List of Alien (franchise) characters
Alien, a science-fiction action horror franchise, tells the story of humanity's ongoing encounters with Aliens (xenomorphs): a hostile, endoparasitoid, extraterrestrial species. Set between the 21st and 24th centuries over several generations, the film series revolves around a character ensemble's struggle for survival against the Aliens and against the greedy, unscrupulous megacorporation Weyland-Yutani.
The original series consists of four films, Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997), and revolves around Ellen Ripley's fight against the xenomorphs (aliens). Ripley is the sole survivor of a xenomorph rampage on the space freighter Nostromo, which leads her to a series of conflicts with the species and Weyland-Yutani. Ripley's struggle is the plot of the original series.
The prequel series, Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), depicts humanity's genesis at the hands of an ancient extraterrestrial race known as the Engineers and the indirect creators of the xenomorphs. A deadly mutagen developed by the Engineers is discovered, which is weaponized by the android David 8, to recreate and perfect the previously long-extinct xenomorph strain. The evolution of the xenomorphs is the main plot of the prequel series.