[X-Files] The Syndicate, were they right?

[Lonestar]

The more I get into the X-Files the more Jaw droppingly stupid it gets. The first four seasons were a conspiracy theorist's wank fest but they at least had some level of underlying credibility and didn't seem so painfully contrived as everything following the first x-files film, which I happened to enjoy a great deal coincidentally.

Oh sure, the conspiracy arc is almost unwatchable now, but I think the "Crazy shit happening in the woods" episodes have aged well.

[loomer]

Yeah, some of the later MotW episodes are just pure gold in terms of cinematography, story concept, casting, and pacing.

I mean, who can look at the story about Dogget's son and not be impressed at how well they pulled all but the ending of it off?

[mr friendly guy]

Just have a few questions

1. Whatever happened to the aliens who the syndicate did a deal with? For some reason I keep on thinking that the rebels defeated them after beating the syndicate.

2. If these aliens were willing to wait another 40 years, did it not occur to them that we might have advanced enough to be more of a threat? Especially given that 1960s tech is enough to make them come to the negotiating table. What are they suffering from? The same type of thinking that Harry Turtledove's the Race also suffers from.

[Lonestar]

Just have a few questions

1. Whatever happened to the aliens who the syndicate did a deal with? For some reason I keep on thinking that the rebels defeated them after beating the syndicate.

The Rebels wiped out the original Syndicate(at least the leaders), but the Colonists helped create a new one. At least one of the members of the "New Syndicate" was a colonist.

2. If these aliens were willing to wait another 40 years, did it not occur to them that we might have advanced enough to be more of a threat? Especially given that 1960s tech is enough to make them come to the negotiating table. What are they suffering from? The same type of thinking that Harry Turtledove's the Race also suffers from.

Maybe. Again, one of the Colonists flat out tells a Roswell Sheriff Deppity "We don't think like you people, and you need to accept that."

[adam_grif]

2. If these aliens were willing to wait another 40 years, did it not occur to them that we might have advanced enough to be more of a threat? Especially given that 1960s tech is enough to make them come to the negotiating table. What are they suffering from? The same type of thinking that Harry Turtledove's the Race also suffers from.

I'm sure it did, but they probably didn't think it would significantly change anything. They only brought them to the bargaining table by threatening to destroy themselves, and that is literally the worst case scenario. Being able to put up a fight with hypothetical future technology they get by waiting 40 years still isn't as bad as the planet being rendered useless to them. Arguably they were right anyway, since the current state of the art space tech is still pretty hopeless and we aren't really that much better at fighting shit in orbit or in space than we were in the 1960's. The syndicate doing their stuff behind the scenes based on the alien tech given to them is the only real exception here.

Man, you want to know the funny thing? I have never watched an episode of the X-Files, I just went on a wiki binge after I read this thread.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Unless "we don't think like you" means they have NO CONCEPT of orbital strikes, that is a complete non-argument.

Again I ask: where is all this power if they have it? If all they have is one ship in the system, then why are we afraid again? Clearly then they have neither the resources nor the weapons to act on any threat, or they would have!

Nevermind that the fact they "waited 40,000 years" is not a plus on their side--again I point this out, terraforming should be easy for them IF they really do have some advanced technology beyond what we see. And a nuclear winter shouldn't be that difficult to prevent, we have antimissile systems now, granted they're crap but we don't have the advantage of a ship that can move just zip around knocking down nuclear silos one by one in a few seconds...assuming of course that they can...which we have no evidence of.

Look, either they know how to do all the wonderful things you think they do Lonestar, or the Syndicate was spooked by the aliens game of chicken. Given the evidence at hand we have no other actual answer. Either they're stupid, or they're weak.

And by the by, the Federation's transporters are blocked by magnetic rock. Antimatter missiles, which they have had for centuries, are certainly not. IF the Federation wanted to, a single ship could nuke every city on Earth and kill tens or hundreds of millions with multimegaton antimatter weapons...or hell why not be cheap, use tractors to fling rocks at Earth at sufficient speed that they make the Tsar Bomb look like a firecracker. From what we see of the Colonists (and Space Blackwater too for that matter, and Space Che and his rebel homies) the Federation would look like the god damn Culture to their eyes.

Christ stop making me take up for the Federation!

[mr friendly guy]

The Rebels wiped out the original Syndicate(at least the leaders), but the Colonists helped create a new one. At least one of the members of the "New Syndicate" was a colonist.

So the Colonists are still "out there" somewhere waiting to invade. Given that they haven't colonised us by the time of the latest X files movie, which should be set in the 2000s, presumably their time table got delayed by the destruction of the syndicate.

Maybe. Again, one of the Colonists flat out tells a Roswell Sheriff Deppity "We don't think like you people, and you need to accept that."

True, but if their thinking is inferior, it gives us a chance. More time delay gives us a chance to advance.

I'm sure it did, but they probably didn't think it would significantly change anything. They only brought them to the bargaining table by threatening to destroy themselves, and that is literally the worst case scenario. Being able to put up a fight with hypothetical future technology they get by waiting 40 years still isn't as bad as the planet being rendered useless to them. Arguably they were right anyway, since the current state of the art space tech is still pretty hopeless and we aren't really that much better at fighting shit in orbit or in space than we were in the 1960's. The syndicate doing their stuff behind the scenes based on the alien tech given to them is the only real exception here.

Man, you want to know the funny thing? I have never watched an episode of the X-Files, I just went on a wiki binge after I read this thread.

Well from my reading of all those military threads, didn't the US and the Soviet Union have the ability to knock out satellites in the 1960s? China did the same in 2007. The latest x files movie was released in 2008 (presumably set in the same year), and the aliens haven't invaded yet. So certainly our ability to knock out things in orbit has become more widespread, so we are advancing.

[Lonestar]

Unless "we don't think like you" means they have NO CONCEPT of orbital strikes, that is a complete non-argument.

I'm not actually arguing that they do or don't have concept of orbital strikes, just pointing out that they are not as quick to pull the trigger on invasions as, say, the US is of other countries. Especially if there is a chance that the locals will screw it all up.

Again I ask: where is all this power if they have it? If all they have is one ship in the system, then why are we afraid again? Clearly then they have neither the resources nor the weapons to act on any threat, or they would have!

Hold on bucko. They are not necessarily "afraid", what they've done is made a judgement call that pushing colonization down the road 40 years(and the colonization scheme has waxed and waned over several thousand years) is better running the risk they cannot stop sufficient amount of warheads from being detonated to derail the plan entirely.

Nevermind that the fact they "waited 40,000 years" is not a plus on their side--again I point this out, terraforming should be easy for them IF they really do have some advanced technology beyond what we see. And a nuclear winter shouldn't be that difficult to prevent, we have antimissile systems now, granted they're crap but we don't have the advantage of a ship that can move just zip around knocking down nuclear silos one by one in a few seconds...assuming of course that they can...which we have no evidence of.

Look, either they know how to do all the wonderful things you think they do Lonestar, or the Syndicate was spooked by the aliens game of chicken. Given the evidence at hand we have no other actual answer. Either they're stupid, or they're weak.

Or they just made a judgement call that "what's another 40 years?" Fuck, just because you are so hot for RAR BOMB THEM ALL TO HELL doesn't mean that the Colonists all. Shit, for all we know the Rebels are Rebels because Earth was designated a nature preserve at some point and that's why it's taken so long. Or the interstellar government is trying to secretly wipe out humanity and ALIEN Mulder and ALIEN Scully are leading the "set the Syndicate on fire" crowd. That the Colonists are going to great lengths to operate clandestinely(going so far as to assassinate Colonists who try to make a career out of playing baseball) says that, well, they are either (1)operating on a shoe string budget(as Skimmer commented on as a possibility) or (2)don't want the greater interstellar to know what they are doing.

And by the by, the Federation's transporters are blocked by magnetic rock. Antimatter missiles, which they have had for centuries, are certainly not. IF the Federation wanted to, a single ship could nuke every city on Earth and kill tens or hundreds of millions with multimegaton antimatter weapons...or hell why not be cheap, use tractors to fling rocks at Earth at sufficient speed that they make the Tsar Bomb look like a firecracker. From what we see of the Colonists (and Space Blackwater too for that matter, and Space Che and his rebel homies) the Federation would look like the god damn Culture to their eyes.

Christ stop making me take up for the Federation!

Aliens didn't want to blast an area of warm climate into rubble, who knew? I mean, the fucking Ice Age slowed them down, so obviously they have much lower (ha) temperature tolerances than we do.

[Lonestar]

So the Colonists are still "out there" somewhere waiting to invade. Given that they haven't colonised us by the time of the latest X files movie, which should be set in the 2000s, presumably their time table got delayed by the destruction of the syndicate.

Date of Colonization is in 2012, remember?

Well from my reading of all those military threads, didn't the US and the Soviet Union have the ability to knock out satellites in the 1960s? China did the same in 2007. The latest x files movie was released in 2008 (presumably set in the same year), and the aliens haven't invaded yet. So certainly our ability to knock out things in orbit has become more widespread, so we are advancing.

Presumably interstellar spacecraft are more robust than Terran satellites, harder to spot, and can park in higher orbits.

[adam_grif]

Well from my reading of all those military threads, didn't the US and the Soviet Union have the ability to knock out satellites in the 1960s? China did the same in 2007. The latest x files movie was released in 2008 (presumably set in the same year), and the aliens haven't invaded yet. So certainly our ability to knock out things in orbit has become more widespread, so we are advancing.

The number of nations with the ability to put stuff into orbit has increased, but the effectiveness with which a nation can do it hasn't really. Shooting down satellites is expensive, has a non-trivial failure rate and requires quite a bit of planning. It's not like you could do it with an hours warning time.

I suppose you could treat ABM capabilities as anti-satellite weapons (although really only very few systems can hit stuff in high orbit that I can recall, although I'm sure Skimmer or someone else will correct me if I'm wrong here). Regardless, unless we have a reason to believe otherwise, we can just assume that the aliens did not feel threatened by the idea of invading Earth 40 years in the future, for whatever reason. Maybe they thought humans wouldn't advance very much, or maybe they have some defensive systems on their ships (shields, advanced ECM, point defense, phasing, extreme agility, anything is possible I suppose) that are such that they did not feel it would be a threat.

Aliens didn't want to blast an area of warm climate into rubble, who knew? I mean, the fucking Ice Age slowed them down, so obviously they have much lower (ha) temperature tolerances than we do.

I think Wiki said that the lower temperatures interfered with the black oil, which is how they reproduce (or something like that). Seems like the adults could live here but it's not a hospitable environment for long term colonization.

[Rahvin]

I'm honestly confused at the aliens' reluctance to colonize a "colder" Earth, be it due to an Ice Age or a nuclear winter. Presumably, if you can create interstellar space craft (or hell, even an interplanetary spacecraft), you have already created a habitat capable of supporting life in temperature and other environmental extremes well beyond that of an Ice Age.

I mean really, we with today's technology wouldn't really be put off of colonizing a planet just because of something as trivial as an Ice Age, and it's not like human beings tolerate freezing temperatures particularly well either - we just use technology to overcome that environmental hazard, the same as you'd expect aliens to do. If cold interferes with their reproduction...well, I don't like having sex on icebergs either, that's why I do it in a heated home. And we don;t typically let our children go out unprotected into the cold either - temperatures just aren't that tough to work around.

And it's not like it's particularly hard to trigger a greenhouse effect given a little effort. With 40,000 years on the table as a potential timeline, it should have been trivial, again even with our modern technology let alone FTL-capable aliens. Even if you assume that their colony ships wouldn't be equipped with any sort of relevant equipment, how long would it take a few thousand humans with only basic tools to set up the required infrastructure to drill for and burn hydrocarbons? A few decades at most to get started, a few centuries to have a full industrialized civilization, a scant few millenia to span the globe? 40,000 years is more than we've had so far; we started with stone tools and haven't even particularly been trying to get a greenhouse going. It has nothing to do with "zomg, they're advanced aliens, they should be able to do x and y," this stuff should be possible even for us.

It just doesn't fit. In-universe, this means we have to be missing some rather important information. Maybe an Ice Age wasn't the reason they held off after all. Maybe they aren't really afraid of nuclear war, and they're just misdirecting the Syndicate while they set up their real plan.

I'd say that all of these discontinuities mean that the Syndicate was just being deceived. Developing a vaccine may well have been a worthwhile goal as it would at least defeat or mitigate one of the Colonists' known weapon systems, but I'm thinking the Syndicate was just getting jerked along and all of their plans were moot.

[TheDarkling]

Maybe they didn’t want a nuclear war because they didn’t want the deaths of all those potential incubators.

The first film seems to indicate they don’t just want the planet but also want the planet and 6 billion ready to go “citizens” on it.

If they had come in death rays firing amidst a nuclear war that would have cost them hundreds of millions of potential new greys.
A clandestine roll out by their duped human pawns brings the maximum possible yield of new greys from the planet, especially given that forty years has simply given them even more humans and made it even easier to spread a virus.

Of course the syndicate didn’t know the aliens intended to hatch out of humans so maybe they were just fed a line about the aliens not liking the cold and they simply believed it whilst the aliens true motives remained hidden.