Mala'kak

"We call them Engineers.''" "Do you mind telling us what they engineered?" ''"They engineered us."

- Elizabeth Shaw and Rafe Millburn talking about Mala'kaks

The Mala'kaks (Latin: Mundus gubernavi, meaning "Universal Pilot"); also known as the Engineers, Ossians, "Pilots", and more commonly as "Space Jockeys"; are an elusive race of large, sapient, extraterrestrial lifeforms, most notable for experimenting on Xenomorph species. Individual Space Jockeys have been observed to vary in appearance as well as abilities.

Biology
Members of this species are tall humanoids, standing over 3 meters in height, and their biology appears to differ radically across individuals, to the point that the "Space Jockey" phenomenon may actually consist of at least two separate species. The first, consisting on the so-called "Engineers", are pale-skinned, hairless humanoids with an imposing physique and glossy black eyes, but otherwise extremely similar to Humans, which with they are genetically related, as they're believed to be the progenitors of the Human race, and possibly others. Their appearance, however, is usually concealed within an exoskeletal suit that makes them appear as a much more alien creature with external ribcages and what appears to be an elephantine trunk or proboscis running from the face to the chest (possibly some sort of breathing apparatus).

The second type of Space Jockey, which has been observed less frequently, organically resembles the exoskeletal suits worn by the Engineers. These creatures have an alien-looking face complete with an elephantine proboscis. This second type has also been demonstrated to possess telepathic abilities, as they can read the minds of other species, including even synthetics.

The relationship between these two types of Space Jockeys is not known, and it seems unlikely that they may represent different castes or mutations. Instead, the radical divergence in their biology implies that they're actually separate races, which adds to the possibility that the elephantine telepathic Jockeys may have been the progenitors and/or sponsors of the human-like Engineers, explaining why the latter would wear suits that make them look like the former. This, however, is mere speculation and the two kinds have never been seen together.

Relationship with other races
Little is known of this race, though it is now known that they possibly created the Xenomorphs - or more specifically, a mutagenic substance that could have led to the creation of the Xenomorphs - and have the same DNA as Humans, proving that they had a hand in their creation as well. It is also possible that, rather than one creating the other, they lived alongside the Xenomorphs. This is supported by the images of what appear to be Xenomorphs featured on the walls of the temples on LV-223, suggesting that they already knew of, and may have somewhat respected or even worshiped the Xenomorphs. The mutagenic substance, the design of their suits and ships, could have all been derived by experiments on the Xenomorphs.

The Yautjas; better known as "Predators", use Xenomorphs for hunting, and it appears that the Predators have had direct and violent contact with the Space Jockey race, either fighting or hunting them. This appears to be the case because of a Space Jockey skull featured in the trophy room of a Predator's scout ship. Whether the Predators found the Xenomorphs on their own (unlikely to have been on LV-426, or they would have taken care of the eggs), received them from the Jockeys, or discovered them in some other way, is still a matter of speculation. Odds are that they discovered them on their own, because they would likely have eliminated the entire species if the Jockeys had control over the Xenomorphs.

It should be noted that the Jockey, Human, and Predator races share similar basic morphology. Despite their many differences, all are upright, bipedal humanoids. It is believed due to circumstantial evidence that the Predators and the Space Jockeys have existed for millions of years, as Predators have been shown to have skulls of dinosaurs adorning their trophy walls. The Space Jockey body found on the derelict ship on LV-426 in 2122 had already begun to fossilize, and the presence of the Jockey skull in the same trophy room, while not proving it, does support the theory that they are of ancient age.

When a Jockey is impregnated by a Xenomorph a giant Xenomorph emerges known as a "Jock-Alien". It seems to have no clear alliance with anything, including other Xenomorphs, which will attack it on sight. It is brown in color, the tail has what appear to be holes in it, and it has short dorsal spines compared to other aliens and to the spines in ratio to their body.

Technology
The Space Jockeys are clearly a technologically powerful, space-faring race of advanced age. How the Yautjas, the other known interstellar race, developed their capacity for space travel is still not known, but some evidences indicate that the advanced Human technology seen in the late 21st century and beyond, including FTL travel and Atmosphere Processing, is a direct result of studying Yautja technology that found its way up on Earth in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The cargo hold of the Space Jockey's ship found on LV-426 was filled with ovomorphs (the first stage in the Xenomorph life cycle), which were held in stasis beneath a blue electrical mist. How much the Space Jockeys were involved in the creation of the Xenomorphs (assuming the Xenomorphs didn't evolve naturally) is a subject that has been debated for years, but it seems that they at least studied them and transported them within their ships for unknown purposes.

History
The Engineers are believed to be an extremely ancient species, and the evidence suggests that they have seeded the oceans of primitive worlds, such as the Earth, with their own DNA, to create new races; although they were later dissatisfied with their own creations and planned to employ the Black Liquid as a biological weapon to destroy them. This plan never came to fruition, as the Engineers themselves fell victim to the Black Liquid on LV-223, a moon of the gas giant Calpamos, in the Zeta Reticuli System.

In 2093, the USCSS Prometheus expedition landed on LV-223 and found what looked like a temple. While the research team explored the corridors of the temple, they found the body of an Engineer decapitated by a stone door. The android, David, opens the door revealing a giant, stone head resembling that of a Human. Metal containers holding a black gooey substance surround the head. Dr. Shaw and Ford recover the head of the Engineer and take it back to the Prometheus. David secretly takes one of the canisters back to the ship. Using 3D imaging resembling a CT scan, it is revealed that the helmet still contains a well-preserved head. After the helmet is subsequently opened, the crew members are shocked to see how Human-like the being is.

It is later shown that the black goo is some form of biological weapon that merges with the genetic material of living hosts to give life to new types of creatures, first using native worms to gestate a couple of superficially snake-like creatures that kill two of the crew members. The black goo also infects two members of the crew directly, although the end result is never witnessed. It is also sexually transmitted from the body of Charles Holloway (who had been infected purposefully by David) to Elizabeth Shaw, although the pathogen didn't actually infect Shaw, but merely gestated inside her womb, giving birth to a giant mutant creature known as the Trilobite.

David heads back to the ship and discovers that one of the Engineers is alive in hyper sleep. Peter Weyland is revealed to be alive still (having used a hologram earlier to suggest to the crew he had been dead for years already) and is taken to the ship to communicate with it. After waking, the Engineer rips David's head off and knocks the others away. Weyland dies slowly from the impact next to David's head.

The hostile being then reactivates the ship and prepares to finish his 2,000 year old mission by destroying Earth with the black biological substance. The ship is brought down and crashes into the planet's surface after the captain of the Prometheus sets the Humans' ship on a suicidal collision course. The Engineer is revealed to be still alive and determined to kill Elizabeth Shaw. Before succeeding, she opens the maid's room revealing a now monster-sized Trilobite, matured into something similar to a large facehugger. The giant Trilobite overpowers the Engineer and forcefully implants an embryo down its throat, which develops as the endoparasitoid Deacon, killing its host as it emerges from his chest cavity, much like a Xenomorph chestburster. It's not known whether the Deacon incorporates genetic material from its host, like the Xenomorph, but assuming it does, the unseen adult Deacon might be a huge creature, due to its Engineer heritage.

About a year later, the android David (having hijacked an Engineer ship along with Dr. Shaw, who reattached his severed head to his body) arrived at the unnamed "Planet 4", which he believed to be the Engineers' homeworld, and used the Black Liquid to exterminate an entire settlement of Engineers. He later studied their anatomy, and might have used them in his biological research by combining different organisms, creating a batch of Xenomorph eggs.

In 2122, the USCSS Nostromo landed on another moon of Calpamos, LV-426, where crew members Dallas, Lambert and Kane encountered the body of a Space Jockey and realized that it had been responsible for broadcasting the signal that led them to the derelict ship. They also noticed that its chest appeared to have been burst open from the inside. Presumably the creature was infected by a Xenomorph facehugger, which resulted in the birth of a chestburster alien. Before dying, the creature broadcast the signal to warn anyone who passed by of the danger.

Appearances

 * Alien (1979) (first appearance; deceased specimen only)
 * Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) (skull only)
 * Prometheus (2012)
 * Alien: Covenant (2017)