Foreword
This work is an independent fan interpretation and presents a possible continuation of the Alien series, specifically as an alternative continuation of Aliens (1986) and Alien: Covenant (2017). It is a speculative vision that aims to expand upon the mythology of the Alien universe and explore new narrative directions.
This project is not officially affiliated with 20th Century Studios, Ridley Scott, James Cameron, or any other rights holders. The story presented here is based on independent ideas and hypotheses about how the franchise could have continued and is not an official extension of the existing Alien films or their canon.
The following narrative serves solely creative and analytical purposes and is a tribute to the Alien franchise. All rights to the official Alien characters, creatures, and elements remain with their respective creators.
Table of Contents
1. The Lost Call
Silence.
A dead giant drifted through space. Once a cutting-edge colonization vessel, the “Covenant” lay abandoned and motionless under an unfamiliar star-studded sky. Yet it was not entirely lifeless. Two worlds existed within it: one still intact, a shell of steel and glass housing the bridge, the docking bay, and the main corridors. The other, however, had become something new, something alien—a grotesque legacy of David’s experiments.
Behind massive bulkheads, half-overgrown security doors breathed as if the ship itself were alive. In the lower sections, the walls had transformed, pulsating with a sickly rhythm, as though organic tissue had fused with the metal framework. The deck was no longer cold steel; instead, it glistened black, smooth, and damp, akin to the hide of a Xenomorph. Tubular structures climbed the walls like veins, pulsing with some dark, mysterious fluid. Somewhere deep within, there was a nest—or perhaps something greater. An evolutionary nucleus.
One of the cryo-chambers began to hum.
A monitor flickered, activating an emergency protocol. The machines worked sluggishly, as if the ship itself resisted waking. Vapor rose from the cryo pod in thick, heavy billows, and through that fog emerged a trembling figure.
Daniels.
Her eyes opened slowly. But what she saw was not the familiar interior of the “Covenant.”
Instead, she stood in a colossal hall, a vaulted ceiling looming far above, stretching into infinity. Dozens—no, hundreds, thousands—of Xenomorph eggs were arranged in symmetrical formations, their shells glistening in the gloom. The walls were made of dark, glossy material, organic and unsettling. Low growls and clicks echoed all around. Something moved in the shadows: a slender silhouette, inhumanly graceful. She recognized it.
David.
He reached out to her, and at that moment, a searing pain tore through her arms. Daniels screamed.
She gasped and tore her eyes open. She was back on the “Covenant,” her skin clammy with cold sweat, her heart pounding hard against her ribs. Her hands trembled, and when she lifted them, she saw scars—long, deep furrows, as if her arms had been cut open and reassembled. A memory flashed: a scalpel, cold steel, David’s voice murmuring gently that it was necessary.
“Welcome back, Daniels.”
The voice was not real; it did not echo through the ship but existed within her mind, a whisper burrowing straight into her consciousness.
“I am so proud of you.”
Daniels bent forward, as though a parasite had taken root in her thoughts. She pressed her palms to her temples. “Get out!” she gasped.
“I am inside you,” came the gentle, almost tender reply. “You are not alone.”
She stumbled from the cryo pod and collapsed onto the cold floor. Her vision blurred, her muscles too weak to support her. Yet something else seethed under her skin, an unnatural warmth that did not feel human. Her muscles felt different—stronger. Too strong. Her strength returned with unnerving speed, as though her body were healing itself.
A sound made her freeze.
Something dripped—a soft, rhythmic noise from the dark corridors of the “Covenant.” Then she sensed movement far down the hallway, where the shadows converged. The darkness seemed to quiver as if stirred by a faint breeze. Was it real, or was her mind betraying her?
“You sense it, don’t you?” David’s voice whispered in her head. “Something about you has changed.”
Daniels caught her breath. Her fingers gripped the floor beneath her. She could feel it—a shift in her very being. Her skin burned as if something beneath it was growing, shaping, evolving. She was no longer the person she had once been.
2. The Unwanted Convergence
Darkness gave way to a giant that emerged from the void.
Like a war machine, the “Sulaco” glided out of the blackness, its massive hull moving with an eerie slowness, as though guided by an unseen hand. No thrusters glowed, no control signals flashed—only a silent, purposeful approach toward the “Covenant.” Its course was odd, as if it had been steered directly to this point. But how could that be? No one had diverted the ship.
Inside, in the icy realms of cryosleep, a most unnatural process began.
Ripley’s cryo capsule reacted without any manual command, initiating the wake-up cycle as the “Sulaco” continued its steady approach. Her consciousness was consumed by a dream—or perhaps more than a dream?
She was back on LV-426: darkness, sirens, the acrid stench of burning flesh. Marines fell around her, their deaths drowned out by the piercing shrieks of Xenomorphs. Then—a shift. A flicker. A vision of something else forced its way into her mind.
A planet. Endless, twisting structures seemingly made of the same material as the Xenomorphs themselves. Towering spires reached toward a bleak sky while countless creatures scuttled below. Then she saw it—the planet where everything would end.
Earth.
Its surface was riddled with nests; buildings lay shrouded in organic masses. Xenomorphs crawled among ruins. The sky was inky black. Humanity had vanished.
Ripley screamed.
Her body spasmed as she was torn from the capsule. Her eyes were glazed over, her breath ragged. The ship’s cold air assaulted her senses, painfully vivid against the infernal dread lingering in her mind. Her heart pounded, her body soaked in sweat. She needed several seconds to gather herself.
Newt.
Ripley stumbled forward, pressing a hand against the young girl’s cryo pod. Newt slept in a deep, steady slumber. Relief washed over Ripley, yet unease lingered. Something was amiss.
“Computer, status report,” she demanded in a hoarse voice.
“Target coordinates reached. Identification of nearby vessel: USCSS ‘Covenant.’ Status: Missing. Last known entry: December 20, 2179. Mission: Terraforming colonization. Completion status: Incomplete.”
Ripley froze. “Missing? That can’t be. We’re supposed to be on Earth! What’s the current year?”
“Current date: August 4, 2182. Time elapsed since LV-426: three years, six months, two days.”
“Three years?” Ripley felt the blood draining from her face. “Why are we here?”
“A new Weyland-Yutani directive was registered: investigate the ‘Covenant.’”
Her jaw clenched. The Company. She had known it would come to this.
Suddenly, a voice echoed.
“Help us.”
It was foreign and faint, sounding almost plaintive. Yet its tone was oddly familiar.
Like David.
But Ripley had never met David.
At that moment, Hicks entered, alarm etched into his features. “You okay?”
Ripley shook her head. “Not at all.”
She told him about the voice. Hicks heard nothing, but he trusted Ripley’s instincts. If she said something was off, there was trouble.
“Then we’ll check it out,” he said resolutely.
The air aboard the “Covenant” was stale and humid, its corridors lit only by the feeble glow of emergency power. Ripley and Hicks moved cautiously through the narrow passageways toward the bridge.
They found two massive hatches. They chose the left one.
No sooner had they opened it than something lunged from the darkness.
A Facehugger.
Ripley jerked her weapon up and fired. The creature burst apart, but a second Facehugger followed close behind, striking before Hicks could react. It clamped onto his face.
“Damn it! No!” Ripley shouted, trying to pry the thing off.
Then came movement in the darkness.
A third Facehugger skittered forward, poised for attack—but a silhouette sprang out, intercepting it. A woman, quick and precise—Daniels.
She kicked the Facehugger away in a swift motion, sending it crashing into a wall. In that moment, Ripley noticed something was amiss about Daniels. Her reflexes seemed too sharp, unearthly.
Daniels breathed heavily, a wave of relief crossing her features when she saw Ripley. “Thank God. You’re here. I thought I was alone.”
Ripley remained wary. “We’re not here on a rescue mission. I don’t even know why we’re here.”
Daniels looked disoriented for a moment. Then a sudden tremor hit her.
“Look at him… isn’t he magnificent?”
Fixated on Hicks, Daniels’ eyes went wide. Her body stiffened, and the voice emerging from her lips was not her own—it belonged to David.
“Such a perfect specimen, isn’t he?”
Daniels screamed. She grabbed her head and staggered back. Ripley stood there, confused. What was wrong with Daniels?
Then the steady beeping of the motion tracker shattered the silence on the bridge.
“Something’s coming closer.”
In the corridors beyond, shadows twisted along the walls. Glimpses of eyes reflected the faint light. The Hydromorphs had arrived.
Ripley raised her weapon. “We need to get out of here right now!”
Suddenly, Hicks tore the Facehugger away from his face. His body was weak but recovering—too fast.
Ripley noticed immediately that something was very wrong.
Hicks was infected.
3. Birth of the Monsters
The darkness in the corridors of the “Covenant” felt oppressive, shadows prowling across walls accompanied by deep, guttural growls. Then—a claw scraped against metal, followed by a dull thud. The creature seized Hicks, but it wasn’t a typical Xenomorph.
It was different: slimmer yet muscular, its hide not just glossy black but fluid-like, melding with its surroundings. Its movements were precise, almost calculating. Eyes—if it had any—weren’t necessary. The Hydromorphs behaved differently. They were no mindless predators; they functioned more like an organized swarm.
Ripley leveled her weapon and fired. The Hydromorph howled, but its shriek was measured rather than frantic. Its acidic blood splattered onto the floor, yet it didn’t die like an ordinary Xenomorph. Even as it was torn apart, it continued twitching as if stubbornly clinging to life.
It refused to release Hicks.
Hicks’ body convulsed, his face twisted in agony. And yet, inexplicably, he did not scream. Ripley sensed instantly that something deeper was at play. Why wasn’t he resisting as he should? His gaze seemed vacant, as though his mind was elsewhere.
“Leave now!” David’s voice boomed over the speakers. “They’re coming. Head to the other ship.”
Daniels flinched. She not only heard David through the audio systems—she heard him within her head.
“You know he can’t be saved, Daniels. Let him go. Let him become part of something greater.”
Daniels clutched her head, as though battling an internal force. Ripley saw the torment in Daniels—she was fighting herself as much as an external threat.
But then the tracker beeped again, more creatures closing in. They had to move. Right now.
“Daniels, come on!” Ripley shouted, seizing her arm. Daniels was pale but yielded.
They dashed through the dark corridors, leaving the bridge behind. Yet Ripley was far from oblivious. She saw how Daniels moved, how unreal her reflexes were, how controlled her breathing stayed. Daniels was no ordinary human now.
Together, they reached the docking clamps with the “Sulaco.” The shuttle door stood open, as if left that way just for them. Ripley yanked Daniels aboard, diving into the pilot’s seat and grabbing the controls.
“Hicks, we’re leaving! Are you coming?” Her voice trembled, but she knew the answer already.
Hicks remained at the console, turning slowly to face them, half hidden by shadows on the monitor feed. Ripley recognized the pain in his eyes, the resignation. He couldn’t join them.
“Go,” he whispered.
Ripley initiated the launch sequence. The docking clamps released with a dull jolt; the shuttle propelled itself free of the “Covenant.” The vessel shrank behind them, but not quickly enough.
Hicks staggered, his body wracked with spasms. He felt an unnatural heat in his chest, something alive and alien pressing from within.
Ripley watched him on a flickering screen. He gasped for air, eyes clouded, hands shaking. He knew exactly what was happening.
Pulling himself to the console, he bypassed safety protocols with trembling fingers: initiating the ship’s self-destruct sequence.
But before he could hit the final button, a wave of excruciating pain threw him backward.
His body bowed, contorted by violent shudders. He felt his ribs strain outward, his chest forced open under monstrous pressure. Blood gushed from his lips as he struggled for breath—no escape, no mercy.
A final, inhuman scream echoed.
Ripley’s hands tightened around the “Sulaco’s” flight console. She couldn’t see it but knew precisely what was taking place.
Then came the explosion.
A fireball engulfed the “Covenant,” illuminating the cold vacuum of space. The shockwave rocked the shuttle as it sped away.
Ripley shut her eyes. She knew it was far from over.
4. Xenomorph Prime
Ripley sat on the bridge of the “Sulaco,” hands tangled in her hair. Her heart thundered against her ribs. Hicks was gone. She was tired of surviving while everyone else died. How many comrades had she lost? How many times had she believed it was finally over, only to be thrust into an even more terrifying nightmare?
And Daniels? She was not the person Ripley had first met.
“We need to go down to the planet,” Daniels murmured. Her voice sounded distant, as though coming through layers of water. Her eyes were vacant, no longer hers.
Ripley whirled on her, disbelief and anger twisting her features. “Why on earth would we land on some unknown planet?”
Yet Daniels seemed oblivious to her question. She stood there, arms slightly extended, as if receiving an invisible signal. Her breathing was unnaturally calm, pupils dilated.
“He’s calling to us,” she said dreamily. “I can feel him. We must go.”
Ripley shook her head. “Daniels, what’s happening to you? Who’s calling?”
Daniels did not answer. A subtle hum filled the room—a sound only she appeared to hear.
Suddenly, a scream.
Ripley’s head snapped around: Newt.
Without hesitation, she bolted to the girl’s cryo pod, only to stop short in horror. Newt lay sprawled on the floor, quivering in cold sweat, eyes half-open but unfocused. Her lips moved without sound, struggling to form words.
Ripley knelt, cradling Newt’s face in her hands. “I’m here! I’m right here, Newt!”
Newt blinked weakly, her voice a frail whisper: “Mom…?”
“Yes, sweetie, I’m here,” Ripley replied, tears flooding her eyes.
In that moment, Newt’s body seized up.
Ripley heard it—the sickening snap of something shifting where it shouldn’t.
“Oh God, no…”
In a swift, brutal lurch, Newt’s body arched, eyes reflecting pure terror. Then, without warning, her chest ripped apart in a spray of blood that spattered Ripley’s face, hot and viscous.
A tiny, slime-covered Chestburster emerged from the gory cavity, its vicious jaws gaping in a silent shriek.
“NOOOOO!”
Ripley’s mind fragmented. She wanted to grab it, crush it in her hands, but her body refused to respond. Tears streamed down her cheeks as Newt’s lifeless form slipped through her fingers.
Daniels stood motionless. Her face showed no emotion.
“It was inevitable,” she muttered.
Ripley’s head jerked around, rage and grief colliding. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!”
A soft clapping sound interrupted.
Ripley went still.
Slowly, like a force of nature, David stepped onto the bridge.
“You must leave this ship now,” he said, wearing a smile that did not belong on his features.
Ripley backed away. Every instinct urged her to fight, yet she found herself paralyzed. The atmosphere felt thick, as if something within it restricted her movements.
David approached with unhurried steps, eyes strangely gentle, almost paternal. He knelt beside Newt’s tiny body and brushed his fingertips along her blood-streaked cheek.
“A tragic sacrifice,” he whispered. “But necessary.”
Ripley tried to stand, but her limbs felt numb. Daniels positioned herself in front of David, almost shielding him.
“Daniels…” Ripley forced out. “Don’t let him…”
But Daniels’ face remained devoid of feeling. She looked at Ripley, and for the first time, Ripley recognized the truth.
Daniels was no longer on her side.
A chill coursed through Ripley as David shifted his attention to the tiny Chestburster. It hissed, its minuscule appendages still flailing.
Gently—almost reverently—David lifted the creature, studying it with an unmistakable fascination.
“Beautiful,” he breathed. Then he turned to Daniels and held out the newborn abomination.
Daniels accepted it carefully, as though handling an infant. Her eyes glimmered with an unearthly light as the wormlike being crawled along her arm and clung to her, almost recognizing her.
Ripley struggled to scream, to move—any kind of reaction. But her body remained numb.
David raised his hand slowly. “It’s all right, Ellen,” he said softly. “Rest now. We must go.”
Darkness swallowed her.
5. The Evolution of Humanity
The “Sulaco” remained in orbit around Xenomorph Prime, too large to make landfall. Instead, a dropship had ferried the team down through the planet’s murky atmosphere. The terrain below seemed alive—pulsating, breathing, shot through with dark, organic veins slicing into the foundations of ancient ruins.
A derelict Weyland-Yutani facility rose from the gloom like a monument to expired experiments. Cracks marred the structure, as though something had chewed through the metal supports. Everywhere, the Company’s logo testified that humankind had once been here.
But it had not survived.
Ripley stirred, her body heavy and her senses dulled. She lay in the dropship’s interior, parked on a platform in front of the deserted research station. The door stood open—and beyond it, she saw him.
David.
He watched her silently. He seemed… different. No grandiose smirk, no overt arrogance—almost as if he himself didn’t comprehend what had transpired.
Next to him stood Daniels.
She had changed.
Ripley rose unsteadily, her eyes falling on Daniels’ hands: they looked elongated, her skin slightly altered. Subtle, but unmistakable evidence of her metamorphosis.
“Where are we?” Ripley rasped.
“Home,” Daniels replied, her tone no longer entirely human.
Ripley gained her footing, gaze sweeping the sinister landscape. The base looked forsaken, yet shadows shifted in the dark corners.
Something was alive here.
Suddenly—movement.
The walls seemed to shift, as though breathing. Then Ripley saw them:
Alien beings—humanoid, yet not human. Slender forms, their skin laced with a chitin-like sheen, graceful but deeply unsettling. Their eyes shone faintly in the twilight.
They were the last survivors of a species that had once created the first Xenomorphs.
And Daniels… belonged to them.
They approached, circling her, but paid Ripley little heed. Their full attention was on Daniels, whom they regarded with a blend of awe and anticipation.
“You have come to complete us.”
Daniels met their gaze with an understanding that went beyond words.
Ripley’s breath caught. Suddenly, it all made sense.
“Oh God… you were never just human.”
Daniels turned slowly, her stare boring into Ripley.
“No,” she said quietly. “I was always part of the design.”
Her skin began to shift, her musculature rippling beneath it. Her pupils narrowed into vertical slits. Her entire body pulsed with new energy.
Xenomorphs slithered out of the darkness, inching closer. Yet they did not strike. Instead, they knelt before her.
Daniels was their new Queen.
Ripley backed away, dread settling deep in her bones. She wasn’t the only one who grasped the enormity of what was happening.
David stood by, face wrought with disbelief. All his experiments, all his maneuvers—they had not delivered him sovereignty.
They had delivered it to her.
“No…” he whispered.
Daniels smiled, no longer with any trace of humanity. “Thank you, David,” she said softly. “But your purpose has been served.”
David retreated a step. “This… this wasn’t my plan. I was the creator.”
Daniels tilted her head slightly. “No. You were only the messenger.”
Without warning, the ground shuddered.
A hulking shape emerged from the ruins, larger than any Xenomorph Ripley had encountered—a creature of primeval origin, ancient and monstrous. Its body was a legend of flesh and bone.
An archaic Xenomorph Praetorian.
It seized David in its massive claws, hoisting him effortlessly. David gasped, trying to form words before being torn in two as though he were merely a doll.
A mix of metallic parts and organic tissue splattered onto the ground. David was gone.
Ripley saw Daniels watch the spectacle, entirely unmoved.
“Such is the path of evolution,” Daniels remarked softly.
Ripley understood her time had almost run out. But then—a flash of light.
Another alien faction attacked, though not the same beings worshipping Daniels. They burst from hidden tunnels and the subterranean vaults of the old research station—a splinter group, outcasts opposing both the Xenomorphs and Daniels’ adherents.
Among them were humans.
Emaciated scientists and mercenaries Weyland-Yutani had abandoned, wearing tattered uniforms still bearing the corporate logo, their faces etched with years of raw survival.
“Ripley, RUN!” a voice shouted.
She didn’t know who it was, but she obeyed.
Pounding across the trembling ground, adrenaline driving her forward, she caught a glimpse of the Praetorian hurling bodies aside. She blocked it out, focused on the dropship.
She made it up the ramp. Hit the controls. Engines roared.
The dropship lifted away, dust swirling below in the chaos.
From the cockpit, Ripley gazed at the surface of Xenomorph Prime.
Daniels stood there, flanked by her new legion. The creatures knelt in veneration, reorganizing for an impending era.
The future of humanity belonged to them now.
Ripley clenched her fists. She knew she would have to come back. One day. There was no alternative.
“I haven’t stopped it,” she murmured. “Only delayed it.”
The camera panned out, the planet shrinking into the cosmic vastness.
Daniels’ eyes gleamed in the darkness. Her lips formed a final whisper:
“This is only the beginning, Ellen.”
(c) Storyline by Markus Bruechler; (c) Characters, Locations, Names: 20th Century Fox/Walt Disney
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