Talk:Colonist (The X-Files)
I believe (feel free to correct me if i'm wrong) the black oil (purity) is a lifeform of it's own and does not automatically end up as the gray alien. I believe that purity successfully invaded the planet of the gray aliens and infected almost all of them. There were a few that were not infected and those few could very well be the rebels. Because of their shapeshifting and mind-reading abilities, I think that purity preferred this species over every other one. That's why they manipulated the human body to produce gray aliens. Because it has inhabited the gray aliens for so long, I think that purity has been "evolved" into the blood of most gray aliens.--Exer 505 03:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
To my understanding of the show the aliens and the Black Oil are one and the same. The alien race is an evolved virus and their blood, the Black Oil, works as a retrovirus in a new host. Originally it was thought that the black oil would simply control the host, however, in the movie we find out that the oil will gestate and created “little green men” using the host’s life energy to develop. The alien destroys the host in the process.
The hybrids are immune to the oil and this is because they have essentially been infected, they are partially alien. This method was preferred by the colonist because it would allow them to have slaves who looked like humans who could assist with colonization in the future and would not be destroyed by the black oil. --Rob DiLLy 23:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
--- The show is deliberately vague on this point, but I'm inclined to believe that the shapeshifters and purity are not the same, if only because it is obvious that the rebels, and, perhaps a few other groups, such as the aliens in "genderbender" are shapeshifters who are working against the colonists, and not infected with purity. I never got the impression that the shapeshifting aliens we usually see are really grays, although I think gray aliens are clearly related to purity. Perhaps the shapeshifting aliens respond differently to purity, being possessed rather than killed, giving the syndicate the impression that humans would respond the same way, and allowing the shapeshifters to rebel.
--- In the episode "The Unnatural", there is a shapeshifting bounty hunter chasing a black baseball player who ends up being a shapeshifter. The bounty hunter shifts into a gray alien and says for the black man to do the same so he can die in his true form. I guess it's some honor thing. But I believe that moment tells us that the shapeshifters and the grays are the same thing. This episode might not be considered fully canon (it's told as a memory of Arthur Dale I believe), but that scene seemed a tad bit too important to be entirely made up.Exer 505 04:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Aliens home planet ?
where they went after leaving earth?--Jonybond 12:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)