Black Cancer

Inside a Tunguska rock a deadly alien life form is contained. The Russians and the Americans are in the race to create a cure to it so it can be used as a weapon.

• The black cancer in concentration form produces a type of paralysis on its victims and seeks them out by slithering around like slugs.

• Apparently "black cancer" was used by Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War which led to troops being given anti-germ warfare drugs.

• The Americans are, with the help of Virologist Dr Bonita Charne-Sayre, working towards an innoculation against the deadly "balck cancer". Tests are performed on elderly patients of a retirement home in Boca Raton, Florida. Perhaps some progress has been acheived with the project as none of the patients are paralyzed. The Americans steal Tunguska rock (found in Siberia), which contains the alien life forms, from the Russians to use in the tests. The Russians send Krycek to deal with it. Krycek prevents the Americans from using the contents of the rock and orders Peskow to kill Dr Charne-Sayre to stop any progress towards an innoculation.

• The Russians' ways of testing are more primative, almost like a gulag camp. Their testing method involves injecting the subject with an amber fluid, which is the supposed cure (this is the same substance Peskow injected into the comatose Dr Sacks so the black cancer emerges from his body). Then it seems they inject or retrieve DNA from the subject's left arm, perhaps to find any differences before and after the test. Then the black cancer is released onto the victim and it crawls inside him. The Russian peasants, to stop the scientists from testing them have chopped of their left arm so an proper test cannot be performed on them. When Mulder is tested upon he survives, suggesting that the Soviet project is near completion.

• The American's Black Cancer Innoculation project was one of the consortium's biggest secrets, so the Well Manicured Man says: "Only six of us knew". These six people included Dr. Charne-Sayre, the Cigarette Smoking Man and the Well Manicured Man.

• Dr Charne-Sayre is an expert in smallpox, something the consortium is very interested in. The arm that is injected by the Russians is the left arm, the same arm that a smallpox innoculation is taken. However what this all has to do with the smallpox innoculations is a mystery to me and I invite any theories concerning the connection.

• In Redux there is a small reference to what may be the Black Cancer. When Kritschgau is talking to Mulder he mentions the use of Germ warfare in Korea and how the UN got "all heated up" at America for it. He says it was developmental then, nothing like what we or the Russians have now. Could this be the black cancer, we know that both the Russians and Americans are working on it. Maybe Korea was the first time it was tested in war, however without a vaccine.

• In the Red and the Black we find that the Russians have developed a vaccine for the black cancer, and that now, due to Alex Krycek, the Americans have one too. Now that the Consortium has a vaccine it means "resistance is possible". The colonists know about the black cancer but don't know that the Consortium has a vaccine (We now know why the Black Cancer Innoculation project was the Consortium's biggest secrets). The Black Cancer may be some sort of weapon ("we have the weapons (possibly referring to the black cancer and those super human hybrids immune to biological warfare) and the magic (vaccine?) in hand.") which the colonists have and now that the Consortium has a vaccine the cancer will not infect them if it is used on them. The vaccine is the only hope to avoid enslavement. The vaccine is tested on Marita Covarrubias but it takes a while to work so it may not be a very strong vaccine.

• We see that the rebel shapeshifters mutilate their faces, to avoid infection by the black cancer, so they must be vulnerable towards it as well. However I don't see how this 'self mutiliation' can ensure that they will not be infected as we have seen in other cases i.e the customs officer that it can enter through any part of the skin, it doesn't just have to be an opening. Perhaps this is just a desperate attempt not to be infected or perhaps they are not fully aware of how the black cancer works.