Popverse's top stories of the day

• Harley Quinn is making April Fools Day 2025 one to remember with a not-so-sweet-smelling DC comic book special
• Watch the D&D, Warhammer, Mega Man, and more anthology panel Secret Level from Prime Video, filmed at NYCC 2024
• Nintendo's long-time Mario voice actor reveals the secret behind voicing Mario's Dad in the movie (and how it goes back to his original audition decades ago)

Here's the thing - you don't need to know anything about the Alien franchise to enjoy Alien: Romulus. Director (and horror maven) Fede Álvarez has even said as much. But you, loyal Popverse reader, aren't only interested in the information you need, are you? No, you, my beautiful weirdo, are interested in all the information you can have.

That's why I've gone ahead and put together this complete timeline of the Alien franchise, in which I'll take you through the major events in the history of the Alien universe, and tell you which of the films they take place in. Let's begin billions of years ago, on a planet that we'd eventually get to know as... Earth.

The Engineers create humanity - ~4,000,000 BC (Prometheus)

Long before the titular Alien was popping out of poor John Hurt's chest, a mysterious race of beings known to the franchise as "The Engineers" was bopping about the universe, creating life. One of those Engineers wound up on our fertile and decided to fill it with microorganisms that would become human beings. Like so much creation in these stories, this creation was a brutal act of body horror, requiring the Engineer to dissolve painfully itself and spread its DNA. Despite the sacrifice, it would be millions of years until the Engineer's progeny would be aware of it.

Kids, right?

Humanity discovers the Engineers - 2089 AD (Prometheus)

Eons after the Engineer composts itself, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw discovers the art of disparate, ancient civilizations all with one impossible commonality: a star map. Shaw and her boyfriend/research partner ask for the aid of elderly businessman Peter Weyland, who funds her expedition to follow the star map. Shaw is granted passage on the ship Prometheus, along with a crew, a number of cryosleep pods, and the synthetic android David 8.

The Prometheus arrives on LV-223 - 2093 AD (Prometheus)

A quick cryonap later, the Prometheus touches down on LV-223, an exoplanet mentioned in the aforementioned star map. There, they encounter the technology of the Engineers, which includes vast spaceships, record-keeping holographs and, unfortunately for them, a bioweapon of incredible power. This pathogen mutates and kills the entire crew except for Shaw and David.

The Weyland-Yutani Corporation in the robot race - 2090s AD (Alien: Earth)

Back on earth, meanwhile, Peter Weyland's company has merged with another to form Weyland-Yutani, the faceless corporate evil that's served as the trigger for much of the Alien characters' woes. We don't know much about this time just yet, though we will learn more once the Noah Hawley/Ridley Scott series Alien: Earth comes to FX. The little we do know, thanks to Deadline, is that "will be focused on the Weyland-Yutani Corporation's race to develop robotic life." 

That's a bit of a confusing tidbit, timeline-wise, because at this point in the series androids like David have already come into their being. Does his model get scrapped or, worse, forgotten? Maybe that's why he turns evil.

Oops, spoilers.

The first Xenomorph - 2104 AD (Covenant)

After David and Dr. Shaw escape their first encounter with Engineer tech, they trace its originators back to their home planet. There, a vengeful David uses the species' own bioweaponry against them, slaughtering the population and beginning a series of experiments to build an even better, murderous living organism. He murders Dr. Shaw in cold blood.

After the ill-fated ship Covenant lands on the Engineers' homeworld, David has a crop of new, healthy humans to experiment on. Applying what he's learned over his years of isolation, David forcefully breeds a kind of prototype creature to the captain of the Covenant via facehugger. What emerges from this poor pilot's chest, moments later, is the first of the species we would come to know as the xenomorph.

The Nostromo lands on LV-426 - 2122 AD (Alien)

And just a few years after the origin of its species, David's lil' monster terrorizes a Weyland-Yutani minig ship known as the Nostromo. Though it handly cuts through nearly all the crew, the creature meets its match in a legendary badass that wipes out more of its ilk than any other human being: Ellen Ripley. Ripley survives her encounter with the beast and places herself in cryosleep, hoping beyond hope that her SOS will reach other human beings.

The Romulus encounters xenomorphs - 2142 AD (Romulus)

While Ripley's taking an icy nap and holding out for rescue, the crew of the Romulus is contracted by Weyland-Yutani to colonize a planet far from Earth. For more details on this in-betweequel of Alien and aliens, go see Alien: Romulus in theaters.

Ellen Ripley's war with the xenomorphs - 2179 AD (Aliens, Alien³)

57 years after Ripley sends out her message, she is woken from cryosleep, having miraculously made it to Earth. She does not find peace, however, and soon enough, is headed back toward LV-426 on Weyland-Yutani's behalf. The company has hired her to investigate what they say is a safe, terraformed colony there, but as both Ripley and the audience know, "safe" is the farthest thing from LV-426.

Over the course of the next year, Ellen Ripley battles hordes of xenomorphs that are rapidly spreading through human civilzations. After defeating them on LV-426, she once again puts herself in cryosleep and heads into the abyss, only to land and wake up on Fiorina 161, a penal colony lightyears away from Earth. Of course, a surviving xenomorph has made its way there with Ripley, finally infecting the scifi final girl with its chestbursting spawn. But before the beast can emerge, Ripley sacrifices herself, dropping into a pool of molten metal and destroying it. At long last, Ripley's battle was over.

Until, you know, the next movie.

Ellen Ripley returns as a clone 2381 AD - (Resurrection)

Two hundred years later, federal regulations still haven't caught up with Amazon - er, sorry, Weyland-Yutani - and some of their scientists manage to find bits of Ripley's DNA in the fires of Fiorina 161. They clone her in an attempt to regenerate the Alien nestled within her chest, but in doing so, unleash the monster on yet another "expendable" crew. This time, however, Ripley is more of a physical match for the xenomorph, as their simultaneous cloning has led to a mixture of their DNA. Their ensuing battle is, to put it bluntly, wild, and I encourage you to check out the final match between Ripley and her monster.

But wait, haven't I forgotten something, you ask?

What about the mid 2000s? (Alien vs. Predator, Alien vs. Predator Requiem)

No, I haven't forgotten anything.

The Alien vs. Predator movies are not canon to the current franchise timeline, which goes from Prometheus all the way to Resurrection. The films, which are set in the same mid-2000s when they were made, predate the canonical creation of several important aspects of the Alien franchise, such as A.) the xenomorph and B.) passable dialogue.

Catch up on the entire Alien franchise with Popverse's Alien watch order, then go to see Alien: Romulus, in theaters now.

If you love aliens bursting out of chests and hugging your face, then we have all you could want from  Popverse's Alien watch order, details on where Romulus fits into the Alien timeline, and all you need to know  on the upcoming Aliens TV show with Timothy Oliphant.