Although it's hard to say, I've assumed that the aliens were a biological weapon made by the "space jockeys", even before seeing Prometheus. Whether they were "stockpiled" in the ship in Alien, it's hard to say .. they definitely turned on the crew as you mention, likely causing it to crash. The only other place we see a collection of eggs like that in the Alien movies is in the queen's chamber in Aliens which is logical as she's the one who lays them. As there's no queen on board the ship from Alien (that we can see), it could be that the eggs were stockpiled in the chamber where they found them.

The way the vases were arranged on the floor of that room in Prometheus instantly reminded me of the eggs from Alien.

alright i feel there were two definite answers 1) what the space jockey was....although not what that one was doing there 2) what the "Alien" is....again without ever even hinting at it's existence......although i loved the fact that all the little and big creatures throughout Prometheus were very similar to the "Alien"....ie acid for blood, face sucking, and that thing at the end was very similar in body style as well as the interior mouth....what i loved was the kind of open ended idea that.....this is nothing more than one of several stations on that planet of what these "engineers" were doing.....going into this i assumed that this film would explain what the derelict space craft was doing there....within five minutes of them landing on the planet i dropped that idea.....i mean the planet in Alien looked nothing like Iceland....whereas this planet looked very similar .....right at that moment i decided to drop my fan boy nature and attempt to accept this as something completely different.....and i fell it delivered this is possibly the best example of a prequel that honestly has practically nothing to do with the other films.....seriously YAY!!!!.....and i agree 100% with Tore about the vases.....as well as with Violent & Funky about the creature destroying the creator.....i cannot wait to see this film again

I'd forgotten about the "laser mist" from Alien and agree that it's plausible that it was a way of somehow controlling the alien eggs.

Hm .. could be. There's a mural in Prometheus with what looks to be a xenomorph alien on it. From that, you'd think the engineers and the xenomorphs have some kind of history prior to Prometheus. Yet, Elizabeth Shaw who is impregnated by the mutated Charlie gives birth to something that looks like a xenomorph (huge octopus-headcrab first, then the alienish creature that comes out of the body of the engineer).

So I guess that means that human/engineer (perfect match) mixed with the mutating/whatever powers of the black goo creates something resembling xenomorphs. Why is this? And should that have no relevance to the history of the xenomorphs? That sounds a bit strange to me.

If the black goo comes from the xenomorphs somehow, your hypothesis could still make sense I guess.

I love that the movie makes me ask so many questions.

I love it to...it's the best kind of sci fi. The script definitely benefited from having some writers from Lost. I'm thinking we may even have to come to terms with the idea that we may never even know how the original derelict craft got there in the first Alien, even in the sequels. Not answering that but still addressing the space jockeys keeps the mystery of the first Alien alive while still giving us sci fi nerds something to obsess over. This was actually something I was worried about with Prometheus - as much as I want those questions answered, part of what made the first Alien so great was the mystery. Specifically revealing what happened would kill some of the mystique.

What I'm starting to think is that the goop when spliced with DNA from another organism ALWAYS results in some form of xenomorph. That's why it still takes on some characteristics of the host...it utilized its DNA to make itself all over again. This is why it was a dog type alien in Alien 3 since it used a dog as a host. The organism is a survivor that always manages to recreate itself. Impregnating Shaw and splicing with one of her eggs directly allowed her to produce another facehugger while not killing her. When combined with the DNA in a non-reproductive capacity, it simply kills.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about this as well...did David know about this? He was experimenting quite a bit and surely he is incredibly smart (being an android). He had to of picked Charlie to infect because he knew he and Shaw were intimate. On that note, I also feel he told the engineer in the end to kill Weyland (or that the group was there to harm him). He did mention earlier that he felt all children must want the deaths of their parents.

I'm starting to go off again on this...but just a couple more things I thought of. Vickers had to be an android. She called Weyland "father" and he had mentioned he never had any kids...David was the closest he had. We also never saw any blood when she died...and her death was very quick. We also never saw her wake up from hypersleep with the crew. That might come back later.

Similarly, Weyland will have to come back in some capacity. Why else would they bother dressing up Guy Pierce in old guy makeup when they could of just found a real old guy. Something's up there.

On that note, at the very end of the credits there is a logo for Weyland and the date 10-11-12. Check out the website What Is 10.11.12? ...it's got some cool stuff. More questions than anything, but it's worth looking into.

Just a quick comment regarding this. I don't think he says he never had kids. He says David is the son he never had, but mentions nothing of daughters.

At least that's how I remember it.