X-Files mythology, TenThirteen Interviews Database, and more

Archive for November, 2017

Social media archive: 2017 (part 7)

Archived from the Eat The Corn Facebook page.


Nov 23, 2017 22:37

#46DaysOfMythX D-42: 2X01: Little Green Men

EatTheCorn is 12 years old! Almost to the day of the anniversary of watching this, my first #TheXFiles episode! Morgan & Wong return to the same paranoid mood from “E.B.E.”, in an episode the deepens the character development of Mulder & Scully, but also Skinner and the CSM. Imagine if the story had involved Mulder travelling to Moscow, as initially planned by Carter…

2X01: Little Green Men


Nov 23, 2017 23:33

#46DaysOfMythX D-42 Part2: 2X04: Sleepless

The cinematography has become much more impressive compared to season 1, excellent guest star Tony Todd, a conspiracy thriller script, memorable Mark Snow music, all great elements — but this episode is particularly remembered for introducing Mr.X (and not Ms. X as was momentarily cast) and Agent (at that time) Krycek, who fails to shake hands with both Mulder and Scully here!

2X04: Sleepless

 

 


Nov 24, 2017 18:55

#46DaysOfMythX D-40 2X05: Duane Barry / 2X06: Ascension

The series’ first real two-parter, Carter’s first try at directing an episode, and the result is so impressive that it is with a big screen projection of Duane Barry that Ten Thirteen started really thinking of making a movie out of #TheXFiles! The mythology is really launched here, but see how carefully ambiguous it all remains, not just about who is doing the abductions, but one could argue ambiguous about the very existence of aliens!

Also of interest: by this stage, my reviews have started to become less cringe-worthy and much more verbose!

2X05: Duane Barry / 2X06: Ascension

 


Nov 25, 2017 10:23

#46DaysOfMythX D-39 2X08: One Breath

An episode so important it reverberates all the way to season 10! An excellent balance between lyrical and horrific, of mythology with character development (X’s intensity, Skinner’s Vietnam story, Melissa…). Iconic scenes that will be repeated in the show’s history: Mulder with the CSM at gunpoint, Scully in the hospital. Too bad Morgan & Wong didn’t contribute more to the mythology beyond this.

2X08: One Breath


Nov 25, 2017 10:50

#46DaysOfMythX D-39 Part 2: 2X10: Red Museum

An often-underappreciated episode! The thickness of the mystery might be a side-effect of this originally being planned as a cross-over with a series nobody remembers now, but the mix of stand-alone and mythology works to its favor. It’s a very 1990s episode with its small community wary of vegetarians and its millennial cults and its cow growth hormones or mind-altering alien DNA — but essentially the basic scientific principle of the control group is quite elegantly presented, derived from one line of dialogue from “The Erlenmeyer Flask”.

2X10: Red Museum


Nov 26, 2017 9:08

#46DaysOfMythX D-38 2X16: Colony / 2X17: End Game

The mythology enters that sweet spot where each double-parter becomes a big event and the writers/directors try to outdo themselves. Interesting here: the titular colony is a colony of what are most definitely hybrids, not aliens, however they are considered like a different race. The Terminator-like Alien Bounty Hunter is concerned with the “purity” of his own race, a recurring theme. He “lands” by crashing his UFO, definitely coming from outer space: all of this are very difficultly reconcilable with the My Struggle “conspiracy of men” theory.

2X16: Colony / 2X17: End Game


Nov 27, 2017 19:11

#46DaysOfMythX D-37 2X22: F. Emasculata

One of those great semi-myth/stand-alone episodes that, when viewed with posterior knowledge, gain new significance. In this case, in the light of Zero Sum, this could be another Syndicate test for studying the release and spread of a virus. Some quite disgusting scenes and a race against the clock featuring Dean Norris, a future “Breaking Bad” star!

2X22: F. Emasculata

 

 


Nov 28, 2017 22:59

#46DaysOfMythX D-36 Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip – the mythic ABC trilogy, a.k.a. “The Unopened File” for those following the VHSs!

It doesn’t get any better than this, a lot could be written about these! Universe expanded with the Syndicate-as-post-WW2-World-Order parable, many real-world-like events (from Navajo code-talkers to Paperclip Nazi scientists in the US), Carter’s passion for mystic Native American rituals, and a deep dive into the perils of the conspiracy for our characters! See how Cancer Man is belittled by his colleagues and is frustrated with having to micromanage Skinner and Krycek: surely this is not somebody who can have the entire Syndicate manipulated into believing there is a fake alien colonization plan afoot, as My Struggle seems to suggest, no?

2X25: Anasazi / 3X01: The Blessing Way / 3X02: Paper Clip


Nov 29, 2017 18:33

#46DaysOfMythX D-35: 3X09: Nisei / 3X10: 731, a.k.a. “82517”

Originally planned as a single episode, the writing team realizes they have struck gold! The series continues on an amazing string of mythology installments by adding elements to threads introduced in Anasazi: experiments by Axis Japanese scientists, train cars as a symbol of state power and Western expansion. The alien/human hybrid is explicitly linked with the creation of a superior soldier, one more variation of the “supersoldier” version of the truth. Also: Pendrell is introduced; and many locations used here would be revisited in the XF video game.

3X09: Nisei / 3X10: 731


Nov 30, 2017 18:38

#46DaysOfMythX D-34 3X15: Piper Maru / 3X16: Apocrypha

The string of excellent multi-parters continues with the introduction of the Black Oil and the search for Scully’s sister’s assassin (which won Anderson an Emmy nomination!). The Talapus, the DAT tape: s3 is very tightly knit together. The Black Oil behavior here is a mix between Fallen Angel (radioactivity) and the virus-like black liquid possessing people we will see again — different oil strains, or writers just figuring things out?

3X15: Piper Maru / 3X16: Apocrypha

Social media archive: 2017 (part 6)

Archived from the Eat The Corn Facebook page.


Oct 01, 2017 18:21

S11 MYTHOLOGY THEORIZING: Does this photo from My Struggle 3 show a young CSM (with newly cast character Erika Price) with an alien? Is it humanity’s first contact? Is it an artificial alien that the CSM will use to manipulate everyone to believe there is a menace of colonization, including manipulating the future Syndicate? Did this take place right after the UFO crash we saw in My Struggle 1 or was that crash a smokescreen too? Interesting! BUT: If there is no colonization threat, what to think of the Black Oil virus gestating alien-like creatures? If the CSM is behind it all from the beginning, what to think of all the times he looked not to have the upper hand or be killed in the past? If the Spartan virus was the end game since smallpox vaccines in the 1970s, what to make of the bees and the corn carrying the Black Oil virus? S10 & S11 seem poised to rewrite in depth the core if the X-Files mythology! – with the risk things won’t be coherent any more?


Oct 05, 2017 17:22

Read here @[383602778393543:274:Den of Geek US]’s NYCC special with 6 pages on The X-Files! Interviews with Carter, DD, GA, MP on S11 — where they are mostly amazed they are on the air so many years later, at how fast the zeitgeist is changing and how difficult it is to tell something meaningful for our times.

Issuu: Den of Geek NYCC 2017 Special Edition


Oct 08, 2017 19:24

NYCC Carter interview:
“DEADLINE: So a Season 12 is in the cards?
CARTER: (laughs) I’m trying to finish this season. I certainly think the show has much more life in it. So, I can’t answer that question definitively but I can tell you that there are more stories to tell.”
+ spoilers on some returning characters
So, essentially no end in sight as long as the audience is out there!…

Deadline: ‘The X-Files’ Creator Chris Carter On Making More Seasons, Lone Gunmen’s Return & ‘Millennium’ – NY Comic Con


Oct 08, 2017 20:00

S11 official trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRdrt8nPyy8


Oct 13, 2017 15:20

Happy 1013! Happy 61st birthday Chris Carter!

XF3? Carter: “I actually wrote a third movie, just for my own purposes. I wanted to see how I would approach a big screen ‘X-Files’. And a lot of those things that I wrote about found their way into season ten and now in season eleven.”

A lot of interviews (and what some people would consider as spoilers) in the recent NYCC promotion of season 11.

S11: We are headed towards:
– 1 mythology opener (11X01: My Struggle 3 “resetting” what My Struggle 2 did)
– 1 semi-mythology in the middle of the season by James Wong, 11X05, in a nice echo of Founder’s Mutation (with William appearing, it seems, and it won’t be a dream!)
– 1 mythology closure (11X10: My Struggle 4? likely cliffhanger?)
– 3 “pure” monster-of-the-week cases (which should be: 11X02 a M&S chase episode by Glen Morgan, 11X06 a Skinner-centric episode by Gabe Rotter, and 11X08 a “messed-up” episode a la Home by Morgan & Wong)
– 4 (!) “light-hearted” or “experimental” episodes, including 11X04 by Darin Morgan and 11X03 by Carter (leaving 11X07 and 11X09 and a host of new writers to allocate: Van Allen, Cloke, Hamblin, Nielsen)
For all we know, airing order could be different from production order, like for last time.

Science Fiction: NYCC 2017: ‘The X-Files’ Creator Chris Carter Talks Season Eleven


Oct 17, 2017 13:20

[Preview removed because of SPOILER] Miles Robbins: William? Not William? An Angel from Millennium?

https://twitter.com/yvrshoots/status/920104168240459777

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0730428/


Oct 20, 2017 00:05

Reyes on set: I thought there were going to be only 2 mythology episodes in s11? Is this still the semi-mythology James Wong episode that potentially involves William?

@annabeth_gish instagram


Nov 02, 2017 10:01

Podcast on the new book by them0vieblog’s Darren Mooney, which hosted some really excellent analysis on all things 1013! (+ thanks for the EatTheCorn reference!)

https://www.facebook.com/xfilespod/posts/1540504549351869

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5886733/tdest_id/588622


Nov 08, 2017 16:47

#TheXCastPodwatch: don’t let Excelsi(u)s Dei scare you, in this episode there’s some really great discussion on the man behind the curtain, Mr. Chris Carter!

https://www.facebook.com/xfilespod/posts/1541552392580418

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5864481/tdest_id/588622


Nov 14, 2017 14:12

See @[612531971:2048:Matt Allair], @[8273206453:69:The X-Files Lexicon] webmaster and @[383602778393543:274:Den of Geek US] contributor, discuss X-Files and Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend” in “Creature Features”, a local genre show in Northern California!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/8273206453/posts/10156038012506454/

https://creaturefeatures.tv/page/3/


Nov 14, 2017 18:58

The X-Files Season One Poster, by sorin88

http://sorin88.deviantart.com/art/The-X-Files-Season-One-Poster-538916508


Nov 14, 2017 23:53

Taking an in-depth look of the mythology elements of “The Real Science Behind #TheXFiles” book by Carter’s science advisor & virologist Anne Simon — some exciting and surprising stuff, with implications all the way to season 11!

Mythology elements of The Real Science Behind The X-Files


Nov 15, 2017 21:51

#TheXFiles season 11 premiere: Wednesday January 3 2018 8pm!

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialTheXFiles/posts/1491664857537909


Nov 17, 2017 12:59

The CSM looks officially healed.

XFilesNews: New Season 11 Cast Photos Revealed


Nov 18, 2017 19:28

D-46 for #TheXFiles season 11! Yes, the date is set, the countdown has begun! We run through all the mythology episodes of the series as we inexorably head towards “My Struggle III & IV”! #46DaysOfMythX

Up first, the pilot episode, of course. It is still a mystery why the date stamp puts the events in March 7-22 of the year 1992. Carter started working on a story in August 1992, pitched it to Fox and got a pilot order in November; his first draft is dated December 17 1992. Subsequent episodes, even Deep Throat and Squeeze, are set more or less concurrent with the writing of their scripts, in the summer of 1993. Fans theorized about a “missing year” full of potential stories — but this is probably just a production mistake!

1X79: Pilot

 


Nov 18, 2017 20:01

D-45 of #46DaysOfMythX 1X01: Deep Throat.

In TenThirteen, it’s all in the family: Here are new partners Mulder & Scully walking away from what will become Frank Black’s iconic yellow house in “Millennium” just under 4 years later. Those who discovered a conspiracy of men using alien technology, ARVs and implanted memories with season 10’s My Struggle should re-watch this episode, it’s all there from the beginning!

1X01: Deep Throat


Nov 20, 2017 18:34

D-44 of #46DaysOfMythX Conduit

Character-defining scenes for Mulder and a lot of echoes of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in the directing of this one, #TheXFiles is still searching its own voice. Also, the episode profiles in EatTheCorn are being updated in a more reader-friendly, proper 21st century format!

1X03: Conduit


Nov 20, 2017 21:40

D-44 of #46DaysOfMythX Part 2: 1X09: Fallen Angel

“Close Encounters” meets “The Predator” and we continue to see the heavy toll the alien phenomenon takes on human lives, this time memorably through the eyes of abductee Max Fenig. So the military work to shoot down UFOs and hunt aliens: different agendas from the Syndicate? different alien races? both? Probably not something the writers have thought about yet.

1X09: Fallen Angel


Nov 21, 2017 18:57

D-43 of #46DaysOfMythX 1X16: E.B.E.

Things get serious with this delightfully paranoid Morgan & Wong script, inspired by the 1970s Watergate conspiracy film “All the President’s Men” and UFO/conspiracy buffs in the X-Files’ early online discussion boards! Morgan: “The whole thing was written to get to the line, ‘A lie is best hidden between two truths.’ We worked the whole thing to get to that.” It’s one of the best episodes, but Wong is characteristically moderate in self-criticism: “At the end I felt like we didn’t really gain a lot of new ground or learn a lot of new things. I think we played a lot of texture instead of substance.” It also shows the governmental conspiracy clearly working with an agenda to exterminate the aliens — very much in opposition with the Syndicate that we haven’t met yet.

1X16: E.B.E.

 

 


Nov 22, 2017 19:23

D-42 of #46DaysOfMythX 1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask

A crown jewel of the series, like a series of best of scenes, and the first to be directed by Bob Goodwin! Carter had been planning this story all year long: “I had been wanting to do a story about alien genes and alien hybrids and the idea that there were scientists who were using this material from aliens that had been collected or recovered or salvaged, and trying to mix them with human DNA.” So many elements introduced in this episode would evolve into essential mytharc threads: genetic experiments, hybrids, the green toxic blood. Carter: “it was an episode that really, I feel, established a mythology: what the government may be up to, how they may be in cahoots with the aliens.”

1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask

Mythology elements of The Real Science Behind The X-Files

Dr. Anne Simon is a researcher in virology and professor in the University of Maryland. She also has in her curriculum the no less respectable title of science advisor for The X-Files! Anne Simon got involved in the show from the very first season, 1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask, through a family connection — her mother’s best friend is Chris Carter’s wife and writer Dori Pierson — and has remained involved to this day, even earning a writing credit on the show’s last episode to have aired to date, 10X6: My Struggle II. She is also the daughter of screenwriter Mayo Simon, who wrote several science-themed or science fiction features (Marooned, Phase IV).

In 1999, Simon wrote “Monsters, Mutants and Missing Links: The Real Science Behind The X-Files“, a book that mixed episode stories with her own scientific knowledge and participation in the making of the series. Simon’s contribution in the series as a scientist elevates this particular book above the usual “the science of…” tie-in books that get released to ride on a pop culture phenomenon’s success. The book makes for a great read for the science amateur and informed X-Files fan, it invites the reader to enter the mindset of a scientific researcher questioning everything and attempting to reconcile facts in order to come up with theories — a quintessentially x-philian activity. The X-Files, after all, tried to balance Mulder’s encyclopedic knowledge of paranormal phenomena with Scully’s no less encyclopedic knowledge of medicine and more.

The US cover

The book covers seasons 1-5 as well as Fight the Future and the first episode of the sixth season. It would be interesting for Anne Simon to do a second edition of this book, with additional chapters not only covering seasons 6-9 (and importantly, as will be seen below, the revival) but also offering an updated view on the science: medical sciences and biology in particular are very lively fields that have seen great advancements over the past 15 years. Scientific truth is an ever-expanding, ever-shifting landscape!

By her own account, Simon only helped Carter with the science of the mythology episodes, the only stand-alone exception being 5X06: Post-Modern Prometheus, also a Carter episode. The science in other X-Files episodes must have been the writers’ own work or Ten Thirteen’s in-house researcher. Thus, the book’s science can be broken down into three types:

  • The book attempts to provide a scientific background for the phenomenon seen in an X-Files investigation. These are more akin to more or less wild sessions of theorizing and of attempting to put science where scientific accuracy might not have been the writers’ concern. For example, finding a biological basis for Virgil Incanto’s need for fat matter (from 3X06: 2Shy).
  • Scully (mostly) and Mulder explicitly reference a scientific concept in an episode, and the book offers further background to that concept. If the concept made it into the script, then it’s likely that the writers used this concept as the basis for their script, or at least they were aware of it and wrote it in in order to strengthen the scientific accuracy of the script. For example, the Chupacabra fungus launches a discussion of how fungi and enzymes work (from 4X11: El Mundo Gira).
  • A third category is Simon’s own contributions, which are first-hand accounts of what research was done to give these episodes scientific verisimilitude and what were the writers’ (well, Carter’s) intentions by including some elements of the research and not others. For example, identifying alien DNA with the two extra nucleotides (from 1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask).

Anne Simon circa 1999

Sometimes, the additional research that didn’t make it into the final script and the behind-the-scenes discussions Simon had with Carter provide interesting insights into the script-writing process and valuable information about the mythology that cannot be found elsewhere. This mythology information could be described as “secondary” canon information: although not in the episodes themselves, it is certain it was in Simon’s and Carter’s minds and intentions when the episodes were being written and this extra information does not contradict the episodes. I used this extra information for EatTheCorn’s Mytharc Primer. This will be the focus of this article.

Are all of these elements below things we were to ponder on purpose as part of the larger mysteries of the mythology, or are they fan theories extrapolated from trying to inject too much science into a scripted piece of entertainment?

Mythology elements

The DNA to create an alien is already existing in humans and the Black Oil/Purity virus switches on this junk DNA

Quote:

Chris Carter, the movie’s scriptwriter, originally wanted to connect the black oily slime and the lizard-like entity in the following way: the black slime carries a virus, which is infectious when the slime enters a person; in the warmth of a person’s body, the virus develops into the monstrous creature..
Very imaginative, yes.
Minutely possible within the framework of biology, no.
After reading the movie script in early 1997, I hoped that Chris would change his mind. Having a special place in my heart for viruses, I discussed with him why a virus couldn’t possibly develop into anything. Viruses are, after all, just a bag of genes. A bag of genes that turns into a lizard with large black eyes and long pointed nails wouldn’t fit even my expanded definition of an extraterrestrial virus. I explored with Chris an idea for tinkering with his scenario. What if the black slime virus is responsible for the development of the creature but is not the progenitor of the creature? The virus, carried into a human by the black slime, could invade a cell in the person’s body and cause the cell to lose its identity. The cell could then be enticed by the virus to enter a new developmental pathway. That cell, together with its descendent cells, would regenerate into the hideous alien monster. I was thrilled that Chris liked the changes, since I wasn’t enthusiastic about the ribbing I would have taken from my fellow virologists if viruses changed into lizard-like aliens on the big screen — with me credited as science advisor.

The concern for scientific realism here is remarkable. A virus is a simple strand of DNA, much, much shorter than the DNA of a single-celled organism let alone of a complex multi-cellular organism like humans or grey aliens. For a virus to turn a human into an alien monster, it would have to carry much more information than a simple virus; so much so that it would not be categorized as a virus at all! The solution Simon found was to have the virus just be an activator of genes that are normally inactive in humans.

It would be have been simple to ignore that and just handwave the science away and make the virus do what viruses can’t do, but Carter was more than willing to incorporate this into his script.

Victim of (a strain of) Purity

Implications: human origins

This has large implications. If the information to create an alien were already present in human DNA, how did it get there? What happens if random genetic mutations switch part of that DNA on but not all of it? Gibson Praise and the Biogenesis trilogy storylines are the results of this idea. Super-human abilities such as mind-reading are the result of select genes in the so-called junk DNA being switched on (5X20: The End, 6X01: The Beginning). The alien DNA was put there by design because we are creations of aliens (6X22: Biogenesis). It would make sense then that the Ships with inscriptions on them containing a transcript of human DNA on them would belong to that same alien race that created us (7X03: The Sixth Extinction): Purity.

Implications: Black Oil virus origin

The Black Oil virus can thus be understood as a biological tool to transform a human into an alien. Could that mean that the Black Oil virus itself is manufactured, a tool of biological warfare on humans? The Purity aliens then would, in their natural form, be humanoid greys, the end result of the Black Oil virus’s life cycle. The Black Oil virus and its derivatives (see the creation of the Supersoldiers) would just be a tool for the Purity aliens to spread.

Extending this concept further, the Black Oil virus arbiters the mixture of active human genes and active alien genes in an organism, i.e. determines how much of an alien/human hybrid that organism is. Could that mean that hybridization experiments that result in our well-known green-blooded hybrids consist in finding out which genes to switch on and off? In the study of 5X14: The Red and the Black I theorized that the green blood in Alien Bounty Hunters and Faceless Rebels would mean that this race was created by Purity using some Purity genetic material in the same way humanity was, and that the green blood in alien/human hybrids is proof of that: could it be that this race of Shapeshifters actually be the result of earlier genetic experiments on humans?

Scully is not buying that viruses can think

Implications: virus vs. sentient organism

And so Carter and Simon thus went out of their way to present the Black Oil as a virus, behaving like a real virus. In most episodes we see it, the Black Oil infects people like a normal virus and at most put them into a coma (depending on things like temperature conditions, exposure of the host to a vaccine, potential weakness of the Black Oil strain). What doesn’t jive well with this is that the Black Oil, at times, behaves as if it has sentience: once it is inside a host, at times, it makes the host behave as if he is controlled by an intelligence other than his own. A simple virus would be very far from having the complexity necessary to do this. At best it could influence the behavior of the host in a specific way, like the worms wrapped around the brain in 1X07: Ice made the host violent. Could this be anything else than artistic license?

To be fair, the only times when the Black Oil virus shows real intelligence all by itself is in 3X15: Piper Maru / 3X16: Apocrypha, when for example it drives Krycek to negotiate with the CSM in order for it to reach its UFO — and the writers might not have yet settled their minds about what this black fluid was or that the “black cancer” they introduced in 4X09: Tunguska was the same entity. The other instance is in 8X16: Vienen, where the infected try to get more people infected. Interestingly, it is only in these two instances of the Black Oil that we see the host emit a flash of radioactivity to protect and attack, as if this were a different entity altogether. In both these instances, it could be that the Black Oil merely manipulates the brain to usher the host to rejoin with more of its kind, and the host uses the resources at its disposal — the host’s intelligence, memories, capabilities — to achieve that. This would not be unlike what some real parasites do when they control the host to their own benefit, for instance by ingesting more food or by moving to a safe place for the parasite to mature (see these or this lovely example).

How the Black Oil operates inside the Alien Bounty Hunters would be a different issue entirely.

The Black Oil/Purity virus doesn’t have extra nucleotides: is it terrestrial or extra-terrestrial?

Quote:

In ‘The Beginning’, the opening episode of the sixth season, Mulder’s convinced that there is a connection between Gibson and the virus involved in activating the development of the lizard-like creature. Unfortunately, hard evidence is lacking. Gibson is gone and the creatures have vanished. Muider’s only piece of evidence is a trace amount of the virus that he believes is extraterrestrial. Mulder is crushed when Scully cannot support scientifically the alien nature of the virus. After running tests, Scully reveals that the virus, although of an unknown species, has the same four nucleotides in its DNA and the same 20 amino acids in its proteins as earthly viruses. She therefore concludes that Mulder is mistaken. The virus comes from Earth.

Here Simon just summarizes how 6X01: The Beginning unfolds, but doesn’t counter Scully’s argument. Throughout the book, the Black Oil virus is casually referred to as alien and there is no question that aliens are here to colonize. There is just this catch: the Black Oil virus doesn’t contain the two extra nucleotides that was the most convincing proof of alien biology! Simon explains in detail her idea of two extra nucleotides to the usual four found in all earthly organisms, and how Carter integrated this idea in his script for 1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask involving alien gene therapy on humans (i.e. inserting bits of alien DNA in the DNA of living humans). Surely, this is the best evidence Scully should have to make her believe in aliens. By Fight the Future and 6X01: The Beginning, Mulder believes the Black Oil virus and the clawed creature it spawns to be alien, but Scully’s analyses do not show something out of the ordinary apart from the fact that humans share a large part of their genome with it.

Southern blot DNA test in 5X02: Redux

Does that scientific result insinuate that the Black Oil is, in fact, terrestrial in origin and the entity with extra nucleotides is the only thing that is alien? The extra nucleotides are encountered in 1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask and 5X02: Redux (and again in 10X6: My Struggle II; and since it is inside Scully, presumably it is what the Lone Gunmen analyze in 2X08: One Breath). What this would imply for the overall mythology is unclear. The Syndicate obtained the alien fetus with the extra nucleotides DNA from a deal with the aliens (6X12: One Son), the same aliens that are identified with the Black Oil/Purity colonization effort in many instances. Are the extra nucleotides necessary only in the mature grey form of the alien but not in the virus and first “clawed alien” forms? Is the Black Oil race in fact also seeking protection from the extra nucleotides race and conducting hybridization experiments as well? Did the Black Oil race originally evolve on Earth before leaving and now returning once more?

Gibson Praise’s DNA test in 6X01: The Beginning

This raises more questions than it answers, and unless it is building up to a future revelation about multiple races I will categorize it as an oversight on behalf of Carter for now.

The Syndicate’s endgame was the depopulation of the planet

Quote:

As Kurtzweil explains to Mulder in the X-Files movie, the corn is for production; the virus is the product; and the bees are for transportation. A deadly sting that the conspirators thought would depopulate the world but instead will repopulate it with virus-induced alien life-forms.
And that’s all the buzz on bees, corn and viruses.

Although there were talks of plagues and viruses and Apocalyptic warnings, the Syndicate’s purpose as it was exposed in Fight the Future and again in 6X11: Two Fathers / 6X12: One Son and 9X19/20: The Truth was to spread the Black Oil virus and see the world be taken over by the alien colonists, with the Syndicate members themselves surviving as immune hybrids. Indeed, if the Black Oil virus didn’t do anything else but put people in a coma or kill them why term it “colonization”? Why would the aliens collaborate with the Syndicate if they didn’t get something in return? In Fight the Future the Syndicate discovers the Black Oil triggers a gestation of a “clawed” alien. Well-Manicured Man: “This isn’t Colonization, this is spontaneous repopulation!” “We believed the virus would simply control us, that mass infection would make us a slave race. Imagine our surprise when they began to gestate.” We thus discover that the aliens perceive colonization as using the human population to reproduce themselves and increase their numbers, at humanity’s expense (and extinction).

The Well-Manicured Man spills the beans (that he knows about) to Mulder

Simon’s sentence could have been a shorthand — what effectively happens whether humans become hosts to Purity for life or humans die giving birth to the clawed alien form is that humans as such decrease in numbers. The mention of “depopulation” in Simon’s text is not backed up by anything in the series’ canon and would not mean much more — right until depopulation was presented as the (a?) conspiracy’s endgame in 10X6: My Struggle II. It could be then that the conspiracy’s initial objective was depopulation and choosing who would survive. Then came along the colonist aliens who offered the conspiracy with a means to achieve this objective: a potent pathogen, the Black Oil virus. In 1973, the conspiracy became the Syndicate by agreeing to share the spoils with the aliens in a post-depopulation colonized Earth. The Syndicate might have believed that the Black Oil virus would make humans into slaves that they, as new world leaders, would control jointly with the aliens. When the Syndicate discovered the aliens’ true purpose, the agreement was off and what remained of the Syndicate returned to the original plans of depopulation we see in season 10, using the Spartan virus injected into the population before 1973 along with the smallpox vaccinations.

Scully’s cancer was not cured, it only went into remission thanks to chip

Quote:

In the summer of 1997, I discussed with Chris some cool new treatments for curing Scully’s cancer. Scully’s health was getting progressively worse, until she lay near death in the sequel to the episode ‘Redux’, called ‘Redux I’. Chris decided to have Scully ‘cured’ when a synthetic chip was placed at the base of her neck. While watching the episode, I groaned. I knew what would happen the next day when I faced the 500 rabid X-Files fans in my Introduction to Biology class. Hands flew up as soon as I entered the room. ‘How could a computer chip in the neck cure cancer, Dr Simon?’ I was asked repeatedly. When I talked to Chris later that week, he said ‘It’s not a cure! It’s only remission!’ I remain hopeful that some new neat medical technology will prevail in the end.

The Redux trilogy ended in an excellent way synthesizing the core themes of the X-Files. Scully’s cancer disappeared, and it could have been due to her prayers being answered by God, or due to the conventional treatment she underwent, or due to the chip that was put into her again, a symbol of unconventional science and perhaps of the existence of aliens.

Studying Scully’s very first implant

That it would be just a remission instead of a cure makes some pseudoscientific sense. Scully’s cancer was caused by the experiments done on her during her abduction (radiation exposure to trigger hyper-ovulation? contact with alien genetic material?). A cancer is certain cells losing their constraints and duplicating endlessly growing into an unwanted tumor. The chip put inside Scully during her abduction put shackles on these cells and stopped their spread. The removal of the chip in season 3 caused the spread to begin anew; the addition of a similar chip in season 5 stopped it. Scully only has to remove the chip and her cancer could return; or, the chip could be reprogrammed to kill her by permitting the cancer to grow. Carter’s quote above could be both an acknowledgment that the chip did not magically cure her cancer, and a tease for a potential future development — one story thread that has not yet been pulled back to the fore.

Some additional short tidbits that have their significance

Dr. Anne Carpenter

In 1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask, Dr. Anne Carpenter’s name comes from Anne Simon’s first name and not legendary director John Carpenter, but after Anne Simon’s husband name.

Magnetite

Magnetite is mentioned extensively in the description of the (real) Mars meteorite that might have contained fossilized bacteria, which served as inspiration for 4X09: Tunguska. Magnetite is of course a widely common iron compound found on Earth and elsewhere and there is nothing particular about it, however magnetite’s importance as the aliens’ weak spot introduced in season 9 does make this research relevant. One theory would be that the presence of magnetite in the Mars meteorites is what weakened the Black Oil’s potency and allowed the research into a vaccine to proceed faster in Russia compared to other, more potent Black Oil strains, like the ones in Fight the Future and 6X01: The Beginning.

Black vermiforms

Foum Tataouine

Discussing Mars meteorites, Simon also mentions the Tatahouine meteorite, which was analyzed in the wake of the potential bacteria find in the ALH84001 meteorite from Antarctica. That meteorite fell in the Foum Tataouine/Tatahouine/Tatawin region of Tunisia in 1931. This is the same place where we find Conrad Strughold at the end of Fight the Future. It is possible the Syndicate installed GMO corn fields above findings of Black Oil, some of which might have landed on Earth with meteorites.

S.E.P.

In Scully’s and Pendrell’s analysis of smallpox vaccination tags in 4X01: Herrenvolk, the aminoacid sequence that appears onscreen is not random: it is that of the cowpox virus, as could be expected from a smallpox vaccination!

Look what Pendrell found inside Scully

The chimera organism

The chimera organism in 5X02: Redux that develops under Scully’s microscope and could be alien is actually footage of a proteus urchin!

Alien urchin

Genetically modified plants

Fight the Future and colonization in general is based on genetically modified corn that carries the DNA from the Black Oil virus, which is passed on to bees when the bees come into contact with the corn’s pollen: the transfer of genes from one organism to the other is something that is observed in nature with Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which transfers its genes into plant cells and has been used to insert specific genes and thus create genetically modified plants.

Black Oil worms

The Black Oil coalescing into worms was inspired by dictyostelium slugs. It looks like the Black Oil behaves intelligently, for example when it forms worms that “attack” a host in Fight the Future. There is however a real nature counterpart to such behavior, as odd as it seems. One could imagine the Black Oil virus organizing itself and the hydrocarbons in the oil it is bathing in order to behave like a multi-cellular organism looking to infect a host, in a broadly similar way to the ‘dicti‘ organism.

Dictyostelium discoideum life cycle

ADA enzyme & gene

There is mention of the severe immunodeficiency syndrome caused by a faulty gene producing the ADA enzyme. Years later, Simon would use that knowledge to come up with the mechanism with which the conspiracy would depopulate the planet with the ADA-removing Spartan virus, in 10X6: My Struggle II.

Southern blot

Simon is well aware that the Southern blot test conducted by Scully in 5X02: Redux was done way too quickly because the narrative of the episode demanded it, and it has become a bit of a recurring joke that she has received criticism for this. (To accelerate the test, more heat is needed, thus the mention of a “blazing hot probe”: little did she suspect that FOX censorship might take issue with that expression!) I wonder how the same people would react to 10X6: My Struggle II and its extremely quickly produced alien DNA vaccine.

Annex: Book contents

An overview of all the information in the book’s six chapters:

1: Hidden and Hungry
Episodes: The Host ; Ice; Darkness Falls; Firewalker; El Mundo Gira; F. Emasculata
Described: extremophiles; pathogens; antibiotics; hypothalamus & hormones; flukes & worms; hermaphrodites; reviving extinct species; spores; silicon-based life; fungi & enzymes; immune system; parasites & outbreaks

2: Visitors from the Void
Episodes: The Erlenmeyer Flask; Tunguska; Piper Maru; Ice; Gethsemane/Redux
Described: bacteria; microscopes; DNA, RNA & nucleotides; virus replication; Human Genome Project; ALH84001 Mars meteorite, PAHs, carbonates & magnetite; dicti slugs; Tunguska event; life in space & panspermia; ammonia-based life; chimeric organisms; Piltdown Man hoax; RFLP DNA test; mitosis & somatic development

3: Mutants and Monsters
Episodes: Post-Modern Prometheus; Home; Small Potatoes; 2Shy; Leonard Betts; Fight the Future; The End/The Beginning
Described: fruit flies; genetic engineering; DNA mutations; epidemics & mutant gene spread in human population; birth defects & genetic disorders; chromosomes, autosomes, sex chromosomes; dominant & recessive genes; extra chromosomes & chromosome inactivation; inbreeding; PCR DNA test; enzymes, proteases, lipids & digestion; regenerating limbs & repression by the immune system; cancer, proto-oncogenes, p53 gene & mutation suppression; bacteria redirecting the identity of cells & viruses activating genes; junk DNA; God module

4: Releasing the Genetic Genie
Episodes: Eve; Memento Mori; The Erlenmeyer Flask; Redux; Zero Sum; Herrenvolk; Fight the Future
Described: cloning; genetic engineering; chemotherapy & radiation treatment for cancer; gene therapy; Southern blot test; cloning & extra chromosomes; reproduction by cloning; forensic entomology; smallpox, immunization with cowpox, Smallpox Eradication Program; immunohistochemical staining & protein amino-acid sequence “tagging”; adding genes to plants & Agrobacterium tumefaciens

5: Seeking the Fountain of Youth
Episodes: Young at Heart; Dod Kalm; Roland; Synchrony; Our Town
Described: immortality & cell life ageing theory; HeLa cells; Hayflick cell division limit; human experimentation & consent forms; ‘wear and tear’ ageing theory, progeria, Werner’s syndrome, helicase enzyme; gene therapy; telomeres; cancer & telomerase enzyme; free radical ageing theory; antioxidants; male/female longevity, hormones & metabolism; cryonics; cells freezing process & ischemia; cryopreservants; vitrification; nanotechnology; brain diseases, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; prions; cannibalism & kuru disease; ‘mad cow’ disease

6: Fooling with Mother Nature
Episodes: War of the Coprophages; The Jersey Devil; Blood; The Pine Bluff Variant; Quagmire
Described: environmental problems; invasive species; species extinction from loss of habitat; mutations, global warming & Hsp90 protein; insect sterilization for pest control; man-made insecticides, DDT, environmental oestrogens & link to cancer; artificial chemicals & health problems; animal & human pheromones; adrenaline; biological warfare & US & USSR programs; flesh eating bacteria, Streptococcus, anthrax; terrorist groups with biological agents (Aum Shinrikyo & nerve gas sarin, domestic terrorism in 1998); amphibians extinction; Endangered Species Act; coelacanth; chytrid fungi