About Sarah Katherine Mulder (aka: Brynnian) Expertise Okay, well, I can answer just about all episode related questions as well as some things about David and Gillian. I have all of the episodes on tape and have been overly obsessed for years now. Ask me stuff!
Follow-Ups to Answer from Expert Sarah Katherine Mulder (aka: Brynnian)
Phoenix wrote at 2008-08-03 23:55:52
Watch Tunguska/Terma in season 4, and the first X files movie, and season 6 Two Fathers/One son.
The black oil contains an intelligent prehistoric alien virus/lifeforce called Purity. It landed on Earth billions of years ago carried by meteor rocks, and triggered the beginning of life on Earth. Humans have inherited alien DNA from the virus, but in most people it is inactive. If activated it can give psychic powers, as seen in the child Gibson Praise, or in Mulder himself in Sixth Extinction trilogy.
The black oil virus either created a race of aliens, or infected a visiting race, who abandoned Earth when it went into an Ice Age. The aliens returned, wanting to recolonise Earth but found humans had taken over in their absence.
The conspiracy Syndicate is plotting with the alien colonists to spread the Black Oil virus to infect all humans. The virus seems to have different effects in different episodes. Sometimes the oil can jump from body to body, controlling the host, and using radiation bursts to kill other people. Sometimes the oil merely puts a host into a coma. The Syndicate does not learn until the film that at high temperatures the virus can gestate a new alien which bursts out of the human host body.
The Syndicate is secretly trying to create a vaccine against the virus but fails, but they do steal a weak vaccine from the Russians. They also try to create alien/human hybbrids who would also be immune. Some of the Alien Bounty Hunters, apparently a separate race from the Colonists, have escaped infection by sealing up their faces, and are fighitng the Colonists.
In seasons 8/9, the virus is modified by the aliens to transform human hosts into supersoldiers. These are near indestructible duplicates of the host who look human and can infiltrate human society. Only certain humans are susceptible to this, people like Mulder who are more compatible with alien DNA. There is a plot in season 9 to release chloramine into the water to accelerate human mutation to make all humans vulnerable.
The colonists and the supersoldiers are vulnerable to magnetite metal, the virus itself may be as well.
