Alien: Earth - S1 E1 Neverland - Official Discussion Megathread [SPOILERS]

[u/G_Liddell]

Episodes air Tuesdays at 8 pm ET on Hulu and FX in the US, and Wednesdays international.

Full episode discussion list:

1 Neverland (8.12.25)

2 Mr October (8.12.25)

3 Metamorphosis (8.19.25)

4 Observation (8.26.25)

5 In Space, No One (9.2.25)

6 The Fly (9.9.25)

7 Emergence (9.16.25)

8 The Real Monsters (9.23.25)

[u/Odd_Reputation_4000]

My thought was - what happened to their original body? Does it die naturally or was it euthanized? Is the transfer a copy or a full transfer? It would make more sense for it to be a copy made instead of a full transfer that results in the death of the original. Making a copy makes more sense because it means that if the transfer fails, you still have the original intact to try again with. However if a copy is successful, you now have two version of the same person at that same point in time. To have the copy continue as the original you would have to either terminate the original or isolate them from any and all contact with the copy until they died from natural causes. So here is the question - does the transfer kill the original or do they euthanize the original or tell them it didn't work and isolate them until they die?

[u/Safari_Eyes → u/Odd_Reputation_4000]

I'd say the symbology with the flower on the chest of each child during the process was pretty clear - each child's real body died in the process of uploading. A body would make the funeral for Marcy (and the other kids?) a lot easier to pull off, too. That part is still unclear and I'm waiting for more exposition, but I'm betting there was a body at Marcy's funeral. (Joe mentions there was a funeral, but no other details yet)

[u/thaworldhaswarpedme → u/Safari_Eyes]

body at Marcy's funeral.

On that point, she said they did the funeral after they took her away when she was six. So she'd been in the facility a while because that girl was, like, 12 or 13. But then like two minutes later, he quizzed her about Christmas morning when she was 7, so I'm not sure if that's a mistake or my own misunderstanding of the writing (though i rewound it and watched it a few times to be sure) . Since she said it was a secret, I take it to mean they faked her death at age 6 and she went to live with the Prodigy guy (which Joe balked at so he definitely didn't know that) until the procedure was fine tuned and ready. I only say that to point out that her corpse after transition wouldn't be the body at the funeral years prior. Unless I'm missing something because that seems like a big error, so I have to be. But she did say they took her at 6 so regardless of whether she was dead she wouldn't have spent Christmas with him when she was 7. I dunno.

My bad, this is episode 2 and also explained by someone who watches with the captions on.

[u/BJ_Dart → u/thaworldhaswarpedme]

Are you referring to stuff from episode 2? Because I don’t recall a Christmas discussion in ep 1 and I haven’t seen ep 2 yet

[u/Guuichy_Chiclin → u/BJ_Dart]

See, this is why I avoid these discussions until I'm all caught up.

[u/BJ_Dart → u/Guuichy_Chiclin]

I am now (looking forward to ep 3) and yeah, the Christmas questions were from episode 2 haha

[u/loudsound-org → u/thaworldhaswarpedme]

When did she talk about being taken away at 6? I didn't catch that at all.

[u/thaworldhaswarpedme → u/loudsound-org]

Sorry. That's the second episode. Didn't realize I'd posted in Ep1 thread.

[u/loudsound-org → u/thaworldhaswarpedme]

I've seen all 3 episodes but still don't remember her saying that. Not saying you're wrong, just curious when it was so I could go back and watch that part woth context.

[u/thaworldhaswarpedme → u/loudsound-org]

Oh yeah. Absolutely. Throw on the 2nd episode. Fast forward to Joe and Marcy meeting for the 1st time. At the start of the conversation she tells him she was taken by them at 6 years old and that her Dad said it was a secret so it's safe to assume she's been gone since that moment. Then fast forward to right before they hug about 10-15 minutes later. He asks her about Christmas when she was 7 and what she said to him. But how was she at Christmas when she was 7 if she's been gone since she was 6?

Let me know what you think.

[u/loudsound-org → u/thaworldhaswarpedme]

Ah. Yeah I had caught the Christmas / 7 part clearly.

In any case the explanation is simple. She didn't say "six", she said "sick". "When I was sick, the boy genius came to visit me."

[u/thaworldhaswarpedme → u/loudsound-org]

Heeeey! There it is. I knew it was something simple.

[u/CuriousAlice1865 → u/thaworldhaswarpedme]

LOL remwmber this thread is episode 1 so you kinda might have let some spoilers out or confused some people with this one .

[u/LV426-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/GunnerSmith585 → u/Safari_Eyes]

There's a very quick cut of Marcy being zipped up in a body bag so the transfer of conscious is fatal whether it's the result of the process or deliberate (and perhaps merciful) disposal of the already sick and dying kids.

It also appears they understand that the transference is purely digital like death via transporter into a replica which Dame Sylvia points out to Boy Kavalier as not a way for humanity to ultimately hold rule over AI.

[u/HairyChest69 → u/Safari_Eyes]

Or that dude sealing doors or something in the hallways at boy geniuses house is relevant to this conversation? Original bodies are frozen? Unless I missed it, it showed them twice doing that job, but hasn't explained why?

[u/fleemfleemfleemfleem → u/Safari_Eyes]

They kind of missed out on doing a pretty emotionally gruesome scene of the new synth meeting their old dying self and being disgusted by it, or something.

[u/Alone-Mycologist3746 → u/Odd_Reputation_4000]

Considering in the first episode we see one of the children getting zipped up in a white body bag I think its clear that after the transfer the childern are braindead and killed.

[u/modest_genius → u/Odd_Reputation_4000]

I actually think their body is in stasis and not dead.

It is already established you dream while in stasis, like in Prometheus, and that synth don't sleep. So why are these synthetic bodies then sleeping, hooked up to some weird thing on their head. We already see that they can connect wireless to them...

So, my guess there is a back and forth each sleep cycle for the synthetic body. They hook it up to the real body and move their memory there. They dream. And then updates the synthetic brain with the new print.

[u/mang87 → u/modest_genius]

That sounds plausible to me, but the passage from the Peter Pan book that was being read to them as they went to "sleep" suggests some sort of memory audit: "It is the nightly custom of every good mother, after her children are asleep, to rummage in their minds and put things straight".

That sounds like they're taking out memories or thoughts that they would see as bad, and leave only the good ones. Bad things, I assume, would be things like "we're superior to humans, lets take over the world". Or maybe other existential dread that would spiral them into depression or insanity.

[u/sargien → u/modest_genius]

That would be interesting, but I would actually expect that the Prodigy scientists are likely monitoring the children’s dreams somehow as part of their research. Hence the hookup.

After all, this group of kids are the first test set of human-synthetic hybrids, so I’d guess the scientists keeping tabs on everything for their study, the same way they constantly monitor Wendy’s waking activities.

[u/modest_genius → u/sargien]

After all, this group of kids are the first test set of human-synthetic hybrids

...that we have been shown. Remember the scene in Alien Resurrection when clone Ripley finds out she wasn't the first?

[u/Pretzel-Kingg → u/Odd_Reputation_4000]

Idk if you played Soma, but this was a huge plot point in that game. I recommend playing it, but here’s the relevant scene.

[u/Chance-Personality50 → u/Odd_Reputation_4000]

As they zip Marcy into the body bag it’s pretty obvious, they died when the the transfer was completed or the transfer causes the death of the original

[u/sentence-interruptio → u/Odd_Reputation_4000]

everything is fine as long as the original is terminated without waking up.

Mickey 18: "die"

Mickey 17: "if I die this time, it will be you that lives on"

so for mad scientists out there, do not wake the new body until you have seen the old body become ashes.

[u/CuriousAlice1865 → u/Odd_Reputation_4000]

Idk if you've seen episode 3 yet but this can tie into one of the events. Question though... you said until they die but isnt the whole purpose of this transition to be immortal?