Information has been very scant regarding the plot of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, due out in cinemas next summer. The best nugget we’ve heard since its announcement is that the story will exist in the same world as the Alien series, which Scott created with the chilling 1979 original. While the majority of Alien sequels and spin-offs were dire, it’s great to see Scott take the reins again. And now we have been told of the plot.

Well, not quite. IO9 were sent a synopsis of a plot, which does give a significant amount of detail about the Alien world. Fans of the original will remember the main characters first encountering the aliens (in the form of face huggers) in a giant crashed spaceship, with the corpse of a huge creature present in the ship. Dubbed the “space jockey”, this creature was never explained in the franchise, the rest of the characters continuing to be tormented by the “xenomorph” we all now recognise.

According to the leaked plot (NO SPOILERS, as you’ll see below), the space jockey is part of an engineer alien species, who actually are responsible for creating humans and the earth. Now that human have finally advanced enough to make contact, our Alien Gods welcome us and display their techniques and power. However, when one human attempts to steal the source of the Alien Gods power, they respond by sending their most lethal weapon to Earth…. presumaly, that creature we’ve known 32 years.

So there you have it, the Space Jockey explained. He’s an Alien God that tried to destroy earth but somehow failed in its mission, and I guess the prequel will deal with that. HOWEVER, Fox have claimed this is not accurate. It’s possibly a summary of an early draft, before the arrival of Lost writer Damon Lindelof who revised the story. That said, Scott and actor Michael Fassbinder have been abstractly suggesting that what we see may involve the “space jockey”, but for now take the above outline with a pitch of salt.