OMG, I didn't even get to the part where it did help perpetuate the anti-vax hysteria. But yeah, Krycek got his arm cut off because of anti-vax hysteria.
I imagine The Syndicate, if it existed, would want affairs to be very much like the way they are today. People fear vaccines, and they don't trust science or the intelligentsia - but they DO trust people like Alex Jones and Bill O'Reilly and John Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Jenny McCarthy. They are willing to hand over everything that actually constitutes freedom over to the foxes in the henhouse, in the name of "Freedom" (which, to them, actually means privilege.) They idolize aggressive, violent, crass predators - enough to elect one of them to the office of the POTUS.
And yes, the revival was very uncomfortable for me because it reinforced the realization that the misgivings I'd had about the X Files since it ended were absolutely on point.
And yes, you're right about the symbol of two law enforcement agents realizing that the system is corrupt *is* powerful...but they stayed in that system. They saw how corrupt is was - and they kept on doing their job, even when they knew how corrupt their superiors were, until they had no choice but go into hiding. If I were Scully, I'd have taken off after "Fight The Future." The Anti-FEMA sentiment supposedly originated amongst the John Birchers, and was the inspiration for FEMA plot in "Fight The Future" - but it really took off after that. Before "Fight The Future, it was just a little-known crackpot theory that only existed amongst the right wing fringers.
And also ditto about Krycek (though when I was first writing this fic in 2002, it gave me carte blanche to explain away his existence in "The Truth" as astral projection, and the idea that all of this exposure to the paranormal had caused him to develop some new skills...)
no subject
Years later, when I finally saw Apocalypse Now, my brain made the connection between "that pile of little arms" from Co. Kurtz "The Horror" monologue, and Alex Krycek. Col. Kurtz is based on a real guy who committed terrorist acts against the Cambodians and Vietnamese for the US government, like killing people and then dropping the body parts from a helicopter into the nearest village. (One of the characters in the fic I'm writing is a Chinese assassin based on a Buckaroo Banzai villain from the novelization of Across The 8th Dimension who didn't appear in the film, who came of age fighting the agents of Project Gamma in Vietnam. He ends up being Krycek's contact in The Resistance. Then, on a lark, I was going to eventually do a time-travel plot and a crossover with Robin of Sherwood. Take someone who spent his late teens and young adulthood creeping up on US black ops spooks in the jungle, and drop him in the middle of Sherwood Forest...)
Anyway, I've drifted into a tangent.
I imagine The Syndicate, if it existed, would want affairs to be very much like the way they are today. People fear vaccines, and they don't trust science or the intelligentsia - but they DO trust people like Alex Jones and Bill O'Reilly and John Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Jenny McCarthy. They are willing to hand over everything that actually constitutes freedom over to the foxes in the henhouse, in the name of "Freedom" (which, to them, actually means privilege.) They idolize aggressive, violent, crass predators - enough to elect one of them to the office of the POTUS.
And yes, the revival was very uncomfortable for me because it reinforced the realization that the misgivings I'd had about the X Files since it ended were absolutely on point.
And yes, you're right about the symbol of two law enforcement agents realizing that the system is corrupt *is* powerful...but they stayed in that system. They saw how corrupt is was - and they kept on doing their job, even when they knew how corrupt their superiors were, until they had no choice but go into hiding. If I were Scully, I'd have taken off after "Fight The Future." The Anti-FEMA sentiment supposedly originated amongst the John Birchers, and was the inspiration for FEMA plot in "Fight The Future" - but it really took off after that. Before "Fight The Future, it was just a little-known crackpot theory that only existed amongst the right wing fringers.
And also ditto about Krycek (though when I was first writing this fic in 2002, it gave me carte blanche to explain away his existence in "The Truth" as astral projection, and the idea that all of this exposure to the paranormal had caused him to develop some new skills...)