The Monstrefact: Alien, Part 2 - The Black Goo

dash fifteen. In its purest form, this so called black goo does in fact resemble a viscous tar like material or liquid. Human explorers first discovered the substance amid the ruins of an engineer outpost on the planet designated LV two twenty three. They found the gou and core TETs of glass like vials secured in steatide ampules or urns. The engineers had secured it there like a precious treasure, like the remains of the dead, like a devastating bioweapon,

the pinnacle of the engineer's advanced biotechnology. We can even think of Agent A zero thirty nine to fifty nine x point ninety one slash fifteen as a kind of biological AI that reprograms everything it touches, perhaps following specific instructions, general directions, or left entirely to its own generative impulses.

As revealed in the film's Prometheus and Alien Covenant, and as discussed in Freely Publishing's Alien RPG, the black Goo aggressively recodes DNA, rapidly transforming individual organisms, species, and entire ecosystems. When exposed to the atmosphere, it atomizes and spreads as an aeros but may also be further manipulated in liquid form if handled with proper expertise. High level exposure to

the substance generally spells instant death for organic beings. Select engineers are thought to have ritualistically ingested the substance in its pure concentrated liquid form to seed new worlds, allowing the black Good to rapidly break down their bodies and spin new life forms out of the genetic pieces. Likewise, when weaponized, aerial bombardments of the steatide ampules quickly lay waste to entire populations, finally twisting the life forms at

the peripheries of the attack into dangerous new creatures. At lower exposure levels, the black Goose steadily mutates human beings into zombie like forms known as abominations, noted for their increasingly aggressive behavior, enhance strength, elongated limbs, and swelling craniums. They are also able to pass on their rampage in genetics through different infection routes, as will explore in the

next episode. It's impossible to know exactly how the engineers regarded the black Goo, but we might best understand it, like many forms of technology, as having tremendous potential to destroy or create. It can enable the seating of whole new worlds with the divergent genes of a single donor. But it can also be a weapon of terrifying power, wiping out most life on a world and reprogramming the surviving biome into aggressive monstrosities that steadily grind all life

to its end. But let's set aside metaphors and interpretations and consider a few additional takes on black goo. With all of these extraterrestrial horrors now running through your brain, you might find it a bit unnerving to realize that here on Earth, outside of the sci fi horrors of the alien franchise. We actually do have to contend with strange black goo within the buried creations of ancient civilizations.

As Kate Fulcher reported for the British Museum back in twenty twenty, the goo in question here would have been poured warm into the caskets of mummified individuals, effectively cementing their linen wrapped mummy cases into the encasing casket. Museum scientists analyzed more than one hundred samples of the now long dried gou and determined that while the exact ingredients varied, the main components tended to be plant oil, animal fat, tree resin, beeswax, and bitumen, a viscous or solid form

of petroleum. Egyptian black gou was reserved for royalty and those rich enough to afford the very best in their funerary preparations. We've even found the stuff on the golden mask of Tutin Common. According to Fulcher, its pitch black color was associated with mythic osiris and concepts of rebirth and regeneration. It's clear that a certain amount of Egyptomania

went into conceptions of the engineers. It even goes all the way back to artist hr Giger's late seventies concept art for Alien, which includes a hieroglyphic inspired alien life cy called Tableau. Look it up, and it makes sense in later ruminations of the franchise that filmmakers might have found inspiration in the real life black Goo of Egyptology. It's rather fitting, after all, given that the ancient Egyptians seemed to have viewed the journey into the next life

as something cosmic and transformative. There's sarcophagus in many ways like a cryo chamber, and monstrous entities like Ahmet awaiting the passage of the dead. Black Goo has, of course, another larger life in sci fi in general, sometimes as a catch all name for just black inky evil, or other times more specifically as a self replicating meta material

graphene oxide. Jason Kahey profiled the notion in a twenty twenty two article for Wired Magazine, drawing on sci fi usages of the stuff on TV's Westworld and TV's Severance, and if we go wider than that, he points out, we see dangerous black goos in the original X File,

as well as in Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Elsewhere, we've watched it drip onto Gary Olben's head in the Fifth Element and Yes, the low budget nineteen eighty five alien knockoff Creature features a scene in which the stuff leaks from an alien tube shortly before a monster breaks out of it. What is Marvel's venom but a slightly more stylish black goo, and the Sorcerer egg Shin in Big Trouble and Little China warned us, matter of factly, not of oil, but

of the black blood of the Earth. The examples are endless, though they often betray a Western prevalence for the negative connotations of the color black, which dates back through the Middle Ages and into humoral theory with its black bile. But black also represented power in secrecy during this time period as well. Colors are in the end multipurpose, culturally

dependent and based on context. The color black may be invoked to convey everything from darkness and mystery to beauty and power, and when we combine all of that with gooiness, well, visually there just seems to be something otherworldly about black goo, and so it's the perfect visual manifestation of the underlying power in the alien universe, a kind of anti blood and anti seed. As dark as the spaces between the stars.

Tune in for additional episodes of the Monster Fact each week, especially as we roll through the various creatures of the alien Universe. More episodes of the Artifact and Animalias Stupendium will return on Wednesdays after that. Thanks to the excellent JJ Possway for producing this episode, and as always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.