Planet 4

"Planet number four is square in the habitable zone. Prime candidate in fact. Zero point nine six G's at the surface. Oceans. Landmass. High likelihood of living biosphere. It's beyond your most optimistic projections for Origae–6."

―Ricks to Katherine Daniels (from Alien: Covenant)

The planet designated 16EG14, more commonly known by the sobriquet Planet 4, was the fourth of five planets in an uncharted system located in Sector 87 on the Frontier. Originally inhabited by the Engineers, the local population was destroyed by the synthetic David following the loss of the Prometheus expedition in 2093. In 2104, the colony ship USCSS Covenant diverted to 16EG14 after receiving a rogue transmission from David, with most of its crew dying on the world in the resulting incident. Planet 4 was once more scouted by Weyland–Yutani in 2117, with the Company securing advanced knowledge of David's works.

Characteristics[]

"How did we miss this? We scanned the entire sector."

―Katherine Daniels (from Alien: Covenant)

Planet 4 was the fourth of five planets orbiting an ancient main sequence star in a system located in Sector 87 on the Frontier.^[1] The world was orbited by two moons, each smaller than that of Earth. The local atmosphere consisted of 19.5% oxygen, 79.4% nitrogen, and was 15.4 PSI in barometric pressure.

The planet's ecosystem was drastically altered by David when he unleashed the Chemical A0-3959X.91 – 15 pathogen on the Engineer's city. As a result of this event, all non-botanical life was either exterminated or used as an incubator for the gestation of hybridized predatory creatures such as the Neomorphs.

Species[]

Before David's cleansing of 16EG14, the planet was populated with at least one city of Engineers. After David's experimentation with the pathogen, Planet 4 became home for the Neomorph species that were spawned from airborne spores released from mutated egg sacks, and for the Praetomorph species after David created Ovomorphs containing Facehuggers.

Exploration by Weyland-Yutani[]

In 2117, a team from Weyland-Yutani arrived on the planet to investigate David's actions. While exploring the lab to document the rogue synthetic's scientific discoveries, one of the explorers inspected an Ovomorph and was attacked by a Facehugger.^[3]

Behind the scenes[]

Name[]

Planet 4 is not the official name given to the uncharted world by any of the crew on the Covenant. "Planet 4 / Main Theme" is the name of track 6 from Alien: Covenant's official soundtrack, which plays twice, in relation to the planet. The first is while Mother pinpoints this planet as the origin of the rogue transmission. The second is while the USCSS Covenant is on its way to the planet. Alien: The Roleplaying Game and Chariot of the Gods also later referred to the planet as such.

Earlier versions[]

In an early version of the Alien: Covenant script by John Logan, the pathogen that David unleashed on Planet 4 did not kill all animals. During their investigation, the crew of the Covenant stumble upon several animals that have been affected by the pathogen.^[4] In the final film, the pathogen eradicated all of the non–botanical lifeforms on Planet 4.

The script also notes that after David unleashed the pathogen, an energy barrier was activated by two satellites orbiting the poles as a quarantine barrier to prevent ships from leaving and the pathogen from spreading offworld. To restore power and communication to the Covenant, the crew destroy one of those satellites. This was excluded in the final film.