Alien remains one of the best sci-fi/horror films ever made, even almost 40 years later. It not only launched a massive (and continuing) film franchise and Sigourney Weaver‘s career, it also firmly established Ridley Scott as a competent director with a strong grasp of story, character, and ambiance. And while it can be argued that Scott’s efforts to reclaim the “Alienverse” as his own have fallen short so far with Prometheus, there are high hopes for the upcoming sci-fi sequel, Alien: Covenant.

That film will pick up following the events of Prometheus which left only Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and the android David (Michael Fassbender) alive/functioning to carry on the story. But thanks to Scott’s comments in a new interview, it looks like Covenant might not be a direct sequel after all but rather something a little further on down the line. Fandango sat down with Scott to talk about all things Alien, and the chat revealed some interesting insight into the shared Alienverse that’s still in progress, like the plan for the next film after Covenant, followed by an entirely new Alien trilogy.

As for Alien: Covenant, here’s Scott’s take on the themes as opposed to those in Prometheus:

“It’s beginning to answer the who and why. It’s definitely gorier, and smarter. In it we raise some very interesting questions about the position and possibility of AI against human condition, and it crosses into the zone of apartheid — kind of like how Roy Batty was treated like a second class citizen. And so is David. The knee-jerk was to create a second class citizen, even if he is superior to everyone. So the natural thing to do at the end of Prometheus was to send them off together because when you think you’ve got it, you’ve got to keep the characters alive, as opposed to killing them. And [Coventant] starts to answer the who and why.”

The “them” in question includes David and Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw, who will also return in Alien: Covenant, Scott confirmed, but not in any traditional way:

“Yes, in a way. Not fully, but in a way. She was integral to what David carried out later.”

Depending on how Covenant performs, Scott sees at least four more films in his “Alienverse”, all of which will eventually connect back up to the original film:

“If this is successful, and then the next one, and then there will definitely be three more.”

We know that script work is already underway for the follow-up to Covenant. He also appeared to have let slip a potential title for an Alien film we have yet to see: