When does Alien: Earth take place? Plot setting and timeline explained

Alien: Earth is the newest chapter in the legendary sci-fi horror franchise, premiering its first two episodes on FX and FX on Hulu, and internationally on Disney+ on August 12, 2025. Alien: Earth episode 3 is set to release on August 19, 2025.

Set in 2120, the series takes place just two years before the first Alien movie and shows how humans first fought the Xenomorph threat on Earth. The story introduces new characters, like Wendy, who is a mix of human and synthetic, and shows how powerful Earth-based companies compete with each other. It has a lot of tense situations, secret plots, and high-tech settings that add new layers to the story while still being a classic Alien horror story.

Alien: Earth combines the cyberpunk look of the franchise with the claustrophobic fear that comes with it. It takes place in huge cities, deep-space ships, and high-tech research labs. It asks people to watch the risky power games that led to the Nostromo tragedy.

Alien: Earth: Timeline setting in the Alien universe

Alien: Earth takes place in 2120, placing it two years before Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien film, which was set in 2122. This makes it a direct prequel to the original movie while still existing decades after the events of Prometheus (2093) and Alien: Covenant (2104). The series fills a significant narrative gap, showing what was happening on Earth while Weyland-Yutani and other corporations expanded their reach into space.

Within the official timeline, the sequence is as follows:

• Prometheus (2093)
• Alien: Covenant (2104)
• Alien: Earth (2120)
• Alien (2122)
• Aliens and Alien 3 (2179)
• Alien: Resurrection (2381)

By setting the action just before the Nostromo incident, the show can explore the early spread of Xenomorph encounters without contradicting established lore. It also reveals how long-standing corporate ambitions and interstellar expeditions were shaping human life both on and off Earth.

Plot setting of Alien: Earth

Alien: Earth is set on Earth instead of hostile alien worlds or isolated industrial ships, which is a new direction for the series. The show takes viewers into New Siam, a busy cyberpunk metropolis with futuristic skyscrapers, neon-lit streets, and a lot of people living in a small space. This picture of Earth in the year 2120 is based on the movie Blade Runner. 

The show goes beyond the city and shows secure research labs, Weyland-Yutani starships, and private corporate compounds. Earth's corporations - Weyland-Yutani, Prodigy, Lynch, Dynamic, and Threshold - are all competing for power. They all want to control cutting-edge technologies, some of which are linked to the Xenomorph threat. The show's exploration of transhumanist ideas is strengthened by the presence of hybrid beings like Wendy, as well as cryosleep travel and digital consciousness transfers.

This bigger setting lets the story explore more than just survival horror. It can also look at corporate espionage, bioengineering ethics, and the social effects of fast technological progress.

The storyline of Alien: Earth

In the year 2120, Alien: Earth starts with a scary prologue that says the future will belong to whichever technology - cyborgs, synths, or hybrids - wins the corporate race to live forever. The show starts quickly on the USCSS Maginot, a Weyland-Yutani ship that is coming back from a 65-year mission carrying dangerous alien specimens. 

A group of experienced officers, a strange robot named Tang, and a cyborg security officer named Morrow are on board. When a Xenomorph gets away, it kills the crew and forces Morrow to crash-land the ship on Earth, which is very dangerous.

On Prodigy Corporation’s remote “Neverland” island, a sick child named Marcy undergoes a radical procedure to transfer her consciousness into a powerful synthetic body, becoming Wendy. As the first of Prodigy’s “Lost Boys” hybrids, she’s tasked with guiding other children through the same transformation. Her creator, the enigmatic Boy Kavalier, sees endless corporate potential in these hybrids.

Meanwhile, Wendy secretly monitors her brother Joe -nicknamed Hermit - a Prodigy medic in the city of New Siam. When the Maginot crashes nearby, Hermit and Prodigy forces rush to the wreckage, encountering devastation and remnants of the alien cargo. Morrow, determined to secure the specimens, eliminates threats and searches for Kavalier.

Wendy, desperate to reunite with her brother, convinces Kavalier to send her and the hybrids to the crash site under the supervision of synth Kirsh. As Prodigy’s forces converge with Weyland-Yutani’s deadly prize, the paths of Wendy, Hermit, and Morrow are set on a collision course - blending corporate intrigue, cyberpunk visuals, and the creeping terror of the Xenomorph threat.

The first two episodes of Alien: Earth season 1  are available to stream on FX.