The creative saga of director Ridley Scott’s Prometheus follow-up has been beyond fascinating. Before Prometheus even hit theaters, Scott was essentially revealing all the franchise’s future secrets and teasing a Prometheus 2 in which Noomi Rapace’s Shaw and the disembodied head of Michael Fassbender’s David would go on an intergalactic road trip to find the home world of the Engineers. Development on Prometheus 2 continued…and continued…and continued, until it started to feel like the sequel might not actually happen at all.

Then finally, Scott seemed ready to make Prometheus 2 happen, but as the project picked up steam, it also started to sound like a very different film than the one that the ending of Prometheus teased. Most strikingly, Noomi Rapace was no longer part of the cast, and the now-retitled Alien: Covenant would revolve around a new group of explorers who stumble on David, the “sole inhabitant” of a dark, dangerous world.

But now, as production on Alien: Covenant is firmly underway, it appears that Rapace is in the movie after all. Per Deadline, the actress is on set in Australia to shoot “weeks worth of scenes” in the film. It’s unclear if this was a last-minute change or was planned all along, but it’s certainly a curious development and I will be mighty interested to see how Shaw fits into the story of this follow-up, which Scott says will start to work the franchise back around to the original Alien.

My guess? Rapace is shooting either flashback sequences or an extended prologue that reveals what happened to Shaw and David right after Prometheus left off. Or maybe she plays a key role in the ending? At this point it’s anyone’s guess, but have at it after read the official synopsis below.

Alien: Covenant also stars Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, and Amy Seimetz and opens in theaters on August 4, 2017.