The big question on fans’ minds is simple. If FX’s Alien: Earth takes place in 2120, where do the Predators and Engineers fit into all this chaos? Let’s set the board before we start moving pieces around.

Anchoring the Timeline

Alien: Earth happens two years before the Nostromo incident in Alien (2122). That detail explains why the series keeps its story centered on humans, synths, and a company that treats life like corporate property. The show is deliberately focused on smaller, human-scale horror, but knowing what’s happening elsewhere in the universe helps us piece together the bigger picture.

At the end of season one, Wendy and her hybrid “lost boys” take over the Neverland research island. Boy Kavalier is alive but captured. A xenomorph responds to Wendy’s influence, and Weyland-Yutani is already moving in to secure its assets. That’s the stage when we start asking what’s going on with the outside players.

The Engineers: Absent by Design

The Engineers don’t swoop in because Alien: Covenant already explained their absence. Back in 2104, David firebombs Planet 4 with black goo, wiping out an entire Engineer city. Even if that settlement wasn’t their only stronghold, the destruction would have sent shockwaves through their networks. The surviving Engineers are probably scattered, focused on rebuilding, or quarantining hot zones rather than flying to Southeast Asia to shut down a corporate island.

The LV-426 derelict ship already existed by this point, with its fossilized pilot in place. That makes it clear that whatever wiped those Engineers out happened long before Ripley ever set foot in space. By 2120, the most logical read is that they’re lying low. Strategic non-intervention has always been their style, and it keeps the show firmly on humans, corporations, and synths.

Predators: No Show at Neverland

The Yautja don’t show up either. Predator: Badlands proves the franchises are allowed to overlap, since it features Elle Fanning as a Weyland-Yutani synthetic partnering with a young Predator named Dek. But that’s later.

Neverland in 2120 is a terrible hunting ground. The island is crawling with surveillance, air defenses, and corporate soldiers. Predators value worthy prey in open arenas, not floodlit labs packed with cameras and private armies.

Speculation leaves one option. A lone Predator scout could have been quietly watching from orbit or lurking underwater, marking the location for a future rite of passage. That sort of behavior fits their style, but officially there’s no reason to expect them in the season one timeline.

How Badlands Connects the Dots

Instead of forcing a Predator cameo into Alien: Earth, Badlands sets the stage for how these universes link down the line. The connection comes through Weyland-Yutani’s synthetic program.

In Alien: Earth, synths are already a major theme. If the company was ever going to broker contact with a Predator, it makes sense they’d do it through controlled, programmable machines like Thia. It’s neat, it’s secretive, and it avoids blowing the timeline apart.

The Road to Alien (and Beyond)

• A xenomorph capable of being influenced
• Hybrid children acting with intent
• Weyland-Yutani moving to clean up

Between 2120 and 2122, the company has every reason to cover its tracks. Burying evidence. Destroying the island. And locking live specimens away in black projects. That cleanup alone explains how the Nostromo crew could later stumble onto something ancient without ever knowing about Neverland.

Meanwhile, the synth storyline gives us a believable path for Alien and Predator to cross later, without ever forcing either species into the current show. Badlands teases this exact direction. Corporate tech and secret programs become the bridge, not a random Predator showing up in the middle of a hostage crisis.

The Engineers are licking their wounds after Planet 4, staying far away from Earth. The Predators are busy elsewhere, with only the faintest possibility of a stealth observer near Neverland.