Engineer Origin & Alien Connection

With 2012’s Prometheus and its sequel, Alien: Covenant, director Ridley Scott returned to the franchise he created in 1979 with his gothic horror in space masterpiece, Alien, opening up the universe and revealing a unique connection between the titular xenomorphs and the mysterious “Space Jockey.” Showing up early in the original film, the “Pilot” first appeared to the crew of the Nostromo as they responded to a strange transmission emanating from the distant moon LV-426. It was a hulking extraterrestrial with an elephant-like trunk, its chest violently ripped open from the inside out at some point long ago.

John Hurt’s Kane discovers a chamber containing countless egg-like cocoons as the crew explores the derelict ship. Investigating closer, a “face-hugger” erupts from one of the eggs, breaks through Kane’s protective helmet, and latches itself onto his face. The others bring Kane back to the Nostromo, where they dislodge the face-hugger. Soon, a new creature, the xenomorph, bursts from Kane’s chest, hunting the crew until only Ellen Ripley is left alive for a final confrontation.

The Space Jockey From Alien

H.R. Giger Designed The Space Jockey

The unique and memorable design of the creature made the Space Jockey a fan favorite early on. Working from initial concept art by H.R. Giger, the final on-screen form was designed by artist Ron Cobb, who provided an expanded backstory for the creature. According to Cobb, The Pilot was one of a race of interstellar explorers and archaeologists who had made first contact with the xenomorph species before being wiped out by them and stranded on the planet.

The members of the Nostromo crew investigate a distress signal that leads them to a derelict space shift. Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) led two others to search the interior, where they found what looked like a giant gun turret. In this were the fossilized remains of a giant alien with what looked like an explosion that happened in its chest. This is the Space Jockey. No one knew who or what this being was, but Ripley soon learned the distress signal was a warning, and that is when the Facehugger attacked.

The Space Jockey wasn’t seen again in any of the sequels. However, it did make occasional appearances in non-canonical Alien comics and books, becoming a favorite subject to fans and artists over the years. This all changed when Ridley Scott returned and gave a more detailed explanation of what the Space Jockey really was in the prequel movies Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

Alien’s “Space Jockey” Explained

The Space Jockey Is An Engineer

For Prometheus, Ridley Scott wanted to explore the engineered origins of the xenomorphs. The film opens with the Engineers, an ancient race of tall, bald, pale extraterrestrials. They are responsible for seeding life on countless planet systems with their highly advanced genetic engineering technology. This technique involves the Engineers using a viscous black goo, which they use to both create life and as a weapon.

Moving ahead to 2089, while infected after contact with the strange goop, archaeologist Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) impregnates his girlfriend, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), who soon gives birth to a fully-formed creature known as a trilobite. The trilobite attacks the last surviving Engineer as all hell is breaking loose for the crew of the Prometheus. As the Engineer attempts to escape, it turns out that the Engineers and Space Jockeys are one and the same, retconning the Pilot’s design in Alien as an exoskeletal battle suit.

At the end of Prometheus, a new creature bursts from the dead Engineer’s chest. It is a blue-hued creature known as “The Deacon,” clearly a genetic ancestor of the xenomorph. Prometheus indicated that the Engineers/Space Jockeys had created the xenomorphs. As a result, their creation wiped them out, presumably setting the stage for the events of Alien. However, one more twist arriving in Alien: Covenant shows this was not the Engineers’ plans.

How Prometheus & Alien: Covenant Connect

David Used The Xenomorphs Against The Engineers

Five years later, Alien: Covenant expanded on the backstory even further, revealing that the xenomorphs are the creation of rogue android David, played by Michael Fassbender. After landing on the Engineer homeward following the events of Prometheus, David concludes that humans and the Engineers are inferior to his android form. He wipes out the race and since then has been expanding on the genetic breakthroughs of the Engineers in his quest to engineer the “perfect organism,” engineering the xenomorph.

This fulfills the central theme of Promethean mythology: unintended consequences in the quest for improvement, though the consequences may have been intentional with David. Functioning in Alien as little more than a harbinger of the doom that is about to befall the characters, the Space Jockey and the mysterious race of Engineers were eventually revealed to have played a key role in the central events of the franchise, though like all would-be Dr. Frankensteins, they too eventually fell victim to their own creations.

What Role Do Space Jockeys Play In Alien: Romulus?

The Black Goo Is Back

Alien: Romulus takes place after Alien, so the first movie’s crew had already come across the Space Jockey, but it wasn’t known what the origin was since that wasn’t revealed until Prometheus. As the latter film showed, the Space Jockey was an Engineer, and it wasn’t body armor but the actual giant status of the alien being. However, no one who saw it lived, with Ash the only one who knew there was something to retrieve in that first movie but dying without achieving his directive.

In Alien: Romulus, the crew brings a damaged droid named Rook back to life, and a CGI version of Ian Holm (who died in 2020) portrays the droid, explaining that he prefers the xenomorph as the perfect life form to others. He introduces the “Prometheus strain.” This is where the new movie ties in with the Space Jockey, bringing back the black goo left behind after David slaughtered the Engineers.

The pregnant Kay injected herself with the black goo, thinking it would cure her, and bad things happened. While the Space Jockey himself wasn’t in the movie, nor were any other versions of the Engineers, the black goo was the one thing tying it all together, from Alien to Prometheus to Alien: Romulus, proving that the Space Jockey was one of the most important ingredients of the xenomorph storyline.