Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Alien: Covenant

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Could Michael Fassbender's David actually be the Space Jockey from the original Alien? With Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott finally answers a question fans have been asking since 1979: what is the xenomorph? It turns out that the perfect organism with a painful reproductive system is, as long suspected, a biological weapon, but specifically one bred from Engineer technology by rogue synthetic David, partially as a means of killing his creators (us).

That’s not the only mysterious piece of backstory that’s been dangling for decades and is due a solution in Scott’s prequel series, though. There’s also the matter of “the Pilot”; in the original Alien, when the crew of the Nostromo investigates the crashed derelict spacecraft they find a long-dead pilot – a big, elephant-trunked being in a command module who’s had an alien burst out of his chest and left a beacon warning all who pass by to stay away.

Known by fans as the Space Jockey, the creature wasn’t seen in any of the later sequels (a skull of the species did pop up as an Easter egg in Alien vs. Predator: Requiem) but did get expanded upon in comics and books. Most appearances just skirted on what was previously established, but Aliens (a comic, with no relation to the movie) offered up a living Jockey is seen, revealing pink skin, yellow eyes, a tail and telekinetic abilities, and the novel Aliens: Original Sin suggested they wanted to wipe out humanity.

Prometheus provided a major retcon of all that, revealing that what was presumed as an extra-terrestrial skeleton was in fact a suit belonging to the Engineers (although the notion of wanting to destroy humanity, their creation, remained). The original draft for the 2012 film explicitly spelled out the Jockey’s death – he was impregnated by an alien and died during the chestburst, crashing the ship – but redrafts created more distance, putting the action on a different planet, and in doing so made the mystery even stronger. After two prequels, the specifics of the derelict on LV-426 and its pilot are more ambiguous than they were before.

Space Jockey from Alien

But, make no mistake, it will be explained. During the press tour for Covenant, Ridley Scott has talked multiple times about the genesis of the prequels, repeatedly citing the Space Jockey intrigue. Talking to EW about the future of the series, the director said “We’ll then come back in to the rear end of Alien 1. You know full well who the affectionately termed Space Jockey is – the guy sitting in the seat.

What’s interesting is the word choice there; the way Scott presents it, the Space Jockey isn’t a mystery of how, but of who. If it was just an Engineer, then he would surely not need to be so coy. There’s a hidden identity, a twist to occur. And when you look at it, there’s really only one candidate: David. Yes, based on all the available information, we've reached the conclusion that Michael Fassbender has been playing the Space Jockey all along.

Covenant ends with the synthetic android escaping the Engineer homeworld he’d been stranded on for the past decade with two facehugger embryos. Once the surviving crew have been put to sleep, he surveys the 2000 colonists at his disposal, ready to enact his terrifying machinations on them. Somehow this is leading towards Alien, and why not tie it up directly?

The basic idea would be that David uses his salvaged creations on the thousands of cryosleep subjects, transforming them into the eggs seen in the derelict’s cavern in Alien. During that experimentation, he finds another Engineer planet with their crescent craft and flies off. However, one of the facehuggers gets free and attacks him, implanting an alien that bursts out and crashes the ship. Realizing the horror of what he’s created, David sets up a warning beacon – either out of genuine compassion or as a posthumous bid for dominance – and we’re in Alien. It’s that simple. And when you break it down, it’s very likely.

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Michael Fassbender as David in Alien Covenant

How Does The Theory Work?

David being the Space Jockey is the most cohesive solution to the mystery. It fits neatly into the direction the series is going in and accounts for every key element. Indeed, aside from it being just another Engineer, there’s no other serious candidate. David’s the only living character capable of piloting one of those crafts (it’s shown in Prologue movie The Crossing) and has the mental predilections to want to use the eggs as weapons. The colonists being the eggs is an additional part of the idea that ties things up neatly; this transformative concept was first seen in Alien’s deleted scenes (canonized in the director’s cut), is hinted at in Covenant, and the sleeping humans are focused on just enough for them becoming the eggs to be rational.

The main drive towards the theory was Scott teasing the Space Jockey reveal, but other comments from the filmmaker further allude to it. When talking about the story of future movies, he’s been using variations on the very weird phrase "we kind of literally and logically, clockwise, back into the rear back head of Alien". Allowing a degree of flubbing, that seems to suggest that the last prequel will beeline into the original film – what other entry point is there than the derelict ship and the Space Jockey?

In interviews the director has also addressed David’s physiology in a way that makes this possible. Talking to Hollywood XYZ about the distinction between David and successor android Ash, Scott said, "because that was done 30, nearly 40 years ago Ash had tubes and pipes inside him. I think when [David] gets hit somehow he's evolved - he would be better than that." He’s talking primarily about the production side, but based on the phrasing and what is shown of David’s refined interior when wounded in Covenant compared to his tubes and pipes when decapitated in Prometheus, it may be that the synthetic form is “evolving” and will reach a point where his makeup is biological enough to allow for an alien to gestate.

Thematically (and, after Covenant, it’s clear that’s the level Scott’s most interested in) it’s the perfect culmination of everything so far. The two films have been all about charting David’s rise above his maker, with his “creation” of the xenomorph seeing him become the new God. However, that's set to reverse; as it stands, the only logical conclusion for the arc set up is that David is brought down by his own hubris.

Alien: Covenant - Michael Fassbender on piano

His human traits (especially prominent in contrast to the more simplistic Walter) leave David open for self-destruction, and for all the sense of perfection he is a flawed God. At the climax of the pair's interaction, David misattributes a Shelley to Byron, to which the more robotic automaton responds "When one note is off, it eventually destroys the whole symphony." David's strength so far is his human predictions mixed with synthetic origins, but they ultimately mean he's going to repeat the Engineer and man's mistakes, possibly dying at his creation's hands; he becomes an inhabitant of the hell he's trying to rule. That's pretty much the Space Jockey as is, and there's no end that feels more cohesive in the Alien canon than this.

If that is the direction Scott's going in, he's already laid out some more subtle parallels. David leaving a warning message as he dies in a mirror of how he escaped the Engineer homeworld, while the idea of a facehugger implanting an alien through his mouth is a wonderful mirror to him pulling embryos out of his throat. And on the note of the alien, what would be a more striking final image in the series than a robo-xenomorph hybrid? In fact, the reason that the protomorph from the film's climax was more organic than the more biomechanical xenomorph of the original could be because David is himself the final catalyst (although the depth of that theory would require a whole other article).

The only real evidence against it is the shaky link to the original Alien; the age and size of the Space Jockey. However, as we’ve previously discussed, this is a plot hole more intrinsic to the prequels than just this theory and based on all the evidence may be the result of Scott retconning the 1979 film, so is hardly a true knock.

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Whether or not all this is true, or if Scott has something completely different up his sleeve, won’t be known until Covenant’s eventual sequel fills in more gaps. For now though, while David being the Space Jockey is certainly a crazy notion, it’s the neatest solution to the Alien franchise’s biggest dangling mystery.

Next: Alien: Covenant Review

Key Release Dates

  • alien covenant
    Release Date:
    2017-05-19