Deacon Alien / Alien Explained

xenomorph aliens are well known for their complex life cycle yet none of the creatures from the Alien franchise would have a more complicated creation than that of the deccan an alien thought by some to be the origin of the species it would only appear briefly in Prometheus and will be cut out of its only comic book appearance yet in my opinion it still holds an important position on the family tree of the xenomorph so today let's take a look at the evolution of the alien that would become the deacon while we also look at what could have been if Fox lit the fire in sound comics use their likeness [Music] the story of the deacon would actually begin with another alien the ultra morph a favorite design of mine the ultra morph was meant to show us what kind of alien would grow inside of an engineer host versus a human one there are examples of this type of alien from space jockey hosts and aliens infestation and aliens apocalypse destroying angels the one that would evolve into the deacon however was from concept art by Carlos who want a and it would appear during the climax in John Speights early draft of alien engineers where the ultra more could be the alien that came out of the Jockey that was discovered by the Nostromo crew on the derelict vessel on lv-426 however at this point in the production the exact set fox had made the decision to try to take the xenomorph out of the film and make it more about the engineers a change that would bring in damon lindelof who would go on to rewrite the script per their wishes this would see the ultra morph become the deacon something farther off in the lineage of the xenomorph for its initial design they would look to the beluga alien another concept from who want a that would have emerged from an infected holloway this concept would be altered to become the deacon where its color would go from white to blue Neal Scanlan the creature and special effects supervisor had this to say on the change the quality of the Deacon scan is based on the placenta when a horse gives birth steve messy and managed to get it something between horrific and beautiful with the way he rendered the quality of the surface treatment it had a sort of iridescent quality that we really wanted so it was kind of beautiful and scary yet Carlos wante had this to say of the change to a VP galaxy in an interview why was it blue I don't know the illustration was blue as to emphasize the whiteness in a dark blue setting and I was following some inspirational paintings that a contemporary Russian painter did of a man's head that Arthur had sent me from Ridley the creatures were all supposed to be albino they were supposed to look simple beautiful and ghostly like a beluga whale in dark arctic water this concept is further explained by another quote from Carlos who want a in the art of matheus once I realized that this films timeline was taking place before the Geiger asked aesthetic would come into effect I started homing in on a design aesthetic that I felt would complement the beautiful Gieger style that saturated the first film I wanted everything white in embryonic Ridley and I were right in tune with each other on this I mean Ridley was looking at paintings that had white ghost-like creatures as reference for the engineers unfortunately the Deacon would also get a coat of paint over its flesh but the white alien would go on to be used an alien covenant with the neo Moors where the ultra mark was simply as II know from an engineer a deacon would be the result of a much different conception it begins with Holloway ingesting a small amount of the black accelerant substance and a drink that was spiked by David this in turn when in fact hallways own sperm which would grow into the trilobite in the womb of Elizabeth Shaw once outside the trilobite would grow to an amazing size and would subdue and infect an engineer with what would become the deacon the trilobite does resemble a much larger face hugger but I would suggest that it's human reproductive beginnings are what led to the deacon emerging with what appears to be an egg sac for possible nourishment along with the tube running from the deacon to the engineer the newly discovered alien would use the point on the back of its head to cut its way free from the engineer where it would then spill out onto the floor concept art would portray the Deacons standing with balance and power whereas the one in the film was more like an infant learning how to stand for the first time a change that was explained by Neal Scanlan bowls are ungainly and ungraceful but have to grow quickly just like giraffes and other animals born in the wild they would have to get on their feet and ambulatory very quickly this was a strategy for the deacon now according to the book of alien little is known about the creature dubbed the deacon due to the shape of its skull glimpsed on lv2 to 3 in 2094 it seems clear however that while undeniably physically similar the creature was not a xenomorph company scientists hypothesize that it is instead a byproduct of the engineer chemical known as the black goo intended for use as a bio weapon if we assume that the xenomorph species itself was originally deliberately bio engineered the deccan may be an earlier abandoned iteration of research that is ongoing the deccan name itself was a reference to the pointy head having a similar shape to a deacons hat the bottom jaw could extend while a second upper jaw would shoot out an idea from Ridley Scott after looking at the jaws of goblin sharks because the alien was grown in an engineer they would be larger than their xenomorph cousins especially if they grew any afterbirth which the expanded universe would attempt to touch on but we'll get to that in a minute the creature had a body frame like the Z nose except with blueish grey skin that was smooth and lacked any biomechanical features its head would be elongated like the Z nose it also had no tail and had no visible eyes like the Z nose and aliens yet it also lacked the translucent faceplate of big chap we have no evidence if they have acid for blood in the film universe but this would be addressed in the comic books the height and weight of the newborn deacon is also unknown but from the scene in prometheus it appears to me that if it was to stand upright it could be around the height of an engineer at around 9 feet which would already put it taller than a full-grown Zeno which would stand at 7 to 8 feet tall to find out even more about the deacon we need to look to the aliens expanded universe at the Dark Horse crossover event fire and stone that featured interlinking comics under the titles aliens predator ABP and Prometheus the Deacon was last seen on film in the year 20 93 and the comics would make a return mission to lb 2 to 3 and 20 to 19 a hundred and 26 years later the series was originally intended to showcase the Deacons while still throwing Xenomorphs into the mix but Fox chose to hold back on the usage of the Deacon with the Prometheus sequel still in the works there was a cover image - predator fire in stone number one that did feature the Deacons but it was changed before the comic was released when we look at fire and stone prometheus issue one we see alien monkeys that have a distinct deacon look to them and in the second issue we see alien sharks that are also likely derived from the deccan moving ahead to aliens fire and stone issue one we see a mountain with Peaks that look like the heads of Deacons or some other accelerant type growth later on in aliens issue for Francis a survivor on the moon is desperately trying to hide from the aliens in the engineers he ends up finding a prebuilt shelter in a cave on that same mountain here he would perform experiments with the black substance along with study in the environment where he would notice that the mountain itself was getting bigger he would even say that he believes that the mountain is protecting him from the alien threats here on the moon the last reference would appear in the finale of the series with fire and stone Prometheus Omega the crew on LV 2 to three had been researching a signal of human origin coming from inside the mountain and here in this issue they find out that it's actually coming from the prometheus ship itself they would use the mining vessel auditor to drill into the side of the mountain yet once inside they would hit a river of acid until it dawns on Elden their mutated synthetic that the mountain is in fact alive he notes that whatever it is must have been on whaling ship and has now grown up around it due to the accelerant it evolved to fast like the mutated Queen that Roux so large it became stuck inside the auditor itself according to Eldon the creature would be a prisoner of its own flesh and I think it's important to note that in this series even the Xenomorphs that come into contact with the black ooze mutate to horrible and tragic results it would seem that by Eldon's own explanation that the original Deacon either by its creation using the goo or exposure to it after its birth was affected by the black catalyst substance causing it to grow without limits leading to the formation of this mountain shaped giant alien with their ship damaged the team is now trapped inside the Deccan Mountain so Eldon would allow himself to join or more likely get absorbed by the Deacon giving him a brief moment to control it enough to allow for an opening for people to escape so yeah in the comics the deccan is a mountain a case of the black substance continuing to mutate out of control now I give the writers at Dark Horse props for going outside of the box here and taking a risk with the mountain Deacon but in the end I think the idea just doesn't work for me but perhaps it was the only way to sneak a deacon back into the comic after the Foxx decision as they weren't even able to use the name deacon in the series still I can't help but laugh when thinking about it and I would have been happier if they remove the Deacon altogether if they couldn't get Fox to allow its inclusion luckily for us at the end of the comic series the writers would explain their original intentions with the Deacons first off we were gonna have a pet a ring-tailed cat that would likely become infected by a deacon giving us this adorable monstrosity so right off I have to pause right here this would mean that the Deacons in the series would have evolved or somehow adapted a more Xena like life cycle giving us a deacon facehugger per se so that it could impregnate its hosts and create more deacons the film version of the Deacon may have been capable of this but all we know is how it was made which again was a complex setup I guess it's also possible that the creatures were simply exposed to the black substance thusly turning them into deacons but in the final comic the GU has a much more damaging effect even on the xenos the original story would have featured two different Deacon types a human and an engineer with this concept art image giving us examples of the human versions here we have some examples of different head variants along with the curious addition an attack tongue on film we didn't see if the Deacon had this hidden inside his mouth except the twist is that it would have opened horizontally instead of opening vertically there were even unused concepts of Deacons with translucent skulls like big chaps along with other images showing bits of clear armor on the alien yet to me the most fascinating part of the unused concept art is this chart shown here where we would see the height differences of an engineer deacon and two stages of the human Deacon as compared to humans and engineers showing us that here even the human deacons would have been huge starting off bigger than a human and growing up to be as tall as the 9-foot engineers even more impressive would have been a deacon from an engineer which when full-grown would stand at anywhere from 10 to 12 feet tall just look at how impressive one would look standing next to a mocked up engineer so how does the deacon fit into the lineage of the xenomorph well that's a tough question when looking at prometheus and alien covenant it looks like the first xeno type alien that we know of was made from the black substance by the engineers and not by David he only modified them although it is his strain that we see in the four main films the Deacon is also derived from this substance with a few different steps so it does have a connection to the xenomorph in that aspect it would appear to me that the accelerant will tend toward certain traits when used traits like elongated skulls similar skin types the structure and layout of the skeleton along with a trademark set of extra extendable jaws some of these characteristics were even showing up in Fifield even more so in the concept images in my opinion this puts the deacon in the early part of the family tree of the xenomorph although it's on a side branch in between the alien from the altar mural and the proto xenomorph from alien covenant so what are your thoughts on the Deacon from prometheus do you like the mountain twist in the comics or is it a bit too far would you like to see them get more fleshed out in the expanded universe as firing stone tried to do in my opinion it really is too bad that they were cut out as they would have been a formidable version of the alien I'd love to hear your comments and questions down below and as always thanks for watching

Channel: SciFi Explained

Views: 1,045,833

Keywords: deacon, deacon alien, deacon xenomorph, deacon explained, deacon xenomorph explained, deacon after prometheus, prometheus, prometheus alien, proto xenomorph, what is the deacon, ultramorph, carlos huante, ridley scott, scifi explained, alien, aliens, xeno, alien explained, aliens explained, alien covenant, neomorph, fire and stone comics, aliens fire and stone, avp fire and stone, prometheus omega

Id: YBdTGCChJlY

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2020