How 'Alien: Earth' fits into the 'Alien' franchise timeline

But how did Weyland-Yutani even know that the derelict ship with the Xenomorph eggs was out there? And how did they know so much about the Xenomorphs, enough to send a ship out to retrieve it, at the expense of crew and (expensive) cargo? Well, Alien: Earth provides a provisional answer at least. We now know that Weyland-Yutani had sent a scientific research vessel to collect alien specimens, one of which was a Xenomorph. That ship, the Maginot, crashed in Prodigy City on Earth in the year 2120, explaining how Weyland-Yutani knew enough about this species to risk everything to get their hands on one just two years later. Many things have yet to be explained, but we have a general idea from those first two episodes.

What About Prometheus and Alien: Covenant?

But what about Ridley Scott’s prequel films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant? Those films take place in the years 2093 and 2104, respectively. Couldn’t Weyland-Yutani have learned about the Xenomorph from the events depicted in those films? Well, probably not. Most of the crew of the spaceship Prometheus died, except for Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, who did not return to Earth. So the company wouldn’t have had access to their discoveries. As for the events of Covenant, the surviving starship crew from that film was put back into cryogenic freeze by the end of the film. The android David (Michael Fassbender) took control of the ship, with sinister intent. It didn’t seem like he was going to report back to Weyland-Yutani corporate office at that point.

There’s also one other possible contradiction with the Prometheus/Covenant timeline of events. Those movies suggest that the synth David is the one who created the Xenomorphs we know from the original films. However, even Prometheus sheds doubt on that notion. We see that in the Engineers’ ship, there’s an ancient mural featuring the Xenomorph. That means a version of that species existed long before David, probably millions of years earlier. He was just attempting to make his own version of that “perfect organism.” The aliens discovered by the crew in Alien: Earth are likely not related at all to the ones David created out in space. So Alien: Earth doesn’t really connect to Ridley Scott’s prequels, but doesn’t outright contradict them either. At least not yet. We’ll see what the future holds as the events of Alien: Earth continue to unfold.

Alien: Earth is now dropping new episodes on FX, and streaming on FX on Hulu.