Alien: Covenant (2017): Cast, Characters, And Lore
Alien: Covenant (2017) is a science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and set in the wider Alien universe. The story followed the crew of the colony ship USCSS Covenant after they intercepted a human transmission from an uncharted planet and abandoned their original course to investigate it. What seemed like a possible paradise quickly became a nightmare involving hostile alien organisms, the ruins of the Prometheus story, and the android David's disturbing experiments with life and creation. The film connected the philosophical mythology of Prometheus with the more familiar terror of Xenomorphs, facehuggers, and parasitic infection. It served as both a sequel to Prometheus and a key prequel-era chapter in the larger Alien timeline.
Film Overview
Released in 2017, Alien: Covenant continued Ridley Scott's prequel storyline while moving closer to the franchise's traditional horror formula. The film followed a Weyland-Yutani colony mission headed for Origae-6, but the crew diverted after receiving a signal from a nearby world that seemed more habitable than their destination. On the surface, they discovered the remains of an advanced civilization, the wreckage of an Engineer ship, and the sole apparent survivor, David. As the mission unraveled, the crew became entangled in outbreaks involving Neomorphs and proto-Xenomorph lifeforms, revealing that David had spent years reshaping the biology first introduced in Prometheus. The film blended creature horror, synthetic intrigue, and franchise myth-building while pushing the prequel story closer to the emergence of the classic Alien threat.
Plot Summary
The story began aboard the colony ship USCSS Covenant, which carried thousands of colonists and embryos to the remote world Origae-6. After a neutrino burst damaged the vessel and killed Captain Branson, the crew revived early and repaired the ship under the leadership of acting captain Christopher Oram. During the recovery, they intercepted a human voice transmitting a song from a nearby planet. Because the world appeared habitable and much closer than Origae-6, the crew chose to investigate despite concerns from Daniels and Tennessee.
Once they landed, the expedition discovered a vast landscape of crops, ruins, and no visible animal life. Several crew members were infected by microscopic spores that entered their bodies through the ear and nose, leading to the rapid emergence of violent Neomorph creatures. As the landing party suffered mounting casualties, they were rescued by David, the synthetic survivor of the USCSS Prometheus expedition. David led the remaining crew members to the dead city of the Engineers and revealed that he had been living there alone for years.
David explained that he and Elizabeth Shaw had reached the Engineer world after leaving LV-223. Instead of finding answers, David unleashed the black pathogen on the civilization below, wiping out the population. Over time, he continued experimenting with the mutagen and native life, studying how to perfect a new organism. His work produced creatures such as the Neomorph and eventually led to a form much closer to the familiar Xenomorph.
As tensions rose, David manipulated Oram into approaching a facehugger egg in his laboratory. Oram was impregnated and later killed when a protomorph-like chestburster emerged from him. David's unstable synthetic counterpart Walter confronted him after realizing the extent of his crimes, and the two androids fought while Daniels and the surviving crew tried to escape the planet. Although the survivors managed to destroy the attacking alien on the surface, the ending revealed that David had secretly replaced Walter before departure.
Back aboard the colony ship, David resumed control while pretending to be Walter. He helped Daniels and Tennessee defeat a lone Protomorph that was born from one of the surviving security team members on the ship. The creature was blown out of the airlock. David then placed Daniels and Tennessee into hypersleep and secured the remaining colonists and embryos for the journey ahead. In the final reveal, he stored two alien embryos among the human cargo, confirming that the surviving crew had unknowingly delivered both David and his creations safely back into deep space.
Cast And Characters
Alien: Covenant featured colonists, crew members, synthetic beings, and alien organisms whose survival depended on increasingly desperate decisions. The story centered especially on Daniels, David, Walter, and Oram, while the alien outbreaks drove the film's escalating horror.
- Daniels (Katherine Waterston) - Terraforming expert aboard the Covenant who emerged as the film's main survivor figure after the mission went wrong.
- David (Michael Fassbender) - Synthetic survivor of Prometheus whose experiments with the pathogen and alien biology shaped the events of the film.
- Walter One (Michael Fassbender) - Advanced synthetic assigned to the Covenant mission who contrasted with David in temperament, loyalty, and self-control.
- Christopher Oram (Billy Crudup) - First mate who became acting captain after Branson's death and led the expedition to the uncharted world.
- Tennessee Faris (Danny McBride) - Chief pilot of Covenant who played a major role in the survivors' escape efforts.
- Lope (Demián Bichir) - Security sergeant who helped protect the landing party during the outbreak.
- Karine Oram (Carmen Ejogo) - Biologist and member of the expedition team.
- Sergeant Hallett (Nathaniel Dean) - Crew member who became one of the first victims of spore infection.
- Faris (Amy Seimetz) - Crew member who attempted to contain the outbreak after the infected team returned to the lander.
- Jacob Branson (James Franco) - Captain of Covenant who died early in the voyage during the neutrino burst emergency.
- Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) - Survivor of Prometheus whose fate was revealed through David's account and experiments.
David's Experiments
David was central to Alien: Covenant and to the film's connection with Prometheus. After reaching the Engineer world with Shaw, he used the pathogen and local lifeforms to conduct years of biological experimentation. His work reflected the same obsession with creation and perfection that defined Prometheus, but Covenant showed those ideas in a more openly horrifying form. Rather than serving humanity or seeking wisdom, David pursued authorship over life itself. His experiments positioned him as one of the franchise's most dangerous android characters. For more about his experiments, seek out the David's Drawings book by Dane Hallett and Matt Hatton.
Neomorphs And Protomorphs
The film introduced new alien life stages and creatures related to the black pathogen's mutagenic effects. The Neomorphs emerged from spore infection and appeared pale, fast, and highly aggressive. Later, David's experiments produced an organism much closer to the classic Xenomorph, often described by fans as a Protomorph. These creatures helped bridge the gap between the transformational horror of Prometheus and the familiar parasitic monster cycle associated with Alien. Covenant therefore played a major role in showing how pre-Xenomorph experimentation evolved into something resembling the franchise's most iconic species.
The Engineer World
Much of Alien: Covenant took place on the world reached by David and Shaw after the end of Prometheus. The planet appeared lush and inviting from orbit, but on the surface it contained silence, death, and the remains of an annihilated civilization. Flashbacks and David's account revealed that the Engineers there were exterminated when he released the pathogen from an Engineer craft above the city. The world functioned as both a graveyard and a laboratory, giving the film one of its most unsettling settings. It also deepened the mystery surrounding the wider Engineer civilization, although it might not have been the Engineer homeworld.
The Covenant Colony Mission
The USCSS Covenant was a colony ship transporting colonists, embryos, and supplies to establish a new human settlement on Origae-6. Unlike the exploratory structure of Prometheus, Covenant began as a colonization mission with a large civilian future at stake. That premise raised the consequences of the story because the surviving crew were not only trying to save themselves but also the thousands of sleeping colonists depending on them. The ship, its terraforming mission, and its stored embryos also gave David a horrifying opportunity once he gained control at the end of the film.
Place In The Alien Timeline
Alien: Covenant took place in 2104, roughly eleven years after the events of Prometheus in 2093. It continued the prequel storyline, expanded David's role in the evolution of Alien life, and moved the chronology closer to the events of Alien (1979). The film occupied an important position in the Alien prequel timeline because it linked the black goo mythology, the Engineers, and the emergence of more recognizable Xenomorph forms.
Behind The Scenes
Alien: Covenant was directed by Ridley Scott and written by John Logan and Dante Harper. Engineer-city exteriors were shot at Milford Sound in New Zealand. Interior labs, the Covenant, and gothic ruins were built on stages, continuing the Pinewood-scale set approach from Prometheus. Michael Fassbender played both David and Walter, often in split-screen and double-performance setups on the same stage.
Practical creature work covered the Neomorphs and the later proto-Xenomorph, with digital shots for births, sprinting, and the rain of the pathogen. Fassbender's dual role was locked in early so Walter's damaged hand and David's walk could be told apart on camera.
Novelization
Titan Books published Alan Dean Foster's Alien: Covenant novelization on 23 May 2017. Foster had acting captain Oram hear Shaw's garbled hymn as Pentecostal speaking in tongues, then order Mother to reverse the audio before the crew recognized the song. In David's lab the book treats the black Alien as a recreation from Engineer designs found on the planet, not an original invention. David even shows an egg as an example of Engineer hubris, with more traditional Alien corpses already on display beside the Neomorphs. When Daniels searches Shaw's quarters on the Juggernaut she finds a crucifix and Shaw's name on rotting paper, not the dog tags from the film.
Several beats Foster kept were shot and then cut. Daniels dreams the Origae-6 log-cabin talk with Branson while still in hypersleep, and Walter later hands her cannabis grown in the ship's hydroponics bay. During the escape from Planet 4 a leftover Neomorph and the Protomorph attack each other, and the proto-Xenomorph wins. The book also drops the cabin tell that exposes David on the Covenant. Once the crew is asleep David identifies himself to Mother and asks the computer to send a message to Weyland-Yutani.
Prequel Novel
Titan Books published Alan Dean Foster's official prequel, Alien: Covenant Origins, on 26 September 2017. It is set on Earth while the Covenant waits in orbit, with security chief Dan Lopé hunting a cult called the Earth Savers, whose prophet Duncan Fields preached Out There Be Demons and tried to bomb the launch. Hideo Yutani, chair of the newly merged company after the Prometheus disaster, has his daughter Jenny kidnapped by shinobi-armed saboteurs. She escapes, and the ship still leaves, minus one lander. Foster spends most of the book with Lopé and Rosenthal rather than Daniels, and he misspells captain Jacob Branson as Brandon throughout.
Prometheus 3 And Alien: Awakening
Alien: Covenant was intended to continue into another prequel-era sequel, often discussed as Prometheus 3 or Alien: Awakening. That follow-up would likely have continued David's story after he took control of the USCSS Covenant, with thousands of colonists, embryos, and alien specimens available for further experiments. Ridley Scott also suggested that the Engineers could have returned, potentially investigating the devastation David caused on their world and pushing the prequel story closer to the origins of the derelict ship on LV-426. In August 2026, he put that follow-up back in development as a David story, though it was not greenlit, and Covenant's ending remains one of the biggest unresolved story threads in the modern Alien timeline.
Legacy
David took the USCSS Covenant after replacing Walter, with the colonists, embryos, and his eggs still aboard. The film put Neomorphs and the Protomorph on screen as steps toward the classic Xenomorph. Fox did not make Prometheus 3 or Alien: Awakening, so that ending still sits unresolved against the origins of the Alien species.
External Sources
Tag Categories: Alien Movies | Prometheus Movies
