- "You have all sacrificed so much to be here, to be a part of this. It's the first ever large–scale colonization mission to come this far into our galaxy. You're making history, and everyone back on Earth is really grateful…for your hard work, and your courage. I just wanna say…I couldn't pick a better bunch of jerks to get marooned on a distant planet with. So, um…To the Covenant!"
- ―Katherine Daniels toasting her colleagues (from The Last Supper)
Katherine Daniels, nicknamed "Danny", was the chief terraformist aboard the Weyland-Yutani Corporation colony ship USCSS Covenant and the wife of ship's captain Jacob Branson. Daniels was part of an expedition team that journeyed to a mysterious world after the Covenant was diverted there from its original destination of Origae-6, and was one of two crewmembers to survive the ensuing incident alongside the ship's pilot Tennessee Faris. However, they were captured by the rogue synthetic David when he hijacked the Covenant; Daniels was of particular interest to the synthetic, with David stating that he planned to use her to create a queen for an alien species he had designed.
Biography[]
Meeting Jacob Branson[]
Prior to 2103,[6] Katherine Daniels[7] met Jacob Branson and began a relationship with him. During the course of their dalliance, Daniels and Branson attended a costume ball celebrating the fashions of the mid–twenty–first century[5] and embarked on a Pacific river cruise paid for by their employers, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. When Branson proposed marriage to Daniels, she accepted.[8]
Of manifests and fanatics[]
- "It's one thing to diagram it out nice and neat in an office, and something else when you're expected to squeeze in an extra dirt marauder or two at the last minute."
- ―Katherine Daniels complaining about her duties (from Alien: Covenant - Origins)
Daniels and Walter
As of 2103,[6] Daniels was the chief terraformist[2] for the USCSS Covenant, a Weyland-Yutani colony ship destined for the distant world of Origae-6. While onboard with ship's captain Branson, she was responsible for the ship's supply level and the payload of terraforming equipment. Shortly before the expedition's departure date, Daniels and acting security leader Tom Hallet's squad were called to[8] one of the Covenant's terraforming bays[9]—a saboteur had plied the bay's loading door with explosives and taken a hostage. To neutralise his efforts, Daniels ordered pilot Tennessee Faris to smother the area with white noise to nullify the saboteur's remote detonator. His plot foiled, the saboteur ejected himself from a crew lock, killing himself. Daniels and Branson were simultaneously offered a commendation and a reprimand, the latter owing to the fact that the terrorist had been able to access terraforming explosives.[8]
Following the incident, Daniels continued her work, overseeing the loading of terraforming equipment and frequently completing questionnaires posed by Branson for security reasons. Shortly after the first terrorist attack, a cargo shuttle hijacked by the Earthsavers, a cult dedicated to preventing the departure of the Covenant and the perpetrators of the standoff in the Terraforming Bay, was placed on an intercept course with the colony ship. Daniels was called to the bridge, and proposed the idea of using one of the ship's landers to intercept the shuttle. Tennessee was able to program the lander to do so, and the attack was thwarted. Before the Covenant left Earth orbit, Daniels met ship's synthetic Walter and instantly developed a bond with him.[8]
Subsequently,[10] Daniels and several other crew members were present at a Weyland-Yutani facility on Phobos, where they were put through psychological testing including exposure to explicit and upsetting material. Through it all, Daniels kept her nerve.[11]
After the Covenant departed Earth, Daniels sent a message to her father, describing her excitement for a fresh start on Origae-6 and that, if anything were to happen to her, she would always love him.[1] Shortly after, the Covenant crew began preparations to enter hypersleep; Walter conducted a brief checkup on Daniels' condition, with Daniels asserting that she felt fine. After accepting advice and medication from Walter, Daniels acknowledged an unsteady Branson as he left for his hypersleep pod. The crew then held a small celebration on the bridge; Daniels confessed that her most missed Earth luxury would be pizza, and gave a speech to her assembled colleagues recognizing their sacrifices and courage.[12]
Mission to Planet 4[]
- "This is a monumental risk not worth taking."
- ―Daniels tries to dissuade Chris Oram from investigating Planet 4 (from Alien: Covenant)
Daniels and Walter on the planet
As the Covenant came out of hyperspace to recharge its energy cells in 2104, a solar flare damaged the ship and woke the crew from hypersleep. Branson was incinerated by his malfunctioning cryo-pod, and Daniels was left adrift. After burying Branson's body and mourning him, Daniels set about checking the terraforming equipment with the help of synthetic Walter and expressed her hopelessness at the situation in which she now found herself. She was comforted by Walter, who encouraged her to continue with Branson's plan to build a log cabin on Origae-6.[3]
Meanwhile, Tennessee and security officer Ankor had intercepted a mysterious transmission issuing from a nearby planet while making repairs to the ship's solar sail. Finding that the world was habitable, and possibly even superior to Origae-6, acting captain Chris Oram proposed traveling there to ascertain its suitability for the colony the crew sought to establish. Daniels objected vehemently to this notion, even making her opposition official to Oram, but he was unmoved. The Covenant was placed on a new heading, much to Daniels' chagrin.[3]
Daniels joined a detachment that traveled to the surface of the mysterious planet aboard Lander One and was the first to notice that, despite an apparent ecosystem being present, there was no sign of living creatures. At the wreck of a crashed alien vessel, Daniels and Walter discovered the equipment and personal effects of Prometheus crewmember Elizabeth Shaw, the apparent sender of the transmission. Through a series of ensuing incidents, Hallet and fellow guard Ben Ledward were killed by endoparasitic creatures that proceeded to attack the crew, and Lander One was destroyed in the chaos. Daniels and the other survivors of the carnage were approached by a mysterious figure who scattered the creatures and led them to a nearby city strewn with dead bodies.[3]
From bad to worse[]
- "There's so much here that doesn't make sense."
- ―Daniels expresses her confusion at recent events (from Alien: Covenant)
Daniels using the Cargo Lifter's crane to dispatch the rampaging alien
Their host revealed himself as David 8, the android from the Prometheus who had accompanied Shaw to the world. Daniels conversed briefly with Oram, who expressed regret for his decision to investigate the planet. Daniels offered words of encouragement to Oram, and recognized him as the expedition's captain. Shortly after, with communication restored to the Covenant, Daniels ordered Tennessee to ready the ship's Cargo Lift as a makeshift escape craft. Meanwhile, Oram was implanted with—and killed by—an alien creature developed by David through experiments derived from the bodies of Shaw and the beings who had built the city. As the situation deteriorated rapidly, David detained Daniels and threatened to subject her to the research he had conducted on Shaw. Daniels fought him off and escaped with the aid of Walter, who dueled David while Daniels and the others fled to the Cargo Lift's landing site.[3]
They were successful in exfiltrating the city aboard the Cargo Lift; the alien, however, had followed them, and Daniels engaged the creature aboard the vehicle. Realizing that weapon fire had no effect on it, Daniels grabbed and crushed the alien with the Lift's crane.[3]
Showdown on the Covenant[]
- "Let's kill this fucker."
- ―Daniels preparing to engage the alien in the Terraforming Bay (from Alien: Covenant)
Daniels preparing for battle in the Terraforming Bay
Returning to her quarters on the Covenant and sharing a heart-to-heart with Tennessee before eating and sleeping, Daniels was alerted by ship's computer MU-TH-UR to the presence of a non-human lifeform. Discovering that another alien had hatched from security leader Dan Lopé, who had been infected while on the planet, Daniels was unable to stop the creature before it killed crewmembers Ricks and Upworth. However, Daniels had a plan. With the help of Walter, she and Tennessee lured the alien into one of the vessel's Terraforming Bays, where Daniels planned to trap the alien in one of the trucks and eject it into space. Though she succeeded in doing so, a JCB skid-steer loader broke loose from its moorings among a bank of vehicles and jammed the truck's deployment winch. Daniels ordered Tennessee to launch a second truck to unjam the winch; while the alien escaped the first truck and attempted to clamber back aboard the Covenant, Daniels baited it into the path of the second truck's fork, which speared the creature and ejected it from the ship.[3]
With the ship safe and outbound to its original destination, Daniels and Tennessee were placed back into hypersleep by Walter. While discussing her desire to have Walter help her build the log cabin on Origae-6, she realized that David had switched places with her friend, and was powerless to act before she lost consciousness.[3] As the Covenant powered onward, David covertly sent a series of reports to Weyland-Yutani divulging his plans for the ship's complement of colonists and Daniels herself, describing her as "his Queen", a development that would "change everything".[13]
Personality and traits[]
- "Hey! I can be tactful. Right upside somebody's head, if that's what's necessary to get things done."
- ―Katherine Daniels (from Alien: Covenant - Origins)
Katherine Daniels
Daniels was an intelligent, astute and resourceful individual, being incredibly proficient in her role as chief terraformist on the Covenant and able to identify the purpose, capacity and value of every piece of equipment in the ship's Terraforming Bay, to which she was heard to refer as "my turf". Daniels was also skilled in cooking up impromptu solutions to emergencies, successfully killing both of the aliens she encountered on and around Planet 4 using skill and guile few others would be able to apply.[3]
Daniels was also a kind and talkative individual, harboring a friendly relationship with ship's android Walter and some of her human crewmates, Tennessee in particular.[3] She would, however, not pull punches when she felt slighted, such as when acting captain Oram attempted to comfort her over the loss of her husband Branson and stumbled over encouraging her to grieve for him.[5]
On that note, Daniels often showed high emotion when facing events that would be distressing to anyone, namely witnessing the cruel death of her husband and later realizing that mad android David had supplanted Walter while she was slipping into hypersleep, which would likely not have a pleasant outcome for her.[3]
Equipment[]
Daniels in combat
Daniels took Ankor's rifle when he was killed in combat on the mysterious planet. She later armed herself with a pistol, although she was disarmed by David after she tried to shoot him in self-defense. When fleeing David's temple, she once more claimed an AR-15 rifle. Later, she armed herself with a RMC F903WE Automatic Assault Rifle when the alien born from Chris Oram managed to board the cargo lift on which the survivors were escaping the planet. The rifle proved to be of no use against the alien and she ultimately discarded it once she had expended its ammunition, leaving it to fall to the surface of Planet 4. With the rifle gone, Daniels briefly wielded an ax against the alien, but this also proved to be useless. While hunting for the alien that birthed from Lopé aboard the Covenant, she again armed herself with an F903WE, although she never needed to fire it.[3]
Behind the scenes[]
- "You don't really know what you're made of until you're confronted with a crisis, so at the beginning of the film, Daniels is capable, she's smart and she's good at her job, but I don't think Daniels fancies herself as any kind of heroic or particularly tough figure."
- ―Katherine Waterston (from Alien: Covenant: The Official Collector's Edition)
Katherine Daniels first appeared in The Last Supper, a short released on 22 February 2017 to promote Alien: Covenant. In the short[12]—and the film itself—she was portrayed by Katherine Waterston.[3] In early drafts of the film's script, Daniels was known as "Griff" Griffin.[14]
Appearances[]
Non-canon appearances[]
Gallery[]
Videos[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Crew Messages
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Art and Making of Alien: Covenant
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 Alien: Covenant
- ↑ Daniels' actress, Katherine Waterston, is 5ft 11 (180.3 cm) tall, which reflects Daniels' height.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Alien: Covenant novelization
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Alien: The Roleplaying Game
- ↑ Alien: Augmented Reality Survival Manual
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Alien: Covenant - Origins
- ↑ While the bay in question is merely labeled as "the main cargo bay" in Alien: Covenant - Origins, Alien: Covenant: The Official Collector's Edition states that the Covenant is in fact outfitted with four terraforming bays.
- ↑ Though its precise timeframe is not specified, the presence of Sarah Rosenthal in Phobos implies that it takes place after her recruitment in Alien: Covenant - Origins.
- ↑ Phobos
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 The Last Supper
- ↑ Advent
- ↑ Paradise Lost script (August 19, 2015 draft) by John Logan