Were-Monster

Death wish.

Stories about people with the ability to shape-shift have deep roots in human culture. I don't understand why shapeshifting is not classified as a paranormal ability, but it fits well into the obsession with paranormal abilities that saturates The X-Files.

Nice hat.

I've been reading online spoilers in advance of seeing "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster". Apparently the third episode of the 2016 X-Files miniseries involves someone who can shift between human and "monster" forms. Shapeshifting has been a topic for The X-Files since season 1 (episode 13 and episode 19, 'Shapes') and the first X-Files case (in 1946).

The girl Scylla transformed
into a monster.

I'm looking at The X-Files from the perspective of a science fiction fan. It would be fun if the show would take seriously the possibility of providing an imaginary science-based explanation for telepathy or the near-instantaneous transformation of a person into a monster.

Homo Aquaticus

Homo aquaticus

Let's imagine that about seven million years ago, some primates began adapting to an aquatic environment. Some of those apes returned to the land and became we humans. Another evolutionary branch evolved into a type of primate that became more comfortable in the water than on land: Homo aquaticus.

Albedo

Homo aquaticus long ago developed advanced technology including nanotechnology and a form of convenient interstellar space travel. Most members of the Homo aquaticus species departed from Earth and went off to explore the galaxy.

Later, an artificial lifeform descendant of Homo aquaticus returned to Earth and found Earth sinking into an ice age. The artificial lifeform began trying to guide human evolution.

For the sake of argument, let's call the artificial lifeform "X". X was not a biological organism, rather, it was composed of nanoscale components that could assemble into any convenient form. Thus, shapeshifting was intrinsic to the artificial lifestyle of X.

click image to enlarge

During the past million years, humans evolved as a mixture of biological cells and nanite constituents provided by X.

Earth temperature

blog posts in January

The Curse of Mulder
Satisfied that humans were developing as a tool-using species and Earth's climate had been stabilized, X returned to the stars about 5,000 years ago. However, some X nanites remained on Earth as "contaminants" and in some cases, humans with particular gene combinations functioned like X-magnets, attracting the X nanites in large numbers.

the rubber hour

Not fully able to control their X nanite components, some humans find themselves endowed with paranormal abilities such as telepathy and shapeshifting. Mulder finds himself obsessed with trying to make sense of odd events that occur because of the X nanite contaminants of Earth.
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We now return you to the real X...

Next: my reaction to the "funny episode"

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