Everyone knows that before the Nostromo was sent to investigate a downed alien spacecraft, nobody on Earth had ever been impregnated with the chest-bursting Xenomorphs. But what the forthcoming prequel TV series Alien: Earth presupposes is, maybe the aliens came to Earth first. A new synopsis for the upcoming Noah Hawley sci-fi series seems to suggest that we need to throw out everything we knew — or at least assumed — about the xenomorph timeline.
But in making a radical change in the general perception of the origin of the Xenomorphs, Alien: Earth might be smartly simplifying everything about this often-confusing sci-fi timeline. Here’s why this Alien prequel is probably doing everyone a favor by making a subtle change that might not be a change at all.
What is the plot of Alien: Earth?
After FX released a 15-second teaser for Alien: Earth, a new synopsis emerged, reported by Bloody Disgusting and other outlets. Here’s officially what the show is all about:
“When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat.”
Putting the possible “face-to-face” pun aside (face, huggers?) this synopsis can really only mean one thing. Some version of the titular alien xenomorph from the rest of the Alien franchise will find its way to Earth and almost certainly terrorize everyone involved. Oddly, although the various Alien films have shown humans running for their lives from Xenomorphs before, the only entries in the franchise that have had them on Earth were the largely non-canonical films Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem.
So, in a sense, bringing the Xenomorphs to Earth in a real-deal Alien movie is fairly novel. But this decision does present some slightly tricky timeline problems.
Will Alien: Earth break the timeline?
Because Alien: Earth will take place in the late 21st century (our future!) some might say this means it must collide with Prometheus continuity, which establishes that Weyland Corp sent out a ship to search for the creators of all life. Prometheus mostly happens in 2093 while Alien: Earth is thought to take place in 2092-ish (or 30 years before Alien). In terms of our xenomorph knowledge, the events of Prometheus reveal one form of a xenomorph seemingly created by accident and a host of unused xenomorph materials. In the sequel, Alien: Covenant, we learn that the rogue android David from the crew of the Prometheus went on to create (or perhaps reverse engineer) what we think of as the classic xenomorph creature.
But even if you’ve followed the topsy-turvy retcons of those two prequel movies, almost none of that continuity mattered for the new midquel Alien: Romulus, nor does it necessarily follow that David is the sole creator of the Xenomorphs. Instead, as Alien: Earth showrunner Noah Hawley said earlier this year, the xenomorph is the “product of millions of years of evolution.” This implies that anything David did in the two prequel movies was to simply recreate an already existing organism.
So if that’s the case, and David is already in space — or getting ready to go to space — during the events of Alien: Earth, then it seems this prequel series found a smart way around any canon contradictions. “The Company” didn’t learn about the Xenomorphs from David or anything connected to the Prometheus continuity. Seemingly, they learned about Xenomorphs because the aliens crash-landed on Earth in the 2090s.
