What do I need to know to write Lone Gunmen fic?
by Erynn

ERYNN'S QUICKIE GUIDE TO LONE GUNMEN CANON FOR FANFIC WRITERS
Original alt.tv.x-files.creative posting, April 18, 2001.

This started out as a post on one of the LGM fan lists by a new fan who was a fic author in another fandom. She was interested in starting to write the Gunmen, but wanted to know what was Fanon and what was official show Canon. This guide is a response to that question, with the hope that it may help newer Gunmen fanfic authors get their feet wet with these guys. We love them, and when you write them well, we really appreciate it! Attention to detail is one of the keys to writing the Gunmen in character and writing them well. This guide would have been impossible if not for the fabulously nitpicky assistance of the following wonderful, brilliant, marvelous, extraordinary GunFen: Joelle, Lori, Martha, Thespis, Mel, Sally, Dilby, Anndie, Dark Emerald and Lynne. Love you guys, you're the best!

REGARDING THE LONE GUNMEN'S TIMELINE:

There are some bobbles here and there, but the Lone Gunmen Timeline site is an excellent resource for those of you who want to know what happened when.

http://www.usd.edu/%7Emmarek/gunmen/main.html

OUR BOYS, THEIR FRIENDS AND ENEMIES:

First off, let's start with their names. It's really important to spell them right, because the True GunFen may clip your nads if you spell the name of their favorite Gunman wrong. We're possessive that way. I'm also including basic biographical information in this section, to make it easier to find. I'm not including the XF series biggies here, Mulder, Scully, Skinner, Krycek and that bunch. You all know who they are.

JOHN FITZGERALD BYERS -- born on November 22, 1963, the day of the Kennedy Assassination (XF Unusual Suspects), John's father's name is Bertram Roosevelt Byers, who worked as a civilian consultant to the Air Force (LGM Pilot). John was almost named Bertram, after his father (XF Unusual Suspects). John Byers grew up in Sterling, Virginia (LGM Like Water for Octane). Until the LGM Pilot episode, Byers had not spoken to his father in 11 years, largely because he quit his job with the FCC and started hanging out with those "hippies," Frohike and Langly, whom his father despises, and because he publishes "bird cage liner," as his father referred to the Gunmen's zine (although he does apparently read it -- he has quite a stack of them). Byers loves Susanne Modeski, whom he met briefly in Baltimore, Maryland in May of 1989 (XF Unusual Suspects) and then again in 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada (XF Three of a Kind). Although Byers can hack, he is more often seen as their database administration type, the intelligence analyst, the one who synthesizes and compiles information or pulls it from memory. It wouldn't be hard to characterize him as a walking encyclopedia. Byers is the idea man and idealist, and can be seen as the moral and ideological force behind the Gunmen's work -- but Frohike has definitely accused him of sinking into "holier than thou" behavior at least once. John Byers has light blue eyes, neatly clipped brown hair, and a reddish beard with some gray in it. Byers is the middle-sized Gunman, probably about 5'9" or 5'10".

RICHARD 'RINGO' LANGLY -- Ringo was raised on a farm in Saltville, Nebraska (LGM Like Water for Octane) and has a problem with cows. His nickname, Ringo, is derived from a character in a John Wayne movie, not from the name of the Beatle, Ringo Starr (interview with Frank Spotnitz, used for the first time onscreen in LGM Like Water for Octane). Langly was a pirate cable merchant in 1989, and apparently knew Frohike for some time before the two of them met John Byers (XF Unusual Suspects). We learn his first name when Byers introduces him to John Doggett in Mulder's office (XF Via Negativa). Hacker God extraordinaire, Langly is sysop, coder, and breaker into impossible systems. He also does layout and graphics for the paper (LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond). Langly has been known to build his own hardware as well, such as his infamous Loop Line Shunt to keep people from tracing him back to his originating phone number, as in XF Unusual Suspects. Apparently rather more well read that one might expect, Langly cites Voltaire (XF Three of a Kind), shows a familiarity with the book "Old Yeller," and has quoted other literary sources from time to time (LGM series). Langly has been playing D&D for years under the character name Lord Manhammer. Ringo Langly has blue eyes, long blonde hair, and is the tallest of the Gunmen by an inch or so, standing about 5'11" or 6'.

MELVIN FROHIKE -- Oldest of the Gunmen by at least 10 years, Frohike was a man of action from the start, in school in Pontiac, Michgan (LGM Like Water for Octane) in 1967 -- was this college? The football player he was intimidating certainly looked like a college student. He hung with Ken Kesey on The Merry Pranksters' bus, Further -- he claims in 1964 -- and was at the infamous Altamont concert with the Rolling Stones (XF Via Negativa). In 1962, Melvin and his father met an inventor who had produced a water-powered engine, which was installed in a 1959 seafoam green Studebaker Lark. Frohike and his father went for a ride in this car (LGM Like Water for Octane). When we met him in 1989, he was a pirate cable dealer, and accused Langly of making shoddy material that would "short out and burn your house down" (XF Unusual Suspects). He has referred to himself as Melvin (XF Unusual Suspects) but apparently doesn't like other people calling him that (XF Dreamland 2, where he snaps at Morris Fletcher, and LGM Pilot, where he similarly snipes at Yves Harlow). Frohike's infatuation with Scully is legendary (starting in XF EBE, the Gunmen's first appearance, where he utters the immortal words "she's hot."). Frohike is the hardware, graphics and surveillance man of the group, working with light tables, cameras, and all kinds of other equipment. He also writes a regular front page column for The Lone Gunman entitled Straight From the Man (LGM Maximum Byers). Melvin Frohike has dark blue-grey eyes, graying/balding dark brown hair often pulled back in a short tail, and is about 5'3".

YVES ADELE HARLOW -- No one knows her real name, although Frohike apparently knows who she really is (LGM Pilot). She's beautiful, brainy, and downright dangerous, acting mostly as a mercenary who frequently uses the Gunmen to find information or help her with a case so that she can disappear with the money. Her name is an anagram for Lee Harvey Oswald. She has also used the anagram Leroy W. DeShavela (LGM Like Water for Octane) and other anagrammatic names. Thief (LGM Pilot), master of disguise (LGM Pilot and Eine Kleine Frohike) and hacker (LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond), Yves plays both ends against the middle, acting in a more or less amoral manner, fulfilling an almost Krycekian function for the Gunmen as both rival and informant. Yves has brown eyes and dark brown, almost black hair and favors Ferrari-red lipstick, according to Langly (LGM Like Water for Octane). She's short but wears tall heels, not unlike Dana Scully, and probably is about as tall as Frohike without those heels, maybe 5'5".

JAMES BOND aka JIMMY BOND -- Young, puppyish, and not particularly bright, Jimmy is an idealist with a lot of money (LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond). He does display a certain amount of good sense and a bit of intelligence from time to time, although his innocence and hero worship frequently get in his way. Jimmy loves the Lone Gunmen dearly and considers them his personal heroes (LGM Like Water for Octane), financing the Gunmen's publishing operations from his life's savings (LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond). Jimmy Bond has blue eyes, short spiky dark blonde hair, and is the tallest of the group, probably about 6'3".

SUSANNE MODESKI -- No, it's not spelled with a Z. Susanne met John Byers at an electronics convention in 1989, in Baltimore, Maryland. She was a scientist fleeing government agents that were attempting to return her to her covert black ops project in Whitestone, New Mexico. A brilliant organic chemist, Susanne has developed two different chemicals intended for use against a civilian population: Ergotamine-Histamine, a gas that produces profound paranoia in its subjects (XF Unusual Suspects), and
Anoetic-Histamine, an injectible chemical used for mind control (XF Three of a Kind). Although she has used Byers in the past, her private behavior suggests that she genuinely does love him, or at least care about him, and she as much as told him that Grant Ellis, her fiance, was nothing but a substitute for him during the years they were apart. Susanne is a slender woman with blue eyes and short, blonde hair, and looks to be of about average height, somewhere around 5'5".

GRANT ELLIS -- Susanne Modeski's false fiance, who tricked her into loving him so that the black ops project he was in charge of could manipulate her into producing the Anoetic-Histamine mind-control chemical. Grant was considered "some shadow government poo-bah" working at Whitestone New Mexico and driving a car registered to the base there, by Langly and Frohike (XF Three of a Kind). He was ultimately killed by Timothy Landau just before Landau attempted to kill Susanne and the Gunmen. An observant man, Ellis nailed Byers as an infiltrator at the DefCon 99 conference during their poker game. Ellis was a very tall man, perhaps 6'3" or 6'4", with light brown hair.

KENNETH SOONA aka THE THINKER -- was the Fourth Lone Gunman, and the guys referred to him as a hacking genius. He found medical information for them on branched DNA when Scully had cancer (XF One Breath), and hacked into the MJ-12 files, only to be killed for them by government assassins in the XF Anasazi trilogy. Kenneth was a short man (though not as short as Frohike) with shoulder length blonde hair.

ESTHER NAIRN aka INVISIGOTH -- is a legendary game coder, who created the "most gnarliest autonomous bots" in the world for the game Ninjutsu Princess, and compatriot of Donald Gelman, a silicon valley software pioneer who has been missing since 1979, and was one of the founders of the Internet, writing software for which he was never credited -- he hung out with the Home Brew Club in the early 1970s. He was also responsible for writing some of the first viruses. Gelman, Esther, and her boyfriend David Markham were involved in a project to create an Artificial Intelligence, which was then released onto the net to grow and develop on its own. During the course of an attempt to stop and/or destroy this AI, Esther uploaded her consciousness to the net. She is medium tall at 5'5" or 5'6", with black hair, dark eyes, and a very gothy sense of fashion

JAMES BELMONT aka JIMMY -- a friend of the Gunmen's, and fellow hacker, Jimmy was killed in Las Vegas in 1999 after he was injected with the AH chemical developed by Susanne Modeski. His suspicions of new assassination technology were revealed to be true when he infiltrated the Saguaro Room at the Monte Carlo hotel, only to find his companion and fellow hacker, Timmy, was actually a covert CIA agent who had been assigned to test the chemical. Jimmy, once injected, was instructed to kill himself, and threw himself under an oncoming bus. He has an identical twin, Kimmy (LGM Pilot rumor, not in the script). Jimmy was medium tall, with short brown hair, blue eyes, and glasses. (XF Three of a Kind)

ELRON THE DRUID -- We don't know his real name, but Elron was one of Langly's gaming buddies, and probably a fellow hacker, back in 1989 in Baltimore. He was willing to bet $50 on a die roll against Lord Manhammer just as Byers and Frohike entered the room. Elron is a medium tall, thin, pasty guy with long, dark hair, a mustache, and glasses.

KIMMY BELMONT -- Timmy's identical twin brother is a friend of Langly's, a fellow hacker, and a gun nut, but doesn't appear to be very interested in the conspiracy theories expounded by the Gunmen or his now-deceased brother. He hangs out at firing ranges, shooting at virtual Vikings. Kimmy knows Yves Harlow to some degree, and is extremely competent with DOD hacks. Kimmy is medium tall, with short brown hair, blue eyes, and glasses (LGM Pilot).

TOSHIRO -- a young Japanese or Japanese American man who helped the Gunmen trick a Japanese businessman into giving up information about an illegal whaling fleet. Toshiro apparently has some martial arts skills, and speaks Japanese, appearing in the teaser for LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond.

TIMOTHY LANDAU aka TIMMY -- a CIA plant who had been keeping tabs on the Gunmen and their friends, apparently for years. His assignment at Def Con 1999 was to arrange the assassination of Susanne Modeski and her fiance, Grant Ellis. After murdering Ellis in front of Susanne, he brought her to the Gunmen's room, intending to kill all four of them. He was foiled by Byers, who charged him rather than allow him to shoot Susanne, and then injected Timmy with the brain washing AH chemical he had used on Jimmy and Langly. After this injection, he confessed to the murders of Ellis and
Modeski. (XF Three of a Kind) Timothy is a short, balding man with short dark hair and glasses.

MORRIS FLETCHER -- An official at Area 51, Morris is a fan of the Gunmen's, and claims that they are spreading the disinformation that he originates (XF Dreamland 2). Unfortunately, it is doubtful whether the Gunmen remember meeting him, as the Dreamland episodes hit the re-set button for most things when the time continuum snapped back together, and Fletcher had been in Mulder's body at the time. Since Scully still has the penny/dime from this episode, and Mulder still had the waterbed, it is possible the Gunmen still have the black box information from the UFO (or experimental plane) in their computer hard drive somewhere. Frohike saw Morris again at Def Con '99 in Las Vegas, making a pass at Agent Scully, but would not have recognized him (XF Three of a Kind). Morris is a tall, bulky guy with thinning light brown hair, and I'm guessing he's about 6'3" or so.

BERTRAM ROOSEVELT BYERS -- The father of John Fitzgerald Byers, Bertram is a conservative man, who was idealistic in his youth. He had not spoken to his son in 11 years (LGM Pilot) when he saw him again after his own alleged death. Angry and bitter, Bertram is sorely disappointed in his son, knowing that John is following in his footsteps and may be doomed to himself become a bitter, defeated old man. While it is apparent that there is still some love between them, it is unlikely that either of them will ever be able to mend the breach unless Bertram has a change of heart. Byers Senior has no great love for John's friends, nor any respect for the work he does, despite the fact that he does read and collect his son's "bird cage liner" of a tabloid. We do not know if John's mother is still alive, although it seems unlikely, since there was no mention of her, and we didn't see John standing with anyone who might have been family at his father's funeral.

RAY HELM aka OVERLORD -- A friend of Bertram Byers, he met John Byers when John was just a child. John Byers did in fact remember him when Helm introduced himself at Bertram's funeral. While overtly friendly, he was in fact the man in charge of the covert DoD project that Bertram Byers attempted to expose (LGM Pilot). Knowing that John would find his father if he was still alive, Helm put the Gunmen on the trail and followed them as they worked out the facts of the case. As Overlord, Ray Helm is apparently in charge of a number of Air Force covert projects and works closely with electronic and online espionage, personally supervising certain projects. Helm apparently considers both Bertram Byers and his son to be "problems" that need "taking care of." Have we seen the last of Overlord? Only time and fanfic will tell. Ray Helm is an older man, probably in his mid-60s, with graying hair, a distinguished bureaucratic wardrobe, and somewhere over 6' tall.

FAN CANON NOTES:

* Ringo Langly is often called Ree in GunFic. This was started by Gizzie, Goddess of Gunmen, in her Messenger series.

* Frohike as a Vietnam vet seems to have been started by Dierdre, and by Joyce McKibben, which was then picked up by Martha and Gizzie in their interlinked universe, the Time/Tercet/Messenger series. This theme has been continued by a large number of other Gunfic authors and would explain a lot about his attitude. He's often seen as a friend of AD Skinner's, being a fellow Nam vet.

* Ringo Langly as an alcoholic or former junkie was also started in the Martha and Gizzie universe. This is also often used by other GunFic authors. Considering his background from the LGM series, this is actually fairly unlikely.

* In Sally's massive Gunmen saga, Byers is closet chocoholic. This has been hinted at in other authors' GunFics as well.

* Sally also raised the possibility that Frohike was married before and has kids, and this, once again, is used by other GunFic authors. Tom Braidwood, in an interview, suggested it would be interesting to learn that Frohike has a kid.

* In several stories by different authors, the Gunmen know Max Fenig. Max was the UFO chasing member of NICAP from XF Fallen Angel, and may have been an early attempt to introduce a Gunmen-like character.

* Fan canon includes three basic explanations for why Byers wore a wedding ring for so many years (between 1993 and 1998 or early 1999). Some suggest that he married Susanne after XF Unusual Suspects, but this theory was blown later, when we see in XF Three of a Kind that Byers hadn't seen Susanne again until he met her in 1999 in Las Vegas. Others suggest that Byers had a wife but (a) she's dead or (b) he's divorced. A third, less common explanation is that he wears it as part of his paranoid 'cover' so people won't know everything about him. Bruce Harwood's explanation is that Byers had married after Susanne disappeared, but his wife left him because he spent too much time hanging out with his friends.

* Byers the redhead is Fan canon, but not reflective of real life. The lighting in the XF series usually was just the right color to bring out a bunch of red highlights. In person, Bruce has a chestnut (red/brown) beard with some gray, but his hair is medium brown. In natural light, he doesn't look at all like a redhead.

SLASH CANON: NOTHING GRAPHIC HERE, JUST SOME NOTES

Slash 'canon' is all over the map. Everybody seems to universally agree that Byers is the total slashboy of the bunch, and he's usually paired up with Langly. In most L/B slash, Byers was the one who has the least experience with guys, and often tends to be the recipient of Langly's affections. Byers also tends not to be the one who initiates the relationship or the encounter, although that varies from author to author. I think it's just that Byers tends to be seen as the most emotionally sensitive of the three. Pet names like "Hairboy" for Langly, or "Suitboy" or "Princess" for Byers show up now and again in L/B slash (apparently from Dawn Pares and Te's slash GunFic). Frohike tends to be the least slashed of the three, primarily, I suppose, because everyone knows how much he lusts after Scully, and his involvement with such fine literature as 'Celebrity Skin'. Slash has long speculated that Frohike was the little furry bear of the bunch, since borne out in LGM Eine Kleine Frohike -- definitely a little fuzzball.

SHOW CANON: X FILES HISTORY AND LONE GUNMEN PRESENT

GUNMEN GENERAL NOTES:

* Detective Munch was the officer who interrogated John Byers after the Gunmen's arrest in Baltimore (XF Unusual Suspects). Det. Munch was a regular character in Homicide: Life in the Streets, and now appears in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The Gunmen were arrested during 1989 in a warehouse at Fells Point Industrial Park, after shots were heard. They were held for questioning but could not be charged, as there was no concrete evidence that they had actually done anything except enter the premises. Upon releasing them from their cell, Det. Munch suggested that they try wearing aluminum foil hats, to block out the government's mind control rays.

* The opening date of the Lone Gunmen Pilot is sometime during the year 2000, as the incident in Baltimore of 1989 was ten years ago, and John Byers had not spoken to his father in 11 years at the time of the Pilot. There is a slight bobble in the timeline already, as in LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond, Langly is shown hacking into a computer with a screen date of 7/9/99. We try to ignore this. In LGM Madam, I'm Adam, which aired the Friday before Mulder's return from the grave in XF Deadalive, Frohike says that he's not ready to call Mulder about the case just yet. So there are some definite inconsistencies. In XF Deadalive, the Gunmen attend Mulder's funeral. Once again, I refer you to the Lone Gunmen Timeline site, listed at the beginning of this guide.

* The Lone Gunmen's "secret" basement office is under a warehouse in an industrial district of Takoma Park, MD. (LGM Pilot) They live together in their office (XF The End). They do sleep in different rooms (an upcoming LGM episode).

* The Gunmen own an achy breaky blue and white 1972 VW Microbus [aka 'the mystery machine' to some of us] (XF Triangle) with Maryland plates reading TSD 596 (LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond). No, it's not a Westphalia, nor is it a Vanagon, it's the original Microbus version driven by hippies everywhere. It needs a new paint job and has some primer spots on it (XF Triangle). The rear window sports a green "Question Authority" bumper sticker (LGM Three Men and a Smoking Diaper). The van is decked out with an incredible array of computer and surveillance equipment (LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond, Eine Kleine Frohike and Three Men and a Smoking Diaper) although this apparently happened sometime after XF Triangle, where the back of the van had a bench seat, and didn't appear to be stacked with gear. The license plate flips up, to avoid identification, if a switch is flipped (LGM Madam, I'm Adam). Sometimes they forget to bring the jack, to make room for more night vision goggles (LGM Like Water for Octane). In an interview, Tom Braidwood claimed that the van's name is Gilgamesh -- who was the hero of the earliest known story, the Gilgamesh tale from ancient Sumer. Gilgamesh was a warrior king who went on a quest for immortality. Perhaps they hope that the van will be immortal?

* There was once another Lone Gunman, Kenneth Soona aka The Thinker, now dead by assassination over the MJ-12 files. (XF Anasazi trilogy and One Breath)

* The Lone Gunmen have been in and out of jail for years, and probably have rap sheets as long as Langly's arm. They were first jailed overnight in Baltimore (XF Unusual Suspects). In LGM Three Men and a Smoking Diaper, Frohike and Langly spend a night in a DC area local lockup after hijacking a reporter's link to his control van. During LGM Madam, I'm Adam, all four of the boys spend the night in lockup with Adam/Charlie after Adam cuts open the wall of a house he believes is his. While investigating the Octium chip, the Gunmen are apparently kept overnight by E-Com-Con's internal security during the LGM Pilot. During LGM Planet of the Frohikes, Langly, Byers and Jimmy are held overnight by the federal government and harassed about returning the chimp Peanuts aka Simon Whitethatch Potentloins. Jimmy was held for two days during this episode. During LGM Maximum Byers, Jimmy and Byers deliberately infiltrate a Texan death row prison for at least two days while they attempt to discover whether or not a convicted man who has been sentenced to death is innocent.

*At one point, the Gunmen had a logo jacket made for their publication, and Frohike was wearing one, which was later stolen by Invisigoth, in XF Killswitch. This may have been a button on the jacket according to one fan, but I think it was embroidered.

* Skinner and the Gunmen know each other and have worked together (XF Fight the Future, Within, Via Negativa, The Gift, etc).

* The Lone Gunmen have been pursued by government assassins at least twice; once in the XF Anasazi trilogy, while they were trying to bring information about a meeting with Kenneth Soona to Mulder, and a second time after they had attempted to find information on Dana Scully in XF En Ami. They have faced the possibility of execution at the hands of government agents three times, once threatened by Mr. X (XF Unusual Suspects), once when C.G.B. Spender, the Cigarette Smoking Man, held Frohike in his sights but chose not to shoot him (XF Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man), and another time almost executed by Timothy Landau, an undercover CIA agent (XF Three of a Kind) who had for some time been posing as a colleague and fellow hacker.

* Apparently, the Gunmen are familiar with the histories and identities of Nazi scientists and war criminals, identifying the German scientist Victor Klemper from a photograph for Mulder (XF Paper Clip), and hunting down the infamous Poisoner of Alsace (LGM Eine Kleine Frohike).

* The Gunmen know Diana Fowley, Mulder's former partner and one-time lover (XF One Son).

* Scully, surprisingly, apparently considers the Gunmen 'Mulder's friends' but not hers in XF Via Negativa, despite the many things they've done for her, and the personal risks they've taken. She may still be angry with them for abusing her trust in XF Three of a Kind, where she vowed to 'kick their asses' for dragging her out to Las Vegas in the middle of the night.

* The Gunmen are able to track alien ships by satellite data, and have met Alex Krycek and Marita Covorrubias and know who they are (XF Requiem, Via Negativa).

* Tracking and identifying surface ships by satellite data seems to be among the Gunmen's many technical talents. They correctly track and identify the Talapus in XF Nisei, and give data to Mulder about the long-lost luxury liner, the Queen Anne, in XF Triangle.

* FBI Agent John Doggett has met and worked with the Gunmen (XF Via Negativa and The Gift).

* The Gunmen are quite adept at hacking into a wide variety of satellites, including commercial American and Japanese birds, and US military, weather, and scientific satellites (XF Piper Maru, Triangle, Within, Via Negativa). It can probably be safely assumed that they can hack into any satellite they choose, with enough time, the right equipment, and determination.

* The Lone Gunmen have been helping to continue the search for Mulder after his abduction by aliens and have aided AD Walter Skinner in accessing satellite data to track alien ship movements (XF Requiem, Within, and Via Negativa). They attended Mulder's funeral when he was found in XF This Is Not Happening, and were informed of his return to life before he called on them for a funky poaching expedition in XF Deadalive.

* The Lone Gunmen have a really ugly red couch (XF Killswitch – although referring to it as 'whorehouse red' seems to be new fan canon)

* The Gunmen, though very intelligent and well meaning, are sometimes slightly bumbling (pretty much every ep they've been in) but usually manage to come through with the information or to save the day despite this.

* Scully and Mulder frequently refer to the Gunmen as the Three Stooges (XF Three of a Kind and several others).

* Frohike and Byers have a tendency to tease Langly about the length of his hair (XF Three of a Kind, LGM Three Men and a Smoking Diaper).

* The Gunmen are able to ice skate -- sort of -- because we see them skating along in an ice rink while attempting to recover a DAT tape for Mulder in XF Apocrypha

* Until Yves dragged Frohike to a parenting class in LGM Three Men and a Smoking Diaper, none of the Gunmen knew how to deal with an infant. The Gunmen do, however, appear to be very fond of babies. Langly and Frohike were particularly protective of the child.

* The Gunmen have quite sophisticated engineering and electronics skills, enabling them to build a number of odd devices for themselves, such as small hydrocarbon sniffers (LGM Pilot), a very strange baby amuser (LGM Three Men and a Smoking Diaper), and a rather dangerous but functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scanner (LGM Madam, I'm Adam). Their devices may not look elegant, but they work.

LANGLY NOTES:

* Langly has lousy taste in clothing other than jeans and t-shirts (any scene where he's not in jeans and a t-shirt except the Disguise!Langly scene in XF Requiem, where he wears yummy leather). Scully even believes that he would wear a "tuxedo" t-shirt to a wake (XF Field Trip). He was seen wearing boxers and a white tank top after getting out of bed on one occasion (XF The Gift), while on another, he wore a t-shirt and sweats (XF The End). He wears black Levi's 501's for jeans (you can see him buttoning them as he puts them on in XF The Gift).

* Langly has no idea how to siphon gas, and when told to do so, managed to swallow some and make himself quite sick (LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond).

* Langly likes to wear band t-shirts, and has sported shirts with Bob Marley, Korn, Ozomatli, The Ramones, Soul Coughing, The Cardiacs, and a number of others. (Every episode where Langly appears.)

* In XF Unusual Suspects, Langly claims he has tinnitus, and hacked into the Maryland DMV to change his license so that he could use handicapped parking spaces. Tinnitus is a condition where people suffer from a ringing in the ears, and it is often caused by loud noise, like rock concerts. He also apparently has asthma (LGM Planet of the Frohikes), as he claims this for a reason why Jimmy shouldn't hit him.

* Langly apparently met, or at least knew of, Yves at one point before the pilot, as he recognizes her as a woman in cross-dressed disguise in the LGM Pilot. It's possible that he had no idea it was Yves, and simply recognized a cross-dressed woman with a beard as being entirely out of place.

* Langly's talent as a coder-geek is revealed in XF First Person Shooter.

* In XF EBE, Langly claims he's had breakfast with "the guy who shot JFK." This was apparently not, however, CGB Spender, the Cancer Man, whom Frohike believes may have been one of the other gunmen in Dealy Plaza that day (XF Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man).

* Langly has a philosophical aversion to having his image bounced off a satellite (XF Fearful Symmetry). He may have gotten over it, however, as he's in a video conference with the Gunmen, talking to AD Skinner and Agent Doggett in XF The Gift.

* Langly has an easily disturbed tummy, and can't handle being around dead people (XF Three of a Kind, LGM Like Water for Octane).

* Ringo Langly is still a virgin at 32 (LGM Like Water for Octane), at least according to Frohike.

FROHIKE NOTES:

* Frohike fashion statements normally include a black leather jacket with an odd assortment of vests including one very furry specimen, worn over black pants and a dark colored Henley sweater, with fingerless gloves and combat boots. His fingerless glove fetish has even extended to his disguises – in XF Three of a Kind he is dressed as an EMT, wearing fingerless latex gloves. He is the most likely of the three to wear headgear, from red bandannas to fedoras to knit watch caps for funky poaching. For loungewear, our man wears a burgundy smoking jacket with a black velvet collar over black pants and combat boots. For sleepwear, Frohike wears blue flannel bunny jammies and a Kevlar vest. In earlier years, Frohike wore lighter colors, as he did in XF Unusual Suspects.

* Frohike's fixation on Scully began in XF EBE and has continued unabated for many years. At one point, he asked Mulder to tell Scully that he had been working out, saying "I'm buff" (XF Fearful Symmetry).

* Naked Frohike is a very furry guy (LGM Eine Kleine Frohike).

* Melvin has a rather extensive knowledge of drugs, both medicinal and... recreational (XF Emily/Christmas Carol).

* Frohike's ancient black gunboat of a car was used in XF Memento Mori during Mulder and Byers' break in at the Lombard Research Facility, and stolen by Esther Nairn, aka Invisigoth, in XF Killswitch. It hasn't been seen since.

* Huevos Rancheros, Chef Frohike's cooking skill s, and his ability to speak Spanish were revealed in XF Dreamland 2.

* While Yves Adele Harlow is something of a mystery, Frohike apparently knows more about her than he's willing to reveal (LGM Pilot).

* Frohike apparently had a good relationship with his father while he was growing up, and adores classic cars (LGM Like Water for Octane).

* Frohike's porn fixation rivals Mulder's (XF Musings of a CSM and other eps, where the magazines 'Roman A Clef' and 'Celebrity Skin' and certain video tapes that aren't Mulder's are mentioned). Mulder intends to leave his porn collection to Frohike in his will (XF Paper Clip).

* Frohike's preferred booze for getting miserably swacked is J&B scotch (XF Anasazi trilogy).

* Frohike has a very kind heart and general sweetness under his perverted exterior, and has done things like bring flowers to Scully when she was comatose and dying of cancer (XF One Breath) and openly mourn Mulder's apparent death (XF Anasazi trilogy).

* Frohike is a tighty-whitey kind of guy (LGM Three Men and a Smoking Diaper) but has also worn boxers (LGM Eine Kleine Frohike).

BYERS NOTES:

* When under extreme duress in life-threatening situations, Byers tends to react without thinking, risking his life to ask a question or try to save the lives of others (XF Unusual Suspects and Three of a Kind).

* Byers' hacking ability is revealed in XF Unusual Suspects, when he breaks into a classified, coded file on a DOD mainframe.

* Byers has perhaps slightly too much of a conscience for the work he does. Rather than allowing Langly to siphon 10 gallons of gas from one vehicle, he made him siphon 1 gallon each from 10 different vehicles. He believed that this was more morally defensible.

* Byers likes Tabasco on his huevos rancheros, and speaks some Spanish (Dreamland 2).

* Byers knows how to read and analyze medical information and can identify branched DNA when he sees it (Scully cancer arc).

* Byers is sometimes called a Narc (XF Unusual Suspects) by Langly or others.

* Byers is familiar with genetic engineering and chemistry, shown when he speaks about genetics and the effects of pesticides in fruit flies, in XF Blood.

* Physically, Byers is quite the opposite of Frohike. Where Frohike is short, rounded, and very furry, Byers is taller, very slender, in reasonably good shape, and relatively smooth and hairless (LGM Maximum Byers).

* Susanne Modeski is the love of Byers' life (XF Unusual Suspects and Three of a Kind) and he has recurring dreams about being married to her and them having children together. At the end of these dreams, he is left alone in the desert, with nothing but a ring in his hand.

* Byers has definite preference for suits over other kinds of clothing (every ep he's ever been in), although we have seen him in a turtleneck and trench coat for funky poaching (XF Memento Mori), disguised as Langly with spiky punk hair, jeans, and a sweatshirt/t-shirt combo (XF En Ami), jimmies and a robe (XF The End and The Gift), game armor (XF First Person Shooter), and a variety of funky poaching gear with lots of pockets (LGM Pilot and Like Water for Octane).

* Byers is a lousy poker player (XF Three of a Kind).

* Byers has an idealistic, and gently sympathetic and romantic nature (the aforementioned XF Susanne eps, and all the Scully cancer arc stuff). He wants to fight for the underdog (LGM Maximum Byers) and is quite shy about other people's opinions of him.

SUSANNE NOTES:

All these notes are from the episodes XF Unusual Suspects and Three of a Kind. They are the only appearances made so far by Susanne Modeski.

* Susanne introduced herself to Byers as Holly Modeski, taking her name from a sugar wrapper.

* Susanne was framed for murdering three scientists and an MP when she escaped from the Advance Weapons Lab at Whitestone, New Mexico. She was wanted by the FBI, considered 'brilliant but prone to confabulation and profoundly paranoid,' and was said to be armed and extremely dangerous.

* Doctor Modeski carries a small revolver in her purse and knows how to use it.

* Susanne developed both the Ergotamine-Histamine and the Anoetic-Histamine chemicals for black ops projects. EH was an anxiety and paranoia producing gas that was water soluble and left no trace, and AH was a chemical that made its subjects open to any suggestion for the purpose of mind control. One unexpected side-effect of the AH chemical was causing its victims to act severely drunk. There is also an antidote to the AH chemical available.

* The EH gas was stored at a warehouse at 204 Fells Point Road in Baltimore, Lot A-9000. Agent Mulder was exposed to this gas. The gas was contained in asthma inhalers and intended for a covert test on unknowing civilians in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

* Susanne claims that hotel room bibles are bugged and used as surveillance devices.

* Susanne, posing as Holly Modeski, claimed to have a child named Susanne. To convince Byers of this, she showed him a photo, which she later revealed had come with the wallet she was using. She also claimed that Agent Mulder was her psychotic ex-boyfriend and the father of this child.

* A covert surveillance device was installed in her tooth by her dentist, Dr. Michael Kilbourne, on November 6, 1988, only months before she met the Gunmen. She extracted the tooth herself with pliers in the restroom at the convention center and was able to show that it did, indeed contain some kind of electronic device. The tooth was flushed to prevent their being tracked.

* The newspaper publisher the Gunmen found Susanne outside of was the Baltimore Guardian Group. She had also attempted to contact the broadcast media in Baltimore, but was dismissed as a lunatic.

* After leaving the Guardian building, Susanne was pulled from the street in front of the Gunmen, and stuffed into a car containing Mr. X, who had threatened the Gunmen inside the warehouse in an attempt to silence them.

* When Byers found Susanne again in Las Vegas, she was engaged to Grant Ellis, a shadow government poo-bah who had tricked her into producing the AH chemical by convincing her that they would use it to go public to expose the government project, then escape.

* After Susanne's death is faked, she was given the name Holly Fitzgerald (XF Three of a Kind script, never made it to air) and then she gives the ring she had been going to give to Grant to John Byers instead. It had been her wish that Byers had been the one to save her all those years ago, not Grant. It is apparent that she loves Byers as he loves her. She asked Byers to come with her, but he refused, believing it would be far too dangerous for them to be together. As they parted, she kissed him and promised him "someday..."

YVES NOTES:

* Yves' name is an anagram for Lee Harvey Oswald, and she has used other anagrams for this same name in other circumstances. In LGM Like Water for Octane, she uses Leroy W. DeShavela as a pseudonym to sign a document at the Freedom of Information Office. In Planet of the Frohikes, she uses Sara Lee Wheyvold.

* Ms. Harlow has been known to cross-dress as a bearded man in order to infiltrate various installations (LGM Pilot). Langly recognized Yves in the E-Com-Con building while she was disguised as a man, but did not know her identity.

* Langly says Yves wears Ferrari red lipstick (LGM Like Water for Octane).

* The preferred wardrobe of gun-toting mercenary hacker chicks seems to be black leather, although Yves has worn other clothing on occasion (pretty much every LGM episode).

* Yves packs a small semi-automatic pistol (LGM Eine Kleine Frohike).

JIMMY NOTES:

* While living on Long Island, Jimmy's car was registered in New York, with plates reading MODIV-8. For those of us who are sometimes almost as slow as Jimmy, in English that reads "motivate" (LGM Bond, Jimmy Bond).

* Jimmy prefers puffy Cheetos over crunchy style (LGM Maximum Byers). He also knows the word "conjugal," although he misidentifies the word "angina" (LGM Three Men and a Smoking Diaper).

* Apparently, Jimmy knows a few basic laws of physics, but this doesn't mean he can apply them properly. (LGM Like Water for Octane)