The X-Files: Why Alien Colonization Between Season 9 and 10 Didn’t Happen

The X-Files‘ season 9 finale set a 2012 date for alien colonization, but by 2016’s season 10 revival, the aliens still had yet to invade Earth. The revelation concerning the planned colonization date, specifically set for December 22, 2012, came during “The Truth,” which up until the show’s revival, served as The X-Files‘ series finale episode. Mulder initially withheld the information from Scully, out of fears that it would crush her spirit and cause her to accept defeat. Of course, being Scully, she refused to give in.

When the second X-Files movie, subtitled I Want to Believe, was released in 2008, many fans were annoyed that it completely ignored the overall mythology and didn’t address the colonization plot in favor of telling a monster of the week-style standalone story. The plan at the time seemed to be making a third film to address the issue in 2012, but I Want to Believe bombed at the box office, and a follow-up never came close to materializing. Such are the risks of putting story conclusions off.

2012 came and went with no developments concerning The X-Files, but news of a revival coming in 2016 gave fans renewed hope for a wrap-up to the dangling alien colonization plot thread. Unfortunately, as seen in seasons 10 and 11, a satisfying one never really came. The X-Files just kind of moved on past it. That’s aside from a scene in the season 11 premiere, “My Struggle III,” which purports to explain why colonization didn’t occur.

X-Files: Why 2012’s Alien Colonization Didn’t Happen

In the “My Struggle” series of X-Files episodes, it’s revealed that the Cigarette-Smoking Man and some of his surviving Syndicate conspirators have embarked on a plan to use an alien virus to depopulate the Earth. In “My Struggle III,” Mulder encounters a mysterious man referred to as Mr. Y and his associate Erika Price. They seek to stop CSM’s plan, and want Mulder’s assistance in doing so. During their interaction, Mr. Y and Price reveal that the aliens called off their colonization plans at some point prior to 2012, due to having “No interest in a warming planet with vanishing resources.”

To be sure, that’s hardly a great explanation. With the advanced technology possessed by the aliens, one wonders why a simple loss of resources and increase in temperature would dissuade them from such a long-held goal of recapturing Earth. At the same time, there weren’t many options for how creator Chris Carter and company could write themselves out of an apocalypse having already occurred prior to the revival. Clearly they never meant 2012 to come and go without a resolution to the colonization story. Presumably Mulder and Scully preventing it somehow. Then again, there’s always the possibility that Mr. Y and Price are lying to Mulder, which characters on The X-Files are wont to do. But if not, it’s the only real reasoning the show has offered fans.

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