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The whole plot of Covenant seems to hinge on a "singular, random" event, as described by android Walter: a random burst of neutrinos that could not be detected by the ship, that causes the Weyland colonizer ship to stop just nearby the planet where the Weyland's android happens to be cultivating xenomorphs, and waiting for a ride.

I really like this film but I just don't buy it that this was a single random event.

Is it merely coincidence that the mothership with 2000 colonists just happen to pit stop right next to the highly xenomorph-infected planet?

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  • 1
    You don't need to "buy" it. It happened and that's the plot.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 7:52
  • 1
    There were some unconnected sub-questions here that I've edited out.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 7:54
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    Sure, why not. We wouldn't have watched the film if the colony shop had just sailed on by.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 7:55
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    I think a better question might be: "Is there any (cannon?) evidence (from films or books?) that the neutrino blast was anything other than a random event?”.
    – Pam
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 8:27
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    @Pam - Purely for the record, a canon is a body of works from a single source whereas a cannon is a big metal shooty thing that goes "boom!".
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 12:22

1 Answer 1

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All signs point to the phenomenon being natural. David certainly doesn't have the wherewithal to cause a "stellar ignition" from his place on the surface of the nearby planet, nor could he have predicted that this particular ship was passing nearby and that they had just stopped to unfurl their energy collectors at that precise moment.

TENNESSEE: What the hell was it?

WALTER: A highly charged shockwave from a nearby stellar ignition. As the sails were deployed for the refuel, we absorbed the full brunt of the storm. If we had--

Covenant: Screenplay

In the official novelisation, it's described as a 'cloud' of charged particles, one that just happened to be masked by a wide variety of other spacey-wacey stuff that's in the vicinity.

“Sector 106. Very close. Source was masked, hence the unusual—no, extreme proximity prior to discovery. Undetectable earlier due to unique concatenation of spatial and gravitational distortion in the vicinity. Apologies. Initial analysis was insufficient to gauge intensity, as well as proximity. Reappraisal suggests possibility the event could be substantial. Unable at this time to predict risk.”

The system and its surrounds are clogged with crap that's accumulated nearby. Again, there's no sign that this is intentional on anyone's part.

Oram was gratified to be able to interject. “View obviously is blocked from Earth. Dense nebulae, dust cloud, periodic flares screening out the infrared—maybe when the searcher for this sector made its pass, this world was at perihelion, on the opposite side of its star from Earth.

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  • Oh, thanks @Valorum for the official novelisation, very cool indeed. I just found out some clues that it was a deliberate crash: "source was masked". As I explain in my other comment, there could be an arrangement between David and Weyland Corp. (as they were communicating with each other until Shaw and David crashed in the Engineer's planet) so as to make the colonist ship wreck just nearby. Remember Weyland Corp. is just fanatic for breeding xenomorphs.
    – Arc
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 18:01
  • But your answer has some cool information on it, so I upvoted.
    – Arc
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 18:02
  • @Arc - I think you've misunderstood. The source was masked by natural phenomena, not masked deliberately.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 18:18
  • Well I might have been a bit too conspiracist on this one, but I guess Weyland conspiring to evolve xenomorphs is way cooler than David being helped by "chance". I guess we will have to wait some years more to know exactly, now that Disney bought 21th Century, and Ridley's plans were put on hold...
    – Arc
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 19:19
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    +∞ For "spacey-wacey stuff".
    – Lexible
    Commented Jan 14, 2022 at 20:38

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