|
Chris
Carter
|
Analysis |
The
Method as they called it, though it was more so a germline procedure of
singular metascientific complexity, had been given to them by the alien
Colonists as a quid pro quo.
|
Technobabble! The "Method",
a term never used
elsewhere, is an advanced procedure to manipulate genetic material,
create a mixed (hybrid) DNA from different sources, insert it in a cell
and create a living organism out of it. This alien technology, much
more advanced compared to human state of the art, was what allowed the
Syndicate to create more successful hybrids after 1973 compared to
their failures the 25 years prior to that (2X25:
Anasazi, 3X01: The Blessing Way).
The "quid pro quo" will be
explained in detail in 6X11:
Two Fathers / 6X12: One Son. |
| The
Syndicate would
help them to create a population of alien
hybrids who would hide in plain sight, cloned from human ova and alien
biomaterial, so there would be a clone race immune to the effects of
the Black Oil when the return to the planet began. |
The term "Syndicate",
though widely used in articles,
interviews and plot synopses, is never actually mentioned in the
series' dialogue. The goal of creating alien/human hybrids is
established, first seen in 1X23: The
Erlenmeyer Flask. We know human ova is used for these experiments from 4X15: Memento
Mori. As
surmised by 2X16:
Colony and 3X24: Talitha Cumi,
despite their human appearance this really is a different race of
beings. It is made clear that immunity to the Black Oil 'virus' is the
real purpose behind all this. Those hybrids would be used as slaves
following the impending colonization. The distinction between the clone
hybrids and the gene therapy hybrids (such as Cassandra Spender) is not
made here.
|
| For
this the Syndicate would be sequestered, granted a sort of immunity or
asylum, given a place in the grander scheme. They were the Vichy
government to the German Final Solution, collaborationists whose
motivation was simple self-directed survival. |
Because of episodes like 1X01: Deep Throat, 1X09: Fallen
Angel, 1X16: E.B.E. or 4X17:
Tempus Fugit / 4X18: Max,
which depict humans (the military) acting against the aliens, the
nature of the government conspiracy in XF was subject of debate. Here, the collaborationist nature of the Syndicate, as
opposed to the official (though secret) stance of the world's
governments, is made clear. The inspiration for the Syndicate, the
Vichy government that collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation
of France in the Second World War (1940-1944), is made explicit. The "Final Solution", the Nazi plan to
exterminate all Jews, reflects the aliens' obsession with racial purity
(2X16:
Colony, 4X01: Herrenvolk). The words "sequestered" and "asylum" suggest that after the
colonization would take place, the members of the Syndicate would be
taken to a haven where they would be kept safe of the colonization
procedure and the fighting that would ensue (as anticipated in 7X04:
Amor Fati).
|
| These
cloning operations were spread across the country, the cataloguing and
record-keeping done through a complex, intra-instititutional system
that connected to every branch of government, from the Social Security
Administration to the Department of Defense. |
Throughout the first five years of the series, Mulder
& Scully's
investigations uncover facets of the ever-expanding Syndicate's
experiments, without ever tying it all into a whole: operations done in
train cars spread across the country (3X09: Nisei / 3X10: 731);
federal clinics (4X15: Memento Mori);
cataloguing facilities (3X02: Paper Clip); the Social
Security Administration (3X24: Talitha Cumi); the
Department of Defense (5X02: Redux). As oftentimes in
the series, "cloning" is used
in tandem with 'hybridization', as the hybrids obtained would often be
cloned (2X17:
End Game, 4X01: Herrenvolk).
|
| The
operation, under the working title "Purity Control", had been launched
in 1948, its original conception the brainchild of German scientists
given immunity themselves for war crimes and allowed to continue the
eugenic experiments that were Hitler's dark legacy. |
"Purity Control",
the hybridization program, is only referenced textually in 1X23: The
Erlenmeyer Flask and 6X12:
One Son but in fact permeates all the mythology. Operation
Paperclip, under which the US government enlisted the help of Nazi
scientists, was presented in the Anasazi trilogy; Victor Klemper
was one of those scientists. The program
was launched shortly after the Roswell crash in 1947 (6X12:
One Son).
|
| The
Syndicate had begun as a subset of a shadow intelligence agency whose
original orders were to create plausible denial and an effective
cover-up of Purity Control. But through 50 years, numerous US and UN
administrations, the principals began to rest control, accumulating
power and influence across international borders. Such that by 1990 the
operation ceased to have a member accountable to any one government and
whose only orders would be taken from a man named Strughold, a German
industrialist who had fled his homeland to Northern Africa. |
The origins of the Syndicate as a secret group of the
State Department in the late 1940s-early 1950s are glimpsed at in 3X16:
Apocrypha, 5X15: Travelers and 6X12:
One Son. Over time, the Syndicate became international (2X25:
Anasazi). This is the only source for these details on
Strughold: his German roots, his occupation as an industrialist (we
know from 3X02: Paper Clip that he has a
hand in the mining business) and his assumption of the leadership of
the Syndicate in 1990. In Fight the Future we see him in
Tunisia, Northern Africa.
|
| These
men, whose knowledge and access provided control of a foreseeable
future, had in spite of this everything to lose. Their secret work, the
cloning preparations and the cataloguing constituted their greatest
vulnerability -- exposure. Their detection would ensure
not just their own demise, but a
far-reaching dissolution of social and religious order around the globe. |
This echoes the Well-Manicured Man's "we predict the future, and the best way to
predict the future is to invent it" (3X01:
The Blessing Way). Many of Mulder & Scully's
investigations have revealed the Syndicate's fear of being exposed to
the public (2X06: Ascension, 2X25: Anasazi, 3X16:
Apocrypha), something the Cigarette-Smoking Man justified as
a measure to prevent mass panic (2X22:
F. Emasculata).
|
To
protect against this, the Syndicate employed methods of disinformation
using covert government programs that had been regrettably discovered
as a kind of smokescreen, a dodge or blind where the transgressions of
Congress-accountable agencies served to hide their own more odious
undertaking. They had even at times used the UFO phenomenon to create
an hysteria that science and the intelligentsia denounced so completely
as to make belief and believers seem ridiculous and completely
discreditable.
|
Through the accumulated power and leverage held by
their official positions as members of the world's governments, the
members of the Syndicate were able to use governmental infrastructures
and manpower to their own ends. Many episodes refer to real-world
secret agencies and experiments as inspirations: Area 51 and radiation
burns (1X01:
Deep Throat, 4X18: Max); radiation tests on
civilians (3X10: 731); mind control and
MK-Ultra (2X03: Blood, 5X01: Unusual
Suspects); School of the Americas (2X25:
Anasazi, 3X16: Apocrypha);
the CIA (3X02: Paper Clip)...
The disinformation procedures using the UFO phenomenon against
believers such as Mulder are exposed by Kritschgau in 5X02:
Redux.
|
They
had also, in a crisis, used a tool of the Colonists themselves: Alien
Bounty Hunters who policed the cloning operations and enforced rule on
the countdown to colonization. A double-edged sword whose cold-blooded
tactics had helped to stem a leak or threat, but who also kept watch on
the Syndicate.
|
It is made clear that the Alien Bounty Hunters, unlike
what their name would suggest, are Colonists -- something that can only
be explained by them being shapeshifter clones infected by the Black
Oil (5X14:
The Red and the Black).
They are the Colonists' police over the Syndicate's projects (2X16:
Colony) but the Syndicate, as
their inferiors, would rather not come to need their aid (3X24: Talitha Cumi /
4X01: Herrenvolk).
|
A
threat in itself, as the Syndicate had something to hide that not even
the Colonists knew of: a vaccine against the Black Oil, an inoculant
against the substance in which the alien life force was held -- in fact
the very medium of the life force itself. To guard this secret was
perhaps even more critical than the truth of the existence of alien
life and of colonization.
|
Here we see another attempt to explain
what the Black Oil really is: a medium, a sentient organism, a virus, a
life force, the Colonist itself. The vaccine storyline was introduced in 4X09:
Tunguska, with research done
by the Russians; it was perfected after the events of 5X13:
Patient X / 5X14: The Red and the
Black. The Well-Manicured Man in 4X10:
Terma stressed how important the secrecy of the vaccine
research was, even within the Syndicate. |
| If
the Syndicate's own secret vaccine were discovered, a vaccine
that would make themselves immune from the effects of the Black Oil,
they would certainly be destroyed and the timetable for colonization
stepped up. They would protect this secret with their
lives -- they would kill to protect it, as it symbolized the only hope
they had of avoiding enslavement when the planet was overtaken. |
There is a clearly defined timetable for the
colonization (5X13: Patient X, Fight the Future),
one that is in fact immutable (9X19/20:
The Truth), so the effect of any of the Syndicate's actions
would have on it is unclear -- particularly since the vaccine is used
in an alien environment in Fight the
Future and the Syndicate is destroyed shortly after (6X12:
One Son). In this context,
stepping up must mean the eradication of the Syndicate and the takeover
of the Syndicate's projects by alien envoyés -- in fact, exactly
what would happen with the Supersoldiers later on (8X20:
Essence / 8X21: Existence).
What the Syndicate fears is "enslavement",
ie simple infection by the Black Oil; the events of Fight the Future
will make them
realize colonization would in fact entail complete extermination of the
humans.
|
| That
they had been able to, over decades, conduct their work on the vaccine
undetected was the result of a code among the Syndicate members that
put honor and the future above personal politics. But now this code was
beginning to break down, an incipient scramble for power beginning to
develop, a threat from within that doubled the threat from without --
from agents Mulder and Scully and the X-Files. |
As we came to learn the Cigarette-Smoking Man better,
we saw that he put his personal reputation (the digital tape affair, 3X01:
The Blessing Way) and his
personal politics, particularly concerning Tena and Fox Mulder (4X01:
Herrenvolk, 5X03: Redux II), over the
Syndicate's goals. Also, over the years, many Syndicate members started
having second thoughts over the legitimacy of their work, further
complicating their appointed task -- William Mulder, Deep Throat and
the Well-Manicured Man all distanced themselves from the initial
agreement of 1973. The X-Files came at this critical point of the
Syndicate's history, in the 1990s, when all would wind up in flames.
|
|
|
