Warning! This article contains spoilers for The Eternaut.

The alien species featured in The Eternaut‘s season 1 is unique in more ways than one. In its opening moments, Netflix’s hit post-apocalyptic show, The Eternaut, comes off as any other TV series or movie of the genre, where humanity faces a near-extinction event, leaving the survivors to their own devices. However, the more The Eternaut progresses, the more it becomes evident that alien forces are at play in its unfolding narrative. The show maintains an air of ambiguity surrounding its central alien beings but gives away enough details to keep viewers invested.

Most typical alien invasion movies feature an all-out war between humans and extraterrestrials. The Eternaut, however, seems to tread a different path, where the aliens are seemingly a lot more tactical with their plan of taking over Earth. The scale of their invasion gradually becomes visible as they execute one step of their plan after another. Although The Eternaut intentionally avoids giving away all the details about the aliens in season 1, it leaves enough room for theories and speculations.

What The Alien Beetle Creatures Are In The Eternaut

The Giant Beetles Are More Like Weapons Deployed By The Aliens

After the snow settles and the surviving humans are finally able to leave their homes, they realize that an even bigger threat lurks outside. Giant alien bugs emerge from the shadows and wrap humans in a strange web-like element. Many humans theorize that the bugs have fallen from the sky and are the overarching alien species trying to invade Earth. However, much later in the series, a scene shows how the bugs make way for a soldier instead of attacking him, establishing there is more to them than meets the eye.

Although The Eternaut season 1 does not fully explore the bugs’ purpose and how they tie into the aliens’ overarching plan, the extraterrestrial beings seem to use them as weapons. After destroying nearly all means of transportation and communication among humans, the aliens seem to trigger their second line of attack by sending out the bugs. The powerful bugs ensure that the remaining resistance in the human community is taken down before the main aliens can proceed with the invasion. Put simply, the alien bugs are biological weapons of mass destruction.

Where The Eternaut’s Aliens Are From & Why They’re Invading Earth

The Aliens’ Purpose & Origin Has Not Been Revealed

The Eternaut does not delve into the details of the origins of the aliens and where they come from. It also avoids explicitly stating the aliens’ purpose. However, in the show’s original source material, the aliens are portrayed more as metaphors for totalitarianism and imperialism. Even in the show, several parallels between Juan Salvo’s experiences from the war and the growing alien invasion are drawn to highlight the dehumanizing impact of oppressive regimes and the fall of democracy.

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What Caused The Apocalypse In The Eternaut

The Eternaut presents a unique, never-seen-before post-apocalyptic setup in its opening moments, raising many questions about its apocalypse’s cause.

As seen towards the end of the series, the aliens specifically take control of the military forces to establish a better hold on the masses by instilling fear and violence. Ordinary citizens, like Juan’s daughter, are also trained by the alien-controlled military in The Eternaut season 1’s ending, showing the rise of dictatorship and the gradual loss of individual will and autonomy among the survivors.

Owing to this, without the political undertones, the aliens can be seen as mere invasive forces that want power and dominion over Earth. They have likely done the same with several other planets before targeting Earth. However, beyond the show’s straightforward portrayal of alien invasion, it is hard not to see how The Eternaut also serves as a reflection of the real world issues surrounding the centralization of power.

The Aliens’ Snow Attack In The Eternaut Explained

The Snow Attack Was A Calculated Step In The Aliens’ Overarching Plan

The Eternaut may not have explicitly explained the reason behind the toxic snowfall. However, a character, Favalli, an electrical engineer, comes up with an intriguing theory. He says that the Earth is experiencing a major shift in the poles. Owing to this shift, radiation from the Van Allen belts (zones of charged particles trapped in the Earth’s magnetic fields) is binding with snow and falling on the Earth’s surface. The show does not reveal why the poles are shifting, but it is evident that the aliens used their advanced technology to trigger the switch in the poles.

Favalli’s theory is also later proven true when he finds compasses and notices that the poles have completely flipped. The aliens initially use the toxic snowfall to destroy everything from human communication devices to means of transportation. This move instantly puts them in an advantageous position while humans struggle to figure out what is happening. From a metaphorical standpoint, the snowfall attack can also be seen as an initially invisible, corrupt political force that gradually rots society from the inside out and remains unnoticed until it is too late.

Who The Hybrid Alien Creature Controlling Everyone Is In The Eternaut

The Alien With The Strange Hand Seems Further Up In The Extraterrestrial Hierarchy

In most alien invasion narratives, an alien species arrives at Earth’s surface before either waging a war against humanity or setting out to join forces with humans to walk towards a mutually beneficial goal. The Eternaut, however, seems to establish a clear hierarchy of power after the invasion. The lowest on the power scale are ordinary human survivors like Juan, struggling to find out what is happening to their world. Above them are the giant alien beetles, biological weapons that mindlessly destroy resisting human forces.

Further up in the hierarchy are humans who are already in the alien species’ control. These humans seemingly have a chip-like technology installed in their brains that allows the aliens to manipulate them. As seen in The Eternaut‘s ending moments, the manipulated humans are further controlled by an alien with multiple fingers, who seems to use some form of eerie music for mind control. In the original The Eternaut comic strips, the hand creature is further controlled by another mysterious alien force, Ellos (“Them”), who will likely be introduced in The Eternaut season 2.

Are The Aliens Evil In The Eternaut?

The Aliens Have Caused Enough Harm To Be Labeled As Evil

The aliens’ true motives in The Eternaut remain shrouded in ambiguity. However, given how they have already mass-murdered several humans with the initial toxic snowfall attack and stripped away the autonomy of several others by mind-controlling them into working for them, it seems clear that they do not have the best intentions in mind. Even from a political standpoint, the aliens in The Eternaut, like corrupt governments or totalitarian regimes, are solely driven by the desire to dominate and maintain absolute power.

They resort to extreme methods, like genocide and mind control, to fulfill their objective of taking over the planet. This makes them objectively malevolent, even though The Eternaut is yet to establish what they wish to achieve in the long run.