X-Files Mythology Guide Season Six

Mythology Guide: Season Six

THE BEGINNING

The Run Down:

In Arizona, a Roush Tech man somehow became infected with the Black Oil He went home shivering and turned up the heat to above ninety. He later gestated a Mutated Grey which attacked another Roush Tech man who was checking on the missing man.
Mulder is slowly reconstructing the X-Files via computer. The FBI Board of Assistant Directors does not believe his tale of human collaborators in alien colonization. Scully says the virus (Black Oil) is unidentifyable but its DNA and proteins are not alien. It attacks proteins and does not reproduce something. Mulder is going to be left off the X-Files and reassigned away from Skinner. Agts Spender and Fowley are now on the newly opened X-Files.
Cancer Man informs the Syndicate of the gestation. The cover story is a crazy Injun massacre for the police and local press who took pictures. According to Cancer Man, the infected man was working on the virus and must have accidently injected himself. It took 12 hours for the creature to gestate. First Elder agrees to let Cancer Man kill the Gestated Grey because of the threat it poses.
Skinner secretly told Mulder of the Arizona gestation. Mulder takes Scully to investigate where they find a long bony nail in a huge claw mark. Meanwhile the Gestated Grey enters a nearby nuclear power plant, killing a technician who disturbs it.
Cancer Man visits Gibson, who is getting exploratory brain surgery by Syndicate doctors. He demands the boy be sewn up and ready to go, the doctors protest it could kill him. Cancer Man drives Gibson around to track the Gestated Grey, he leads them away from Mulder and Scully. According to Gibson, Cancer Man is afraid that Gibson will destroy him with his knowledge so he will be killed if he can't find it.
Spender and Fowley arrive at the powerplant to find it already barricaded. Mulder and Scully are ordered away, they find Gibson hiding in their car. Gibson says he can communicate with the Gestated Grey. Scully takes Gibson to a hospital and learns he somehow has the virus in his system before Cancer Man's assassin steals him away again.
Fowley tells Mulder she took the job to secretly continue his work, goes with him to find the creature before 'they' kill it for proof. Fowley asserts the Gestated Grey is looking for more heat because it is not done developing yet.
Mulder and Fowley sneak into the powerplant. They find a dark organic liquid and a molted Gestated Grey skin where the technician was attacked. They follow Cancer Man's assassin who Gibson leads into the plutonium rod cooling water tank. Mulder can only watch as the Gestated Grey kills the assassin and then pauses as Gibson stares at it. When security arrives Fowley pulls a gun on Mulder to arrest him.
The FBI AD Board officially kicks Mulder and Scully off the X-Files, and re-assigns them to AD Kersh.
Cancer Man visits Spender, who says he shouldn't be here as part of their deal. Cancer Man congratulates him on his victory over Mulder, Spender learns he's a murderer. Cancer Man says you can't kill what a man stands for unless you break his spirit first...
Scully learned the claw had the same DNA as the virus, as Gibson's. The virus is a genetic remnant, inactive junk DNA that is in every human's bloodstream. In Gibson's the junk DNA has been activated, giving him the telepathic abilites.
Gibson is still trapped in the reactor room. Inside the super-heated water the Gestated Grey sits, where it molts into a traditional Grey with big black eyes and bulbous head.

Plot Points:

Mulder is slowly reconstructing the burnt X-Files with computers.
Mulder tells a disbelieving board of FBI Assistant Directors about the events of The Movie.
Scully has analyzed the Black Oil virus from The Movie; it is unidentifyable but its DNA and proteins are not alien. It attacks proteins and does not reproduce anything.
The Syndicate (Roush Technologies) is working on the Black Oil in some mannor in Arizona.
After infection by Black Oil in temperatures over 90 degrees a human will gestate a Gestated Grey in 12 hours.
The Syndicate is preforming exploratory open brain surgery on Gibson Praise.
Gibson is able to communicate with and calm down a Gestated Grey.
A Roush employee accidently got infected with the Black Oil and gestated a Gestated Grey. The Grey attacked anyone in its way and hid in the superheated water tank of a nuclear power plant. Cancer Man used Gibson to track it but his assassin got killed.
A Gestated Grey will head for extreme heat, and molt twice into a traditional looking Grey alien.
Gibson was last seen trapped in a nuclear power plant cooling plant with a newly molted Grey.
Spender and Fowley are now working the X-Files instead of Mulder and Scully. Spender has made a deal for power with Cancer Man, and Fowley tells Mulder she's trying to work for him from the inside. Mulder and Scully will now report to AD Kersh.
Gibson and the Gestated Grey both had the Black Oil virus in their blood. The virus in the inactive junk DNA of every human; Gibson's junk DNA was activated which gave him telepathic powers.

Analysis:

Roush Technologies is the biotech company that is connected to the Syndicate intimitly, and gave FBI Section Chief Director Scott Blevins kickbacks for 4 years before he was exposed and murdered.
So here's the immeadiate side-effects of infection for this man: he feels extremely cold and shivers uncontrollably while in desert heat. He is in control of himself enough to urinate, but he may or may not be able to speak. He is able to walk home and turns the thermostat up to ninety, then sits on the couch until he gestates.
When Scully was bitten by the bee in the Movie and infected with the virus she immeadiately passed out within seconds. She reported a lacerating pain in her chest, affected motor functions, thready pulse, and funny taste in the back of her thraot. Of course she was immeadiately taken by the Syndicate and frozen up so her long term side-effects cannot be determined. However the technician does seem to have different side-effects; if he did infect himself why didn't he tell anyone?!
The Gestated Grey in this episode appears not to be sentient but to be a primitive savage animal. It kills anyone who 'threatens' it and just heads for heat. This means the Black Oil the Roush man was infected with had no Colonist sentience in it, which makes sense. The Syndicate would be in deep trouble if they experimented on a Colonist! For one thing he/she/it would learn they're working on the Black Oil!
Just where did the Syndicate get this Black Oil to experiment on? In the Movie they had plenty of Black Oil and were raising it in massive amounts so NOW they have no problem. Yet in "Tunguska" and "Terma" they had to smuggle Black Cancer out of Russia so they would be able to work on a Vaccine like the Russians! Why didn't they already have Black Oil then? What has changed since then and the Movie? Or is the Black Oil and the non-sentient Black Cancer really so different?
Why Mulder and Scully now grilled by a whole panel of FBI Assistant Directors? What ever happened to the OPR Board that has been a recurring character(s) from "Ascension" to "Herrenvolk"? Maybe they're just more big time now!
Scully is able to run tests on the virus. Just where did she get a sample of it?! The only possbility is she somehow got it from her own system or from the bee that stung her. Still, the Vaccine drove the virus out of her system and wouldn't the bee have injected everything it had into Scully? Just where did she get some virus?!
That the virus is not alien but identifyable confirms Well-Manicured Man's statement that the virus was the original inhabitant of Earth. Scully says that it only destroys cells and creates nothing (ie no gestation). Of course it only gains this ability at high temperates in the ninety plus range. Since she evidently didn't heat her sample, she never saw the virus mutate into gestation mode.
The way Cancer Man says the people will believe any story about a crazy ole' Injun going on a rampage and the way he looks at First Eldar as he says again confirms the suspicion that First Eldar is Indian (most likely Navajo given the events of "Anasazi") and that there is some bad blood between him and Cancer Man (including almost killing him!).
Are the Syndicate's researchers on the virus so inexperienced that one of them would actually accidently inject himself with it?!
It took 12 hours for the creature to gestate. In the movie Well-Manicured Man gaves Mulder approximately 100 hours before the Vaccine would be useless on a frozen Scully. Therefore freezing the infected human makes the virus gestate at 12% of its normal capacity.
First Eldar seems reluctant to kill the Gestated Grey. Presumably this is for fear that the Colonists would find out that the Syndicate killed one of their 'babies'. Cancer Man convinces him to by explaining the threat it possesses. Why is Cancer Man so ready to kill a Gestated Grey when First Elder is hesitant? We've already seen in "The End" that Cancer Man's goals are not that of the Syndicate's. What the hell does he want?
It's not outright stated but Gibson was obviously being inspected/experimented on by the Syndicate. They must not know all the secrets to his God module and activated virus blood. So in "The End" they weren't just trying to keep him out of expose they also wanted to experiment on him.
So Gibson is able to sense/track the Gestated Grey using his telepathic powers. He is also able to communicate with it in some way, or at least confuse/placadate it so it didn't kill him.
How in the world did Gibson get away from Cancer Man?! Even if he could read their thoughts it should still be impossible. Cancer Man really does train his assassins horribly!
Cancer Man would kill Gibson if he fails to find the Gestated Grey?! What about Gibson's research promise?
Fowley has knowledge of 'them' (ie the Syndicate) and that they would want to kill the Gestated Grey. Just how much does she know? If this just from what she knows from working with Mulder before Scully?
What was that dark organic puddle near the molted Grey skin? Was it Black Oil? Most likely it was the Grey's blood, but in the Movie their blood WAS Black Oil! So is this 'dead' Black Oil and not a danger.
The Grey shed it skin and some blood. Then it went to the hot water where it molted again into a traditional Grey. If it molted before going in the water, why didn't it change its shape? Was that just dead skin and not connected with the transformation?
Spender has made a deal with Cancer Man; power and revenge against Mulder in return for Cancer Man leaving him alone (cause he feels uncomfortable bout this guy being his father). Cancer Man is apparantly using Spender to break Mulder's spirit and thus his cause. Yet he is also expressing his love for his son. Yet Mulder is apparantly his pseudo- son as well. Hmmm....
So, humanity has inactive Black Oil in its system! Is this just because man evolved from the Black Oil, or was this part of the Colonists bioengineering humanity over the millenia? And if this Black Oil is activated, it makes the God module work which means telepathy. Since aliens apparantly use telepathy for communication, maybe this is so that their new baby Greys will be able to talk to their 'parants', so when a human is infected he gets telepathy which is passed onto the Gestated Grey.
So, the Black Oil infects humanity. This gestates a lot of Gestated Greys, who are crazy savage animals. They seek more heat, and change into traditional Greys. This is most likely what the Colonists look like. If this is so, then maybe this is the only way that Colonists can reproduce! Maybe these gestations are children aliens, and they are raised into sentient beings! Since Greys appear to have no sexual organs and are expert biogeneticists, this certainly makes sense! This would even explain why they must colonize Earth; to reproduce!

TRIANGLE

Plot Points:

AD Kersh is another follower of Cancer Man. Cancer Man is nowadays in repeated contact with Kersh and Spender. He is not afraid when Fowley picks up the phone for Spender.

DREAMLAND (part 1 of 2)

The Run Down:

Mulder was contacted by someone in Area 51/Groom Lake who offered something. He and Scully were driving to meet him near Area 51 when they are stopped by military troops led by a man in a black suit, Morris Fletcher. He is frustrated to see they are FBI, orders them to turn around because they are on a public highway bordering a top secret military testing ground. Just then a UFO flys overhead slowly, blinding them with bright light and sound. Mulder is shocked to find himself in Fletcher's body. Morris is in Mulder's body but makes no reaction of surprise. He just calmly gets in the car with Scully and drives off. Scully, the troops, and the other two men in black have no memory of seeing the UFO.
Mulder gets in the car with the two other men in black: the senior Howard Grodin and Morris' buddy Jeff Smoodge. They question his letting them go, then realize he's letting them go so their friends in the FBI can take care of them. They take Mulder back to Area 51, where many strange lights flit about and take off from the airstrip. Their security badges say Majestic on them, the other two MIBs are surprized to see General Wegmen in this late and realize something is up.
In Morris' office are pictures of him with Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan, and Saddam Hussein. He has an estranged wife, a son, and a daughter. Morris smokes Morleys. Morris has a big house in housing devealopment where a base operator answers when someone picks up a phone.
Morris and Scully report to AD Kersh, who tells them the Pentagon is demanding they be brought up on charges for trespassing on a top-secret military instillation. Morris apologizes and says he was contacted by an Area 51 promising big deal information. Scully is shocked, especially when he hits on Kersh's Secretary. Mulder calls Scully but she does not believe him.
General Wegmen and the two MIBs arrive at the UFO's crashsite. Men in hazmat suits are putting out the fires. It was a routine test flight but the 'aircraft' suddenly lost altitude as it passed over the highway. They're recovered the flight recorder and the two pilots; one is half 'teleported' in a rock and the other speaks in confused Indian. They find the Indian woman who has the pilot's mind and have collected her. The 'pilot' reports the aircraft lost power in the "right rear quadrant" though there were no warning lights and the aircraft checked out fine on preflight.
After Mulder visits a gas station, there is a windstorm and a great shockwave hits the station. The 2 MIBs show up and Mulder tags along. The attendant has been half 'teleported' into the floor. Mulder wants to save the man but Smoodge has him killed. Grodin orders to "Burn it" and the military troops light the gas, blowing the station in a huge explosion.
General Wegmen, Mulder, and the 2 MIBs have found a lizard half 'teleported' into a rock. By tracking these occurances they have found ground zero where they believe the warp to have originated, which they will confirm with the flight recorder. The warp is "a tear in the space-time continuim, an anomoly created by the malfunction of the aircraft which was operating in gravity pulse mode before it went down". General Wegmen says they've been flying them since '53 and he's never heard about anything like this. The anti-gravity systems that the UFOs use utlilize in space and time for propulsion. A sudden shift in the craft's trajectory could cause a tear. The 3 MIBs don't remember seeing the warp because of lost time- "a common symptom of close proximity to anti-gravity propulsion systems". Morris' job in the trio is to disapeer witnesses and keep it out of the papers. They may not have a way to reverse the warp's effects.
Scully traces Mulder's call to the gas station, and finds Morris having a quickie with Kersh's Secretary. He tells Scully they shouldn't get involved, she leaves in a huff. Scully drives to Area 51 herself and goes to the gas station. She finds a dime half 'teleported' into a penny. She goes to see Morris and Mulder tries to convince her it's him. He tells her she's recently been eating bee pollen with her yogart. She doesn't believe him, he says he'll get proof. They are watched by Morris. Morris then calls Grodin as Mulder and names the information leak in Area 51 who he says came to him.
Mulder steals the flight recorder from Area 51, but he is observed by Grodin. AD Kersh calls Scully and says she will follow his instructions to the letter or she will be in real trouble. Mulder meets Scully at a conveince store and shows her the flight recorder. Just then military troops descend on the place. Grodin and Smoodge are there. Mulder is arrested and the flight recorder is confiscated. He screams to Scully that he's Mulder, and she has a confused look on her face.

Plot Points:

Mulder and Scully were called to Area 51 by an informant. They were arrested by troops led by Man in Black Morris Fletcher, but when a Syndicate UFO flew overhead Mulder and Morris switched bodies and lived each others lives.
The UFO had an accident while in gravity-pulse mode creating a time-space continnuim rift which has been teleporting objects into one another, including Mulder and Morris. There may not be a way to repair the rift.
Syndicate UFOs have been flying at Area 51 since 1953, but there has never been a tear before. The Syndicate UFOs use anti-gravity propulsion by manipulating space and time, which when exposed to causes lost time.

Analysis:

Morris is not surprised when he switches bodies with Mulder. He immeadiately assumes Mulder's position. He has knowledge of the leak inside Area 51, and that the leak contacted Mulder (something Grodin and Smoodge are not aware of). He reveals himself to be the leak, thus getting Mulder arrested while he continues to live his life. Therefore: Morris is behind the body switch and he planned this all along. He contacted Mulder as an anymous leak to draw him to Area 51 for the switch. He then secures his position by getting Mulder arrested and erasing his credibility with his former comrades. Obviously Morris is intent on becoming Mulder. The question is: why? Could it be so silly and trite that he's tired of his horrible family life and life as a man in black? That he wants to live Mulder's life? That seems the most obvious and most stupid possibility. Another better possibility is that this is part of some Area 51 insert operation to learn what Mulder knows by putting one of their people in his body. Unfortunately Grodin and Smoodge can not know this without contradicting their actions in this episode. Another possibility is that General Wegmen is in on it; he curiously arrived the night of the incident, apparantly before Grodin and Smoodge knew of the crash. However he asks Grodin and Smoodge how such a thing could happen; if he was lying to them to protect the operation, maybe he was doing it because he suspected one of them to be the leak. Grodin is too much of a suck up but Smoodge seems very unprofessional like Morris.
How could Morris create the warp by himself? Maybe he somehow sabotaged the UFO; they reported a mysterious failure in the rear right quadrant despite no warning lights; sounds like sabotage. If Morris was working with General Wegmen then it would be an easy matter to sabotage the UFO. If the UFO was not sabotaged and it was just a random failure, then its the BIGGEST COINCIDENSE IN THE WORLD that it happens just as Mulder drives by! They've been flying these things for 45 years and it's never happened before!
Morris, Grodin, and Smoodge are aware of the collaborators in the FBI, ie AD Kersh.
This big question is: how closely are these men in black connected with the Syndicate? These men in black are Cancer Man wannabes: they smoke Morleys and say "Burn it!". But shouldn't Cancer Man be contacted when something like this happens?!
Morris' pictures with Newt and Reagan suggest that they are 'in on it'. Reagan makes sense since his 'Reaganomics' and massive defense spending certainly helps the military-industrial complex. Newt-boy I'm not so sure about. But Hussein? Along with him calling Cancer Man in "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man" it seems like he's a secret Syndicate collaborator. But he got Black Cancer from the Russians to use it on the US troops! I guess this is just a joke and not to be taken seriously.
The lizard is teleported inside a rock. It's head in inside the rock and its alive! How is it breathing?!
Grodin says the UFO was in gravity-pulse mode when it went down. Are there other modes?
So Lost Time is a common side effect of close proximity with anti-gravity propulsion systems. Sounds like its not something they can control, just a side effect of their craft. Since all UFOs seem to fly the same way, that explains why Lost Time can come from different kinds of aliens. Or maybe it is something they can control?
Scully seemed to finally realize at the end who was who. In the comerical we see her coming on to Morris and holding up handcuffs... raise your hand if you think she's seducing him to capture him?
Seems like a possible way to reverse the warp is to make another UFO do a similar warp that is somehow polarly opposite from the first warp.

DREAMLAND II (part 2 of 2)

The Run Down:

Mulder is thrown in the brig next to the pilot in the body of the Indian woman. The pilot tells him about how he was taking out a rookie and his wingman was following him and he was trying to loose him. Mulder is taken to Wegman, Grodin, and Smoodge. Wegmen says the flight recorder he had on him was a fake, congradulates Mulder on his scan. Mulder explains he couldn't tell anyone because of the leak, they release him to retreive the real flight recorder. Wegman is having Grodin up on charges in Washington for arresting Mulder. However Mulder is being watched; he hides out at the Fletcher house and tells Morris' wife the truth.
Scully got two weeks suspension without pay by AD Kersh. 'Mulder' has become AD Kersh's new best friend and is tasked with retreiving the real flight recorder. Morris invites Scully over for dinner but he just tries to screw her on his new waterbed. Scully handcuffs him and says she knows the truth. He admits he doesn't know why it happened or how to reverse it but he's happy with his new life. Being a man in black means a lot of paperwork. Morris says he doesn't know anything about the informant but the informant calls and sets up a meeting.
The meeting is at the local alien bar, where Mulder also takes Mrs Fletcher. Following Scully's orders, Morris meets the informant- General Wegman. He gives Morris the real flight recorder. He sabotaged the UFO but didn't want it to crash- he wanted to disable the stealth module so Mulder could see it. Smoodge enters the bar looking for Mulder. Wegman, Morris, and Mulder all hide in the bathroom and meet one another. Wegmen later orders Smoodge to search Mulder, who doesn't have the flight recorder. Meanwhile Morris and Scully drive off with the flight recorder.
Scully takes Morris and the flight recorder to the Lone Gunmen. They think it from the Aurora spy plane "a hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft fueled with slush-hydrogen...or methylcyclohexane". Morris ridicules that and says he creates the crap they print, helping him do his job. He says Saddam Hussein is a stage actor he found and planted in Iraq in '79; he rattles his saber whenever they need a distraction. Morris knows Frohike's first name. He also claims to have created the Monica Lewinsky affair. They decode the flight readouts- in addition to the normal stats there is Tachyon Flux and Gravitational Displacement. That night was an anymous event, a collection of random variables which are approaching an event horizon. Sabotaging another UFO would only warp them if their calculations were off in the slightest.
Mulder meets Wegman, who is shredding papers at his office. According to Wegman, they only fly the UFOs. 'They' engineer them in Utah and hand them over without explaining how they work. Wegman contacted Mulder because he wants to know the truth, if aliens exist.
Three teens sneak into Area 51 and are hit by another warp wave. Two of teens are melded together. The third runs for help and finds Grodin, but when they return to the spot the two teens are fine and have no memory of what happened. The third kid remembers still. Scully later happens across the gas station that was destroyed to find it fine and the attendant alive and not remembering anything. Grodin later grabs up the pilot and the Indian woman together.
Scully takes Morris to meet Mrs Fletcher and Mulder. Morris tells the truth to his wife and she believes him. Scully thinks the process is reverting and wants to get Mulder and Morris back into their original positions at the time of the swap. Just then Smoodge leads some troops to arrest them all for 'Morris' being a traitor. They get the flight recorder.
Grodin intercepts Smoodge's procession. He has already reverted the pilot and the Indian woman, and will now do it for Mulder and Morris. Otherwise he's fired. They think the warp is reverting, the past few days will never have happened. The warp goes by and reverts the body switch. Mulder and Scully drive away.
Later, Scully tells Mulder that AD Kersh never found out about their Area 51 trip. Mulder's informant has dried up. Scully finds the fused penny-dime still in her desk, and Mulder finds his apartment still rearranged by Morris.

Plot Points:

General Wegman, top man at Area 51, was Mulder's informant. He sabotaged the UFO to disable the stealth mode so Mulder could see it. He wanted to know if aliens exist; he recieves the Syndicate UFOs from Utah and knows nothing about their origans.
Morris claims that Saddam Hussein is a US actor planted in Iraq in 1979 to create a distraction for the government when needed. He also claims to be responsible for the false name Aurora spy plane and the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Syndicate UFOs work off Gravtiational Displacement and Tachyon Flux.
The time-space rift fixes itself, return Mulder and Morris to their bodies with no memory of their body-switch. However Morris' redecorating of Mulder's apartment including a waterbed remained, and Scully still has a dime/nickel teleportation mishap.

Analysis:

Was the pilot's flying story the one that caused the crash? If so, then Wegman's sabotage wasn't the only cause, it was also the erratic flying the pilot was doing.
Men in Black have to do paperwork?! Isn't this really dumb?! What if all this paperwork is ever discovered? Would it be REALLY discriminating?!
So Morris had no idea what was going when the switch occured, but he had absolutely no reaction at all last episode! This seems impossible that this whiny bum would be totally non-chalant about it! MAJOR PLOT HOLE.
So Wegman had the flight recorder, and HE left a fake one in the lab last episode. When he tells Mulder about his great plan, was he trying to recruit him? Or was he just setting up Mulder to take the fall for him since he would never be able to retreive the recorder?
So apparantly Mulder and Morris were able to quickly explain their situation to Wegman and get him to distract Smoodge long enough for Morris to make off with the flight recorder.
Morris implied that Aurora is not the real name of the UFOs. Since Deep Throat calls them Aurora spy planes in "Musings of Cancer Man", that means that the Deep Throat flashback story is now officially proven to be false!
Hussein... a US plant?! Given the logisital problems of setting it up, it's a brilliant idea! It explains why George Bush (a CIA man who is alledgedly part of the military-industrial complex) didn't invade Iraq. It explains about the constant Iraq bull that's been thrown around since '91. So whenever the conspriacy/Syndicate gets into trouble, they just cook up some Iraq troubles! It's certainly been happening lately with the Monica affair lately. This however validates part of the Deep Throat segment of "Musings of a Cancer Man"- at one point Hussein calls Cancer Man and he says call back, suggesting that Hussein is taking orders from Cancer Man.
Morris seems to have been keeping an eye on the Lone Gunmen. He knows Frohike's hidden first name and seems to know personally of their newletter (not just as conspiracy nuts in general).
Once again these UFOs use some kind of time manipulation drive for propulsion. If Time Displacement is one of the things it does, shouldn't the pilots be arriving before they leave or something like that?
Presumably the Syndicate salvages shot down UFOs and tech that the Colonists give them, and makes them into their own UFOs in Utah. They then ship them down to Area 51 where they test fly them. Don't forget they use these things to abduct people and perpetuate the abduction myth and gather DNA and make more Hybrids.
Even the top general in Area 51 doesn't know if aliens exist?! Seems like the Syndicate is keeping knowledge of aliens soely within their own members and not even with their co-opted partners in the US military. Since the NSA/BlackOps only seems to be allies with the Syndicate, does that mean that they do not conclusively know aliens exist?
How did Grodin learn about the swap?! Did he just guess that's what happened, based on their actions? Was it when they caught all together with the flight recorder? How does he know Morris wasn't just the informant meeting Mulder?
So the warp erases the time between the first and second warp. BUT, in DC Scully's penny-dime and Mulder's apartment remained unchanged. Does that mean the revert only occured in the area surrounding Nevada and did not reach DC?! Shouldn't it be universal?! Won't a lot of people in the area suddenly realize they have lived two days more than everybody else?! Or are all memories affected (since Kersh does not know now about their Nevada trip) and far reaching objects- or all objects- are not affected.
In the last episode, the Pentagon called Kersh to bring up Mulder and Scully on charges for trespassing on their property. Why didn't they do it this time? Did Wegman stop it? If so, why didn't he do it the last time? For him at this point nothing has changed. Since he was trying to contact Mulder why would he do so in the first place? Therefore Grodin and/or Smoodge went around Wegman to do it, but maybe this time Morris somehow had a subconsious change of heart and stopped it. His fingering of his wedding ring suggests this.

S.R. 819

The Run Down:

Skinner is boxing when Bearded Krychek comes in; he soon collapses. He checks out fine (despite a curious bruise on his ribs) but he gets a phone call. An electronic voice tells him "It's in you. You've got 24 hours left to go. You're already dead." Mulder runs into Skinner; he thinks Skinner was poisoned to see what he would do, who he would turn to. Skinner says Mulder is too paranoid. Skinner's infection slowly grows into the veins around his body.
Skinner remembers being touched by a Dr. Orgel asking for the time earlier; Scully ids him as an advisor to a Senate subcomittee on ethics and new technology; a very well known physicist. He signed in to see Skinner. Mulder and Skinner go to see Orgel; he brushes them off and denies going to the FBI. Mulder persists and is shot at by Arabic gunmen who escape with Orgel and knock out Skinner but Mulder captures one of them. Skinner checks his papers; he has diplomatic immunity, he's a cultural attache to the Tunisian mission in DC. Skinner lets him go.
Scully checks Skinner's blood sample; pure carbon powder has settled to the bottom. Pure carbon shouldn't be able to act as a poison. The small carbon cells are multiplying by themselves and infiltrating the bloodstream. But the carbon isn't just reproducing- it's creating a matrix stimulated by blood flow in response to movement. It's solidifying, building valves in the vascular system; it's building a heart attack. Scully thinks filtering out his blood might save him.
Mulder finds a picture of Senator Matheson at Orgel's house and goes to see him. It was taken 3 days ago, they are holding Senate Resolution 819 in their hands- a funding bill regarding new tecnology. It will provide money and supplies to the World Health Organization ie. medical technology to the third world. Matheson advises Mulder that he never mention himself in connection to any dark conspriacy regarding S.R. 819 and says that his intention is to save lives but he can't save Skinner's. He orders Mulder out.
Skinner follows the Tunisian to a parking garage where the Tunisian almost kills him. Skinner is loosing his strength and is saved by Bearded Krychek who drives a car into the Tunisian, killing him. Skinner is put in the hospital, and they are lazering open his arteries but it's a loosing battle. Skinner gets another electronic call, Mulder listens to it. "Might as well give up. You can't stop it". Mulder sees Bearded Krychek writing on an electronic device and chases him but he escapes into the parking garage. Bearded Krychek calls Matheson to say "the bill is in danger...a new threat has emerged". Matheson says he shouldn't call him, Bearded Krychek says "blood will be on your hands", Matheson says he doesn't believe his threats. Krychek says Orgel does and tells Matheson where to find him.
Mulder finds that Skinner was doing a security check on a Senate bill for violation of trade laws involving sensitive technology. The bill was about to voted on in Senate, all it needed was Skinner's review, and an analysis from Orgel. Mulder asserts Orgel came to the FBI to tell Skinner that there was a gross violation of export laws involving new technology. Bearded Krychek's car came from diplomatic cousel corps car fleet; in it was an expensive wig, and the car was recently at an old power plant.
Matheson goes to the power plant and finds Orgel strapped down with the carbons in his blood. Matheson says "they" believe Orgel's exposed "them" to Skinner, Orgel denies it. Bearded Krychek is watching above, he activates his electronic device to full ability. Orgel begins screaming and his veins bulge. Mulder later arrives to find only Matheson; Orgel is nowhere to be seen. Matheson says "they" killed Orgel, again stresses to drop the case. He says what Orgel knew died with him. Mulder asserts it's all about the publically theoretical tech that S.R. 819 will export, the same tech that is in Skinner now; nanotechnology. Matheson says Skinner is already dead, if Mulder pursues it they will kill him too. Mulder says he will expose Matheson's role in this, Matheson says he is the victim, he is fighting for his life. Mulder leaves with Matheson begging Mulder to walk away.
Skinner tells Scully that he wished he had been a more active ally for her and Mulder. He remembers the bearded guy who appeared at the boxing ring, at the FBI when Orgel stopped him, at the hospital, at the parking garage. Skinner is about to undergoe the blood filtering when he goes into shock. His veins pounding, he whispers a name to the doctor who then lets him die. Bearded Krychek has the electronic device's full ability on; he now pulls it back down. Skinner is revived without medical aid immeadiately.
In three weeks his infection is dormant and he has miraculously recovered. Mulder shows him security pictures of Bearded Krychek but Skinner says he doesn't recognize him. S.R. 819 was just withdrawn from comittee without explanation. Mulder asserts the bearded guy was working for the government that would receive this tech, he drove one of their cars and he killed one of his own men to save Skinner. Mulder thinks it is connected to the X-Files and thinks he knows who is behind this but needs Skinner's permission to investigate. Skinner denies it, and closes the matter.
Skinner then gets in his car in the FBI parking garage. Beardless Krychek is inside the car. Skinner says he's been expecting him to show up. Krychek closes the electronic device and says "I can push the button anytime". Skinner asks what he wants, what is this all about. Krychek says "all in good time" and leaves.

Plot Points:

Skinner gets poisoned by Krychek with nanobots in his blood. He can use it to kill him at anytime, and will use it to blackmail him.
Krychek was protecting S.R. 819, a Senate bill legalizing the export of theoretical medical technology (nanotechnology) to Third World countries, like Tunisia for whom Krychek was working with. Skinner only had to do a security check on violation of trade laws for it to be passed. Krychek was working with Senator Matheson who was a powerless pawn trying to pass the bill. In the end the bill was withdrawn without explanation.

Analysis:

Skinner's initial bruise had what looked like an injection point in it. Was this where he was injected with the nanites? The episode never explains when and where Skinner is infected; it wasn't by Orgel (unless Krychek pressured Orgel into doing it or even less likely that it wasn't Orgel but a Pilot posing as Orgel). This suggests the most terrifying possibility of all: that Skinner wasn't injected, that the electronic device Krychek uses can work without touching the victim, that it can somehow 'transmit' the nanites into the bloodstream. This is highly unlikely though.
So the nanites are made of pure carbon. What does this mean exactly? Since all known life is carbon-based, does this mean the nanites are organic/alive? If so, is this some new Colonist tech they've given to the Syndicate? Unlikely; it is most likely just the latest in Earth technology that the Syndicate devealops and keeps to itself. It seems likely that the nanites are cells comprised of carbon that are somehow programed to follow electronic orders. In fact, the nanites may not actually be machines but organic technology meaning it's all living cells and electronic impulses.
It's pretty funny the way Mulder is so conceited he immeadiately sees any attack on Skinner as an attack on himself. He seems to fail to realize in the matters such as this he is "small potatoes".
What does a physicist have to do with nanites? If the nanites are indeed organic technology, then a physcist would be involved with the manipulation of the cells into 'machines'. Of course, he could just been assigned in general to the bill for any kind of new tech and not just nanotech but he just happened to discover that the Syndicate was already exporting it to Tunisia (which is in North Africa by the way).
Is this Senate Subcomittee on Ethics and New Technology related to the Senate Subcomittee Hearing on Human Cloning that First Elder was so concerned about in "Redux II"? They certainly relate to the same subject. This also cements the concept that the Syndicate was behind this; which is supported by Tunisia and Krychek.
Tunisia is of course the big headquarters of the Syndicate as seen in the Movie; where their biggest Black Oil/bee cornfields are, where their leader Strughold lives. That the gunmen in this episode are from Tunisia of course suggests Syndicate involvement and high Syndicate involvement as well.
So: Orgel is being held prisoner by the Tunisian gunmen/diplomats, because he tried to go to Skinner and warn him of the Syndicate secretly exporting nanotechnology to Tunisia. Krychek saw this so he alerted the Syndicate. This is the first time Krychek appears with Skinner; perhaps he was originally following Orgel then when he contacted Skinner he moved on to Skinner and left Orgel to the Syndicate gunmen. Since Orgel is later shown infected, he was presumably already infected and that's why Krycek was following him around with the electronic device. Of course once he was a prisoner Krychek doesn't have to be with him so Krychek then infects Skinner and follows him around, supervising the infection's progression.
Krychek tells Skinner he has 24 hours to live, yet Krychek seems to completely control the nanites with his device. Perhaps he really meant it would take 24 hours for the nanites to completely infiltrate his bloodstream and build their ready to active gates, at which point he could be killed at anytime.
Scully says the nanite matrix is stimulated by blood flow ie blood movement. So by being alive ie. moving blood through the veins the nanites will reproduce. In the blood sample there is a carbon powder settled at the bottom. This is dead nanites, who died because in the blood sample there was no blood movement so they never reproduced and just 'died' and did nothing, so they settled to the bottom. This shows when the nanites kill someone (and their blood stops pumping) the nanites will stop reproducing and settle, forming a carbon powder through the bloodstream. Since carbon cannot act as a poison any autopsy will never find the cause of death. How conveinient!
In "Paper Clip" Cancer Man threatens Skinner, saying he can cause a heart attack. Was he referring to the nanites? If so, does this mean the Syndicate has had the nanites for three years now? If this is so, why are they trying to export it to Tunisia only now? This suggests that the nanites are a very recent invention by the Syndicate.
S.R. 819 apparantly just gives money and medical supplies to the WHO. Later Mulder refers a Senate bill (which by definition is not S.R. 819 which is a Senate resolution) that Skinner was investigating for violation of trade laws regarding sensitive technology. Sounds like the bill is much more relevant to the nanites than the resolution! So why is the episode title and characters so obsessed with a puny resolution about funding?!
Why would the Tunisian hitman try to kill Skinner? Presumably Krychek didn't have time to order him to leave Skinner alive. Either that, or Krychek was secretly working against the Syndicate here to make Skinner his personal pawn (but that seems unlikely). Why would Krychek then kill the Tunisian hitman? There was no time he was about to kill Skinner so he had to just run him down, or Krychek was just killing one of his 'allies' who he is really working against? Either way it was to protect Skinner.
Krychek has been in contact with Matheson. This confirms once and for all that Matheson was and has been all along a victim of the Syndicate (as he tells Mulder in this episode!). Obviously Matheson is being forced to coverup their exporting of nanotechnology to Tunisia because they are blackmailing him for something.
Krychek says there is a new threat to the bill. Does he mean Mulder or Skinner or Orgel?
Krychek says Orgel's blood is on Matheson's hands. Why? Did Matheson send Orgel to Skinner to try and secretly expose the nanotechnology exportation? It makes sense, and also suggests that the new threat to the bill is Matheson himself. This suggests that Matheson really has been helping Mulder against the Syndicate's wishes (since Krychek certainly didn't want Mulder involved and Matheson did something similar in "Little Green Men" and "Nisei").
Krychek got his car from the Tunsian diplomats. This suggests he was working very closely with the Tunisians, which supports the theory that he always working in the Syndicate's best interests.
What happened to Krychek and Orgel's body at the power plant? Did Matheson just stand there and watch Krychek carry away the body or something?
What did Orgel know? The specifics of the trade violations presumably, but maybe also the secret of the nanites.
So Krychek's little electronic device can: control the nanite gates from several yards away from the victim, and call up someone's phone and repeat in an electronic voice what Krychek writes with on an electronic pad. Pretty handy! Why would this device (which has to be specifically made to control the nanites) also happen to include the voice producer? Most likely because the nanites will be used by the Syndicate to blackmail policians and they want to be able to call them without having their voices recognized.
What name did Skinner whisper to the doctor when he was dying? Why would hearing this name cause her to let him die without trying to revive him?
Why would Krychek 'kill' Skinner for a few seconds? To give him a good scare to ensure his cooperation later.
Obviously Skinner recognized Krychek but kept quiet. Did Mulder? Considering how much interaction he's had with Krychek (much more than Skinner has had!) he should easily be able to recognize. Mulder says he thinks he knows who's behind this so he probably does, unless he's once again referring to Cancer Man.
S.R. 819 was withdrawn. Why? In actuality it doesn't seem to have much to do with exporting nanotechnology; maybe it would have hurt the bill that was the real exporting thing. Krychek says the bill is in danger to Matheson, not S.R. 819. So maybe all along the Syndicate/Krychek goal was to withdraw S.R. 819 and pass the bill thus allowing easy exportation of nanotechnology to Tunisia.
Why is the Syndicate so concerned with legal exportation of nanotechnology to Tunisia? Considering how powerful they are they should easily be able to get it there illegally! Even if they somehow couldn't, are they planning to annouce they have nanotechnology and openly export it to Tunisia?! Isn't that just a little too visable for them?!
Krychek has obviously setup Skinner to be a pawn of himself and/or the Syndicate for some future event.

TWO FATHERS (part 1 of 2)

The Run Down:

In a train boxcar at night in a Virginia trainyard, scientists wearing gas masks work on an unconcious Cassandra Spender. They slice her belly with a lazer; green blood boils out and the wound promptly heals itself. Dr. Openshaw arrives and is told his work is completed, that after 25 years she must seem like an old friend. Outside a Faceless Rebel torches all the scientists with his flame stick. He enters the boxcar just as Openshaw is about to inject Cassandra with something. He torches Openshaw but only gazes at Cassandra.
Skinner accuses Spender of not doing his job on the X-Files (he's sent no reports). He takes Spender to see his mother at the trainyard but she demands to speak with Mulder. Spender agrees, anxious to find the truth. Mulder is afraid that this situation is a setup to frame him, but the torchings must be real.
Openshaw has barely survived the attack. He is visited by Cancer Man, who is late after "tidying things up" the trainyard. Openshaw tells him Cassandra is a success, that the truth will be hard to supress because of the overkill. Cancer Man is shocked to learn this. He prepared a syringe for her "as agreed" but the Rebels came; to save Cassandra to expose the Syndicate. Openshaw says she is the key to everything, Cancer Man must kill her before they can run medical tests on her. Openshaw says "they will come and question me" so Cancer Man reluctantly kills him.
Cancer Man calls the Second Elder at his home to inform of the Rebel attack. He has called an emergency meeting of the Syndicate, Second Elder says he will catch a plane. Openshaw arrives at the door; Second Elder scratches off his face to reveal a Faceless Rebel underneath. The Rebel grabs Second Elder and torches him.
Mulder and Scully meet Cassandra at the hospital. She is no longer paralyzed and can walk. She is very happy to see them, says she won't tell anyone else what she knows. The aliens healed her with their power she says. Cassandra says the Adult Samantha seen in "Redux II" wasn't really Samantha; the real Samantha is "out there, with them. the aliens". Cassandra tells them she now knows the aliens are here "to wipe us off the face of the planet. They're taking over the universe. They're infecting all other life-forms with a black substance called Purity. It's their life force, what they're made of." She says the Faceless Rebels are "another race of aliens. A rebel force that are mutilating their faces so that they won't be infected." She says her son's life is in danger by the Rebels because he is working with the Syndicate now. Cassandra doesn't know what the Syndicate is doing with the human test subjects, just that it's been going on for 50 years. When asked if she knows who the Syndicate is/are, she says yes, one of them is her ex-husband and Jeff's dad.
(NOTE: THIS IS A CUT SCENE) 35 years earlier... Openshaw, Bill Mulder, and Cancer Man enter a train car containing a Native American test subject. The Native American's face, arms and body are horribly disfigured. Repulsed, Bill Mulder exits the train car. As the disfigured man is their best effort, both the Cigarette Smoking Man and Openshaw believe they must ally with the aliens if they ever hope to create a human/alien hybrid.
Krychek is breifing the full Syndicate and Cancer Man about the Rebel attacks. They've torched Project facilities in New Mexico and elsewhere in the southwest. The medicial staff at the Arizona research facility were torched. Elders are worried the press will put it together but Cancer Man assures them they control the federal agencies. The Second Elder (actually the Rebel) suggests siding with the Rebels and joining their alien resistance. The Elders are unsure. Krychek says they said no before, that resistance was useless so they voted against it and men like Bill Mulder. "Collaboration has allowed you to prepare... to stall colonization. How close are you to developing a human/alien hybrid? That alone ensures your survival." Second Elder says "as slave laborers for the aliens." Cancer Man becomes suspicious of Second Elder. Krychek says "What about your vaccine? By collaborating, you bought yourself time to secretly develop a way to combat the aliens; to fight the future." Cancer Man orders Krychek silent and tells Second Elder they've worked on the Project for 50 years since Roswell and they can't sacrifice themselves for every new threat. Later after the meeting Krychek tells Cancer Man that Mulder has secretly visited Cassandra.
Mulder and Scully break into the X-Files office to use Spender's computer so they aren't caught. Tracing Spender they find Cancer Man on file as "Spender, C.G.B.". Skinner comes to warn them off but Spender arrives; they broke into his office and he will get them dismissed for it. Spender visits Cancer Man at the Syndicate NYC Office, said Mulder and Scully will be processed out of the FBI as he ordered now. Spender wants to know the truth about his mother, but Cancer Man says he wouldn't believe him, that he can't handle the knowledge. Spender gets bitchy and Cancer Man slaps him around some saying he pales to Mulder.
Scully has researched Spender C.G.B.; it is one alias of hundreds but it did come with a picture of Cancer Man and Bill Mulder taken in 1973. They worked together on a highly classifyed project in the State Department for 25 years. She also found he was married to Cassandra and is Jeffery's father, and that Cassandra was first abducted on Nov 27 1973, the same night as Samantha was. There are many names; phDs and doctors; connected to Bill and C.G.B., including a Nobel winner for early works in genetics, Openshaw. Mulder asserts the Project is still continuing. He tells Skinner Cassandra is in danger from the Syndicate men now. He tells Skinner that these men are out to "develop alien/human hybrids that will survive the viral apocalypse when aliens colonize the earth." He also reveals that Spender is Cancer Man's son. Mulder asserts Cassandra is in danger because she is sucessful hybrid and they would kill before being exposed by her. Spender was in charge of her safety.
Spender meets Cancer Man, driven by Krychek. Cancer Man is giving him a chance to prove himself with a new job. He gives Spender an Glimlet and orders him to kill a man who has infiltrated his group. Kryhcek drives Spender to Second Elder's house. Spender goes in to do the job but the Rebel sees him pull Glimlet and grabs him by the neck with superhuman strength. Spender rips his face off and sees the sealed face beneath. Krychek comes up from behind and sticks the Rebel with the Glimlet (leaving it in). The Rebel collaspses dead, and begins to decompose slowly into a green goo. Spender watches the Rebel decompose, shocked. Krychek offers condolences, says at first it undermines your beliefs but then come to understand the responsibility of knowing. "The great sacrifice of great men like your father" ie Cassandra. Krychek is surprised Spender doesn't know about Cassandra, he tells him she's been a test subject for 25 years and that Cancer Man directs the experiments. Krychek says Spender is being a great man by sacrificing to protect the Project, but Spender angrily leaves.
Cancer Man is briefing Fowley on the Syndicate alliance with aliens coming to replace humanity, to secretly prepare the way for their invasion. To create a slave race of human/alien hybrids. It was a perfect conspriacy, the secret kept for 50 years since Roswell. But now those plans have failed because of the Faceless Rebels and the betrayal of his son... His son was in denial about his mother but when he learned of alien life he turned to Mulder instead of him. Cassandra was beginning to realize her role in the Project, she was the key to all their plans, "something even my colleagues didn't realize yet. I killed to keep them unknowing. I killed Dr. Openshaw so they wouldn't discover her." But he couldn't kill Cassandra, even though he never loved her. The Syndicate never realized because it was preoccupied with the Rebels, but they didn't realize the Rebels already had the upper hand, that "that they'd used their powers of disguise to infiltrate our group." With Mulder learning facts about him, he couldn't stop Mulder from learning everything; he had one last hope to preserve his legacy. But now Spender has lead Mulder and Scully to him and Cassandra must know she is as much alien as human. That's why he's chosen Fowley; "You're never betrayed me. Now I need someone to trust." Fowley says "I'll help you. It's not too late." She walks out of the room, touching his shoulder gently.
Back at the hospital, Cassandra sees her face suddenly loses its shape. Cassandra screams. The female FBI agent assigned to protect her races to her aid. She assures Cassandra that she will be all right, as she is "the one." Cassandra stares at her, not comprehending. The female FBI agent reaches up to her own face and pulls back her flesh… revealing a male Faceless Rebel beneath. Cassandra recoils in fear. Clad in the FBI agent's clothing, she flees to Mulder's apartment. Skinner and Spender seperately arrive at Cassandra's room to find her gone. The guard Spender left is gone.
Cassandra arrives at Mulder's apartment where Mulder and Scully are, shocked to see she found the place (she was surprized as well). Someone else is banging on the door. Cassandra says they can't let them find her, they cannot have her. Cassandra demands they kill her, "If you don't kill me, it all starts. There won't be any stopping it. I am the one." Mulder reluctantly draws his gun and aims at her head. The pouding at the door is much louder, the door might be breaking down now.

Plot Points:

In 1964, the Syndicate (Cancer Man and Bill Mulder) were overseeing crude radiation experiments on Native Americans in boxcars to create a Hybrid. They fail and Cancer Man concludes they must ally with the aliens.
Cassandra Spender has become a Perfect Hybrid now; when cut with a lazer she bleeds green blood and the wound heals. She is no longer crippled. The Syndicate has standing orders to kill her when it happens, but the Faceless Rebels arrive and kill the Project doctors, saving Cassandra.
Spender has not sent any reports to Skinner for the X-Files.
Cassandra tells Mulder the "Redux II" Samantha wasn't her, she's still out there with the aliens.
Cassandra tells Mudler the Colonists are here to destroy humanity, they are infecting all life forms across the universe. They are made of a black substance called Purity. She tells them about the Faceless Rebels who fight them, immune to their infection by sealed faces.
Cassandra tells Mulder that Spender is with the Syndicate, and his father, her ex-husband, is Cancer Man.
The Faceless Rebels are destroying Syndicate facilities all over the southwest, including the Arizona Research Facility.
The Syndicate Project began 50 years ago at Roswell.
A Faceless Rebel kills Second Elder and replaces him at a Syndicate meeting, and suggests allying with the Rebels. They refuse.
Mulder and Scully break into the X-Files office to research Cancer Man, and Spender catches them; they're going to be fired.
They learn Cancer Man's 'real' name is C.G.B. Spender and he worked with Bill Mulder for 25 years in the State Department.
Cassandra was first abducted on November 27th 1973, the same day as Samantha.
Cancer Man sends Spender to kill the infiltrated Rebel with a Glimlet, but he screws up and Krychek has to finish it.
Cancer Man rejects Spender who has now allied with Mulder and turns to Fowley who never betrayed him.
Cassandra begs Mulder to kill her because if they take her Colonization will begin. Someone is pouding at Mulder's door.

Analysis:

So the 'completed' Hybrids (who are humans altered not the clones born from abducted women's wombs) have green blood and an automatic healing factor in their own bodies. Since the doctors wore gas masks it is logical to assume Cassandra carries the alien retrovirus in her blood, which when exposed to air (it is airborne) is deadly to humans unless they are kept at low temperatures until the retrovirus can be filtered out of their blood.
How were the Rebels aware of exactly where all these Project bases are? Cancer Man hints at the Rebels infiltrating the Syndicate but presumably this referred only to Second Elder. Have they been tracking Purity and Syndicate movements in their UFOs?
Presumably the Rebel himself was able to sense that Cassandra was a 'true' Hybrid by looking at her, or else their UFOs had some kind of sensory system that can detect this. After all, Cancer Man and Openshaw didn't know and the doctors just found out when they sliced Cassandra.
What did Cancer Man 'tidy up' at the trainyard? The torched corpses of the doctors were still there and so was Cassandra, so he just must've grabbed any materials that would reveal the Project.
It would be near impossible to keep the Project secret anymore. This boxcar was found with burned bodies and Cassandra and several Project facilites were torched in the same way. Surely the press will find a connection (unless these Project facilities are able to keep the press away which they probably are).
Openshaw and Cancer Man has obviously agreed to kill Cassandra by leathal injection if she ever became a 'true' Hybrid. Was this just poison or was the Purity Vaccine involved? This rule must apply to any other abducted test subjects as well. This shows that Cancer Man and Openshaw (who might have kept this secret from the rest of the Syndicate) at least are just going through the motions making the slave Hybrid army for Purity, stalling for time while the work continues for a Vaccine against Purity. Well-Manicured Man was also of a similar opinion, the rest maybe.
So in this episode the Rebels are out to expose the Syndicate by torching their bases, delaying the Colonization and destroying the Syndicate (when the world discovers what they've done they're dead!). With the Syndicate destroyed there would be no one to create the Hybrid slave army for Purity or help them distribute Purity to humanity. Would they even try to invade then? Purity seems to operate not out of open agression but through shadowy setups, avoiding direct conflict. But if Earth is their homeworld they will want to return to it no matter what.
Openshaw says "they will come and question me". Does this refer to the humans, the Rebels, or Purity? In any case no one must learn what Openshaw knows. By their conversation Cancer Man and Openshaw seem to be close friends, working together keeping secrets from others in the Syndicate. Cancer Man killed Openshaw at his own request; Openshaw was a man of honor who sacrificed himself for the greater good.
So Faceless Rebels can not morph, at least not in the way the Pilots do. The Pilots are thus presumably the same species but have been genetically altered by Purity to be able to morph and are loyal to Purity. Instead they either secrete or artifically produce a mask of the person (as well as his/her voice) which is fitted on top of their true faces, which have been surgically sealed against Purity infection. Plus, if they could morph their own forms they wouldn't have to sew up their faces, just morph into a face with no openings! Of course since their eyes are sewn shut, the Rebels can therefore see through their skin and do not require ocular organs to see. Or perhaps they are blind, but use extrasensory perceptions to move around.
Did Purity cure Cassandra of her paralysis on purpose or was it incindental? Since Purity first abducted her a year ago and then cured her of her paralysis then handed her over to the Syndicate for further testing, the creation of a human into a 'true' Hybrid must entail direct work by Purity. Since Purity is obviously not yet aware that Cassandra is a 'true' Hybrid, Purity must only be partly responsible for altering Cassandra. Perhaps just her healing factor as a 'true' Hybrid is what healed her.
Why is Samantha out there with Purity? Does she continue to be a genetic template for the Hybrid Clones? Has she aged or not? Is she aware of what has happened?
According to Cassandra, Purity is taking over the universe, infecting all species with themselves. This ties into the hinted at concept of Purity being obsessed with racial purity. The Pilot was sent in "Colony" because the renegade Hybrids were diluting their race. The name itself draws into the concept; the aliens are seeking to make the universe 'pure' by making it uniform; all them, all Purity. But seriously, isn't "the universe" just a little bit of an exaggeration?! Even saying the galaxy would be a long shot! The universe is really freakin' big dammit! This also seems to contract The Movie slightly. Well-Manicured Man said the Black Oil (now called Purity) was the first inhabitant of the planet and now it is returning home. This seems like a simple reclaiming of home, no mention is made of a galaxy-conquering evil race. Cassandra makes Earth out to be the next on the list; she doesn't seem to know Purity originated on Earth! But Mulder knows this from The Movie.
Just how does Cassandra know all this?! Are the aliens chatting with her in their spaceships while she's being flown to and from Earth? Does her status as a higher than a 'true' Hybrid give her automatic knowledge of the aliens? Yet she doesn't know squat about the Project or what's being done to her, giving her Purity knowledge but not Syndicate knowledge. Like Gibson Praise in "The Beginning", does she telepathically communicate with the aliens?
It is finally confirmed! The Black Oil IS the Colonists! I knew it!
And yet Cassandra is somehow aware of Spender's current alleigances. Perhaps when she was with him at the train yard she read his mind and saw it there. This makes sense since it seems to be the only Syndicate knowledge she has.
Syndicate facilites are shown to be concentrated in the southwest specifically in Arizona. What about West Viriginia? Maybe the Rebels just haven't struck there yet... The Arizona medical research facility was refered to in "The Beginning". That's where the man was infected with Black Oil! So they are reseraching the Black Oil in that facility. The other bases were called "facilities"... were they Black Oil n' Bees Cornfields?
The Rebel, wearing the face of Second Elder, suggests they ally with the Rebels. This shows the Rebels are most likely not just out to kill the Syndicate, they would rather ally with them. OR, it would just be a setup to reveal the Syndicate so the Rebels can destroy them all at once.
According to Krychek, Bill Mulder advocated for resistance and/or allying with the Rebels. But presumably they didn't learn about the Rebels until "Patient X", and yet in that episode Krychek (and later Well-Manicured Man) knows who the Rebels were. Perhaps Bill Mulder worked with the Syndicate up to his death? Then again X was desperate to get an Alien Blade in "Talitha Cumi" (to defend himself against the Rebels?) but told Mulder it was useless now, of course he could have been lying.
Krychek seems to think that if the Syndicate gives Purity a 'true' Hybrid slave army only then will they be allowed to survive the viral apocalypse.
Cancer Man is nice and paranoid; he soon realizes who the Rebel is and shuts up Krychek before he blabs any more information to the Rebel. Yet he waits until the next day to kill him and never informs the other members about what is happened.
So Cancer Man's semi-real name is Mr. Spender, first name C.G.B. I think that stands for Cigarette Grabbing Boy!
Scully says C.G.B. Spender and Bill Mulder worked together at the StateDept for 25 years. This time period is most likely 1948-1973 since Bill Mulder presumably quit the Syndicate when Samantha was abducted. Then again, Bill Mulder let her be taken and this episode shows such men make the sacrifice willingly, so maybe this refers to the time period of 1973-1998, only Bill Mulder was killed in 1995. What they worked on was obviously the Project, creating an human/alien Hybrid.
Cassandra and Samantha were abducted on the same night. This suggests this was when the Project began. There are two main parts; making a 'true' Hybrid by altering a human (Cassandra), and using a human as a template to birth/clone a set of Hybrid Clones (Samantha).
This episode really demonstrates the warped philosophy of Cancer Man regarding his family. He latches onto Mulder as a psuedo-son and protects him. But when Mulder is constantly a pain in the ass and Cancer Man is almost killed by First Elder, he rethinks things. Changing his priorites, he drops Mulder and latches onto his true but estranged son, Jeffery Spender. He helps Spender's career while grounding Mulder into the dust and getting him drummed out of the FBI. Now in this episode he exposes Spender to the aliens and gives this novice idiot the vital job of killing the Rebel who infiltrated the Syndicate. Spender can't handle it so Cancer Man drops him and looks for someone to continue his legacy, someone who never betrayed him... Fowley!
Cancer Man really needed to give Spender more information for the Rebel assassination, like where on the neck to put the blade and to keep the blade in, etc. Perhaps Krychek filled him in in the car.
Notice how Krychek leaves the Alien Blade in the Rebel's neck, which kills him. When Mulder sticks The Pilot in "Herrenvolk", he doesn't keep the blade in and The Pilot survives. Unless The Pilots just have a better healing ability (which they might!), perhaps keeping the blade in is what really kills The Pilot/Rebel.
It's nice to see that Krychek has accepted the fact that humanity (meaning he and Cancer Man) must aside their differences and work together to survive. He actually admires Cancer Man now, which makes perfect sense. But Krychek may be faking it; he seems to blab too much information to Spender and to the disguised Rebel.
This episode really begs the question of what happened at Roswell in 1947, how did the Syndicate form and ally with Purity. How did an alien crash turn into a secret conspiracy working with aliens to wipe out humanity?
So Cancer Man killed fellow Syndicate members to keep the fact that Cassandra was the key to the Project. Why? Why is he keeping it a secret? So Purity won't learn through them? In "Talitha Cumi" we learn Cancer Man just wants to be "one of the commadants when the Process begins" so why is he doing this? Is it his warped sense of family appearing again?
Cancer Man's conversation seems to take place in the near future, after the end of the episode. This means the Rebels will win against the Syndicate (not the Syndicate has been fighting back at all!) and massacre them, and Spender will go to Mulder and Scully and lead them right to Cancer Man. He also refers to Cassandra in the present tense, so Mulder obviously doesn't kill Cassandra at the end of this episode.
What exactly does Cancer Man want Fowley to do?
Judging by their conversation Fowley and Cancer Man have had previous contact but not really close contact. But then again, she touches his shoulder very intimately. This is almost definitely not sexual, suggesting instead that they are close and have known each other a long time.
How DID Cassandra find Mulder's apartment? Could it be that she unconsciously scanned it from his mind when they met earlier?
Who was chasing Cassandra? Fowley? The Rebels? (not likely they want to protect her) Syndicate hitmen? She indicated it was Syndicate people, but if it was Fowley it would throw Mulder and Scully off guard. Was this what Cancer Man recruited Fowley for?
Even IF Mulder shoots Cassandra she would probably survive thanks to her healing factor. BUT, shooting her will release the alien retrovirus, which would then infect Mulder and Scully. Judging by the promo of the next episode, this is most likely what is going to happen.
At the end it sounds like Mulder's door was being busted in. That takes strength; superhuman strength?

ONE SON (part 2 of 2)

The Run Down:

October 13th 1973: The group that will become the Syndicate is waiting in the colossal hanger at El Rico Air Force Base in West Virginia. A bright light appears outside and Little Greys walk inside the hanger. Cancer Man walks forward and places a US flag on the ground before them. Mulder narrates that these men collaborated because they saw how powerful the enemy was and sought life above all else, hoping to stay the enemy's hand. Bill Mulder arrives late and protests angrily to the group. The group's children and Cassandra Spender are brought up to the aliens.
CDC men led by Fowley burst into Mulder's apartment and take the three to Fort Marlene for high risk decontanimation and quarantine against a contaigon of unknown origan. Mulder's apartment building is under quarantine as per CDC Level 4 rules. Fowley apologizes, Spender called in saying Cassandra has contracted "a highly contagious vectoring organism which produces a spontaneous cellular breakdown and combustion". Cassandra has been isolated, Scully is very suspicious towards Fowley. Skinner was with Spender when he called CDC. Spender and Fowley visit Cassandra; Cassandra asks Spender to release so his father can catch her and kill her but he refuses.
Krychek reports to Cancer Man and the Syndicate. He's recovered all of Cassandra's medical records from the hospital. The Syndicate realizes the Rebels want to destroy them by saving Cassandra, forcing Colonization to begin. Cancer Man wants to let Colonization happen and turn over Cassandra to survive. An Elder says "Bill Mulder was against this. He said this would be our tragic mistake". Cancer Man says "Bill Mulder sacrificed his only daughter

because he knew this day would arrive", he says they have no choice if "we want to see those we sacrificed returned to us".

At Fort Marlene Mulder sees a large Nurse walking by who ignores him. He also sees Marita Covvarubius who avoids him. She looks very weak. She says if they are caught the Syndicate will kill her "this time". She says Cassandra is part of the 25 year old Hybrid program. Marita was infected with the Black Oil and then tested in secret on the Vaccine against it. Marita says the Hybrid program was with alien cooperation but it was just supposed to buy time. Marita tells Mulder is Cassandra is a 'true' Hybrid then Colonization will begin now and there will be no stopping it.
Scully has been investigating Fowley with the Lone Gunmen's help. She briefs Mulder... Fowley spent 7 years in Europe but there are no FBI records of her time there. They've found purged airline records showing Fowley flew around West Europe and made weekly visits to Tunisia. She was visiting every MUFON group and collecting data on the female abductees. Scully thinks she is monitoring their progress for the Syndicate, thinks its suspicious that she arrived just when Mulder was reaching the truth. Mulder doesn't believe any of it.
Mulder breaks into Fowley's apartment and searches it. Cancer Man comes in and Mulder puts a gun on him (again). Cancer Man says he came looking for his son because he's betrayed him, moved to Mulder's cause. He says that cause is wrong, Mulder protests about the Hybrid/abduction program and saving themselves from the Colonists.

Cancer Man says Bill Mulder was the lone dissenter against it in '73 but he came to senses and gave up Samantha. Mulder thinks Bill was forced into it by Cancer Man, Cancer Man says he's wrong as always. By a majority vote in the group he and Bill worked for they agreed to co-operate with the aliens. The group came together at the State Department on a project that began in Roswell '47. With that vote the group no longer belonged to any nation, it operated privately and owed allegiance to no government. Bill objected to allying with the Colonists. "We forestalled an alien invasion. We saved billions of lives", so that they and their children could survive. Bill failed to realize this as well and objected "when the process had already begun... while the group had agreed to the most painful sacrifices. Sacrifices that ... no one else would ever be asked to make". They sent away their children not to be tested on but that so they would be returned to them. It was the most painful decision of their lives. Samantha was taken from the house no the hanger because Bill "was late to understand the necessity" that he give up a child as the rest to the Colonists. "The aliens insisted on it, it was the only way they would give us the one thing that we needed": the alien fetus seen in 'The Ernlenmeyer Flask'. It was "the one thing without which we could not proceed...[it] would give us the alien genome... the DNA with which we could make a human hybrid, a new race who could survive the holocaust". So Mulder could survive to see Samantha.

The plan was to stall, to resist by secretely working on a Vaccine. This was Bill's idea; "to use the alien DNA to make a Vaccine. To save everyone, the world. It was the reason he came along." But it's too late for that now, it is beginning now. "There will be a sequence of events. A state of emergency will be declared because of a massive outbreak of the alien virus delivered by bees. And the takeover will begin". All he has to do is hand over Cassandra, and he must because of the Rebels. If they stop it Mulder will never see Samantha again. If it happens now, he and Mulder will live on to see Samantha returned. "It's what your father realized. It's what you'll realize as your father's son. Or die in vain like the rest of the world. Save her. Save yourself." Cancer Man gives him a slip of paper and leaves.
Spender arrives at the Syndicate NYC offices to see only Krychek, who says after 50 years they've left for good. They've left for West Virginia, "they'll be transported by the Colonists and begin medical preparations to receive hybrid genes", except for Cancer Man who's gone looking for Cassandra. Spender is shocked he can get to her and leaves.
Cancer Man meets Cassandra and has his doctors sedate her. Cancer Man wants to talk of the future, says they wouldn't be here now if it weren't for him. She knows this now but for so many years she didn't know he was behind her abductions and tests. Cassandra says the only way to save Jeffery (because he distrusts Cancer Man now) is to kill her but he says he can't do it.
Fowley returns home to see Mulder waiting. Mulder says he came looking for proof of her betrayal but found nothing and Cancer Man visited looking for Spender who has switched sides. Mulder says that cause is pointless, he knows the only way to survive now is to give up. Cancer Man's paper says "El Rico AFB", Mulder says they have to go there now if they want to survive. "That's where it all begins". Fowley kisses Mulder but he just hugs her warmly. They leave together to pick up Scully.
At Fort Marlene a Syndicate doctor enters the 'Purity Control' room and puts the alien fetus into a travel container. The large Nurse who Mulder met earlier enters the room and attacks the doctor. It is a Rebel, and it strangles the doctor.
At Fort Marlene Spender finds Cassandra gone but does run into Marita. She says they're leaving and if they want to live they have to go too, she knows where it is. Spender calls Scully and tells her Cassandra is being put on a train in the Potomac trainyards. Scully tells Mulder who agrees to try and stop it, Fowley goes on ahead to El Rico AFB. Mulder and Scully catch the train and force it to stop by shooting at the driver. Inside Cassandra is kept unconcious in the Syndicate boxcar, one of the doctors is the Rebel in disguise. (NOTE: THIS IS A CUT SCENE) Somehow Cancer Man manages to sneak Cassandra and the doctors away from Mulder and Scully. Mulder and Scully call over Skinner to take him to El Rico AFB as well.
Krychek arrives at the 'Purity Control' room in Fort Marlene to see the doctor dead and the alien fetus missing from its rack inside the liquid nitrogen tank. While leaving Krychek runs into Spender who is trying to sneak out Marita. Krychek and Marita trade embarassed glances. Marita is going to tell her story about what Cancer Man did to her. Krychek says it's over, the Rebels have won, they took it. Krychek leaves.
At El Rico AFB the Syndicate has arrived with their immeadiate families. Cancer Man arrives with Cassandra still sedated and the disguised Rebel. First Elder says "We waited to send our communication", worryied that something had happened. Cancer Man says that someone fired shots at them he doesn't know who. Cancer Man says there are people missing from the group, including Krychek. Fowley arrives at the hanger with her car just as the lights appear. The Elders say they didn't send the communication this shouldn't be. Cancer Man quickly gets in the car with Fowley and drives off. The disguised Rebel walks over to Cassandra who is smiling at the light and morphs into his Faceless form. A large number of Rebels with firesticks run in from the light and surround the Syndicate group. The Elders protect their families as the Rebels slowly approach with their firesticks, and torch the entire group. Mulder, Scully, and Skinner drive up to the hanger and find the charred bodies of the Syndicate and their families.
Later AD Kersh is examing pictures of the charred corpses with Mulder, Scully, Skinner, and Spender. Spender says he is responsible for the massacre, that Mulder and Scully might have prevented it and they know what it is. Spender asks that Kersh puts Mulder and Scully back in the FBI and back on the X-Files. Spender quits the FBI and leaves. Mulder tells Kersh that those men burned themselves by forming a conspriacy that allied with one enemy only to awaken a second enemy. He says "the future is here, all bets are off". Kersh is peeved that they are not making any sense.
Cancer Man is in the X-Files office looking at a '73 picture of himself and Bill Mulder when Spender enters. He hasn't seen it since Spender was born, Spender doesn't know who the other man is and orders Cancer Man out. He came here hoping his son might live to honor him like Mulder did for Bill but Cassandra was right. Cancer Man pulls out a gun, and a shot rings out. Cancer Man leaves with the picture alone.

Plot Points:

On October 13th 1973 at El Rico AFB West Virginia, the Syndicate Elders met the Colonists and formed the alliance by handing over a chld from each Elder. Cancer Man handed over his wife Cassandra. Bill Mulder refused to so, but later changed his mind and allowed Samantha to be abducted from his home.
Led by Fowley, CDC men quarantine Mulder, Scully, and Cassandra at Fort Marlene. Scully is extremely suspicious of Fowley. Mulder runs into Marita Covarrubius, who is very sick from her exposure to the Black Cancer and Vaccine.
Scully finds that in Fowley's 7 Europe years she made weekly trips to Tunisia and investigated female abductees.
Mulder meets Cancer Man at Fowley's apartment. Cancer Man tells him how the Syndicate allied with the Colonists in '73 to stall Colonization. Bill Mulder was the lone dissenter of the group that formed in the State Department in 1947 but later agreed. The Colonists insisted on the exchange of children in return for the alien fetus holding the alien genome, which makes Hybrids possible. It was Bill's idea to secretly make a Vaccine. When Cassandra is handed to the Colonists, the invasion will be begin with an outbreak of bees carrying the Black Oil. He tells him to go to El Rico AFB, where the Elders and their family will be taken by the Colonists and given the Hybrid genes to survive the viral holocaust.
Mulder only tells Fowley, Scully, and Skinner to go to El Rico AFB.
The Faceless Rebels steal the alien fetus from Fort Marlene. Krychek arrives to take it and finds it gone.
Spender meets Marita at Fort Marlene, they tell Mulder where the train carrying Cassandra is. They fail to stop the train from reaching El Rico AFB. Spender tries but fails to sneak Marita out of Fort Marlene. Krychek meets them but abandons them.
Cancer Man, the Syndicate Elders, and Fowley are at El Rico AFB. They are about to send the communication when lights appear. Cancer Man and Fowley flee. The Faceless Rebels appear and torch the Elders and their families.
Spender takes blame for the Elder torching and quits the FBI, recommending to Kersh that Mulder and Scully are put back on the X-Files. Cancer Man shoots Spender in the X-Files Office saying he's failed him.

Analysis:

Biggest Rant for the Episode: During this momentious '73 Syndicate-Colonist meet... where is Strughold the leader?! Where is Well-Manicured Man the second in command?! Where is Deep Throat the third in command?! I'm frankly amazed they managed to get Bill Mulder for this episode considering he doesn't have any lines considering he hasn't appeared since the Season Three finale "Talitha Cumi"!
What's up with Cancer Man giving the aliens a flag? Is this part of the ceremony that involved a child exchange program, one fetus for a child from every Syndicate member?
Was Bill really protesting at the other members in front of the aliens?
Samantha and Cassandra were said to have been abducted on November 27th last episode. Yet in this episode Cassandra is abducted on October 13th! Was she returned that soon and then taken again already? Presuming she was taken to the alien homeworld/testing center then repeatedly returned then taken again did it only take a little over a month for a round trip to an alien planet?!
Cancer Man says that Bill later agreed to the exchange. A month later?! Didn't the aliens take offense to this?
Cassandra and the children are shown walking towards the aliens. Yet none of them seem scared or forced, though Cassandra looks pretty angry. Are these children actually going willingly?! Or are they doped up or controlled in some other way by the aliens (the way they paralyze young Fox when they come to abduct Samantha).
When the CDC men burst in Mulder has plenty of time to pop Cassandra but he doesn't, presumably because he would be charged with murder with several eye witnesses. But isn't killing Cassandra and saving humanity more important than being charged with murder? Is he that easily distracted?
How does Spender suddenly conclude that his mother is carrying some contaigon?! This really comes out of left field as nothing of the sort is even so much as mentioned in the previous episode. Plus, could Spender by himself really call down that CDC swat team which takes over an entire building?!
Gee, what a COINCIDENSE that the CDC takes Mulder, Scully, and Cassandra to Fort Marlene where Marita is being kept AS WELL as the alien fetus, the most vital possession of the Syndicate!
Spender seems to be confident that by putting Cassandra in Fort Marlene (sounds like a military base but it is more like a medical facility run by the CDC) she will be safe from Cancer Man. Why?! Considering all he's seen last episode, it would seem like he should be a bit more paranoid about Cancer Man's reach.
Cancer Man wants to let Colonization begin. Is this because of his sense of family?! Condemning the majority of humanity just to save his wife?!
So Bill Mulder was against handing over the first 'true' Hybrid to the Colonists, said it would be their fatal mistake. He obviously didn't trust the Colonists at all and figured they would turn on the Syndicate once they did all the work.
So when Colonization happens, the children (and Cassandra) of the Syndicate will be returned to the Syndicate members, and they will be taken away to safety. Samantha will be returned as well.
If Marita is a prisoner of the Syndicate, how is the hell she run around the corridors of Fort Marlene?! For that matter, what is she doing at Fort Marlene?! She says she was infected with Black Oil then given the Vaccine, but doesn't that describe the events of "Patient X"/"The Red and the Black"? Has this been done repeatedly to her (a la the Russian Gulag in "Terma") or is she referring to the one time and has been held prisoner in Fort Marlene for one whole year?
Since Fowley made weekly visits to Tunisia, the Syndicate headquarters where Strunghold lives, you can be assured she has been working for the Syndicate all that time, collecting information on West Europe abductees.
There are female abductees in West Europe. Who is abducting them? The Syndicate? Don't they only abduct in America? Apparantly not! If the Implanted abductees are part of the takeover phase of Colonization there certainly should be some in Europe! Are they flying their Syndicate UFOs all the way to Europe without refueling or do they keep some UFOs on US bases in Europe for these abductions? Do they still take them all the way to America to put them on the roving train car system?
Mulder is surprisingly trusting of Fowley even after all this suspicious evidense. Of course he doesn't know the Syndicate HQ is in Tunisia, but he saw a dark conspriacy after Skinner deeply connected to Tunisia and he should have put two and two together.
Bill Mulder was the only dissenter in '73 in the Syndicate against the alliance with the Colonists. Why? If he was so different from the other Elders, how did he become a member of this group? Shouldn't there be some other dissenters?
So from 1973 to the present the Syndicate has been a non-alligned organization that has allied with the Colonists and has been working on the Hybrid Program. Yet the Syndicate (or the Group as it is also called) was formed in 1947 out of the State Department following the Roswell crash! What did they do from 1947 to 1973? IF at Roswell they recovered a Colonist UFO (shot down by the US Airforce thinking it was a Russian?) and recovered the technology but no survivors, maybe they've spent all this time reverse-engineering the technology to make their own UFOs. In "Dreamland I" General Wegman says Area 51 has been flying UFOs since 1953, so it only took 6 years to get a working model. In "Apocrypha" 1953 Bill Mulder, Cancer Man, and some Elder are shown investigating a Black Oil sighting without knowing what it is. In "Travellers" 1952 Bill Mulder is involved in grafting some alien looking creature on to a man to become an assassin. Were they just the alien-killin' machine that Deep Throat made them out to be in Season One? Did they actually kill any more Colonists coming to Earth while trying to adapt their own technology? In "Erlenmeyer Flask" Deep Throat tells Mulder that after Roswell they had the tissue but not the technology. This is obviously a flat faced lie, even then Deep Throat was keeping their collaboration secret from Mulder! If all this is true what events lead the Syndicate to ally with the Colonists? What happened?
Perhaps they could fly the reverse-engineered UFO in 6 years but it took them 26 years to get the alien radio working and send a message to the Colonists. As late as "Talitha Cumi" the Syndicate possesses the ability to call up the Colonists on a whim.
So the purpose of sending away the children (and Cassandra) was not for the cloning template (as Samantha is used for!) but as part of a deal in exchange for the alien fetus (which would be used to begin the Hybrid program). But since the Colonists are really Purity, the Black Oil, these Grey bodies have to be genetic creations, bodies for them to inhabit. So why are they protective of one, demanding about twenty children in return?
Was the reason for the Collaboration merely to get the alien fetus? Bill hoped to find a genetic weapon against the Colonists by doing this yet he wimps out at the last second.
So Cancer Man was in the State Department in 1947. That conclusively eliminates the stories of "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man" as real for several reasons. But still one wonders how he became in charge of the assassins guild the Syndicate runs! Of course now Carter seems to be pulling away from this idea even though it was so painfully evident in Seasons Three, Four, Five, and the Movie!
Did Bill Mulder ever agree to it? The Colonists seem to have forcibly taken Samantha from the house. But if he did, then he agreed to because he hoped to save the world by making a Vaccine against the Colonists. This suggests they had knowledge about the Colonists being Purity even back then because you can't make a Vaccine against a body but a virus.
The Outline of Colonization: A sequence of events. A mass Purity outbreak by bees. A state of emergency is declared. FEMA abandons Constitutional Rights (The Movie). The takeover begins! The 'sequence of events' must be connected to the alien lighthouses seen in "Patient X" where abductees mysteriously gather for when Colonist UFOs arrive.
It's nice to see Cancer Man doesn't expect the bees to infect the entire damn global/American population since there will still be enough people left to call a state of emergency. But even still, you would have to have literally billions of bees and release them in regular places. Because Purity does not spread, it lands in ONE host and stays. It isn't contaigous! And plus, a single bee can only carry a minute amount of Purity. But when Scully is bit by ONE bee in the Movie Well-Manicured Man thinks that she will Gestate. Wow, it don't take much Purity!
Conclusive evidense that West Virginia is the best place in the world to live! You're just minutes away from El Rico Airforce Base, the one safe ground from the viral apocalypse! It's also where the Syndicate-Colonist alliance was first struck!
Krychek says the Syndicate left to go with the Colonists and receive the Hybrid genes. Does this literally mean the Elders will be injected with a Hybrid material, making them into Purity-immune semi-true Hybrids?! If Krychek, Spender, Mulder, Scully, and Skinner all showed up and Colonization did occur would they get this too?
It's surprising how rational Mulder is, just abandoning his cause because of his concern for his own life. It's also surprising that he automatically trusts everything Cancer Man says! It's also surprising how much he still cares for Fowley, in fact for a second I thought he was taking Fowley to El Rico instead of Scully!
It's interesting the way the end of this episode really generates a sense of coming doom. It also raises an interesting question. Should Mulder tell the public? How many friends is he going to take with him? He took Scully, Fowley, and Skinner. What about the Lone Gunmen? Was he going to condemn them to die?! What about his friggin' mother?!
So the Syndicate was going to take the alien fetus with them; any covert purpose?
How did the Rebels learn where the alien fetus is? How did they learn about Fort Marlene?
How did Marita know about Spender? For that matter how was she so highly placed as to know about El Rico? It's legitimate that she would know Cassandra would be taken to the Potomac trainyards (since they would be the closest Syndicate trainyards to Fort Marlene).
So Mulder and Scully manage to stop Cassandra's train by shooting at the driver and putting their car in the way so the train hits it. Then what?! If Mulder had half a brain he would storm the train and kill Cassandra. But somehow the train gets away with Cancer Man apparantly never knowing who shot at him. Did it just keep on moving after plowing aside the car? If so what did they hope to accomplish? And did they actually kill that driver?
It must very embarassing for Krychek and Marita to meet considering all that went on between them! The look of horror and embarassment on Marita's face is priceless. Maybe she didn't know Krychek was loyal to the Syndicate again and was shocked to see that!
So what ever happened with Spender and Marita? Did he ever get her out? Did he eventually just leave? Since he never learned Colonization was emminent (and since Cancer Man never gave the El Rico location) he most likely would have just been one more victim of the viral holocaust.
The Syndicate apparantly had their alien radio right there at El Rico. Since all the families were there, they must have known it wouldn't take the Colonists long to arrive. This again suggests it doesn't take the aliens long at all to travel throughout the cosmos.
Who else was missing from the Syndicate gathering? He was most likely referring to Mulder (and he should expect Scully of course).
A priceless moment of the series is the way the moment an unexpected light appears Cancer Man hauls ass out of there. It also makes one wonder how stupid the rest of the Syndicate is to just stand there watching their murderers arrive. Why didn't they run?
In this episode we see a Faceless Rebel morph from a disguise he just took to his Faceless form. Since we see in this two-parter that the Rebels have a true sealed face underneath the exterior skin which is a disguise, it makes this seem like the Rebel here is sucking/absorbing that second skin back into his body, exposing the sealed face. Also keep in mind the second face was ripped off yet later it is healed. So apparantly the Rebels do have morphing abilities, though why we've never seen this second skin before is unknown. (Carter just thought of it!)
It isn't directly shown but supposedly the entire Syndicate group and their families were torched by the Rebels. So First Elder and all the rest are now dead. Where does that leave Cancer Man? Since Strughold was suspiciously absent from this gathering, are they now the only two Elders left alive? Will they share their power equally somehow, or will Cancer Man become the post ipso facto leader of the Syndicate since Carter can't get Strughold into television?
With the Rebel strikes on Syndicate facilites, will the Hybrid Program continue? Will the abductions using the Syndicate UFOs continue? How paralyzed is the Syndicate?
Well Mulder never made any sense to Kersh!
Will Mulder and Scully be re-assigned to the X-Files? If so, they will be under Skinner again right? Does this mean we'll never see AD Kersh again?
Here is yet another cheesy 'death' scene that everyone knows is faked. Spender will return at the end of the season it's even been said in TV Guide! It's like Mulder's 'deaths' in "Anasazi" and "Gethsemane" and Cancer Man's 'death' in "Redux II". Cancer Man obviously didn't kill Spender! He probably faked his death so Spender could go on to become either a Syndicate hitman or just a nobody who is kept secret because he is Cancer Man's son.

THE UNNATURAL

The Run Down:

July 1947, Roswell New Mexico: An add is put out to track down black obscure star player Josh Exley. Roswell cop Dales is assigned to protect Exley. Later when Exley sleeps, Dales sees the reflection of a Large Grey in the window. When Exley gets beaned, he mutters quickly in an alien tongue and claims he is from Macon Georgia. Exley leaves a small amount of acidic green blood on a glove ubnknowingly. Dales calls Macon police, who says Exley is a child who disapeered 5 years ago. The Pilot is posing as a police officer in Macon, and learns from Dales that Exley is in Roswell New Mexico.
An identical Poorboy is friends with Exley, and warns him when major league scouts are watching (so he plays bad and doesn't get promoted where he would be discovered). Dales accuses Exley of posing under a false idenity and trying not to be promoted because his secret would be revealed.
Dales breaks in Exley's room at night and finds him as a Large Grey. Dales feints. Exley says "this is what I really look like... my true face". Exley morphs into a blonde beauty and straddles Dales just as a player enters momentarily. Dales asks why he left his "family in Georgia". Exley says "My people guard their privacy zealously. They don't like for us to intermingle with your people. Their philosophy is we stick to ourselves, you stick to yourselves- everybody's happy... We don't have a word for laughter. We don't laugh... we have very tiny mouths, so no smiling even." After seeing a baseball game, he felt laughter for the first time and fell in love with the game. "First unnecessary thing I ever done in my life and I fell in love. I didn't know the unnecessary could feel so good. The game was meaningless but it seemed to mean everything to me. It was useless, but perfect.... from that moment on I just couldn't fix myself to go home."
Exley and Dales run into The Pilot. Exley walks off with The Pilot and they have a conversation. Dales hears back from the glove he sent away to be analyzed; he wants it returned with no official word. The chemical compound seems to be non-carbon-based life, which by definition is impossible (in 1947 anyway). The Pilot (as Exley) meets the scientist. He says the compound is from Mars, "actually just to the left of Mars". The Pilot kills the scientist. Exley is now framed for the murder, Dales warns him to flee. Exley says "I had a talk with my relative. A good talk. He made me understand reason. Family's more important than any game. I got to go home." He still considers them his family, and says pride and loyalty are "meaningless human concepts". He says they don't think like that.
Dales is questioned by a group of suited 'federal' men. They demand Exley for the murder, and says Dales does not really know the man. They say if they told them the truth he wouldn't believe it. They say his career is finished if he doesn't hand over Exley. Exley left Dales a map showing a location marked "Home". Dales leaves for the site.
Exley plays his last game, which is interrupted by a Klu Klux Klan attack. The players fight back, and one of the KKK horsemen gets beaned and falls off his horse. Under his mask... is a dazed Large Grey. The players flee, except for Exley who waits. The Large Grey comes to and morphs into The Pilot. The Pilot wields his Glimlet and says "It's over. I warned you. You didn't listen. Now you die". Exley says it's the right thing to do. The Pilot morphs into a Large Grey and says "What do you know of the right thing to do? You- who would risk exposing the entire Project for a game?! Show me your true face so you can die with dignity. As your executioner I show you my true face before I kill you. Show me your true face or you will die without honor". Exley says this is his true face, The Pilot stabs Exley in the back of the neck with his Glimlit and flees. Dales arrives and comforts Exley. Exley warns him off, saying "Our blood is like acid to you people". But Exley is bleeding human blood, which he is shocked at. Exley dies.
Mulder finds an article on Roswell cop Arthur Dales and Exley with The Pilot in the background. He suspects a connection to the conspiracy of shape-shifiting aliens. He visits Arthur Dales, the same named brother of Arthur Dales ("Travellers" and "Agua Mala"). Dales claims that he and his brother have known about the colonization plot for 50 years but never told anyone, no one would have believed them. They didn't think Mulder was 'ripe' enough for it. Dales reluctantly tells Mulder his story, which may have been exaggerated for dramatic effect... Dales claims that all the great baseball players are aliens, though he may have been speaking metaphorically. Dales is friends with Poorboy, who brings him his medicine. Dales says that Exley was by definition human because he had the heart of a man, integreity, sympathy, decency.

Plot Points:

In 1947 a Colonist working on the Project defected because of a love for baseball. The Pilot kills him for threatening exposure.
Maybe: When a disguised Colonist/Pilot sleeps, his reflection will show a Large Grey.
The Colonists have a lanuage that is quickly spoken and seems incoherent to humans.
The true form of The Pilots is a Large Grey, human sized with large blinking black eyes, grey skin, large heads, and tiny mouths.
Large Greys/Pilots/Colonists can not laugh or smile because of their mouth, so they do not know humor.
Colonists guard their privacy zealously. They want to keep away from humans, and don't like their members to intermingle with humans.
Colonists never do anything considered useless, as in a past time.
The Pilot, or a Pilot, was on Earth in 1947 to kill defecting Colonists. He claims to be from Mars.
Colonists can not comprehend or hold pride and loyalty but consider honor very important, at least in death.
In 1947 a group of federal men are aware of this defecting Colonist's true nature and know a horrible truth related to it.
Blunt head trauma can harm a Pilot, and can cause him to revert to a Large Grey before coming to again.
The Project exists in 1947, and The Pilot kills anyone including his own that threatens to expose it to humanity.
For The Pilot to kill the defecting Grey they must both wear their true forms or he will die without dignity or honor.
Maybe: The defecting Colonist is able to excrete human blood somehow upon his death.
Arthur Dales and his brother Arthur Dales claim to have known about the colonization plot for the past 50 years.

Analysis:

Some of this flashback may not be true, as Dales was telling a story to Mulder and kept stressing how truth is only what you believe. Most events make sense, though the true form of a Pilot being a Large Grey (a never before seen creature) is a little iffy, as is Dales seeing an alien reflection of Exley when he sleeps. Most unlikely of all is Exley bleeding human blood, and it seems the most likely event for Dales to exaggerate for his story.
The Pilot uses his same strategy in "Colony" to find Exley: put out an ad to find him, then use the local relevant hate groups to do his leg work and track down or capture the victim.
It seems that Exley was working for the Project in Macon Georgia posing as a human, apparantly using the identity of a runaway/ murdered child so he was most likely posing as a child as well. So when he disapeers, The Pilot waits in Macon as a police officer until word comes of Exley.
Is Poorboy a renegade Colonist too? He appears in 1947 and present, and looks identical both times! Furthermore he seemed to be helping Exley keep his cover; is he a fellow defecting Colonist The Pilot didn't know about, and then he stuck with Dales because he befriended his buddy, and then he took an interest in Mulder?
Exley wearing his true form at night in the motel room seems to indicate that it is a strain on him to wear a different form, and that he must 'rest' so he could not carry the form indefinitely. Or maybe he just wanted to wear his true form.
Exley is able to morph into a beautiful blonde at will. This suggests that for a Pilot to morph into someone it does require a great deal of knowledge of the person, just looking at him/her is good enough.
It's interesting that even though Exley knows The Pilot has come to kill him, he walks off with him to hold a conversation. The Pilot holds respect for Exley's life, he tries to warn him off this path. If he plays one more game, he will be killed. In "Colony" and "Herrenvolk", The Pilot seems to hold great disdain for the Hybrid Clones and to a lesser extent Jeremiah Smith. Yet Smith and Exley seem to be of the same class; lower down shapeshifters with alien retrovirus blood who are weaker than Pilots. Is this a writing inconsistancy? The Hybrid Clones are understandable because they are much lesser beings and were making their own renegade colony, but Smith's greatest insult was healing someone and then going to Mulder.
The Pilot tells the scientist the alien blood is from Mars. From "Biogenesis" spoilers it seems that the Purity/Black Oil is waiting on Mars for Colonization to occur. In any case it means that this Pilot lives on/near Mars and waits for a trouble to occur on Earth, where he just flits down in his UFO and then leaves. Plus, the Black Cancer carrying rock in Tunguska... was from Mars!
Though The Pilot trys to help Exley, at the same he frames him for murder (while covering up his exposure at the same time), forcing the issue so to speak. Pretty clever.
The Colonists consider pride and loyalty meaningless concepts, yet honor and dignity are very important to them (at least at time of death). Aren't these emotions synoymous with each other?!
Who were the federal men? The pre-Colonist-alliance Syndicate Group? No Cancer Man or Bill Mulder to be seen. They seem pretty aware that Exley was a Colonist, and seemed to be aware of the Colonization plan. But in cut scenes from "Two Fathers" the Syndicate (pre-1973) was desperately trying to create their own alien-human Hybrid but failing, then decided that they must collaborate with the Colonists to get an alien fetus and thus try to find a way to create a virus/vaccine against Purity. So the pre-Syndicate Group was aware of Colonization and was trying to fight it (by creating a Hybrid from alien bodies to replicate their DNA?). BUT, Mulder says the Roswell crash happened in July 1943, just as the episode takes place, so how could this group have time to learn about Colonization and form the group? They must have learned from UFO crashes earlier in the '40s, during WWII.
Beaning a Pilot will knock him out, and cause him to revert to a Large Grey. Yet Exley is beaned later, and he only bleeds and speaks alienese! I guess the pitcher was throwing harder at The Pilot...
The fact that The Pilot and Exley are identical in true form suggests Exley is a Pilot, yet everything about him suggests otherwise.
How could Exley realistically bleed human blood? Perhaps after masquerading as a human for so long (longer than any other Colonist) he was able to mimick human blood (though a few days earlier he couldn't!). Alien blood released from the neck woud does not have the airborne alien retrovirus anyway, so Dales would have to touch the blood to get in trouble. Or maybe (like in Star Trek DS9) Exley was able to absorb a small amount of human blood which he could release.

THREE OF A KIND

The Run Down:

The Lone Gunmen attempt to infiltrate a Las Vegas DoD convention. Byers is the plant, Frohike the 'strongman', and Langely the computer genius. Byers and Frohike try to buddy up at a card game but Grant Ellis sees through their disguise and has them thrown out. Another similar geek group is trying to find information on a new assassination tech, led by Timmy the Geek. Byers drags them to these conventions in the hopes of seeing Suzanne Modeski, and he does spot her briefly here.
Using a computer to generate Mulder's voice, the Lone Gunmen recruit Scully in their mission. Mulder is too well known to the blackops community to be of any use. Byers spots Suzanne and Ellis kissing and sharing a room. Ellis is from Whitestone New Mexico, the Adv Army Weapons Facility where Suzanne worked. His car is from 'DoD motor pool'. His credit cards are directly billed to "the Administrative Offices". Byers suspects Suzanne under a form of mind control, like the AH gas she made a decade ago which must have been improved upon by now.
Byers convinces one of the geeks to break into the high security conference room which he brags he can do. Inside Ellis is giving a speech about something's kill ratio being improved but never tested in combat, it also involves "the current operations in Bagdad". Timmy the Geek is in the conference room, and spots the geek who is quickly captured. Timmy says they had big plans for him; as a patsy for a political assassination. They inject the geek with something; later he jumps in front of bus, killing himself.
Frohike breaks into Suzanne's room to find it being videotaped. Byers meets Suzanne, who says Ellis is her fiance and she isn't being brainwashed before leaving. She later meets the Lone Gunmen, says Ellis saved her life and the lives of thousands. Suzanne says when she was taken "they did things to me. And it was like drowning every day, under water, struggling to breathe" until Ellis was the one who 'rescued' her. Ellis worked with them on "the project" she didn't trust him for years until she realized he was stalling and sabotaging the tests. Suzanne and Ellis are now planning to escape and go public with all the evidence they've collected.
Scully arrives and does an autopsy on the geek with Langely who leaves briefly. She is grabbed the Timmy the Geek and given an injection. Scully seems drunk now when Langely returns and says the autopsy revealed nothing. Frohike later finds Scully flirting with a group of DoD men, including Morris Fletcher who seems to be winning her attention. Frohike drags her away after she gets to slap Morris on the the ass. Timmy the Geek lures in Langely alone, and injects him.
Suzanne sees Scully and shows she was injected. She says it is a "derivative of AH gas... anoitic histamine, my latest creation". She's stalled its devealopment for years, but Ellis convinced her to make a small batch to use as evidense and as a weapon for her escape. It impedes higher brain functions and promotes suggestibility, with drunkeness as a potential side effect. She realizes this means Ellis is still working for 'them'. Suzanne has an antidote which she gives to Scully as Langely returns.
Langley later meets Timmy the Geek, who gives him a gun and access to the conference room to kill someone. At the conference, the speaker talks about the risk of exposure in international lands, but they have had great success in domestic exposures. But by properly evaluating the (international) target, risk is lessened and choosing a politically unstable nation without an efficient infrastructure makes the risk near zero. Ellis and Suzanne are sitting with the speaker as Langely sits in the crowd and Scully tries to get in. When a break is called, Langely shoots Modeski three times as instructed and calmly leaves. Scully comes in and soon a medical team (Frohike and Byers) whisks away Suzanne. Scully takes Ellis to the room where Suzanne is; they faked the bullet shots to fake her death. Suzanne checked Langely and found he was injected, Ellis says it was done because they had what the wanted and the project was over. Ellis says if he didn't win Suzanne's confidense they would kill him. Timmy the Geek arrives and kills Ellis. He's about to kill Suzanne when Byers manages to inject him.
Timmy the Geek, Tim Landau of Aldonaberta New Mexico, confesses to the murders of Ellis and Suzanne. The Lone Gunmen kill Suzanne electronically and give her a new idenity. Suzanne is going public now, and wants Byers to come with. Byers refuses and she goes, leaving him with Ellis' wedding ring.

Plot Points:

The Lone Gunmen and other similar groups regularly infiltrate DoD conventions, which are held in Las Vegas.
Suzanne Modeski is working with the DoD again on the AH gas and is engaged to the man who is secretly stalling the project, but actually the man is lying to Suzanne to get a sample of her new AH liquid which can control people's minds.
The DoD is currently conducting operations in Bagdad, involving something with an improving kill ratio. The DoD has found that the risk of exposure is now zero in international countries that are unstable.
Suzanne was experimented on somehow after her capture before being released to work on the gas again.
A conspiracy nut group infiltrator kills Suzanne's fiance and by AH injection helps the Lone Gunmen erase Suzanne's identity.
Suzanne goes into hiding with a new identity, planning to go public with her evidense.

Analysis:

Interesting to see the Lone Gunment actually do something conspiracy related rather than sit on computers all day. Recall in "Apocrypha" when they did their first mission retrieving a cassette for Mulder and said they had a talent for it.
Byers seems to think Mulder is too recognizable by the blackops community; correct. However he seems to think Scully would not be. As Scully is Mulder's partner and the two are attached at the hip, wouldn't they be aware of her as well?!
Very interesting first of all that there was a faux-Lone Gunmen group, and second of all a DoD man had infiltrated the group and was trying to set up one of the members as a patsy in a political assassination using the AH mind control.
Ellis at the conference speaks of current operations in Bagdad, and Morris in "Dreamland II" said that Saddam Hussein is a US plant who stirs up trouble when the US government needs a distraction. This makes sense, as Iraq would be the perfect bioweapons testing ground if its ruler was a US plant.
What exactly was done to Suzanne after she was captured by X? She describes it as drowning every day... some kind of chemical interrogation, or a straight forward interrogation?
When Suzanne says she worked on "the project", it is unlikely that she was referring to the Syndicate/Colonization thing.
The appearance of Morris Fletcher means the men in black in "Dreamland" and this episode are the same type and know the same things. The general in "Dreamland" had no knowledge of alien existance, only that the military has the tech somehow. This seems true here as well; the DoD is primarily a lower echelon aspect of the Syndicate that is unaware of the aliens, the Colonists, The Project, the Collaboration and Colonization. They just experiment on the American people to test their biogenic weapons.
This is the first time a government mind control experiment has appeared again, or is at least mentioned a second time. Nice to see these episodes are actually important and not just happening in a vacuum.
How Suzanne and Ellis create a new kind of AH gas without anyone knowing? Wouldn't they have to use the DoD lab equipment and such? Then again Ellis was working for DoD the whole time, but Suzanne should have been suspicious.
Frohike mentions that if he let loose his kung fu on the casino they'd be rich. Seeing as how none of the Gunmen have jobs apparantly, is this how they get their income? Computer fraud? Sounds good!
Judging by the speaker's speach, it sounds like the DoD mind control and assassination experiments will take place outside of America from now on because there is less risk of exposure there.
So Timmy the Geek was working with Ellis the whole time to kill Suzanne, only he was then to kill Ellis to keep this sting a secret.
So soon after Langley enters the room with Drunk-Scully, Suzanne, Byers, and Frohike... Suzanne checks him for the neck mark of injection. Presumably they were able to restrain Langely without much difficulty, did his programming make him try to escape or anything? So they give him the antidote, he's okay and remembers what Timmy the Geek said and tells them, so they play through to fake Suzanne's death. Frohike and Byers do not seem surprized when Timmy the Geek bursts in with a gun.
Timmy the Geek is from New Mexico too. Why are so many blackops DoD men in New Mexico? In "Two Fathers" we learn the Syndicate has a substantial part of their facilities in New Mexico and Arizona (what's not in West Virginia I guess!), so that just must be the area of concentration. Notice that it is a region of low population, lots of military land, and near by the Texas Black Oil caves seen in The Movie.
If The Lone Gunmen were able to control Timmy to confess to the murders, surely they made him reveal every bit of classified information he knows, right? RIGHT? If not they are the biggest idiots in the world, and if we never hear what they learned it will be very sad. PLUS, the Lone Gunmen now have access to a mind control substance. Why not give some to Mulder for the next time he meets Cancer Man or Krychek or Fowley? Or use it themselves the next time they visit a DoD conference?
Suzanne is going public with what she knows?! Will we ever hear of this, yet another major devealopment at the end of this episode, will the DoD try to discredit Suzanne when she goes public, will the evidense be too much to deny? Isn't this really important?

FIELD TRIP

Plot Points:

According to Mulder, the following is a text book abduction: the abductee sees lights then blacks out to wake paralyzed on a table in a white featureless room where there are men standing over him/her. They preform tests, and drill an Implant into his/her neck.
According to Mulder, male abductees almost never have Implants.

Analysis:

Implants must be only (generally) given to women because they are ones who birth Hybrids, so they must be given the Black Oil in some mannor and the Implant counters the then-natural devealopment of cancer. So this means male abductees are not given Black Oil in some mannor; perhaps they are only taken when alongside the woman meant to be abducted? Why would they sometimes report Implants? Perhaps it was a discontinued experiment to inject Black Oil in men.

BIOGENESIS (part 1 of 2)

The Run Down:

Scully narrates that life began 4 billion years ago in the sea in single celled organisms. Multicellular organisms formed until 440 million year ago when a mass extinction wiped out all life in the sea. Plants and insects then evolved before being wiped out in a second mass extinction. Then reptiles, independant of the sea. Then dinosaurs living alongside the first birds, fish, and flowering plants. 100,000 years ago man first appears, and goes onto to colonize and catalogue the planet with 5+ billion people. Man is descended from that first single cell. But man does not know "what or who ignited that original spark. Is there a plan, a purpose or a reason for our existance? Will we pass, as those before us, into oblivion, into the 6th extinction that scientists already warn is in progress? Or will the mystery be revealed through a sign, a symbol, a revelation?".
Ivory Coast, West Africa- fishermen discover a metal artifact in the surf (it is later said to have been fused in the rock) with a strange language carved into it. A Doctor Merkmallen takes the artifact. He has a similar artifact, and the two fragments when placed together lock together like magnets and fly across the room, impaling a Bible on the passage Genesis I:28. "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the foul of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth". When Merkmallen places the artifact on the table, it spins faster and faster but stops when bagged.
Merkmallen takes the artifact to see Dr. Sandoz (American Univ) but the artifact causes "some trouble" with an X-Ray machine at Customs in Germany, only his credentials saved him. He meets Dr. Barnes who claims to be Sandoz. Sandoz has another fragment. Merkmallen's two fragments have become one. When Merkmallen takes his artifact out of the sack, the monkees in the room go crazy. Barnes asks if he can decipher it, and Merkmallen realizes this isn't Sandoz. Barnes attacks Merkmallen. Sandoz later arrives to find the artifact gone and Merkmallen dead. Sandoz flees.
Skinner puts Mulder and Scully on the case. Merkmallen's body is missing. Merkmallen and Sandoz believe in "panspermia" a radical theory that life on Earth originated elsewhere in the universe. Scully says it means Mars or other solar system bodies were inhabitable long before earth, and cosmic collisions blasted microbes off the planets and onto Earth. Merkmallen thinks his artifact has a message about his Mars theory and the very meaning of human existance. Sandoz claimed in a science journal he had a similar artifact, but Sandoz is now missing. When Mulder stares at a rubbing of the artifact in a crowded elevator, he hears a high pitched cacophony of sounds. Scully considers Mulder's cause over now because the Syndicate Elders are dead, but Mulder is still after his sister.
Barnes is trying to frame Sandoz for Merkmallen's death. Mulder is immeadiately suspicious of him. Sandoz's arifact came from West Africa too. Sandoz believes the writing on the artifact is from aliens. When Mulder sees the rubbing in a crowded room, he again hears the noise. The writing on the artifact is Cree (phonetic Navajo) but no literal interpretation makes any sense. Scully thinks its a fraud of the Magic Square- which first appeared in the 9th century, it is said that God told Adam how to use them and passed the knowledge down to his saints, prophets, and wise men "as a way of trapping and storing potential power to the person whose name or numerical correlative exercises that power". Barnes has made a career out of debunking religious artifacts, including once with Sandoz. Mulder cites the 1996 Martian rock found in Anartica as a precedent.
Mulder knows that Barnes killed Merkmallen from his conversation with Barnies earlier. Mulder finds Merkmallen's body in Sandoz's apartment, as well as evidense that Sandoz has been in regular contact with Albert Hosteen in New Mexico. Mulder and Scully reports to Skinner. Parts of Merkmallen's body were missing- the parts that would indicate traces of radiation from the artifact. On the body Cosmic Galactic Radiations was found, which only comes from outside the solar system. Mulder's sound affects him and he accuses Skinner of there being someone else on the case he isn't telling him about. Mulder later tells Scully Skinner is spying on them. After Mulder and Scully leave, Skinner removes the tape from the hidden camera he had filming their conversation, and guiltily gives to a silent and smug Krychek who leaves immeadiately.
Scully visits Albert but finds he is dying of cancer. He has a rubbing of Sandoz's artifact, which he translated to the Genesis I:28 passage. Scully finds Sandoz checking on Albert and runs him down after he flees. Albert was the only translator who would help Sandoz, he sensed the power and importance of the fragment but could not make a translation until he saw the rubbing of Merkmallen's two fragments. Sandoz asserts the aliens gave us the Biblical passage. Sandoz has on him fragment which Albert was just starting to translate but it was just random letters. This fragment spins in front of Scully.
Mulder is spying on Barnes but his sickness overcomes him and he collaspses. Krychek passes a fazed Mulder on his way to meet Barnes. Krychek called Barnes for a meet, who doesn't know Krychek. Krychek offers Skinner's spying tape to Barnes, saying they are destined to be great friends.
Scully calls Mulder at his apartment but Diana Fowley picks up. Mulder asserts that human life was created by aliens, every secret of science, everything in the X-Files, all comes from the aliens. Mulder hangs up and goes back to bed. Fowley calls Cancer Man to report: Mulder called her in a state of distress, and she will stay with him to find out what's going on. Cancer Man is in a meeting of the New Syndicate Elders. "final preparations for mass destruction on a scale that can only be imagined". "Well, what can we do to stop it?". "There appears to be nothing we can do to prevent it. It becomes a question of managing the crisis. Otherwise, we are facing annihilation ourselves".
(NOTE: THIS IS A CUT SCENE) Fowley returns to Mulder's apartment. Mulder is suspicious. She says she went to her apartment, and Mulder accuses her of meeting someone. Mulder reads her thoughts: "it's starting, the Artifact, he doesn't suspect, not possible, gain his trust, I just left him". Mulder accuses her of betraying her, and she zaps him with a stungun. Fowley then calls Scully, saying she found Mulder incoherent and violent. He's been taken to the hospital and is under sedation. Fowley gives Mulder some kind of sedative at the hospital. Scully arrives at the hospital and talks with the doctor; he's suffering from "irregular brain activity", his CT has no anomalies, he didn't have a stroke or cereberal bleed. There's activities in portions of his brain that doesn't get activity, which could leave him with brain damage, so they put in him a barbituate-induced coma but it didn't help. They found an unknown virus in his blood. Scully mentions how Mulder "had been exposed to an experimental virus , then treated for it. This was 2 years ago. In Siberia, Tunguska. He said it was extraterrestial in nature". Scully says she thinks she knows what to try next.
Albert is undergoing a Navajo healing ceremony, which Scully and Sandoz attend. Skinner calls Scully, asking where she is. She says she's in New Mexico with Sandoz. Skinner tells her to come to DC, Mulder is in a bad condition without explanation. Mulder is in the special psychiatric unit, pacing crazily in a padded room. Skinner and Fowley are watching him. Fowley says Mulder was asking for Scully last night. When Scully stares at the video feed from Mulder's room, Mulder immeadiately faces the camera and starts calling for Scully. Scully is confident that Mulder will not hurt her in his condition. Mulder has extremely abnormal brain functions and is extremely violent with brain activities in areas never before seen. Mulder was given enough sedation to put him in a coma but he was barely affected. Fowley offers her help, but Skinner says no, quoting a report of Scully's which she hasn't given him yet. Fowley says Mulder called her and she found him in the university stairwell where he could barely speak. Scully declars both of them liers and leaves. Scully searches the basement office for bugs, and is about to find a camera in the smoke detector when Sandoz calls her. Sandoz realized what the random letters on the arifact were; "co-ordinates... for genes... symbols for gene clusters- the human genome... the map to our human genetic makeup every gene on every chromosome". Krychek shoots Sandoz and cuts off his phone.
Scully goes to the Ivory Coast in West Africa. Another found has been made, which frightens most of the fishermen. Scully finds a large intact metal plate with the writings fused to the rock and half covered with sand in the surf. Out in the deeper water... is a life-sized object that looks like a compicated-shaped non-triangular UFO!

Plot Points:

Enter the Artifact: metal fragments with phonetic Navajo writings which spell out passages from the Bible and a map for the human genome. The fragments were discovered on the coast of West Africa, where a UFO is buried in the rock. These fragments spin when left free and will magnetically connect to each other. The Artifact has been outside the solar system and bothers X-Ray detectors.
Skinner is spying on Mulder and Scully's investigations for Krychek.
Albert Hosteen is dying of cancer.
When Mulder reads the Artifact writings (off a rubbing) he devealops uncontrolled telepathic abilities which drive him crazy. His brain begins to operate previously unused sections and he becomes violent. He is able to shrug off tranquilizers.
Cancer Man has constructed a New Syndicate group of Elders who are deciding to save themselves rather than resist.
Fowley is still working for Cancer Man, but Mulder still trusts her.

Analysis:

So 4 billion years ago the Colonists (NOT the Black Oil since in The Movie Well-Manicured Man said it was the first inhabitant of Earth) came to Earth and seeded it, producing the first single-celled lifeform. It is likely that the Artifact was involved, since the fragments give the code for the creation of human beings (the human genome) as well as an important passage from the Bible. Perhaps the Colonists dropped off this UFO thingee which, automated, created Man to ultimately serve as the Colonists' next snack. However this conflicts with what Cassandra Spender said about Purity/The Colonists in "Two Fathers": she said they are coming here as part of their goal to take over the galaxy/universe. From her it sounds Earth is just the next stop, but surely they didn't create life on all the other worlds they are infecting? Is Earth somehow special to them? It must be, because the Colonists are (or have become) the Black Oil which was created on Earth.
The location of the Artifact is very confusing. Some of the fragments are said to be "fused in rock", suggesting that they impacted the rock after falling from orbit, yet it isn't affected by this (good alien composition I guess). The Artifact/UFO looked fused into rock as well. So are did these fragments break off of the Artifact as it landed? Unlikely considering they aren't singed and the engravings are perfect. More likely is that the Artifact was purposely broken up and spread so that the humans must assemble it to learn the truth, as in the Arthur C. Clarke novel/movie 2001 A Space Oddessy. But all these fragments and the Aritfact were found on the West African coast, a small area, though they were seperated enough that after Sandoz found one he could not find the others nearby. But how could anybody have missed this UFO sitting off the beach? None of the natives ever noticed this before? Was the Artifact recently placed there? Not likely.
Why did the two joined fragments fly into the Bible? How could they know what the Bible was? The fragments would have to have read the book or Merkmallen's mind just to know what it was, suggesting that maybe some sentient Colonist intelligence residing in Black Oil/Purity is inside these fragments. In any case the fragments seemed to be trying to teach the humans their message by pointing out hints and... spinning...
Having the Artifact contains a Bibilical passage is a very Western-centric thing to do. Christianity is dwafed in global population by Hinduism and Islamism, so wouldn't the Artifact and thus the aliens contain passages from the Koran, etc? Or does this mean that non-Christian (and Jewish) cultures are unworthy of the Colonists?
What's up with the fragments spinning? Maybe they're trying to act as a compass to point towards the Artifact/UFO?
Here's something interesting. Substitute the Genesis passage with the aliens! And God blessed the Colonists, and God said unto the Colonists, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the foul of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth". Could this be Colonist religion, or simply their philosophy? The Colonists are certainly trying to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the Earth, then subdue it and have dominion over the creatures including humans. This suggests that the Colonists are behind the mass extinctions Scully speaks of in the voiceover.
Why do the fragments stop spinning when placed in a bag? Could it be solar power, so in darkness they turn off acting as a compass?
A fragment causes trouble with an X-Ray machine. So did Mulder's peice of alien power drive in "Max". Did the fragment simply do it from that Cosmic Galactic Radiation, or it is somehow a power drive as well?
When the fragment is taken out of the sack, the monkees go crazy. Again exposing the fragment to light seems to activate, and somehow the monkees could sense its activation.
Why exactly is Barnes out to murder people to cover his career? He meets Krychek for the first time in this episode, suggesting that he has no Syndicate involvement before. So why is he going around murdering people?
After taking out the fragment, Merkmallen suddenly realizes Barnes isn't Sandoz. Could it be that the fragment gave him telepathic powers like Mulder to sense this? It seems unlikely, since Mulder is the only one affected thus far.
Just by reading the letters of the fragment, Mulder devealops telepathy. This suggests that by reading these alien letters, something dormant was activated in Mulder. The question is, was it the junk DNA that is in every human ("The Beginning"), or was it something specific to Mulder (Mulder has been infected with Black Cancer and Russian Vaccine in "Tunguska", experienced a UFO-caused body swap in "Dreamland I") which makes more sense since only Mulder gets activated. Scully would seem a likely canidate since she was abducted by the Syndicate and super-ovulated to birth a Hybrid, then was later infected with Black Oil and given the Russian Vaccine. My theory: Mulder's exposure to the 'dumb' Black Cancer of "Tunguska". It was wierd Black Oil, dammit! Actually in the first draft of this episode Scully is positive that's what caused it.
Scully is such an idiot. Some Syndicate Elders get toasted, and she thinks the alien colonization will never happen?! Is this her idiotic denial of the truth? In "One Son" she accepted the fact that an alien invasion was imminent!
The Artifact writing is ancient in alien alien, yet it also happens to be phonetic (the letters being spelled) Navajo. This of course means that Navajo is very closely connected to alienese. Recall "Anasazi"... first of all the DoD secret files on the Syndicate Project are in coded Navajo- maybe they were actually in alienese! Also, Albert tells how an ancient tribe of Indians (The Anasazi) disapeered without a trace thousands of years ago, abducted by the aliens. Maybe the Colonists have taken a particular interest in the Navajo and thus made their language similar (for communication come Colonization time? Will the Navajo be spared?). Does this mean Navajo culture and ceremony are similar to the Colonists' as well?
I'm confused about just what a Magic Square is, and it sounds important. Was it an artifact, and if so what happened to it?
Scully says the Magic Square (ie the Artifact) stores potential power "to the person whose name or numerical correlative exercises that power". Mulder must be this person since it activated for him. Does this mean ONLY Mulder will be activated by the Artifact? It seems that Merkmallen might have gotten a little activation (he suddenly senses Barnes isn't who he says he is). Does that mean, as Scully implied, that Mulder is some kind of direct descendant of Adam? Isn't this laying it on a bit thick? And if Mulder is so important to the Colonists, why didn't they show any interest him when Bill Mulder had Samantha taken instead of Fox? Why didn't they show any interest in young Fox then? I sincerely hope Mulder isn't the only one that can be activated by the Artifact.
What kind of potential power does the Artifact store? And what is this "numerical correlative" that can make a person activate? What does this mean?
Merkmallen's body is chopped up, and the pieces which Scully said would indicate radiation were kept hidden while the rest was produced to frame Sandoz. And yet... they discover radiation on the body anyway. What was the point? Hoping that without visable clues, no one would bother to check the rad count of the body?
Obviously Skinner to spying for Krychek because of the threat of the nanotech probes from "S.R. 819", which remain in Skinner's blood and could kill at any time when Krychek activates the remote. Poor Skinner, this is now the third time he's been a spy for the bad guys, when he was first introduced, then with Cancer Man (in return for Scully's life) in "Mento Mori" and "Zero Sum".
Just how much spying has Skinner done for Krychek? Just this case, or every thing they've done since "S.R. 819"?
Obviously Krychek wants Mulder on this case, and made Skinner assign it to him. Why? So Mulder would do all the leg work, hunting down the Artifact fragments, so Krychek could just take them from Mulder at the end? This is what Cancer Man did all the time. Or did he purposely want Mulder to be 'activated', since he knew Mulder was the one that could be activated. Is this a large test of what the Artifact can do, and by sheer coincidense only Mulder can be activated? Yet when Fowley seemed to talk to Cancer Man, he didn't seem to know anything about Mulder being sick. So: a) Cancer Man feigned ignorance since he didn't want Fowley to know about the plans, b) Krychek is operating seperate from Cancer Man, or c) Mulder getting activated was just a wierd happenstance to Krychek's retrieval of the Artifact.
What kind of cancer does Albert have? Is it nasal cancer from being an abductee and having his Implant removed? Is it normal cancer? Was it given to him by the Syndicate? If Albert dies, what about Skinner's bluff in "Paper Clip" that if Albert dies the other Navajo will reveal the contents of the DoD alien files which they memorized? It was a bluff, so what would happen? Rest assured, the writers will have forgotten about this bluff by now!
Well, Scully has seen a fragment spin rapidly of its own accord. How she's going to explain that one away, least of all the huge UFO she spots at the end of the episode?
Did Mulder manage to see Krychek through his haze at the university, stepping over him? And if so, did he manage to read Krychek's mind or at least a little smattering of it? If he did, he will probably know the Krychek-Skinner connection.
Why is Krychek interested in allying with Barnes? Presumably just to get the two-piece fragment that he stole from Merkmallen. But why was he offering the tape of Skinner assigning the case to Mulder and Scully? What good is this tape to Barnes? Why wouldn't Krychek just kill Barnes and take the fragments?
Presumably the people Cancer Man are sitting with are the New Syndicate, since they are talking about mass destruction on a scale undreamed of. Interestingly, they appear to be making the same decision as the Old Syndicate; they can't stop so they'll just try to save themselves. Does this mean that Cancer Man and the new Syndicate will start over, again contact the Colonists with their alien radio and offer collaboration, to help set up the Colonization? Will the Colonists still be interested? Will they offer protection from the Faceless Rebels now, ie have some UFOs sitting around guarding Earth? They're just sitting off Mars anyway!
Mulder is in NO condition to have sex with Fowley even if he wanted to, so presumably Fowley just stripped and cuddled with Mulder, comforting him through the night.
Is the Navajo ceremony Albert is undergoing the Blessing Way Chant which Mulder did in "The Blessing Way"?
So how did Mulder get in a nut house? Did Fowley have him institutionalized?!
Mulder seems to be able to sense Scully when she looked at him on the security camera. (On a related topic, Lyta Alexander a powerful telepath strengthened by aliens was able to do this too.) Also notice how desperate he was to talk to her. Obviously he's learned something very important that he has to tell Scully. Perhaps it is that he's sensed to Skinner-Krychek connection, or some secret of the Artifact gained through his activation?
I wonder how Mulder's new ablilites compare with those of Gibson Praise ("The End", "The Beginning") whose junk alien DNA has been activated giving him telepathic abilites. Gibson didn't have violent impulses though. Plus, Mulder is given enough sedation to put him in a coma, yet he is still violent. In "The Beginning", the Syndicate doctors were able to sedate Gibson enough to preform open brain surgery.
If Fowley is telling the truth, how did Mulder call Fowley from the stairwell? He most likely used his cellular, but he looked pretty out of it to give his exact location (he'd have to say which building of the campus he was in).
So Scully has realized Skinner's duplicity. Will she trust him if he tries to help her and break his 'slavery' to Krychek?
Did Scully actually notice the camera in the smoke detector, or was she about to? If not, will she finish her search whenever she returns from Africa and discover the camera? Count on it!
I think it's safe to assume that Krychek now has Sandoz's fragment which lists the DNA codes, the really important fragment. Perhaps it was his alliance that allowed Krychek to find Sandoz? More likely it was a simple matter of following Scully.
Notice the complete absence of rust or barnacles from the buried UFO. Does this mean it just recently landed, or that some wierd energy eminating from the hull prevents barnalces from attaching, and of course alien metal doesn't rust in water!
It's safe to assume Scully was followed to the site just as she was followed to Arizona. So, it's safe to assume that Krychek and Cancer Man (if Krychek is loyal to him) now know right where the UFO is. If Krychek alone knows, Scully will probably have the chance to call in a escavation team and dig it out since Krychek alone would not have those kind of resources. But if he's working with Cancer Man, expect BlackOps troops to storm Scully a few minutes later, taking her away while an escavation crew makes off with the UFO.
Is this UFO the Artifact? Are the fragments pieces of the UFO that somehow broke off (unlikely) or were purposely left loose for humanity to discover?
COMPARISON OF CHANGES FROM FIRST TO FINAL DRAFT: Lots of Scully voice overs were cut, but most importantly there was originally supposed to be a very introspective voice over as she was entering the NM hospital and the script specifies that the scene all the way up to the nurse entering Albert's room is to be shot at a different speed 72 fps to give a slomo effect. What that means is that when they decided to ditch the VO and speed up the scene the scene looked like it was video and lit weird. // The original script made it clear that Scully suspected Mulder's condition had something to do with the Tunguska experiments. (Also Fowley called Scully to the hospital not Skinner and there was no confrontation between her and Skinner or any of that "you're a liar" stuff). // We never saw Skinner explicitly meet with Krycek and Barnes was the original killer of Hosteen and Sandoz at Hosteen's home. The hogan ceremony was added. // There was a sadly cut scene in which Mulder realized Fowley was bad, confronted her and she zaps him with a stun gun then dopes him up at the hospital. Mulder is then strapped and in a coma. // Fowley's call was to CSM. // Yes Fowley undressing at Mulder's is in the script from the start. // When Scully has her Bionic ear moment it is just that - supposed to have her hearing the alarm. // The Script indicates Scully does not realize that there is a big honking spaceship until after she spashes around with the metal and then slowly stands.
Old Biogenesis Rumors: Deals with how the characters who survive "One Son" will prepare to resist the alien invasion force that is now imminent. These episodes are said to be like the Fall of the Soviet Union with the characters there but the dynamic changing, whatever that means. Frank Spotnitz has said it will deal with how the Conspiracy now operates now that there is no Syndicate. Plans and obvious stages of planning are taking place. The Pilot is rumored to be killed in this multi-parter. The Faceless Rebels do not appear but are refered to. The Artifact/UFO has been called the first wave of the Colonization. The Colonists are waiting on Mars for Colonization.

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