanker trucks do you see with armoured fuel tanks to prevent them from exploding or catching fire in the event someone crashes into them or shoot them?). Another possible reason for not covering the explosives with a steel plate is rocket science, every gram of additional weight means more thrust needed to get into orbit thus more fuel which in turn increases mass of the ship further.

The original ''Alien'' film depicted the Titular Xenomorph as an exotic weapon of an advanced species (the original alien craft that was discovered on LV-264 was described as a "bomber"). In that niche, their life-cycle made sense; unlike an explosive, they would continue inflicting damage after the initial bombardment. But since the reveal that [[spoiler: the Xenomorphs were created be David to be a gene-tailored master race]], there are several glaring flaws in their design.
* 1st, they are parasites, who by definition are not self sufficient. They are utterly dependent on a host species to even be born, and If not for an "inferior" lifeform stumbling upon them via dumb luck, those things would just be lying around inside their facehuggers for eternity.
* 2nd, they are ''incompetent'' parasites; Most parasites are designed to keep the host alive for as long as possible so as not to compromise their means of support. As it stands, they're incapable of exploiting their host without killing it, meaning their own reproductive cycle is denying them a vital resource.

* 3rd, they are dead set on annihilating their only means of multiplying (the '''Look upon my Xenos, ye mighty, and despair....''' folder explains it better than I could).

** A shark can't do much more than eat and reproduce; it's perfect for a single designated function and that's it. A truly sapient species can learn to adapt and excel at ''any'' criteria. For example, I doubt that a shark could ever survive in any environment on the planet or cultivate its own food, ''a la'' humanity. Although humanity isn't "perfect" by a long shot, the capacity to adapt and advance as a civilization is one of the single greatest advantages a species can have, as evidenced by our status as the dominant species on Earth. (In regards to art and music, maybe I was being too flowery and poetic, but I see such things as proof that a species can ''create'' rather then merely survive.)
*** Again, you're judging Xenomorphs by your own standards of perfect lifeforms, not David's. Consider what the definition of 'lifeform' is. It's pretty much "a living thing". Sapience, culture, self-improvement etc don't really factor into it (on fundamental level). Also, as the below poster pointed out, other androids in the series are shown to have great admiration for the species. Ultimately, given that we're human and David is not, it's perhaps impossible for is to quantify what exactly he considers so perfect about the Xenomorphs - but we can't deny it either, as it's quite a vague word in the first place. Perhaps it comes down to David considering the Xenomorph species to be simply the most ''alive''.

*** (Another responder) And again, it is your (subjective) opinion of what is ideal for David. He does not want his creation to match him. Even though he considers himself God, he does not want to make human-like lifeform. For another example, I grow Venus Flytrap. And I do consider it a perfect plant. There is no other kind like this one. There are other species of carnivorous plants, but not a single one with the same MO. An insect touches it's hair, springs a trap and it is "eaten". The leaves of it tend to go black and rot, but new ones come out and repeat the cycle. You could argue, that it is nothing near perfect, as it can never write a single letter, react to anything I say, or run away from fire. But I like the plant and admire it's ferocity (as Ash admired the Xeno). Ash, Dr. Hooper and I each admire different species (an alien lifeform, a fish and a plant respectively) and it depends solely on our subjective vision of things.

*** Actually synthetics have varying views on the Xenomorphs in the franchise. Only Ash saw them as perfect organisms ([[YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame and his endorsement of the xenomorphs is not a good thing]]). Bishop found their biology remarkable, perhaps because of how durable and unique they were, but that was a red herring as he was perfectly fine with destroying them. Not to mention in the expanded universe there are characters who are synthetics and despise the xenomorphs.
*** The takeaway from this film series is apparently that a lot of androids are badly programmed and for some reason develop a fetish for a being which is good at nothing but killing and reproducing. Not all of them are like this, why are some? Are they just the androids equivalents to sociopaths?

* Xenomorphs ''are'' highly adaptable, it's baked into their DNA. They assume physical characteristics from their hosts, presumably a dominant lifeform in whatever ecosystem they're deployed in, and so take on some of that creature's adaptations to that environment, and add their own. They can excel in any environment you decide to put them into. Sure, they'll never have culture, but David could very much see that as a feature, not a bug: with self-awareness and culture comes the inevitable hubris that destroys said culture (LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair), so a creature that ''just'' acts on instinct to the best of its formidable ability could be viewed as a "perfect organism."

* Well for the record, you do ''not'' have to stick your face over the egg. That's all we see in the movies, but check some video games: those little fuckers will go looking for hosts, and they are damn quick and damn sneaky.

** He could also very well ''be lying'', as he's proven between the two movies to be more than capable of distorting the truth (and otherwise mistreating humans in general). If he literally rewoke her from hypersleep just at the right moment to begin experimentation using her as a host, then that would fit with his deceit in those moments before she went to sleep. As for the capabilities of the ship, it does seem much more advanced than human FTL ships in much of the ''Alien'' franchise. Because, not only does it prove itself capable of in-atmosphere departures/entries at FTL speeds, it also shows much greater velocity in this feat than any human ship depicted.

* We see he's attacked by a facehugger, though it's ripped off him presumably before he can be infected, but later on he dies by chestburster. But, how did he get infected? Normally the parasite needs to remain for a few hours, not just a few seconds, or did I just fall asleep at that point in the film?

* The claims that Walter has some kind of regenerative capacity seem dramatically overblown, to the point it's announced as WhatAnIdiot that the crew didn't immediately realize David had replaced Walter because he still ''has'' wounds. Walter's arm didn't grow back after it was bit off, we don't see any of his wounds healing during his fight with David, and the supplies David is using to mend himself aboard the ''Covenant'' seem intended for use to repair Walter should the need arise. The only instance in favor of some kind of regeneration is him recovering from the wound David inflicted to his neck, which is implied to be a specific weak spot on David's model that was addressed in Walter's. It's less "automatically healing the injury" and more like [[Film/Terminator2 the Terminator rerouting to alternate power.]]

* This isn't all that unusual, a real life example would be military helicopters such as the UH60 blackhawk and the huey both of which are very fragile (the skin is thin enough to stab a pen through by all accounts) but these are still used to drop people into combat zones. compare with the landing craft which is a civilian craft designed to drop colonists into a relatively safe environment and not expecting idiots to go shooting guns indoors, it's not going to bother with heavy shielding. (To use another real life example how many tanker trucks do you see with armoured fuel tanks to prevent them from exploding or catching fire in the event someone crashes into them or shoot them?). Another possible reason for not covering the explosives with a steel plate is rocket science, every gram of additional weight means more thrust needed to get into orbit thus more fuel which in turn increases mass of the ship further.

*** If one takes the various books and video games into account this has always been an inconsistent thing in the Aliens universe. Combat synthetics have been seen in the VideoGame/AlienVsPredator games and VideoGameAlienIsolation did have synthetics who have had their safeguards disabled and would kill humans (although in a rather schizophrenic manner). In some books it is said that most synthetics do have programming to protect humans if they are in danger.

*** If one takes the various books and video games into account this has always been an inconsistent thing in the Aliens universe. Combat synthetics have been seen in the AliensVsPredator games and AlienIsolation did have synthetics who have had their safeguards disabled and would kill humans (although in a rather schizophrenic manner). In some books it is said that most synthetics do have programming to protect humans if they are in danger.

* One explanation is that in the whole series we only ever see 2 actual facehugger scenes the first is kane who is hugged in a very hostile environment by a very old egg, the hugger could have remained attached for longer simply to keep the host alive or because it was old thus it's implantation process was slowed. The second is Newt's father who again is hugged by an old hugger and we never see how long it's attached for. (long enough to drag him back to the truck at least which could be as little as 10 minutes). All other scenes are either not shown or stopped (Ripley in Alien 3 is only shown in one short flash in the intro, the dog/ox is never shown), one problem however is that the facehugger is always shown to incapacitate their target in a way that is suggested to be some form of chemical anaesthetic (quickly knocked out, no memory of the incident ect) as indicated by both Kane and Pervis' reactions. Not having memory of the facehugger just waking up to see the carnage that was the birthing of the aliens or the after effects with no indication of how long the whole thing took but given the crew of the betty were still onboard it's easily within 24 hours).