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Conspiracy Index
Updated: Two Fathers / One Son
This page includes facts, clues and theories from the whole six seasons.
From "The Red and the Black" and the movie onwards, we're beginning to
get some answers, but I haven't deleted past theories that seem to contradict
this view of what is happening. Nothing is certain in the X-Files.
For facts and figures, see the "Them" page in
the character section.
How many conspiracies?
Although we now seem to have settled on an over-riding Mytharc, the first
few seasons, at least, offered us evidence of a whole lot of different
conspiracies.
- The Consortium No comment. This is covered everywhere else in this
section. Redux II suggests that out old friends the Consortium might be called "Roush"
- The Military Obviously overlaps with the Consortium. CSM can call
out a crack team of soldiers when he needs to and hides his evidence in the
Pentagon. X is clearly in the same group as CSM yet he is also privy to military
secrets. However, the military retrieval team we see in "Fallen Angel,"
for example, and the military UFO in "Deep Throat" suggest a military
agenda that isn't strictly the same as the Consortium's.
They have no interest in the DNA issue, but only want the technology.
Aliens who crash are to hunted down and killed ("Fallen Angel"), not
taken for their DNA.
Interestingly, the General in charge of Area 51 doesn't know "the truth"
either. In fact, he thinks that Mulder knows more than he does. Regarding the
craft built with UFO technology: "we just fly these birds. They don't tell
us what makes them go." He even asks Mulder if aliens really exist.
- Local Conspiracies Nothing to do with the Consortium but worth
including simply as a reminder that, especially in the first season, many of the
cover-ups were local in nature. For example, the sheriff in "Jersey Devil"
who suppressed evidence as he was scared of frightening off the tourists, or the
fathers in the Pilot episode who covered up what was really happening.
- Anti-Communists? Back in 1952, at the height of the crusade against
Communists, the crusaders seem to have been involved in experiments grafting
alien (?) things into humans, turning them into killing machines. It seems if at
least some of the Project's experiments came out of Cold War politics. Bill
Mulder was involved in this particular conspiracy, through his work with the
State Department, but there is no sign on CSM, yet, or any of our other old
friends. There are, though, Nazi scientists, suggesting that our friends the
Consortium grew out of work such as this.
National divisions
Well Manicured Man says that he represents a global Consortium of interests,
and CSM, in "One Son", says that the Syndicate is international,
forming together expressly to set aside their national loyalties. However there
are signs of national divisions.
- In "Anasazi" we see Italians, Germans and Japanese, and there are
presumably representatives of more countries in the group. However, in "EBE"
Deep Throat talks about a secret committee in 1947 which was attended by the
USA, the Soviet Union, China, France, Britain and both Germanys. This committee
agreed that they would kill any alien that landed within their boundaries.
Are these countries in on the Project? Or are these the countries who agreed
to kill an alien, but America and Germany played the others false and joined
forces with Italy and Japan and decided not to kill all the aliens?
- "Piper Maru" shows that the French aren't in on the MJ files.
Krycek sold some information from the tape, leading them to look in the ocean
for the crashed UFO.
There is of course the possibility that some French are in on the
Consortium and this is another covert French group getting a piece of the
action. However, WMM and CSM wonder where "the French" knew where to
look. This wording suggests they didn't expect any French person to know this
information.
- Even the Japanese scientist from Operation Paper Clip, who is to be assumed
to be right at the heart of the Project, seems to be creating an unauthorised
hybrid and taking it back to Japan. ("Nisei" and "731") Much
of these episodes can be explained as some sort of rivalry between the Japanese
and American contingents within the Consortium.
- No idea if the Russians are in on the Project or not, but "Tunguska"
and "Terma" shows the Russians and Americans engaged in out and out
rivalry to discover a cure for the Black Cancer. The Russians get the cure, but
sabotage the Consortium's work. Later ("The Red and the Black")
Krcyek, presumably working alone, takes the cure to WMM.
If, as we're supposed to believe, the cure to the black cancer is vital to
the survival of the human race, you'd have thought the two countries would be
working together, really. (Although, in "Travelers", set in 1952, it
seems as if the conspiracy is all to do with Cold War politics. It's not clear
who the "enemy" is, when people talk about the need to develop weapons
against them, but it's a fair guess that it's the Russians.)
Unless the Russians and WMM are both secretly working to get the cure in
order to oppose the colonists, but are too secret about it, so neither of them
realise that the other is doing it for this reason. If that makes sense.... Or
maybe the Americans and Russians, while they want to ensure the survival of all
the people in their own countries, aren't too bothered if all the people in
their old enemy's country dies.
Personal rivalries
Even within the small group of conspirators who meet in their New York
gentlemen's club there are rivalries.
- WMM and CSM never seem to waste an opportunity to score points off each
other.
- In the "Anasazi" trilogy and "Piper Maru" / "Apocrypha"
poor CSM gets roundly criticised by everyone for his handling of the events. He
also out and out lies to his colleagues about virtually everything.
- CSM is capable of putting personal interest above the Project. He does this
in "Talitha Cumi" when he allows Smith to cure his cancer in return
for his freedom. It is also possible that he does this all the time by not
killing Mulder, out of loyalty to his old friend or to Mrs Mulder.
- In "The Red and the Black", WMM and the First Elder disagree on
how to act with respect to the colonists and the aliens who oppose it. WMM wants
to join the rebels and oppose the colonists. The Elder thinks this would be
suicide, and goes behind WMM's back to return the captured rebel to the
colonists.
- WMM ends up going against the others, helping Mulder, and dying for it.
(apparently)
Policy differences
Different people in the Consortium disagree on the attitude to the
colonists. While the Consortium has been based all along on the principle that
the best way to deal with the imminent invasion is to collaborate, working
secretly to stall the aliens, and working on a vaccine to the black oil, some
have always been more inclined to oppose the colonists openly. Bill Mulder seems
to have been one. Recently, WMM has been another, wanting to join the rebel
aliens.
Medical experiments
This theme crops up again and again, in that the whole aim of the Project
seems to be based around genetic engineering and similar experiments. A lot of
it is about producing soldiers who are immune to biological weapons while
possessing extra strength. Now, we know now that this was done, at least partly,
as part of their deal with the colonists, to produce a hybrid immune to the
black oil and able to live on as a slave race after the colonisation. However,
but there are also signs that these super powers and immunity are being
developed for military purposes, whether to be used in a war against an earthly
power along the way, or against the colonists themselves, should the Consortium
decide to break their alliance and openly resist the aliens.
- "Eve" tells us about the Lichfield Project, designed to create a
race of superhumans. While the resulting Adams and Eves did possess extra
strength and intelligence, they were also prone to madness, suicide and murder.
If it had worked, would this have been the start of a eugenics program to fill
the world with super humans?
This could perhaps be linked to the main Project. It could be an early
experiment in the genetic engineering and cloning experiments we see later Did
They discover that genetic engineering worked better with a bit of alien DNA
thrown into the mix?
- In "Young at Heart" They are interested in getting their hands on
Dr Ridley's reseach which will reverse the ageing process and enable people to
regrow lost limbs.
- "The Erlenmeyer Flask." People with terminal cancer are submerged
in a vat of liquid and end up with super powers, such as being able to stay
under water for days, and with their cancer cured. They can also be severely
shot and still carry on running, though they're not invincible. However, while "They"
are anxious to find out if this process works, they don't want the living and
breathing results of the process around to tell tales. This suggests that there
is no immediate situation in which these super soldiers are needed.
- "Sleepless" shows us the effects of an experiment back at the
time of the Vietnam war, designed to keep soliders awake 24 hours a day and so
increase their effectiveness.
- "Red Museum" shows us an experiment (using "Purity Control")
which makes people apparently immune to disease. It also causes some
aggressiveness and personality change. What better qualities to have in a
soldier in some future biological war? It's the same stuff as in "The
Erlenmeyer Flask", but a simple course of injections rather than a full vat
of liquid. The end result isn't nearly as hardy as the green-blooded products of
that experiment, but would still be useful in war.
- In "731", the Red-Haired Man tells Mulder the hybrid has been
created as a weapon - a person who is immune to most ordinary weapons. This
presuambly means biological weapons. It can seemingly be killed by a bomb.
- "Tunguska" and "Terma" are about attempts by the
Russians and Americans to discover a vaccine for the "Black Cancer."
The militia man says that Saddam Hussain used the black cancer as a weapon in
the Gulf. This suggests that everyone wants to use this as a weapon, but would
prefer it if their own troops had immunity against it first. A weapon against
whom? Another human power? Someone from space?
The Consortium - or WMM, anyway - now has this vaccine. WMM, at least, seems
to think that it should be used to make us immune while we join the rebel aliens
and go to war against the colonists.
- In "Travelers", Nazi scientists, and anti-Communist crusaders,
surgically graft an alien (?) being into human subjects, thus turning them into
a "killing machine". It's spoken of, probably, as a possible weapon to
use in the Cold War, though who can tell what other enemies they may want to use
it against?
In conclusion, are quite a lot of the Consortium's experiments actually
attempts - further attempts - on a similar line to the vaccine against the black
oil - ie efforts to find a weapon against the very aliens they have made an
alliance with?
However, "Two Fathers" shows us that creating an alien/human
hybrid is, in fact, the very job that "they" have been assigned by the
aliens, so many of the medical experiments, and abductions, can just be part of
that.
This seems to be the work of the military (not surprisingly) While they are
very prone to acting secretly they don't appear to be part of the mainstream
Consortium Project we see later on. The story is usually one of opportunism in
which the military step in to use some development someone else has come up
with.
- "Deep Throat" deals with the development of better faster
military planes, possibly built using UFO technology. This seems to be more of a
military project than a central Consortium one, though it is rather early in the
series to tell. Later, in "Fallen Angel," we see military men hunting
down the alien who crashed, while apparently wanting to salvage the UFO,
presumably to study and copy.
- "Ghost in the Machine" sees them interested in getting their
hands on the artifical intelligence created by Brad Wilcek. He cites Oppenheimer
and says how much he fears that his invention will be used as a weapon. Deep
Throat knows about this.
- In "Soft Light", Dr Banton, who has managed to create an instant
weapon of destruction in his own shadow, feared that They would come and do a "brain
suck" on him to find out about the process and use it as a weapon. At the
end we see that his fears were justified. X is in on this.
- In "Redux" we are told that the entire alien story is nothing
more than a cover, hiding the fact that the military is working on technology of
its own. As we are told in "Jose Chung", people look closely at a new
spy plane, but a UFO sends them panicking and makes sure no-one believes them.
- "Dreamland II" reveals that even the general in charge of Area 51
doesn't know if UFOs exist. He and his men fly crafts build with anti-gravity
devices and all sorts of other futuristic things, but he actually thinks that
Mulder must know a whole lot more about whether aliens exist than he does.
- "Blood" shows us some experiment done by some unknown person or
group. It uses subliminal messages and drives people to kill. However, it only
seems to work on people who already suffered from phobias.
"Wetwired" has a very similar experiment, but this time we
definitely know that CSM and his friends were behind it. As with so much the
Consortium does, it looks as if it is only an experiment - an attempt to find
out if a process works so it can be used in the future, when the time comes,
rather than yet.
"Unusual Suspects" goes back to 1989 but has yet another attempt
to manipulate the behaviour of the populace. This this it is a gas that induces
anxiety and paranoia. It isn't clear to what eventual use this will be put, but
the initial tests are to be performed on ordinary people - and stray FBI agents
who wander into the wrong place at the wrong time.
When will the time come? Is this another weapon in Their armoury when the "date"
comes round? Will our televisions all start broadcasting subliminal messages
telling us to kill each other, so the surplus population is out of the way? Or
will they broadcast reassuring messages telling us how happy the new regime will
make us?
- "Jose Chung" suggests that at least some alien encounters are
hoaxes perpetuated by the military. In effect, the popular culture is being
manipulated into accepting alien abduction as common, when all the time
attention is being diverted from what the government is getting up to.
This is also the message of "Gethsemene" and "Redux" -
that the entire alien story is a catalgue of fakes and mind manipulation, to
cover more mundane developments. CSM says this is not true, and we are bound to
hear more on this particular claim later, or to prove it wrong.
- In "Talitha Cumi," CSM talks to Smith about how the people are
docile and need to be led and given direction by people such as him. He seems to
want the people 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).
Back at the start of season 1 it was all so simple. Greys abducted people in
a flash of white light. When it got more complicated....
Alien abduction
Evidence that at least some abductions are alien:
- The implants of unknown metal inside Duane Barry, plus the tiny holes in
his teeth
- The leviatation effect on Max Fenig. It doesn't seem as if They have
mastered this yet.
- Time distortion. Mulder has found several example of this. When the bright
white light came in "EBE" it wasn't like anything Mulder and Scully
had seen before, but there was no time distorion. This implies that, while They
can fake certain characteristics of alien abduction, some, like time distortion,
are beyond them.
- Symptoms of weightlessness on Ruby Morris in "Conduit."
- "Fearful Symmetry". If Japanese scientists wanted earth animals
there are easier ways to find them than this.
- Scully's memories in "The Red and the Black", and what we
ourselves saw at the end of "Patient X". These were no Japanese
scientists or Consortium men. They came from a space ship, and used technology
that, as Marita told the Consortium, is not earthly.
- The space ship in the Antarctic at the end of the movie.
Abduction by humans
- "Nisei" and "731" is the clearest statement of this
type of abduction. In these episodes we learn that so-called alien abductees are
actually taken by Japanese scientists and experimented upon on steel tables in a
boxcar. As we learn in "Memento Mori" the women abductees are stripped
of all their eggs, which are then used to engineer clones.
- Samantha now seems to have been taken by aliens after all, if we believe
CSM. However, it was human politics that led to her abduction, since the
Consortium were hand in glove with the colonists at that time.
A digression: Are Mulder's memories of her abduction at all reliable? They
change all the time, suggesting they may be dubious at best, and "Paper
Hearts" shows that he realises this. (Although we know really that this is
an accident due to poor research by the writers!). As we see in "Jose Chung",
false memories can be planted.
However, in "EBE" we see that They have mastered the bright white
odd light effect. If they've mastered levitation then Mulder's memories could be
compatible with a very human abduction. They are certainly compatible with an
alien abduction done at the bidding of humans.
Certainly, "Unusual Suspects" shows that Mulder starts imagining
aliens, after being sprayed with some paranoia-inducing gas. He underwent
regression hypnosis, and then opened the X-Files shortly afterwards. After what
he is told in "Redux", he comes to believe that all his memories of
Samantha's abduction were implanted in him and weren't true.
- In "Jose Chung" we see how the military sometimes fakes
abductions.
- If Mulder's right about the files in "Paper Clip" containing the
medical records of all the abductees then the Consortium at least has access to
the tissue samples of abductees, suggesting they are behind the abductions in
some way, or at least in league with the abductors. "Redux" seems to
confirm this, with yet more files in the Pentagon.
Tying it together
- Just because some "alien" abductions are false doesn't mean all
are.
- Even the human abductions utilise alien technology in some way, such as the
genetic experiments that the abductees are subjected to. Thus, in a way, these
abductions are also alien in a way.
Theories?
The evidence suggests that the at least some aliens are here, abducting
people every now and then (such as Max Fenig). At the same time, the Consortium,
possibly using alien-supplied technology, are also abducting people to use in
their Project. This could be one and the same. "The Red and the Black"
suggests that the abductees are taken by aliens, but so many other episodes show
Consortium involvement (eg the implant, which is an alien homing device, yet
found in the Pentagon in Redux) Maybe some are one; some are the other? Maybe
they share the same technology, so whatever it is that the abductees are needed
for can be obtained both in a boxcar with Japanese scientists and in an alien
spaceship.
CC, in his movie soundtrack message, says that the Consortium was helping
the colonists by abducting people to use them for hybridisation. We see in "Two
Fathers" that the abducted people are vitally important to the attempts to
create an alien/human hybrid - the Consortium's part of the deal with the
aliens.
However, we have a problem. In "one Son", we learn that the aliens
are the ones who took Cassandra, Samantha, and the others, after the Consortium
voluntarily handed them over. However, Samantha has been gone for 25 years, off
somwhere with the aliens. Cassandra, however, has been living here on earth,
just taken away for short periods every now and then. Also, she's been taken
away by aliens, with the full light and levitation effect, but has been
experimented on by human doctors, who have turned her into a hybrid. Hm...
Plus, the humans themselves seem to abduct greys, in that they are fond of
getting hold of them, taking samples from them and using them in their
hybridisation experiments....
See the Aliens
page for more information on the various types of aliens and their
interaction with humans.
"The date is set", we hear in "Talitha Cumi". For what?
Smith calls it "the Process". Mulder suggests it's colonisation, and X
doesn't deny it.
This theme is so central to the emerging plot that I really can't go into
detail here. I've kept my original theories here for historical reasons, and
because I'm loath to delete anything, given the habit this show has of changing
all your certainties. If you want the current "truth" on the
colonisation (and hybridisation), go to this page instead:
the truth
So where do the Consortium come in? In "Zero Sum" we are
shown that they knew about the bees all along anyway, so were presumably in the
know about all this cloning business too.
In "Talitha Cumi", CSM rebukes Smith for rebelling against the
project. This could be read as implying that the Consortium have the upper hand
in the relationship, but in the same conversation Smith says CSM wants to be a "commandant"
when the process begins. This suggests the possibility that CSM and his friends
know that the colonists will be taking over soon and can't be resisted, and want
to make sure they're on the right side.
Hey! Prophetic or what? I wrote that last bit in June 1997, and now it's
confirmed (well, as much as anything is ever confirmed on this show.) This is
precisely the message of "The Red and the Black". The colonists are
coming, and the Consortium is joining them in order to survive and, presumably,
to hatch a deal to salvage what they can when the date comes. However, some of
the Consortium, such as WMM, are thinking about how to resist....
Possibilities?
- Maybe the Consortium have agreed to help the colonists with their own
colonisation projects in exchange for alien technology to create a super
soldier. ("The Red and the Black" musing: This still could be so. Part
of it, anyway. Why do the deal at all with the colonisist unless they're trying
to get something other of it? To win time, and spend that time desperately
building up their own technology?)
- Maybe the colonists expect the greys to fight them for the planet and are
helping the Consortium prepare the human race to fight the greys. (Post "The
Red and the Black" musing: I still like this one, but it seems less likely
now.)
- Maybe the Consortium are playing the colonists false and are desperately
trying to build a better soldier so they can use it against the
shapeshifters and clones. (Post "The Red and the Black" musing:
Yes.... At least, some of them are working on the black cancer thing as a
weapon)
And how many of those sound like bad B-movies, when written like this?
This seems to be done in two main ways:
Test-tube hybrids
These are true hybrids, created (it seems) from fertilising a human egg with
something alien.
- "Memento Mori" shows this. Also the clones in "Herrenvolk"
- The clones in "Colony" were growing babies in test tubes, vats
and bags.
- "Emily" reveals how eggs are taken from young woman (like the
MUFON women in Allentown, and Scully) and are using to create foetuses that a
probably hybrid. These are implanted in elderly women who are given hormones to
give birth (naturally) to the hybrid babies. Emily obviously must appear normal,
since no-one in the hospital noticed her green blood, but started developing a
cyst on her neck - a cyst that contained a corrosive green fluid. Without
whatever treatment Dr Calderon (also a hybrid himself) was giving her, this
stuff spread and killed her.
(So, why? Are these hybrids essentially unstable, with the human and alien
part of their blood warring with each other, and needing a daily injection to
keep them in check? Without this daily injection, Emily died. The greeb
corrosive fliud was only in evidence once the cyst grew and she started getting
sick. And are the tests and treatments she was getting from Dr Calderon designed
to tests ways of getting these hybrids to look even more human, without this
pesky green blood? Please note that this is all wild speculation.)
Changed humans
We see these more often. These were originally human but have become
something else after various medical techniques.
- "The Erlenmeyer Flask" by which ordinary humans with cancer were
emersed in a vat and emerged, eventually, with green blood and super powers.
Deep Throat says this was done by giving them a sample taken from the alien
foetus Scully found at the end. This looks like a grey alien, as it has a big
head and sloping eyes.
A weaker form of the same process is seen in "Red Museum"
These hybrids look human but have green blood.
- The bodies in the boxcar in "Anasazi". The smallpox scars are
meant to imply that these were originally human until something was done to them
to make them look alien.
The hybrids don't look human. They have big heads and eyes, and look rather
like greys. Why do they look different from the Erlenmeyer Flask hybrids?
- In the Pilot episode, the boy they exhumed looked human at death but had
morphed into something else after death. This isn't explained.
- The big one: Cassandra Spender. After years of abductions and experiments,
Cassandra has now been turned into a fully operational alien/human hybrid, with
green blood and fantastic healing abilities. (Compare the Erlenmeyer Flask ones,
who still get injured, though not as badly as normal humans.) We are now to
believe that all the others we saw were failed efforts, and only Cassanda is
truly successful. However, now she's been created, the colonisation will happen.
See "the
truth" page for more.
Who does the experiments?
- The rebel clones in "Colony" who are killed for it. (And is this
why the morphs in "Emily" killed Dr Calderon, and, maybe, killed
Emily? Again, are they disapproving of the government projects that created
these hybrids? They do, however, appear to be doing the "project's"
work earlier, so who can tell?
- Operation Paper Clip scientists like Klemper and Dr Ishimaru. They may or
may not have their own agenda too, but seem to have been the scientific wing of
what CSM calls "Bill Mulder's project.". This also ties in with the
fact that Scully remembers the Japanese scientists from her own abduction, and
her abduction seems to have resulted in the birth of a hybrid baby.
According to Deep Throat, these experiments were done using alien tissue
recovered in the 40s, but only recently have they had the technology to actually
to anything with it. (However, in "one Son" we learn that the tissue
was only given, in the form of the alien foetus, in 1973, so what's going on
here? Maybe they had some alien tissue, but, until they had the foetal
tissue, couldn't actually do any real hybridisation experiments.)
Nazi scientists are also involved in the experiments in "Travelers".
- The shapeshifters themselves? ("Herrenvolk")
- In "Memento Mori", we see the Kurt Crawford clones acting as the
laboratory staff building new fully grown clones, but secretly working against
the project since they want to save the lives of their "mothers". It
never looks as if they are behind the cloning, though, just working in the
project.
Whatever the details, though, it now seems as if Consortium doctors have
been working for years to create a successful alien-human hybrid. Despite all
we've seen in earlier episodes, it's only now, as of "Two Father",
that they've been successful. The successful hybrid is none other than Cassandra
Spender. Creating the hybrid is the Consortium's assigned job, by the terms of
their agreement with the colonisers. They are the create a hybrid, immune to the
black oil, who can be employed as slaves by the colonists. Thus, as soon as the
colonists find out a successful hybrid has been created, they will know that
it's almost time for them to start coming here. In CSM's words, the creation of
the hybrid marks "the end."
Even as early as 1989 before Mulder got interested in aliens, X
obviously had his orders that "this man is not to be touched." Why?
Okay, we know the main reason is dramatic necessity, but there are also some
internal reasons:
Connections in Congress
- In the Pilot episode, Mulder tells Scully that he's made connections in
Congress and these are the "only reason" he's allowed to continue his
work
- In "Tooms", Skinner tells Mulder "This was close. Any closer
and a thousand friends in the Capitol won't be able to help you." This
shows that his connections in Congress are protecting him but also
that they can't protect him indefinately.
- In "Little Green Men" and "Nisei" we see Senator
Matheson, Mulder's friend in Congress. Both times he helps Mulder by giving him
information, but we never see him actively protecting Mulder.
- Not even Matheson can help Mulder in "Ascension." X tells Mulder,
"there's nothing the senator can do for you now, not without committing
political suicide." Mulder asks if they have something on him. "They
have something on everyone," X replies. "The question is when they'll
use it."
- However, in "Terma", Well Manicured Man says that it is beyond
his power to call off a Congressional hearing, implying that there are limits to
Their power over senators.
In summary, it seems that the Congressional protection is enough to stop
Mulder being suppressed illegitimately, However, with something like "Anasazi"
when They make sure that Mulder is committing a real discplinary offense, there
is no reason to believe that there would be any friends in Congress who would
step in to save him.
Being a Martyr
This seems to be the official explanation given by Them.
- In "Ascension," Krycek asks CSM why, if Mulder's such a threat,
he isn't killed. "Kill Mulder and you risk turning one man's religion into
a crusade", CSM replies.
- Deep Throat assures Scully (in "The Erlenmeyer Flask") that
Mulder is too high profile to kill.
- However, in "Talitha Cumi", X tells Mulder that this issue is
important enough that They will kill him even if it will make him a martyr. This
suggests that this is a real reason, but that there are circumstances
in which it will be overridden by other more pressing concerns.
I have to admit that I don't believe this one for a minute. Who are all
these people queuing up to join the Crusade? And surely it's within the powers
of Them to engineer some sort of "accident" that not even Scully would
question.
Keeping an eye on him
Okay, this isn't a reason not to kill him, but it is a reason not to get him
thrown out of the FBI. As Deep Throat says to MacGrath in "Fallen Angel",
on the whole Mulder's safer in the Bureau than let lose and exposed to the wrong
people. "Always keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer,"
he says.
Although we don't see it, Mulder and Scully go submit requests for travel
expenses (referred to in "Conduit" and "Fallen Angel") so
They can always see where Mulder's going, what he's investigating, plus have a
nicely packaged report (by Scully) delivered to their desks afterwards. They
wouldn't get that if he was freelance.
Bad Luck
There are of course several times when They have tried to kill
Mulder and have only failed by chance. Examples include Crewcut Man's attempt to
burn him to death in "Red Museum", the truck loads full of gunmen in "Little
Green Men," and of course the burning boxcar and the bullet through the
window in "Anasazi".
(Personally I like the idea that They are constantly trying to shoot Mulder
but keep missing, as he's always stooping to get his gun back from the floor.)
Navajo Memory
In "Paper Clip," Skinner tells CSM that Albert Hosteen and his
friends have memorised the digital tape and will reveal the contents if Mulder
and Scully are threatened in any way. However, we don't see or hear anything
about this protection being cited at any point. It's not even brought up in "Memento
Mori," when Skinner should really have done do in order to get the deal he
wanted with CSM. Presumably Skinner's latest deal means that the earlier one is
no longer valid.
Skinner
From "Little Green Men" onwards, Skinner makes it clear that,
while he doesn't endorse some of Mulder's wilder methods, he is on the side of
justice above all. Any signs that They are acting against the law, then he'll
step in and protect his wayward agent. (Such as when he shouted at CSM to get
out in "Little Green Men.") Yes, he shouts at Mulder, but he's not
that fond of people who shouldn't shout at Mulder shouting at him.
Maybe this attitude, coupled with the Navajo tape affair, explains why in
season 3 They made few attempts to hurt Mulder and Scully, but had a field day
beating up Skinner. In both "Piper Maru" and "Avatar," it
was Skinner They attacked in order to weaken the X-Files.
Because it's more fun to torment him while he's alive
- As CSM says in "The Beginning", "You can kill a man, but you
can't kill what he stands for... Not unless you first break his spirit.
That's a beautiful thing to see."
Importance to the Project
This is a cryptic one, and rather ominous. In "Herrenvolk" CSM
says to the Bounty Hunter, "you know how important Agent Mulder is to the
equation". Hmm. Will we find out more about this later?
Because they secretly want him to succeed?
My own pet theory is that they just wanted him to nag at them and undermine
them, since they were so desperately trying to stall the colonisation and to
proceed as slowly as possible with the hybridisation project. Given that Bill
Mulder apparently intended Fox to carry on his work, and given that CSM does
tell Mulder everything in the end, why on earth didn't they tell him it all
before? What's the big secret that he can't find out? Of course, they don't want
the world to know, but why not Mulder? The only real logic I can think of is
that they just wanted him to keep undermining their work, getting more and more
invested in it.
Cigarette Smoking Man's Sentiment
The more I think about it, the more this seems to be the main thing keeping
Mulder alive.
- In "One Breath," CSM says he returned Scully because he likes
Mulder, and likes her.
- In "Anasazi", CSM tells Bill Mulder that he's protected Fox until
now. He says it as a rhetorical question, as if he thinks this should be obvious
to Bill from the past few years' events.
- In "Musings" he makes sure his colleagues understand that Mulder
is his to worry about.
- From "Talitha Cumi" onwards we see the extent of CSM's attachment
to the Mulders. He is close to Mrs Mulder and certainly saves her life because
of this sentiment, despite all his justification of the need to keep Mulder from
becoming desperate. Is he Mulder's father or not? For this issue it doesn't
really matter. "Musings" suggests that he can see Mulder as some sort
of surrogate son, even if he isn't his real son.
There is a strong argument for saying that all the other reasons are just
false justifications and rationalisings put out by CSM to cover the fact that he
just doesn't want to kill the son of his old friend.
Of course, he tried to kill him in "Anasazi" (Or did he? The
soldiers told him Mulder wasn't in there) but every relationship has its bad
days.
Whatever. However, as of "The End," CSM seems to have transferred
his fatherly sentiments to Spender, and is talking all gleefully about what fun
it is to break Mulder's spirit, so I suppose this explanation is no longer
valid.
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