Alien: Earth has been an expansive exercise for the Alien franchise, with showrunner Noah Hawley taking us to places we’ve never been before – namely (and quite ironically) Earth. But while Alien movies have successfully been able to side-step the deep mysteries of lore when it comes to humanity’s homeworld, Alien: Earth, by nature of its title, cannot do the same. Thankfully, Hawley and co. have been steadily feeding longtime fans interesting new bits of lore: new creatures to fear, new sci-fi concepts to ponder, and some deep-cut answers that longtime fans of Alien have been asking about or debating for decades.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Case in point: Alien: Earth Episode 4, “Observation” and its offhanded reveal of a major piece of Alien lore, which diehard fans have always wanted to know more about: The names of the five megacorporations that rule the Earth.
The premiere of Alien: Earth teased us with the reveal, via the scene where the crew of the USCSS Maginot wake from cryogenic sleep and gather for a meal. An elder and younger engineer are having a discussion, wherein the elder is trying to teach the younger one about the ruling council of Earth, and the five megacorporations that form it. However, looking back, only three of the five companies are named, as the discussion of Prodigy segues into our introduction of Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), the youngest trillionaire in history.
Alien: Earth Reveals Which 5 Corporations Rule Earth
In Episode 4, we finally get the full list of names for the megacorporations that have divided up the territories of Earth (and space) between them:
- Weyland-Yutani – the most famous megacorporation in the Alien franchise, and the company responsible for the xenomorph incidents in almost every film.
- Prodigy – The company that is the main focus of Alien: Earth, and specializes in synthetic android technology. The series begins with Prodigy successfuly creating “hybrids,” which allows human consciousness to exist within a synth body.
- Dynamic – Also name-dropped in Episode 1, but all other details are (currently) unknown.
- Threshhold – Details unknown
- Lynch – Details unknown
The name-drops happen as Wendy and her fellow “Lost Boys” hybrids are beginning to explore the amenities that come with having a synth body. The kids find that they can download any book or instructional databases directly to their brains, instantly increasing their intelligence level and skill sets. They also get curious about the history of the world and tap Wendy’s brother Joe Hermit (Alex Lawther) to explain it. Hermit explains how the old system of democratic governments failed, and the five corporations stepped up to fill the void and maintain order. To balance power they formed a council and “now they work together to run things.”
Of course, in just four episodes of Alien: Earth it’s become all too apparent that the coprorations don’t play as friendly with each other as the public might think. In fact, Hermit indicates that a meeting of “the five” could be on the horizon, as the various companies must meet and litigate the conflict between Yutani and Boy Kavalier over possession of the alien specimens. But it’s hard to estimate if all of these megacorporations we haven’t met yet will actually play a role in Alien: Earth. Even Weyland-Yutani is just a periphral character in this show, so it’s hard to envision much space and time for the other three companies to have much presence. Maybe in some future Alien movies, or additional seasons of Alien: Earth.
You can stream the series on FX-Hulu.
