THE ENGINEERS
The ruins of their massive necropoli and pyramidal structures are spread across the stars. The sophistication of their fossilized biotechnology mystifies explorers while their megalithic stone statues and busts bear testament to their artistic and architectural superiority. But who are they? If the company has its way, you’ll never find out.
Hieroglyphic tablets unearthed on Tanaka 5 call them Ossians. The decoded derelict beacon on LV-426 made reference to the Mala’kak. Whatever they call themselves, to modern humans they are known simply as the Engineers.
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw coined the term when she and Dr. Charles Holloway discovered pictograms on many of Earth’s continents depicting giant beings pointing towards the stars. Believing the beings to have engineered humanity, she dubbed them accordingly. That star configuration turned out to be a star map which led the Prometheus mission to a distant moon and the ruins of an Engineer outpost. Whatever they found there was erased from the archives, the destination of the Prometheus was classified and all but forgotten—but stray transmissions picked up by company satellites confirmed the existence of the beings.
Over the decades, covert corporate scientists have made attempts to classify them. Those with religious leanings have likened them to the Nephilim—fallen angels cast out of heaven for meddling with—or in this case creating—humanity. As the first remains of their kind were discovered at the helms of their dead ships, some have labeled them Mundus gubernavi, or “universal pilot.” Like the misnomer Internecivus Raptus—“murderous thief”—that is sometimes associated with Xenomorph XX121, the classification, in and of itself, is incorrect. There is no “pilot” genus to draw upon. The late Doctor Shaw’s scientific notes that were recovered in a garbled signal sent after the loss of the Prometheus provide the most shocking revelation about these Engineers—their DNA is human. They predate us, they are us, and we come from them. The re-discovery of Shaw’s notes has led to a more scientific name for these giants—Homo Genitor, or “creator of man.”
The little more that is known about them has been gleaned from several extrasolar archeological digs discovered within the past three years as the Frontier has advanced into the unknown. No living Engineers are known to exist—and the few xenoanthropologists aware of them believe they died out thousands of years ago. Their passing is marked by their abandoned citadels, derelict ships, and their biogenetic and evolutionary experiments. What is also clear from Dr. Shaw’s transmissions is that even though they created humanity, at some point millennia ago they decided to undo their creation—attempting to wipe out the Earth and start again.
Basic Information
Anatomy
The Engineers were colossal beings. While some fossilized evidence places them at as much as 4.5 meters tall, most agree that they averaged 2.7 meters in height. On first appearance their bodies seem biomechanical in nature with a bulbous, trunked head. This is in fact a removable living pressure suit that melds with the Engineer’s body, with the “head” actually being a helmet of some type. These living suits and helmets have only been found dead—ossified and fossilized over millennia of disuse. Underneath their strange garb, the Engineers are statuesque. They have hairless, chiseled physiques with translucent blue-white skin, heavy brows, high noses, and large, glassy black eyes. They are both beautiful and powerful in appearance. While they were once believed to be all male, there is now evidence to suggest that female Engineers exist as well. Dr. Shaw theorized that the females operated in a leadership capacity while the males assumed soldier, artisan, and philosopher roles, but there is no evidence to support this. Females are equally hairless and just as dangerous.
Genetics and Reproduction
Some theories suggest there are different breeds or castes of Engineers with physical alternatives bred into them—thereby differentiating civilian and militant factions. Others have postulated that not all the crumbling edifices unearthed on the Frontier are those of the Engineers, but that some belong to other species seeded by or cross-bred with them. If that is the case, then these civilizations have likewise died out. And pointing to the enormous, fossilized remains of the so-called “Space Jockey” specimen reportedly witnessed by two starfreighter crews and colonists from Hadley’s Hope, some xenoanthropologists suggest the Engineers based their biomechanical technology on creatures greater than themselves—strange beings of immense size replete with pachydermic probosci. However, since the specimen in question was unfortunately destroyed and there are no Engineers around to ask, all of this is merely hearsay and conjecture.
Ecology and Habitats
Engineer architecture is on a grand scale, with monolithic stone citadels, impressive arches and massive domes. Most Engineer installations will have at least one giant stone head. It is believed these heads are meant to represent one of six elders of their civilization—intellectuals, artists, and wise men. Their culture appears to be steeped in both the sciences and the arts. In addition to their biotechnological wonders, beautifully painted murals and bas reliefs of bizarre alien creatures adorn the walls of their innermost sanctums. While not yet understood, their computer interfaces work on a combination of musical initiation plus the manipulation of depressible hieroglyphic symbols and rubbery, egg-shaped control nodules. There is evidence of terraforming at many of their sites, via a method that company scientists so far cannot explain. Vast underground hangars are hypothesized to hold the remains of their star-faring juggernauts, although all such hangers discovered thus far have been vacant.
Civilization and Culture
Average Technological Level
ENGINEER FLUTE
Music is the crux of Engineer society. It has been hypothesized that they can see melodies as colors, shapes, and words. As such, music is key to operating most of their technology. Different flutes function as keys to unlock different doors and technology, and playing different tones on these flutes will trigger different functions, such as turning on the lights, starting a juggernaut, plotting a navigational course, or even unlocking a biosuit. An android or human possessing a particular talent for music could conceivably learn to whistle the appropriate tones to activate and operate Engineer technology, but it is an exceedingly difficult skill to master.ENGINEER BIOSUIT
It has been theorized that these pressure suits increase the wearer’s strength, help them to process toxins, and act as armor against ballistic weaponry. Helmeted, one of these suits will keep an Engineer alive in the vacuum of space. Scientists believe an engineer could survive in a toxic environment for at least one hour sans helmet, as the biosuit will breath for them. The biosuit also acts as an advanced medkit, repairing damage to the Engineer’s body and providing the wearer with limited sustenance.ENGINEER REBREATHER
Usually used by Engineers when placed in cryosleep, these bioengineered masks insert a tube down the wearer’s throat and feed oxygen directly to their lungs.SARCOPHAGI
Resembling large, translucent coffins, these Engineer hypersleep tubes can keep someone alive in suspended animation for centuries, if not millennia. An Engineer rebreather must be worn while in the chamber.HOLOGRAPHY
Engineers record everything within their installations using a memory gel that coats the interior walls and ceiling. When the proper electrostatic currents are channeled through the gel, holographic playback will occur in the actual environment, producing fuzzy, blue particle representations of various recorded events. Most evidence of the Engineer’s past actions have come from such recordings.ORRERY
Engineer holographic maps of the galaxy are extremely detailed and interactive, allowing viewers to simply pluck a photonic representation of a world out of the air and have its statistics and coordinates feed directly into a navigational system. Orreries are located on the bridge of an Engineer ship and sometimes serve as observatories or command centers within Engineer installations.JUGGERNAUTS
These massive, asymmetrical, horseshoe-shaped craft appear more grown than built. Each ship contains at least one massive cargo bay with an ampule delivery system (see the ampule entry below). These ships usually have four to eight hypersleep chambers arranged around a central dais on the upper level of the ship’s center. In the middle of this dais is a retractable pilot's seat that interfaces with the pilot and makes them one with the ship. The entire chamber can be used to display a map of the galaxy, homing in on any world or system and charting a course to the desired location. Juggernauts are theorized to be war machines or bombers of some kind and are capable of FTL speeds that rival our own.MOTHER JUGGERNAUT
Colossal craft shaped like a scorpion’s tail, Engineer motherships are defensive docking stations that hover over and protect major Engineer installations and cities. Juggernauts and other Engineer craft can dock with a Mothership to replenish their energies and supplies.DREADNOUGHTS
While none have yet to be seen, Dreadnoughts are hypothetical Engineer battleships. Partially translated hieroglyphics seem to indicate that these twisted, knot-shaped craft are larger than juggernauts but still follow the same design philosophy. Dreadnoughts are believed to be extremely weaponized and FTL capable.STEATITE AMPULES
Metallic storage containers roughly a half a meter tall, these urns each contain four glass conical containers—each of which in turn contains a strain of the Engineer’s greatest creation—the genetic accelerant called Agent A0-3959X.91-15. Hermetically sealed, the urns are designed to release the black goo in response to pressure, temperature and other environmental changes. These are exceptionally dangerous and should be avoided.
Scientific Name
Homo Genitor
Related Myths
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