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My other theory is that the publishers are painstakingly infusing microscopic amounts of magnetite into every page to take down every Colonist who handles the files.

ireactions wrote:

I pre-ordered X-FILES: THE OFFICIAL ARCHIVES - VOLUME II in 2023.
https://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php … 642#p14642

I have never been charged and the publisher has simply stopped listing a release date on their website.
https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/ … -volume-ii

The date is now March 9, 2027.

The X-Files: Reborn

Instead of "My Struggle," we start in 2016 with "Reborn." We have Mulder and Scully just as they were in the Revival: Mulder living alone, Scully a doctor, both of them amicably broken up. Earth doesn't seem to have been Colonized. In my version, Mulder and Scully meet up once a month for lunch. We join them for their latest meetup and they have a weird conversation where Scully talks about how she's so distant from the world of investigating aliens now that she forgets that she believes in them.

Mulder says that believing or disbelieving in them makes no difference anymore. We hint that SOMETHING happened on December 22, 2012 -- and this uninvaded Earth is the outcome.

Skinner calls. He needs help. There's been a series of brutal murders. The killer painted on the walls in the victims' blood, writing ALIEN CONSPIRATOR, HUMAN COLLABORATOR and TRAITOR. Mulder, an 'expert' in alien conspiracies, is rehired by the FBI to look into it and Mulder makes it a condition that Scully's rehired too. They begin investigating.

The victims are FEMA employees, bureaucrats at the Mount Weather military complex, people who worked in the Strughold Mining Company, the Galpex Corporation -- and Mulder realizes: all these people were part of the Syndicate's plan to pave the way for Colonization in 2012. The killer is targeting conspirators whom he hates for selling out the human race.

The killer takes a Strughold Mining office hostage and threatens to blow himself and the employees up unless the conspirators show themselves. Mulder is sent in to negotiate. He tells the killer: the lead conspirators are all dead now. The killer's been pointlessly targeting their support staff. The killer insists that Colonization must have started in 2012, covertly and secretly.

Mulder says the aliens are not coming. The killer asks why. Mulder says its' because of the X-Files.

Flashback to 2012. Mulder and Scully are running around the woods, hunted by Billy Miles and Knowle Rohrer. Confronted by the Smoking Man (probably a supersoldier with his face) declaring the end has come, it could not have ended any other way. A light in the sky is descending upon them. The CSM says it is the first to herald the rest and Mulder will accept his place now as nothing and Scully can watch as the human race dies.

The light descends to ground level behind some trees and then someone emerges from the woods. 

It is Bill Nighy in a business suit.

Mulder, Scully, the supersoldiers and the CSM gape. 

"Errrm. Hello, all," says Bill. "So sorry to disappoint, I know you expected a bigger to-do, but it's just me. Yes, yes. Ah, if the ground staff would disperse, there's no need for any of this, thanks." 

The CSM looks on in dismay as the supersoldiers walk off without a word.

"And Agents Mulder and Scully," says Bill. "Thank you for your diligence and care in assembling these records, these summaries, these 'X-Files.'" Bill holds up a thick file folder. "I apologize that... well, Purity is a very busy operation, we don't get around to reading every transmission beamed into space, but this has certainly been in the queue, yes."

Scully looks at Mulder and Mulder awkwardly explains that, for posterity, he transmits the X-Files digital records into space.

"Yes, good work, both of you. Very detailed, very thorough, and upon reviewing everything you've documented, we've decided, well, this Colonization business -- it's just not our business after all."

"What!?" the CSM sputters. "You can't call it off!"

"Look here!" Bill snaps. "We didn't resurrect you as a supersoldier just to take your guff! And let me tell you: this entire planet seems to us to be a veritable bill of goods! We're a biotechnology focused species. We do genetic colonization on a cellular level and we operate on procedures and protocols that adapt to meet biological challenges. We do not engage with the brand of peculiarity we're seeing on your planet in these casefiles. What even is a Tooms or a Flukeman? What is El Chubacabra and why would we colonize that? What is this Cops TV show? The demon Azazel? What would Ronnie Strickland do to our biology? We're scientists and engineers! We don't play around with super intelligent water or Bermuda Triangles or the anthropomorphic representation of death or anything involving this absurdity you call 'God.' We don't even have a coherent sense of how your species resurrects across eight separate cases and two of those are ours! Thanks but no thanks. This soul eater of yours? You can keep it. No, so sorry. This was all a mistake. We'll find another planet that doesn't operate on bizarre metaphorical 'rules' that seem to shift or be replaced with each casefile, all of which defy any system of information management. We apologize for the quality of this translation. We had difficulty finding the appropriate avatar for a message of this nature. We've also sent this same message to the other world manipulating conspiracy group, the Millennium people, we get you two confused. Agent Mulder, fondest regards for warning us off. Be well."

Bill walks into the woods. A light flies out of the trees and into the sky and is gone.

We cut back to the present. The killer doesn't believe Mulder and triggers the countdown on his bomb vest; Mulder successfully overpowers him and pulls him away from the hostages and locks the killer in a steel vault filled with Syndicate artifacts. Mulder dives out of the vault and lets the door shut as the explosion consumes the killer and all that is left of Colonization on Earth, sparing Mulder and the hostages.

Mulder and Scully prepare to leave the FBI and return to their post-X-Files lives only to discover that in the 14 years since they left, there've been a sizable number of new cases with potential monsters of the week.

They realize that even without aliens, the X-Files still remain with many cases left to investigate...

Andy Weir's stories make me feel optimistic about the future.  There's a scene in the Martian book (I don't know if it's in the movie or not, I can't remember) where the international community gets together and works to get supplies to save Watney.  I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure the Chinese Space Agency donates a bunch of stuff, including a rocket mission they were doing for themselves.  It's basically said "all of us are smart and even though we might have political differences, this is more important than any of that."

There's also the scene from the trailer, which may be from the book, where Watney says "Every human being has a basic instinct: to help each other out. If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do."

I think we need more of that to "flood the zone."

Well, I can see how it cost so much.  The Rocky puppet probably wasn't super expensive (I can see why you might not have liked it but I found it charming), but there's some breathtaking CGI stuff.  The Adrian planet was so beautiful that I've heard people insulting the Supergirl movie for looking so boring.  I didn't think it looked like a generic blockbuster like Fast and the Furious or whatever.

One thing I like about Andy Weir is the emphasis on trusting smart people and figuring out solutions to problems that seem impossible.  I think we need that right now so I'm also glad a lot of people are seeing this movie and thinking about those things.