One of the Prodigy Corporation's experimental hybrids, Nibs (Lily Newmark), exhibited erratic behavior in Alien: Earth's fourth episode. The Hulu TV series is a prequel to Ridley Scott's Alien film, taking place on Earth in 2120. Along with the iconic Xenomorph, Alien: Earth explores several different robot types that exist in this sci-fi future, including a new kind of synthetic human, the hybrid (human minds transplanted into robot bodies) created by Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin).
The first of these hybrids is Sydney Chandler's Wendy, who also displays unusual behaviour via her connection to the Xenomorph in Alien: Earth. The subsequent hybrids after Wendy were dubbed the "Lost Boys," each named after a Peter Pan character. When Prodigy sent the Lost Boys to search the crash site of the USCSS Maginot, none of the group returned the same, and that was especially true for Nibs.
Nibs had been experiencing erratic dreams and visions since her time at the crash site, but in Episode 4 of Alien: Earth, this culminated in a tense conversation with her scientist, Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis), where Nibs revealed, "I'm pregnant." Despite the scientist's attempts to explain that this wasn't possible in her hybrid body, Nibs proceeded to insist she was having a baby, saying she "just knew it was true:"
Nibs: "I woke up this morning and I just knew it was true. It's not all these horrible things he was saying about me. What's inside of me, controlling me. Metal and silicone. It's a baby."
Later, when Sylvia tries to explain how it isn't biologically possible for Nibs to be pregnant, the hybrid likens herself to the Virgin Mary, explaining that Jesus was also born non-traditionally. When Sylvia tries to press Nibs on what happened during her time on the rescue mission, Nibs snaps, saying, "I don't want to talk about it," before she physically leaps across the room and threatens Sylvia to avoid talking about it any more.
The hybrid's strange behavior in Alien: Earth remains unexplained for now, but several theories reveal why Nibs is acting so weird.
Alien: Earth also stars Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, and Babou Ceesay, with Noah Hawley (Legion, Fargo), serving as creator and executive producer. The TV series debuted on August 12, 2025, and will span eight episodes, each released weekly.
Alien Earth Theories Explain What's Wrong With Nibs
Nibs is Connected to the Eyeball Monster
One prominent theory regarding Nibs' behavior is related to her interaction with Trypanohyncha Ocellus (sometimes known as Species 64 or the Eyeball monster) during the rescue mission in New Siam.
T. Ocellus is a scary new species created for Alien: Earth. It is depicted as a living eyeball with fleshy tendrils that allow it to run, leap, and burrow into the eye sockets of its victims before taking over their bodies. During the USCSS Maginot rescue mission, the hybrids encountered the deep-space species that had escaped from containment, and Nibs became one of the targets of the Ocellus.
While Nibs seemingly escaped the clutches of the violent creature, one theory suggests that may not be the case. In recent episodes of Alien: Earth, Nibs has been obsessed with her own eyes. When Sylvia pressed Nibs to remember the events at the towers, she became physically pained upon remembering the Ocellus attacking her, as it attempted to attach to her face.
As Episode 4 of Alien: Earth revealed via the sheep victim, T. Ocellus can forcibly remove the eyeball of its host and then insert itself and assume control. If the T. Ocelles could do this to Nibs successfully, it may be the case that the creature has replaced one of her eyes and has been controlling the hybrid since she returned, which explains her strange behavior. It would also explain the infatuation with her eyes as she may be trying to reconcile the foreign object in her body.
As for the talk about Nibs' baby, a slightly different take is that the Ocellus didn't burrow into Nibs, but instead managed to impregnate her somehow, and that she may be the incubator for a newborn T. Ocellus, in a similar way to how human hosts help gestate newborn Xenomorphs.
Nibs' Hybrid Body is Malfunctioning
The hybrids in Alien: Earth are established as the first of their kind, becoming an experimental new technology from Boy Kavalier and the Prodigy Corporation to test whether human minds can be transplanted into synthetic bodies and thus unlock human immortality. Kavalier tested this theory on six terminally ill children, moving their minds into adult synthetic bodies.
As the technology is new, hybrids are closely watched to determine their viability. While most of the hybrids seem to have been successful, some have displayed unplanned tendencies—like Wendy's powers with the Xenomorph. Similarly, Nibs's behavior may be explained by an unintended malfunction of her new body.
After interacting with the aliens on the USCSS Maginot, Nibs seemed to question her existence, unable to determine what she truly is - human, robot, or hybrid. This identity crisis may have led to the hybrid experiencing a mental break, which causes her to defy any knowledge that she is synthetic and instead believe she is human and capable of things like pregnancy.
Nibs is Giving Birth to a New Persona
Similar to the theory above, that Nibs' interaction with the Ocellus has caused an identity crisis within her, adding to that is the idea that Nibs' "pregnancy" may be her body giving birth to a new persona (or a "metamorphosis" as Episode 3's title teases).
Nibs is seemingly already shifting from the human child she was into a new person, one who may become violent at any suggestion that she is not human. When Nibs suggests that she "just knows" she is pregnant, it could be her synthetic body's way of digesting the conflict in her mind.
The "baby" Nibs suggests is controlling her may just be another name for herself, or rather, the new self she may be becoming. While it's unclear precisely what this new Nibs will look like, her unhinged, violent tendencies suggest it won't be good news for the people around her.
