Alien: Earth Theory Reveals Wendy Is Secretly An Iconic Character From Ridley Scott's 1979 Movie

For the first four movies, Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley was the undisputed main character of the Alien franchise. Every film revolved around her, and she was as integral to this saga as the xenomorphs themselves. We were following her journey, from her ill-fated job on the Nostromo to her hellish experience on the prison planet to her eventual resurrection via cloning. But, ever since the franchise moved away from Ripley and turned the spotlight on other characters at different points in the timeline, the connections to Ridley Scott’s original 1979 movie have gotten much more tenuous and tangential.

Prometheus was basically a grandiose origin story for the “space jockey” who appeared in one of Alien’s most memorable shots. Alien: Covenant is a spiritual successor to Alien — another haunted-house-in-space chiller with its own Ripley replacement — but has almost no direct connection to that original classic. Alien: Romulus takes place in between Alien and Aliens, and it features both the corpse of the original xenomorph and an uncanny recreation of Ian Holm’s pesky android Ash.

We’re getting closer and closer to revisiting the characters and storylines and timeframe of that original Alien film. Scott is still hoping to finish the trilogy he started with Prometheus and Covenant, which would give him a chance to complete David’s story and bridge the gap between the prequels and the original movie.

Alien: Earth takes place just two years before the events of Alien, so eagle-eyed viewers have been looking for Easter eggs connecting the TV series to the film. Overall, Alien: Earth has more in common with a different Ridley Scott movie than Alien. Its portrayal of a dystopian future owned by corporations and governed by trillionaires felt more like Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir Blade Runner than his seminal sci-fi horror movie Alien.

But fans have spotted a possible link between Alien: Earth and its cinematic predecessor. Our protagonist Wendy, played by Sydney Chandler, is the world’s first hybrid of human and android. She was originally a terminally ill child named Marcy Hermit, but the Prodigy Corporation used cutting-edge technology to fuse her human consciousness with a sturdy android body — not dissimilar to the process that gave us RoboCop — and she changed her name to Wendy in one of the series’ many unsubtle references to Peter Pan.

An intriguing fan theory supposes that Wendy might be an early prototype of a different A.I. from the Alien universe: MU/TH/UR, more commonly known as “Mother.” Mother is the complex artificial intelligence that controls all of Weyland-Yutani spaceships and installations across the cosmos.

Despite being bombarded with decades’ worth of Alien stories, there’s still very little we know about Mother’s origins. This A.I. is powerful enough to run the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, so it would make sense if it originated as the world’s first human-android hybrid.

Alien: Earth's "Wendy Is Mother" Fan Theory Explained

One of the most popular fan theories from Alien: Earth is that Wendy will eventually become Mother. This would be a much more obscure link to the original movie than Alien: Isolation — that game just made Ripley’s daughter, Amanda Ripley, the protagonist — but it would arguably be more dramatically interesting than doing yet another Ripley clone (either a literal Ripley clone, like the one in Alien: Resurrection, or a figurative Ripley clone, like the Daniels character from Alien: Covenant).

Right now, Wendy is just one individual, but she’s already shown strong leadership skills as the head of the Lost Boys. Her technology has already made leaps and bounds, and her creation was a bold experiment in the first place, so it stands to reason that she could eventually spread across the universe and run Weyland-Yutani from the safety of cyberspace.

There’s an ambitious, multi-season plan for Alien: Earth that FX is keeping under wraps, so maybe this is what it’s all about. Her A.I. could evolve on its own, or she could get reprogrammed. It might be a stretch, but there are a few clues that suggest Wendy could be an early prototype of Mother.

Wendy Is A Mother To The Xenomorphs

One of the weirdest things about Alien: Earth is that Wendy has an emotional bond with the xenomorphs, and it’s depicted in a wholesome light. For nearly 50 years, we’ve seen the xenomorphs portrayed as ruthless killing machines, mindlessly massacring any sentient life in sight and melting their remains with acid. But around Wendy, the xenos act like giddy little puppies. They roll over and show their belly.

Wendy has a strangely maternal relationship with the xenomorphs; they actually listen to her and obey her orders. In a really bizarre way, Wendy acts like a mother to the xenomorphs, which could be foreshadowing for her eventual transformation into “MU/TH/UR.”

Wendy Is A Master Of Technology

Throughout the first season of Alien: Earth, Wendy demonstrated a mastery over technology. She’s not just good with tech; she seems to have an innate proclivity for tech. It’s possible that, somewhere in her programming, there’s an element of machine learning that allows her to figure out and take control of any complicated technology she encounters.

This could be more foreshadowing of her transformation into Mother. What makes Mother such a sophisticated A.I. is her ability to spread across the entire Weyland-Yutani network. Wendy’s ability to master any technology she comes across feels eerily similar. Maybe she’s just getting warmed up with her Prodigy hacks in these early episodes, and she’ll take over the whole Weyland network in a future season.

Wendy Has An Anti-Human, Pro-Xeno Agenda

Although she started off as a human being before being hybridized into an android, Wendy ended up taking a staunchly anti-human stance in Alien: Earth season 1. As far as she’s concerned, corrupt humans like Boy Kavalier are the real villains; the xenomorphs are just predators that lash out when backed into a corner.

In the war between humans and xenos, Wendy has taken the xenos’ side. If she really is Mother, then that anti-human, pro-xeno agenda could go a long way toward explaining Mother’s actions in the first film, and what she did to the crew of the Nostromo. It’s unlikely, but the stage is set for Alien: Earth to turn Wendy into Mother.