The Conspiracy, episode by episode: 1

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Seasons 4 - 6 | Seasons 7 - 9

Analysis of the number of mytharc episodes per season, by Jim Kathan


Note: This section just outlines the main conspiracy elements of each episode, with little attempt to tie things together across the whole series. Thus, there may well be contradictions, especially between early seasons and later ones.


Season 1

Season 1 is tricky as we don't yet have one "Project." Instead we are faced with a whole host of cover-ups and things, most of which are never linked to any others.


Pilot

For most of the case, the cover-up is actually the work of the fathers of two of the affected people, rather than a government cover-up. It's nice to remember that not all conspiracies are The Conspiracy. However, we do get some of that too:

  • A government-military body is suppressing evidence of alien abduction. Cigarette-Smoking Man is seen storing an implant in a vast Pentagon warehouse, and person or persons unknown burns Mulder and Scully's motel room and steals a body from the autopsy lab (though this could be the work of the local cover-up). As yet there is no suggestion that the government involvement goes beyond this.

  • Someone high-up in government is concerned about Mulder's work. This is suggested both by the very fact that Scully was assigned in the first place, and by the fact that Mulder says how his research is being blocked.

  • Mulder has connections in Congress that may explain why he's been allowed to carry on.

  • Mulder and Scully lose nine minutes (maybe). Did something happen to them in this time?

Deep Throat

  • The military, at Ellen's airbase, are flying experimental planes that do things no plane can supposedly do yet.

  • The military is not above roughing people up to keep them away. They use methods that are not quite legal, both on intruders (Mulder) and the pilots who crack under the strain. When a pilot cracks, he's spirited away rather than risk him telling.

  • The military - or, at least, the Air Force - possesses the technology to selctively wipe someone's memory.

  • Mulder's phone is bugged

Mulder's theory:

  • The planes are based on recovered UFO technology from Roswell. Mulder says Ellen's airbase is one of six bases which received Roswell wreckage. Deep Throat more or less backs this one up. It may also be backed up by the fact that the "UFO" in "Apocrypha" is the same shape as the plane Mulder sees.

Conduit

This is pretty much a straight alien abduction case with little or no suggestion of government involvement. However, viewing it in the context of what comes later may give it a different interpretation.

  • NSA agents act menacingly. However, they appear more concerned with the secret transmissions Kevin is receiving rather than in covering things up. Nevertheless, whatever their motives, their methods are typical "Them." Also, as we see in "Nisei," NSA agents could very well be on the "Them" side.

  • Nice treatment of the ridicule suffered by people who have seen a UFO. If, as is occasionally hinted later, the whole UFO business is a red- herring so witnesses to the top secret government stuff won't be believed, then this could be seen as an example of this.

  • Ruby Morris has symptoms of weightlessness when she is returned, suggesting that at least some of the alien abductions are indeed alien and not the work of Japanese scientists. No steel table in a box car for her. (References to "Nisei")

  • Are the aliens broadcasting the Voyager messages back to earth? This seem to be the case, as Kevin receives some of the Voyager messages. This ties in with "Little Green Men."

Shadows

Mulder and Scully are called in by some secretive "covert organisation." However, they end up being quite open and honest at the end and there is no signs of any connection with "Them." They are tracking a group of terrorists so of course they're rather secretive.


Ghost in the Machine

The Defense Department are interested in the artificial intelligence. Deep Throat is in a position to know about this. However, this is never linked in to the main Project, at least, not as far as we know. It's probably another secretive government agency.


Ice

Somebody - maybe the military? - torches all the evidence as soon as Mulder and Scully leave. It could be for legitimate medical grounds, but could be more sinister. Did "They" know about the whole thing in the first place and just want to test its effect? Have they salvaged their own samples of the worms and are even now working on how to use them, whole wanting to destroy them so no-one else can use them? Making people act odd is one of Their projects, as in Wetwired.


Space

Mulder's theory:

  • The failure of the Hubble telescope and the Mars observor are attempts to keep the truth from us. They can not let us see evidence of alien civilisation.

  • The ghosty thing from space is trying to keep us away so we don't discover anything else. This is why it is sabotaging the shuttle. However, there is no suggestion it is in league with Them in any way, though this is the same sort of thing as They get up to.

Fallen Angel

  • Deep Throat saves Mulder's job. Section Chief Joseph MacGrath, in charge of discipline within the FBI, seems to be one of "Them." He tells Deep Throat how "we" have always wanted to get Mulder disgraced. (This raises the question of how Mulder manages to get away with so many discliplinary breaches later, if the boss of the disclipine section is a "Them." Maybe Skinner has something to do with it.)

  • Max Fenig has a scar that other alleged abductees also have (presumably an implant). He inexplicably started suffering from epilepsy after a past incident, that Mulder thinks was an abduction. He seems to be acting under the control of something else. At the end, he floats up into the air and disappears.

    Mulder, of course, thinks Max Fenig was abducted by aliens, both in the past and in the present

  • There is something running around that is invisible, can throw people around, and can cause awful radiation burns.

    Mulder's theory is that a UFO crashed, stranding an alien. (This is not like an alien we see later - not a shape-shifter or a grey). The military want to catch it. A bigger alien ship comes to retrieve it, and takes Max Fenig too.

  • Whatever it is that is happening here, the military are very concerned to stop it, and keep it secret. However, this doesn't appear to be too close to the Conspiracy. They are trying to catch the alien and kill it. There's no suggestion yet of being in league with them.

Eve

  • The Eves are identical and have heightened powers. They also have the urge to kill.

  • The Eves were created by genetic engineering. Deep Throat says it's a government project called the Lichfield Project, designed to create the perfect human. It is thus similar to what "They" were getting up to in episodes like "Red Museum" and "Young at Heart."

  • Cloning: Is this anything to do with the alien clones seen in Colony etc? Is it some sort of human counterpart to the aliens' cloning experiments? A side-project? Did Deep Throat only tell Mulder about it as They had decided it was time to end the experiment?

Young at Heart

  • The Government has sponsored Dr Ridley's research and are attempting to deal with Barnett, a criminal, to get the papers of the research. At the end of the episde, despite the attempts of the Smoking Man, the research hasn't been recovered.

  • The research deals with reversing the ageing process and regrowing severed limbs.

  • Mulder assumes at this point that the character played by William B Davis (it's not clear whether we are supposed to see him as the same character, or as an early example of the reusing of the same actor for two roles) works with the CIA

EBE

  • Something crashes at the start. It seems to have been a UFO of some sort. The contents, which are probably alive, were then transported by truck across America, ending up a high-security base. The truck driver was a military Blue Beret, though he was supposed to look like a simple civilian,

  • During this time people reported heightened UFO activity. Mulder thinks this is a rescue party, rather like in "Fallen Angel."

  • News of the crash was sent to the "Majestic Project"

  • Some UFO photos are deliberately faked to put people off the scent. Deep Throat gets pictures faked for Mulder, and says he used their best experts, implying this has been done before.

Theories

  • Deep Throat's story: After Roswell an international conference decided that any live alien who came to earth would be killed. Deep Throat did this once, and has been haunted by guilt.

    This claim is more or less supported by later episodes. However, we later learn that the government is certainly not exterminating some sorts of aliens - the shapeshifters.

  • Mulder suggests that humans with sonic weapons and things can simulate many of the characteristics of alien encounters, but they can't mess about with time. He uses this as proof that the alien in the truck was spirited away by humans, in the end, rather than an alien rescue mission.

    From this, we must wonder just how many of the characteristics of alien abduction can be faked? Can human technology make people levitate? Was Max Fenig abducted by humans? Was Samantha?


Tooms

Cancerman's first words. The FBI authorities are beginning to question the legitimacy of the X-Files. The X-Files division is now the personal responsibility of the Assistant Director. Skinner seems to defer to Cancerman.

Nice example of how "They" can use totally unrelated incidents as an excuse to get at Mulder. There is no suggestion at all that "They" had anything to do with Tooms, yet he nearly caused the X-Files to be shut down.


The Erlenmeyer Flask

Deep Throat's tale

  • :Alien DNA has been in the hands of certain covert groups within the government since 1947. However, until recently they haven't had the technology to do anything exciting with it. (This seems to be contradicted by Paper Clip.) However, they have been performing experiments with alien viruses for years.

  • There have been half a dozen better salvage operations than Roswell

  • Dr Berube was injecting the alien DNA into terminally ill volunteers. They were kept in green vats for a while, but when the process was finished they had super human powers, green blood and their illnesses (eg cancer) were gone. This suggests they might be used in some future war.

  • The Project was just an experiment to see that the process would work. Actually having living, breathing hybrids on the loose wasn't desired, so everyone concerned with the project is being killed. This suggests that, if they are to be used in a war, no-one expects it to be soon.

  • The Project is called Purity Control - or, at least, the flask has this label and it's the password Scully has to guive to get into the High Containment facility.

  • The cloned DNA is taken from an alien foetus, like the one Scully has. It has been already injected into people to see what happens. He tells Scully of a case in 1987 when lots of children were injected.

  • Mulder is too high-profile to kill.

What we actually see

  • The hybrid's blood is green and toxic, though not as toxic as the shapeshifter's in End Game. It causes the eyes, nose and mouth to go all red and makes people cough.

  • The stuff labelled "Purity Control" contains the fifth and sixth nucleotides, which do not exist in nature on this earth. It also has some viruses that have been cloned.

  • Scully holds what is said to be an alien-human hybrid foetus.

  • Mulder and Scully got close enough to the truth for the X-Files to be shut down and Deep Throat to be killed

  • The Pentagon vault has lots of similar jars to the one Scully finds.

Season 2

Little Green Men

  • For some reason, something is sending the Voyager messages back to earth. Why? Is this an odd way of sending a greeting? Why do they erase the evidence later? Were they expecting something more of a reception committee at Aricebo than one cowering and terrified FBI agent?

  • The Blue Berets are a retrieval force. They can kill civilians, and don't even seem to require secrecy about it. They can operate in daylight in Puerto Rico.

  • Mulder's memories of Samantha's abduction are different again. This could be evidence that his memories are being tampered with, or as a suggestion that all his recovered memories are of doubtful accuracy. (And, yes, I know it's just bad writing really)

  • The SETI program and the Voyager follow-ups are being suppressed by "Them" who don't want us to know about extraterrestrial life. Or maybe they don't want the SETI program to pick up their own transmissions to their friendly aliens the shapeshifters.

  • Mulder (probably) sees one of the grey type of aliens, who come with very bright white light and time distortion. He may have lost time.

  • The Blue Beret team are trying to stop Mulder from contacting these aliens. This suggests that these aliens are not in league with Them.

Blood

  • Somebody is sending subliminal messages to people, making them act oddly. It's never explained who is doing it. However, the link with Wetwired suggests it could very well be an early version of that project, and that is a side-line of Them.

Sleepless

  • X's first appearance. He mentions being a friend of Deep Throat, and says he doesn't really want to help Mulder.

  • The whole Krycek plot, and the debriefing at the end, show that Mulder and Scully are still getting too close to things that "They" would rather were kept quiet.

  • The plot concerns a Vietnam War project to build a better solider by eliminating the need to sleep. It's more on Their use of humans as test subjects, and the military motives behind a lot of their actions.

Duane Barry, Ascension, One Breath

  • Duane Barry's flashbacks suggest he was repeatedly abducted by aliens, of the bright white light / grey variety. He also has implants of a metal not known on earth. However, his mind is disturbed and we know that They can implant memories. He could have been abducted onto a plane like we saw in Deep Throat and experimented on by the Japanese.

  • Barry says the government knows about it, and are often there in the same room where the tests take place.

  • Barry was probably directed by Them to Scully's home. Krycek and Smoking Man exchange a meaningful look when the question of how Barry found her is raised. She was then taken and handed over by him to either the aliens (as he believes) or the Japanese scientists (as we see in Nisei and 731). Barry thinks he sees a UFO but Mulder insists it was only a helicopter. (Remember EBE as well - how "they" can fake certain UFO characteristics.)

  • Scully is eventually returned. Smoking Man says it is because he "likes her," and likes Mulder. Maybe it's because they've done all they could with her. Maybe it's because they've fitted her with an implant (Blessing Way) and want her back with Mulder so they can monitor their doings via the implant.

  • Why do They steal Scully's blood in the hospital, when they've had three months to take samples? Are they testing her even now - monitoring her possible recovery?

  • Scully has been gentically experimented on. Her DNA has been mutated. The Lone Gunmen suggest it could be some sort of biological tracking device, or else attempts to merge human DNA with something inhuman - ie some sort of hybridisation experiment.

Red Museum

  • A doctor is being paid to inject local children with Purity Control substance. This is just like the 1987 experiment Deep Throat tells Scully about in the Erlenmeyer Flask.

  • The substance makes them immune to disease but also makes the act violently and out of character.

  • Bovine growth hormone comes into it somewhere too. It may or may not be related.

  • When the cover is blown, Crewcut man comes in to erase all evidence of what has happened. Alternatively, we could see the experiments as the "Colony" aliens' own hybridisation experiments, which were never approved of by "Them" anyway. Maybe....

Colony and End Game

The Fake Samantha's story:

  • The clones are the progeny of two original settlers who came to Earth in the 40s (Roswell?). They have green blood and corrode after death. The survival of the original two is more important than the survival of the clones.

  • They all look the same, so have to live apart. They have been using human tissue, obtained from abortion clinics, to try and ensure that, in future, the clones don't look the same.

  • The Colony believes that humans are surrendering their stewardship of the planet and they will be able to step in and inherit it. There is no mention of military action here.

  • These hybridisation experiments weren't authorised and are condemned as a dilution of the blood. A bounty hunter has been dispatched to kill them. He also has green blood. The implication here is that he is sent by the home planet (he arrives in a craft from the sky) who are the ones who disapprove of the dilution of the blood. As yet there is no suggestion that the government is in league with the bounty hunter. However, given later revelations, maybe it is them who have sent him, objecting to the unauthorised dilution of human blood.

Other theories and facts:

  • The Bounty Hunter also has green blood and can morph into anyone. He can only be killed if the base of his neck is pierced. His blood is toxic and causes human blood to thicken. This killed them, unless they are in extreme cold.

  • The clones and the bounty hunter all know a lot about Samantha and Mulder (the Bounty Hunter, as Ambrose Chapel, finds Scully's address, knows what to say to intrigue Mulder, and later even knows he's been shot before). It could be, as they say, because Samantha is alive and they've talked to her. However, at least for the Bounty Hunter, it could be because They have briefed him

    Alternatively, shapeshifters can access the memories of the bodies they resemble.

  • X says a fleet is dispatched to stop the Bounty Hunter leaving. Why? Is the Bounty Hunter sent from the home planet, but They realise how useful it would be to have someone like this working for them so won't let him leave? (When we see him next time he is certainly working for Them. This time it's not so clear.) Or is it a navy fleet and nothing to do with Them?

  • The Bounty Hunter, as the CIA agent, reveals a lot of knowledge of the internal policies of the CIA.

  • Shapeshifters and clones can recognise each other whatever form they appear in.

  • Shapeshifters have greater-than-human strength and can survive a fall from a great height into a freezing river.

Fearful Symmetry

  • Another visit by the aliens who appear in great flashes of light and who make time go all funny. This time they appear to be taking animals and harvesting their babies, in some sort of conservation project, or extra-terrestrial zoo.

Dod Kalm

  • According to Mulder, the scientists on the Philadelphia Project (making ships invisible to radar) were all relocated to Roswell where they continued their work using alien technology. After a bit of work here, they were able to make a ship disappear into a wormhole on earth - reappearing miles away in minutes.

F Emasculata

  • Cancerman's justification for covering up disease - the truth would cause panic and panic would cost lives.

  • References to haemorrhagic fever, which the "hybrid" in Nisei and 731 is supposed to be infected with. Cancerman talks about an outbreak in 1988. Was this another escaped hybrid?

  • Pinck Pharmaceuticals have been experimenting with the new contagion. The government, or the Consortium, have either helped cover up the tracks, or have been behind it from the start.

Soft Light

  • Dr Banton has experimented with dark matter and has accidentally ansured that his shadow is lethal. A government agency that X is involved in wants to use this - presumably as a weapon. They seem to have known about the potential all along as one of Banton's colleagues is a "Them."

  • Banton fears a "brain suck." At the end we see something like this happening. Is looks as if They can download someone's memories. Maybe...

Anasazi

See season 3, as it's best explained in the context of its two sequels


Season 3

Anasazi, Blessing Way, Paper Clip

The Consortium:

  • The Consortium involves America, Japan, Germany, Italy, and maybe many more. Well Manicured Man sounds English. They represent global interests, so aren't really "the government" at all.

  • There are divisions within the Consortium. Bill Mulder wanted out long ago. Cancerman ("our friend in Washington"), and Well Manicured Man seem to have some sort of power struggle. Cancerman keeps lying to his colleagues, saying everything is under control. He also denies having ordered Bill Mulder's murder. Maybe this was one of his colleagues, fed up at Cancerman protecting his friends? However, at other times the colleagues seem to disapprove of Cancerman's violent methods.

  • The American branch of the Consortium meets in New York in a gentlemen's club.

  • The Consortium can handle to FBI internally and influence judges. They kill people in one of two ways - leaving an unregistered weapon at the scene and then fleeing the country (as they do to Melissa), or having the victim killed by someone they trust. Does this mean a shapeshifter - someone who looks like someone they trust?.

The Project

  • After the war, Axis scientists were let off their crimes if they worked for the government (Operation Paperclip). This work (the Project) involved experimenting on "merchandise" - though whether this was aliens, hybrids or deformed humans is not yet known. From the smallpox scars we are probably to deduce it's maybe humans who have been experimented upon until they become deformed hybrids.

  • The Project dates from the 1940s or 50s (as we hear in the Erlenmeyer Flask, EBE, End Game etc) Cancerman says Bill Mulder was the originator of the Project, though this is not confirmed.

  • The people / hybrids / aliens experimented upon were called "merchandise" and were killed when the experiment was over. The ones in the boxcar were killed with hydrogen cyanide. The vultures won't touch them, suggesting they have something nasty in them - radiation? Is this why they were buried in New Mexico near Los Alamos, so no-one would notice?

  • The file that has information on everything is called MJ. It is encrypted in Navajo.

  • Scully has an implant in her neck, and her name is in the MJ files, in connection with Duane Barry, and a test. There is also a recent tissue sample of hers in the mines.

Well Manicured Man's story:

  • A body was obtained from Roswell. This coincided with Operation Paperclip and Nazi experiments in genetic engineering. Klemper could produce wonderful hybrids, he says, ostensibly talking about orchids. From this Mulder hypothesises that Klemper and his friends were creating an alien- human hybrid.

  • Bill Mulder thought they were just collecting genetic data on the population to be used for identification after a nuclear war and was unhappy when he found out what the tissue was really being used for.

  • Everyone who received a smallpox vaccination - i.e. everyone - had their tissue taken. This bit at least seems to be true, given the lots and lots of files they find. They also take tissue samples now, of "abductees," including Scully.

  • Samantha was taken as insurance because Bill Mulder wanted to expose the project. Mrs Mulder tells Fox that they were given a choice as to who was taken.

    Scully says that the technology just didn't exist at the time and there were no experiments with aliens. She thinks Well Manicured Man is just telling Mulder what he wants to hear.

Other stuff

  • Albert Hosteen says the Anasazi were abducted hundreds of years ago and the aliens still come back.

  • What was that great ship Mulder saw, and the alien Scully saw?

Nisei and 731

  • One of the men brought into the US by Operation Paperclip was Dr Ishimaru. He was involved in Unit 731, which experimented on captives in the war. He has been carrying out similar experiments ever since.

  • Many people who think they have been abducted by aliens have in fact been taken to steel tables in boxcars and experimented upon by Ishimaru and his colleagues. Scully remembers his face from her abduction.

  • The people who have been abducted in the same way as Scully all had implants in their necks and all end up getting cancer, due, perhaps, to the radiation experiments. They also all seem to be women at this point. They remember a "bright white place" and can remember Scully from there. The implant was manufactured in Japan.

  • Scully's implant is a neural network that can possibly transmit her thoughts. However it is doubtful if it ever did that, given that They didn't know about X's connection with Mulder as soon as Scully found out.

  • A ship called the Talapus has salvaged a WWII plane from the ocean. Mulder sees this and thinks it's a UFO. He also thinks the EBE from the UFO is the one Dr Ishimaru and his friends were working on, in their attempts to create an alien-human hybrid.

  • Scully, however, is told by the Elder that the whole thing is medical experiments on the under-class of humans. There is no alien involvement at all, she says. The "hybrid" is a human leper.

    She is also told that Ishimaru's experiments were done without the knowledge of the government and that he (the Elder and therefore the Consortium) are trying to stop them.

  • The Japanese doctors are killed and the hybrid / mutant is to be destroyed with a bomb. This is probably (or so Mulder's told) because the American side of the Consortium don't want to Japanese government to know, nor for them to get their hands on the hybrid / mutant.

    Alternatively it could be yet more of the clean-up operation we see in the Erlenmeyer Flask, by which the Project only wants to see that the experiments work and don't actually want to have to deal with the possible security risk of living and breathing evidence and witnesses.

    Or it could even be more of the Colony style attempts to stop "dilution of the blood."

  • The assassin on the train claims to be an NSA agent.

  • The Red-Haired Man tells Mulder the hybrid has been created as a weapon - a person who is immune to most ordinary weapons.

  • The "hybrid" is supposedly infected with haemorrhagic fever, tying in with Cancerman's account, in F Emasculata, of his role in suppressing a past outbreak.

Piper Maru and Apocrypha

  • The cover story: A B-52 carrying a nuclear bomb crashed in the ocean. The Zeus Faber was sent to retrieve it and all the crew suffered radiation burns. It is still there, until recently salvaged.

  • The truth: There was a black oily thing in the wreckage that possessed the captain of the ship. Eventually it left him and dripped back into the sea. It could kill by radiation in a bright flash of light.

  • Young Cancerman, Bill Mulder and Deep Throat interviewed a survivor and learnt of this. This suggests that the Consortium were surprised by the presence of this particular alien.

  • The report of the 1950s case was in the MJ files that Krycek obtained at the end of Paper Clip. He has been selling the secrets to the highest bidder. This is how the French have come to know about the wreckage. This suggests the French aren't in on the Project.

  • The black alien's craft was raised by the Americans in "Nisei." However the black thing seems to have evacuated somehow and taken residence in another crashed plane. Why? I don't know.

  • The black gloopy thing appears to take people over completely so they have no memory of the time in which they were possessed. It can theatrically cloud over their eyes. When it is in someone's body it can walk and talk English, so presumably accesses their memories. It can kill people in a flash on blinding light which burns them severely. It seems to need physical contact to pass from person to person.

    Is this it's natural form or just a convenient one for travelling? If it's natural form is black goo, why would it need a large triangular ship? The black goo is supposed to be diesel oil, suggesting the alien has yet another form and the black oily form is in itself just a convenient form it assumes. However, it does seem to stick with this oily form quite a bit.

  • The black thingy is concerned only to get back to its ship. It is not in league with the Consortium. When Krycek is taken over, the alien in his body confronts Cancerman, blackmailing him to get him to tell him where his ship is.

  • The black alien's craft is triangular, just like the military UFOs seen in Deep Throat.

  • The black alien can survive at the bottom of the ocean for 50 years.

  • The Consortium used to keep downed UFOs at a base in Nevada (Area 51?), but this has recently become unviable. They are now kept at abandoned missile silos in North Dakota.

José Chung's "From Outer Space"

Disclaimer: Due to the nature of this episode, nothing can really be believed.

  • The military is using post-hypnotic suggestion to fill people's heads with the idea that they have been abducted by aliens. (Maybe)

  • Secret planes are being disguised as UFOs to confuse the enemy. (Maybe)

  • Weird things like Lord Kimbote, Men in Black, Alex Trebeck etc are added so witnesses won't be believed, even if something of what they see is the truth. (Maybe)

  • The alien autopsy tape is edited by the Men in Black (or their masters) then issued on video in such as way as to make the whole affair look ridiculous. Mulder and Scully can't therefore go public on what really happened as they'd look silly. (Maybe)

  • People are getting their memory wiped (Definitely!. Scully loses a whole evening)

  • Are the Men in Black shapeshifters like we see in Colony? Or is the whole thing about them looking like celebrities caused by witnesses' memories being interfered with later?

  • We can never believe any witness, no matter how convincing. Truth is subjective. Memories get altered. Oh dear...

Avatar

  • Skinner has been protecting Mulder and Scully too much. This is Their attempt to discredit him.

Wetwired

  • X is Cancerman's inferior, and his cover hasn't been blown. He uses one if his own subordinates to leak information to Mulder then has to kill him to cover his tracks. However, Cancerman does know that there is a leak from somewhere.

  • Mulder and Scully's discoveries compromise the security of the experiment so everyone involved in it is killed. X is the one who has to lead the cover up, though he tries to do it slowly and give Mulder a chance to find the truth first.

  • The whole thing is a project to see if people can be influenced via subliminal messages in television. According to X, it goes much further than commerce or politics. Is this a tool to make everyone docile and accepting when the colonisation happens? Or is it to make everyone violent in the event of a war - or a hostile invasion of aliens?

Talitha Cumi and Herrenvolk

  • Jeremiah Smith is a clone and a shapeshifter. He has "gone bad" on the Project. He has decided to use his powers to the betterment of the human lot and offer them "hope." Cancerman says people are too stupid and must be ruled and manipulated. He wants them to lose their faith in everything but science. Why? Is this because the revelation of the "truth," when it comes, will then shatter their last belief, leaving them weak and helpless? (We only have to look at Scully to see that, in her eyes, what we suspect to be the "truth" is contary to her science).

  • "The date has been set" for colonisation. According to Smith, Cancerman wants to be a part of it - to be one of the commandants when the process begins

  • Smith hints that healing and morphing are not the full extent of his powers. Well, he can also make bullets disappear and clean blood- stained clothing. He can maybe read minds when he knows exactly who to morph into in order to worry Cancerman (but this may come from knowledge of the records) and can diagnose Cancerman as having cancer, presumably just by looking at him.

  • Cancerman, for all his rhetoric, puts his own life before the project. He also puts Mrs Mulder's life before the Project too, for all his pseudo-justification about it being because Mulder mustn't be pushed too far.

  • The Bounty Hunter from Colony is now working at the beck and call of the Consortium. He is sent to kill Smith - presumably because only he (and Mulder, now) has the right weapon, or because he alone is immune to the effects of the toxic blood.

  • A possible suggestion that Smith has hypnotic powers when he talks down the gun man.

  • Smith works at the social security offices. He is collecting data on the people in the form on genetic information derived from smallpox vaccinations. Scully suggests these are some sort of genetic marker and has been going on for fifty years. The human race has all been inventoried, in preperation for the colonisation.

  • Some alien plant is grown, and bees make honey from it. These bee stings are deadly. Do the aliens need this for food, or something? Or is the plant just there in order to maintain the killer bees, vital in the colonisation plan?

  • The plants are tended by "drones." These are clones, without words. The girl looks like eight-year old Samantha but doesn't remember Fox. Smith himself is a drone, but in his case he can speak. The drones are immune to bee stings, but the Bounty Hunter isn't, though they don't kill him. (And why do his bee stings bleed red?)

  • Why do the clones look like Samantha? Why is Mrs Mulder called "the mother." Why is Fox so important to the project? Are the Mulder children not entirely human? Or is it just that Bill Mulder used his daughter's genetic material when it came to starting the cloning project, just because it was convenient?

  • Smith says they are creating a "new order of species." He calls it "the process." It is not clear how much of this is the work of the aliens on their own and how much is the work of the Consortium.

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