Marburg Variant Prp

[Guest lonegungrrly1121]

By Jove,

I'm going to have to go back and 'review' Emma Hollis, all this had passed me by. I hadn't given any thought to the possibility that Emma has a gift of her own though there is some real kooky stuff going off in Seven and One with the Emma/Legion suicide that did make me consider if she was larger than the sum of her parts. I feel another day in front of the TV about to happen.........

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

'Seven And One' is one of my favourite (and most watched!) episodes. I was always confused as to why Emma was affected aswell as Frank, and why both of them had the power to survive. The thing I love about this episode is we really see a flip-side to Frank's gift: He has always 'Seen' through the eyes of the killer. However, in this episode he see's through the eyes of the victims. this really un-nerves him, but it also saves emma's life when she is buried alive.

The only explaination that I can find is in Frank's final voice-over, when he says that he can only see into darkness because there is light in the world, and his gift protects him the people around him. Did Emma survive because of Franks power or because of a growing ability of her own?

[Guest zombieromero]

I always thought that Emma was a way to get back at Frank for not rejoining them. They turn is only ally against him, show him how they can corrupt anyone and that he will lost his fight against them.

[ethsnafu]

Seven years of trials and tribulations, Seven plus one the Prophets tell us, Is this; the end?

'Seven And One' is one of my favourite (and most watched!) episodes. I was always confused as to why Emma was affected aswell as Frank...

Seven and One is so complex it's a migraine. According to publicity at the time of airing it was the episode that depicted Legion's last stand, a desperate swan-song, an effort to recruit Frank through terror rather than through invitation . Now it seems to me that Legion's impetus is the result of the end of its allotted cycle as Frank's tempter as the cyclical nature of events is noted not only in the episode's title but in Frank's monologue with regards to the cyclical, predictable cycle of trials and tribulations.

This episode could be the first time that it is clearly depicted that Legion adopts the identities of those it terrorises, revealing itself not only in the form of Mabius and Agent Boxer but adopting Frank's visage who it has been hounding in various incarnations throughout the seasons - this could go along way to explaining the Annie Martin/Lucy Butler enigma as it would seem that she too shares the physicality of someone once on the receiving end of her diabolism. What fascinates me about this episode is Legion's appearance as Emma Hollis shortly before it is to relinquish Frank from its infernal bind, this has made me wonder if Emma Hollis was to become the focus of Legion's intention as it does seem that the Millennium Group and Legion share some undetermined link, more than one incarnation of Legion was a group member, it does not seem accidental that Legion focuses upon Hollis as she is to begin her tenure as a group candidate could it be that it was intended that Emma Hollis was to become the mirror of Frank, travelling the path he travailed in Season's One and Two? Whatever is going off here it would seem that Legion and Emma share a reciprocal empathy either, as Lonegungyrrly suggested, Emma has a latent psychism brought into evidence by Frank's psychic vicinity or it is Legion that forges the psychic link between the two of them - Emma was to note that she was aware of something gaining access to her mind and she, herself, makes a parallel between Frank's 'powers' and her experiences so either interpretation could be valid. Now if we are seeing the beginnings of a Legion/Emma arch it could explain whilst Legion attempts to drown Frank in the locked bathroom whilst toying, psychically with Emma. If legion is 'eyeing' Emma as the next recipient of seven years of trials and tribulations then I'm confused as to why, in Emma's form it kills itself although it could be possible that this ends the previous link with Frank as his subsequent vision, and monologue, does indicate that he has been freed from the cycle.

Wonder what S4 whould have brought?

eth

[Guest lonegungrrly1121]

thats a great theory. i wish it was explored more in the show. i agree that it seems that in many respects emma is 'becoming' frank. I didn't know about the Legion aspect of this episode so it this thread has definately filled in some of the blanks!

because the title 'seven and one' refers to prophecy, and also it is implied that the number is related to Jordan's birthday, does this mean that Frank's 'cycle' with Legion began when Jordan was born?

[Maxx Blackwell]

"No man is an island, entire of itself;... and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." - John Donne

Hello all!

I've done some thinking and Maxx Blackwell is ready to speak. Let me say first off this is a great thread and I am looking forward to its continuing discussion and development.

The official 'line' was that since the Marburg PrP variant killed so rapidly and effectively it did not have the time to become a pandemic or global epidemic and affect people over an extensive geographical area.

OK. Here's my thing. I haven't seen season three so I can't really comment on what happens then as I have nothing to base my statements on other that what others write here.

I don't understand why they didn't proceed with a decimated world population as a result of the Marburg PrP variant pandemic. It would have worked I think and they wouldn't have required to go in the totally evil Millennium Group direction.

That said, what you've said is true. Have you read the book "Sleeper Cell" by Jeffrey Anderson, M.D.? It's great. Basically the book starts out by indicating that it's nearly impossible to create a biological weapon of mass destruction and then goes on to show us one. It's a brilliant book, well written, has the right level of action and suspense and is relevent to the world we're currently living in. I highly recommend it.

Anyhow, one of the characters talks about the Marburg virus as a BWMD and says this...

"Suppose you engineer some kind of supergerm that kills its victims. When you run the simulaltions , just about anything that would excite a terrorist is too strong. Any virus that kills its host is basically committing suicide, dying with its hosts. Such a bug may cause a small epidemic, but will burn through its victims before you get large numbers of casualties..."

"[A slightly less potent killer or one with a long incubation period] make lousy bioweapons. They can't be effectively administered in one attack. You have to expose victims gradually over a long period of time with multiple epicentres to really take hold. People these days look at diseases like Ebola or Marburg and think that it's really easy to start a big epidemic with something like that. Truth is, it's nearly impossible. It's hard too explain without a lot of mathematics. It's just what the simulations predict."

So they're right when they adhered to the notion that it killed too quickly to be effective, but man did it look scary on the TV. I tell you, I have second thoughts when I cook eggs for breakfast or decide to barbeque some chicken.

Eth, you wondered how Catherine contracted the virus. But before we answer that question lets look at the method of transmission. As you said one of the forms of transmission was that it was airborne. The other method you mentioned was that it was zoonose - a disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans. Yes.

In the show we see three ways it affects its hosts.

(1) The first exposure we saw was the chicken farmer who found all his chickens dead. Method of transmission - oral/ingestion. It was not the salmon mousse - it was the breakfast eggs.

(2) The second exposure was when Frank, Peter, the police at the scene and the Millennium Group forensic technicians investigate the scene of the body and then autopsy the body. Method of transmission - airborne. Children shouldn't play with dead things.

(3) The third exposure is the family who has the barbequed chicken. Method of transmission - oral/ingestion.

(4) The fourth exposure was the budgie. Method of transmission - airborne.

So what can we learn from this?

(a) The virus infected the chickens with enough time before they died that they were able to able to lay eggs. Assuming the eggs were fresh, and likely not from that morning because the farmer hadn't noticed the blood trail before we see him go out, it probably means the period between contraction and death for birds is 24 hours or longer, giving the chicken time to lay eggs loaded with the virus. Method of infection - airborne.

(b) In both the case of the farmer and the family they died within minutes of eating the egg/chicken. So taking the virus orally kills the host within minutes. With the prions present the virus can withstand the heat of cooking and remain infectious. Son once it enters the eggs or the flesh it becomes a concentrated lethal killer that does its work very quickly.

Catherine was exposed to the virus in one of two ways. It was either airborne exposure, or it was after touching the budgie when they prepared it for burial.

If the virus underwent a natural resurgence then why did it reactivate everywhere it did all at once? Northwest United States, China (and wasn't it also in South America?)

It might have been coincidence but it reeks of human intervention.

So, who dun it?

It's entirely possible it was the Millennium Group.

"... but if the group is truly responsible for the Marburg resurgence then why do they appear so terrorized by it?"

The answer to that, I believe, lies elsewhere on this board in another thread. The Millennium Group members we saw were frightened and I dare say they had no idea what they were in store for.

What we're seeing is the activites of a subgroup of the Millennium Group. The possible suspects...

• Roosters

• Owls

• A Third Faction - Foxes?

• Infiltrators within the Group...

• Legion

• Odessa

Motives?

ROOSTERS - Faced with a prophecy that doesn't seem to be becoming to fruition they decide to take matters into their own hands to get the ball rolling. With tensions already high concerning the approaching millennium if the populace believes the Apocalypse is come which faction stands to gain power and control?

OWLS - They have the tools at their disposal to create the Marburg PrP variant - they certainly have the means of devising a vaccine against it. Motive - none. The Apocalypse they expect is a scientific one. It could be Earth changes as per Force Majeure (5/5/2000), but the tear in space is their primary concern (2060). The only possible one I can see is to discredit the Roosters and make them look foolish with their religious hysteria.

FOXES - The theoretical third faction. Reeling from the recent Roosters/Owls conflict and the death of the Old Man, the Group is weak. Now would be a perfect time to take control of the Group. Lets keep them off balance. Insight panic among the Roosters and confusion among the Owls.

LEGION - We need a motive? Hell, the Devil made us do it!

ODESSA - Remember Sense/Antisense and the sig rune? There's a theory here that the bleeding from the mouth was hemorragic and it might have been a Marburg experiment. Remember Owls/Roosters and how they tried to destroy Millennium and took possession of the crucifiction cross? Remember the holocaust and Odessa's ties to the Nazis? Would they risk killing off a majority of the earth's population? Why not - they tried before. How could they when they would be just as vulnerable? Assuming that they didn't have a vaccine of their own (or even the one created by the Millennium Group) suppose they released it when they took possession of the Crucification Cross? With the cross in their possession they would be invincible and thus immune to the Marburg effect.

So who is it?

Eth, you said, " ... it is intimate that the Group is deliberately withholding knowledge of its vaccination programme from even those at patron level." Do you draw this conclusion because Peter needs to resort to using the Old Man's account? Another possibility exists. Peter's access has been limited because he's under suspicion by the Group elders. The only other account he can access is the Old Man's. Lara currently doesn't have access at Patron level and Frank's just a candidate. So this may be irrelevent.

So who is it?

Eth, you said ... "Now it may be me but I am trying ... to pinpoint those specific moments at which Season Two's sinister group was capable of anything like what it was to become. "

I don't think you'll find it. The Millennium Group isn't inherently evil. It has good people working for it. It seems to have good intentions though there appears to be some misguided direction as they want control over the world. The culprit is either the Foxes, Legion infiltrators or Odessa infiltrators. And who's to say that either of the two latter don't comprise the Foxes or that Legion has infiltrated Odessa too?

The Millennium Group biohazard team seems to be terrified and surprised but the Marburg presence because it comes as a surprise to them. It is orchestrated by the group though but through another component.

So what about this thread of thought about killing psychic old ladies? I see it as a leap to use the virus to deal with them alone. The component that would use such a weapon against such a smalltarget would have to have no conscience to employ it as a weapon. The suspects are narrowed down to two - Legion or Odessa.

"The biggest cringe moment, for me, was the explanation. The sum and reason for all this. When 512 is quizzed, understandably, by Frank as to the why, why is the Millennium Group prepared to slaughter her children and her children's children? What is it that they know? She responds by explaining that since, in 1999, there are no wars or bad people anymore the Millennium Group is meddling in a world in which it sees evil but there is none, this is what they know, this is what it was all about. I'll leave that one with you."

Lets assume the psychic woman is right for the moment. If so, then what do we know? We know that the Group serves no purpose. It's done. So what's the group doing? Ensuring its existance.

or

Heaven is a place on Earth. Legion wouldn't care for that much. How to respond? Lets kill off a large portion of the population and see if we can start Armageddon.

Either way it's an act of no conscience to unleash the virus. So who's responsible? I dare say the Legion component within the Millennium Group.

You also asked us to comment about the connections to Force Majeure. I can't see any except looking backwards down the trail of footprints in the snow so to speak. In Owls Peter predicts an earthquake and it comes to pass. Lara mentions how the group has access to stuff that allows them to leap generations ahead of mainstream research. Like, say, a device that can allow you to create earthquakes when you want?

Here's my thing. Has the Group been so concerned with looking for and dealing with Evil without, that they've failed to see the evil within? And with their crusade against evil did they break the precious boundaries The Old Man taught Frank about that allowed a corruptive force into their midst without knowing it?

[ethsnafu]

"Of all writings I love only that which is written with blood. Write with blood: and you will discover that blood is spirit."

I don't understand why they didn't proceed with a decimated world population as a result of the Marburg PrP variant pandemic. It would have worked I think and they wouldn't have required to go in the totally evil Millennium Group direction.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The official 'belief' was that somehow by depicting the group as a twisted perversion of its former self they were in someway representing the group in the way Morgan and Wong had chosen to do in Season Two, that this visceral and political incarnation was no different from the sinister theologians and mystics and their lessons but I can only conclude that this must be due to Chris Carter's own admission that he hadn't seen all of Season Two. It was unnecessary, to my mind, to portray Marburg as anything other than a natural phenomena but as the group was to become decidedly more practical and conspiratorial it may have been essential to depict them not as an entity that contemplated the Apocalypse but as one that would engineer one. Of course it was right to have Marburg fade into the ether without realising its destructive potential as Marburg has, so far, never killed more than 313 people in any duration since it's outbreak and this '313' figure is the culmination of a year of infectiousness but regardless of reality someone, somewhere, decided it right that Marburg be given a human origin: a disease with a means to an end. As you suggest Maxx there were plenty of potential ways this could have played out and many groups who could have potentially been on the end of the syringe but the decision to portray this disease as a Millennium weapon of execution was flawed. Regardless of decisions past Marburg was never to be revisited and, as with many elements of Season Two, we are left to muse upon them or make sense of them from whatever scant evidence was portrayed on screen.

There are many unanswered questions from the whole Marburg episode but, since everyone has made such wonderful sense of some of my other probes, you probably know all the following answers whilst I struggle in the mire.

As Peter has to break into the Old Man's account to uncover information with regards to Marburg we can assume that if the group is using it as a weapon against the 'viewers' then this plot is known to only those with the highest level of clearance. I know Maxx has suggested that as Peter is under surveillance it could be that the group has prevented only him from having access to this information but Peter was surveilled as a result of accessing the Old Man's account so we can deduce it was unavailable to him prior to his indiscretion. If it is right that this project is highly classified, so much so that high ranking group members are surveilled simply because they become aware of it, then why is Lara Means in possession of a Marburg Vaccine? Why are we to assume it was she that sent the vaccine to Frank when she is horribly delusion so much so that when she does see Frank she makes an attempt on his life?

Now here's my thing. Frank's visionary abilities are credited with being, in essence, St. Peter's Keys: the mode by which Millennial truths were unlocked. In more than instance the collage of flashes on screen point to some unexpressed truth within the episode. there are occasions where images are presented to us that have no bearing with on screen events, Seven and One being a major example, and I can only conclude that there is a code, a cypher within them that hints cryptically at the truth of the episodes. If I am right and his visions do contain clues, which let's face it is the whole point of them, then it could be concluded that Morgan and Wong had intended all along for Marburg to be a group device. There is a sudden 'surge' of blood symbolism in the final mytharc of the season, the faction stories, and it cannot be coincidence that numerous characters, groups and events all share this as a factor. It occurs not only in the haemorrhagic nature of Marburg but in Jordan's dreams, Frank's 'blood stream' visions, Peter and Lara's initiation, Odessa's BlutFahne, Lara's 'cup of blood' vision, Lara's blood stained angelic vision, Lara and Peter's ritual blood letting, the 'blood line' and grail mythos of Anamnesis, Peter's biblical raging to Frank ("how long, Lord? How long will you judge? And avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?") etc etc. There also seems to be either an analogous, or actual, link between the blood initiation and Marburg as upon the discovery of an exsanguinated corpse, later identified to be a victim of Marburg, Peter is plagued by visions of his bleeding hand from his initiation. For reasons I cannot conclude Lara, Peter, Frank and Marburg are all seemingly linked by a shared blood theme either actual or visionary. It could be that Morgan and Wong had intended to depict Marburg as a Millennium construct anyway and this would have been explored had their tenure run over the next Season but it does seem to me that they were hinting that Lara, Peter, Millennium and Marburg were interlinked and if anything may have been an attempt to realise biblical prophecy rather than the execution plot it was to become.

I do agree with Maxx in the sense that if the group was responsible for Marburg it was the Legion/Third Faction component who were the conductors of the piece: there are too many occasions when we are left in no doubt that what occurring is doing so unknown to the mainstream group and too many occasions where Peter seems to be acting without group consent to believe that all is 'one big happy family' going about it's merry business of infecting the world. If unleashing Marburg was an attempt to realise the prophecies of 'Revelation' then much begins to make sense, as does Lara's fifteen minute vision which uses vast amounts of Revelation symbolism, though this would seem to indicate that the Roosters are the instigators desperate to prove their theological apocalypse as true.

Who knows....

The link I mentioned between Force Majuere and the Season Three episodes is scant at best but I was referring to the blue eyed, blonde eyed clones who were genetically engineered to survive the great apocalyptic disaster of May 5th, 2000. In The Innocents and Exegesis the story revolves around the Millennium Group's attempt to murder, with the Marburg Variant, a group of cloned, blonde haired, blue eyed remote viewers: I simply wondered if there was a more esoteric link between these two episodes despite the fact that they seem to tell a similar story. Any thoughts welcome.

eth

[Maxx Blackwell]

"Agent Hollis, it's just a theory. Everyone's got one." - Frank Black, Innocents

Now that I have Season 3 I have examined Innocents and Exegesis a few times. I believe there's a more tangled web here than there appears at first glance.

The world Frank Black lives in, while the same as ours, is in his case a deeper world. We pass through every day living in a certain layer and rarely do we see anything else. In Frank's day to day life he peers into the worlds of others, living in one layer but viewing the world through others - through the mind of the killers, and through the mind of the victims. The DVD for Season 1 gives us an understanding what a profiler does to peer into the mind of a killer and the DVD for Season 2 gives us an understanding of victimology.

Call me crazy, but I think that's the challenge of Innocents and Exegesis. We'll limit ourselves to the remote viewer in the scope of our victimology because that's who the deaths are actually all about.

Victims 1-2 (unseen by us) were at Ground Zero for the viral outbreak, according to Frank. This claim is supported by the map in the basement of the house at 123 Killenbeck Rd. where the biological hazard containment caskets.

Victims 3-4 are on the plane that crashes. The mother travelling with a child (Deena Bartus of 123 Killenbeck Rd., Salt Lake City, Utah), and the stewardess (Lillie Thom). Technically you have a suicide and double murder. The mother is supposed to crash the plane killing the daughter and herself. She fails to have the commitment to do it, so the stewardess does it to ensure the success of the mission. Later we find out that the daughter was not travelling with her mother.

Victims 5-6 are the mother (Mary / 28) and her daughter (2). They go into their house, turn on their lights and the house at 123 Killenberg explodes due to a natural gas explosion. (Also the address given by Lillie Thom: 123 Killenbeck Rd., Salt Lake City, Utah) This is the house rented by a private trust that contains the biological hazard containment caskets. The mother, Mary, survives until she is successfully killed by Mabius. Mary says Catherine wasn't meant to die in the viral outbreak and that it was meant for her, her sisters and the one child that was left. She lies in this fact about the final daughter. (She omit's the detail of 512 but later leaves a clue about her and that there is 1 more child which we later see with 512.)

Victims 7-8 are a mother and daughter killed when their car tumbles off a bridge when Hollis and Black try to assist them. Their car was forced to crash into the bridge by someone in a car (which we attribute to the Millennium Group) which cuts her off to avoid a collission with a gas truck.

NOTE: Richard Gilbert was forced off the road due to a brake failure after passing a big truck on a downhill grade. Probability it seems was against Gilbert, the way it seemed to be against Victim 5

Victim 9 is the woman driving the E-Z Move rental truck - the one that wasn't transporting 512. She gets shot by the Millennium Group - Mabius is present. Victim 9 is a twin for Deena Bartus.

Intended Victim 10 and 11 are the Old Lady (512 / Mildred Carson) and her careperson who is a twin for the stewardess. The Millennium Group tries to kill them at the Missle Silo.

Daughter 12 is the daughter of Deena Bartus.

Of all these people we know the following...

[FBI Academy. A body bag containing the body of the blonde stewardess is zipped closed by Hollis.

PATHOLOGIST: Plane crashes, house explosions, car wrecks. Lot of bad luck for one family.

[There are several tables, each with a body bag.]

HOLLIS: So they are all sisters.

PATHOLOGIST: Well, nothing for publication until the gene maps come back, but based on the blood workups I'd say half-sisters.

HOLLIS: Same mother.

PATHOLOGIST: Like I say, not for publication.

HOLLIS: They're half-sisters meaning four different fathers. But they're all the same age. How does that work? You'd have to fertilize in-vitro, placing the embryos in four different gestational carriers. Something like that?

PATHOLOGIST: It's not possible.

HOLLIS: Why?

PATHOLOGIST: We're talking thirty years ago. They were barely doing that stuff in cows back then.

HOLLIS: Someone was doing it.

From this we can surmise 512 was their mother. Hollis confirms this...

[Hollis is trying to make sense of what is going on.]

HOLLIS: The Pentagon wanted more of Five Twelve. And they tried to reproduce her, literally, with some weird experiment. Her daughters, targets now. And their daughters, all down in that morgue. That's what I think, anyway. But there's no mention of offspring in these documents.

FRANK: There wouldn't be. Maybe they're all sisters - the women and the girls.

HOLLIS: Grillflame stopped six years before the children were conceived.

FRANK: Maybe they didn't stop. Maybe they just went underground.

HOLLIS: Underground? Where?

FRANK: It's not a question of where, but why. Why kill them now?

If Frank's theory is correct there are 1 generations of daughters with the little children the latest batch. But why aren't they under CIA protection? Hollis points out that Project Grillflame ended 6 years before the children were conceived. Frank suggests Project Grillflame went underground, so how do they relate?

Now lets look at motives.

Victims 1-2 were killed in the West Coast outbreak according to Frank, and we know this was set off by the Millennium Group. Likely in the initial attack the delivery vehicle was one of the canisters we saw in Colateral Damage.

Victims 3-4 killed themselves to fake the death of child 12. Intended Victim 11 later signs the confession for conspiracy to bring down an airliner in order to close the investigation. For this she will suffer the death penalty, hence sacfricing herself for the cause.

YOUNG WOMAN: My confession.

FRANK: Conspiracy to bring down an airliner. You're facing the death penalty, you know that?

YOUNG WOMAN: I already was. We all were. This thing we did, to save the child, not for ourselves, for the future.

Victims 5-6 are murdered by the Millennium Group.

Victims 7-8 are killed when their truck goes over the bridge. Victim 7 chooses this fate over letting her daughter be rescued by Hollis. WHY?

Victim 9 is murdered by The Millennium Group who thought they'd found the van with 512.

This leaves alive 512 and Deena Bartus' daughter who never boarded doomed flight 760.

Copies ...

(G1) 512 (10)

(G2) Stewardess - Lillie Thom (3), Home Explosion - Mary (5c), Caretaker (11)

(G3) Deena Bartus (4c), Bridge Victim (7c) EZ Moving Van Driver (9)

(G4) Child Bridge (8)

(G5) Child Survivor (12), Explosion (6)

What we appear to have here is 5 generations including 512 and her progeny. The Pathologist indicates that G2 and G3 are all the same age, but perhaps that's not accurate. By appearances G1 or 512 is the oldest and then each successive G is younger. As we didn't see Victim 1 and 2 we don't know where they fit into the mix. If I had to guess I would say the mother (outbreak victim 1) is from G2 and the child (outbreak victim 2) is from G4.

Is it merely a coincidence that there are 5 generations and 12 individuals = 512?

Is it a coincidence that there are 7 adult women plus the mother (7 and 1)?

Is it a coincidence that 512 = 8 or (7 and 1)?

Dr. Don Cody, a professor at Stanton Research Institute confirmed that there were rumours that 512 had daughters. Given the age differences it would seem logical to me that G2 & G3 are all offspring of 512.

If the project had closed down 6 years before the children were conceived (and the youngest is 2 years of age) then it's been a no more than 8 years and 9 months before the episode that the project went underground.

As it's been 5 years prior to the episode that Mary has been trying to get information under the Freedom of Information Act on Project Grillflame then she started looking form information 3 years before the youngest child was born. Her inquiries must have been to try and find the other remote viewers - her sisters and/or her mother.

I suspect that when the project went underground that the Millennium Group picked up where the CIA left off. I suspect they are responsible for G4 & G5. They could be clones of 512 or more likely of G2 & G3 which would explain why G4 and G5 don't look the same. The other possibility is that G4 and G5 are the children of G2 and G3 but this would indicate 1 or 2 fathers for G4 and G5 or that there were a combination of twins and/or triplets which is unlikely.

I suspect the remote viewer actually knew found each other and knew about the Group's attempts to create more of them. By their ability they probably also determined that with the assistance of the children the Group could create great harm. Furthermore the remote viewers knew that one of the children was special and had a special destiny - one that would save the future or one that would damn it. They somehow managed to rescue the children and likely destroyed the group's capability to continue the program. As the remote viewers became a threat to the Group in this manner, if they couldn't control them, it was better to destroy them.

The remote viewer's went to great lengths to hide from the Group and found out about the danger of the viral outbreak. It would be a perfect means of killing them, assuming they could be infected - afterall how could the group be blamed for a viral outbreak, epsecially if there was no evidence to implicate them since they were involved in investigating it and cleaning it up. The remote viewers prepared for it as best they could. Because they were prepared the group had to resort to tradition means of eliminating them.

The remote viewers agenda was the protection of Child 12 and 512. But knowing the importance of the children and the danger they presented to the future, remote viewer 7 sacrificed her life and that of the child who was with her on the bridge so that the child would not fall into the hands of the Millennium Group either because she couldn't be sure that Frank and Hollis weren't with them, or because she could see that they would either be killed by the Group members in the blue car when they came for the child and would be successful in acquiring the child, or that the child would eventually fall back into Group hands.

Given that the group was killing them indescriminantly I would suspect that the Group didn't know about the special child but if they could get any back as a second priority would have taken advantage of the opportunity. The Group must be aware that 512 was still out there in the world, but they may not have known about the surviving child.

512 also gives us some insight about the Group and their goals...

FRANK [to Mildred]: Why does the Group want you dead? What have you seen?

[Mildred is silent.]

FRANK: I need an answer.

MILDRED: The men who built this place thought they could control the world because they had their fingers on the button. And now? No enemies, no wars, no need for them. But the men you knew can't accept that, can't stop. I see what they do in secret.

[Frank is still sitting on the floor. He takes her hand and looks up at her.]

FRANK: What are they doing?

MILDRED: They want the world to end.

If we accept she's telling the truth then what she's saying is that the military and CIA knew there was no longer a need for the nuclear deterrent and there was no need for Project Grillflame in order to control the world. She differentiates the Millennium Group from them. She indicates without exactly saying it that they still seek to control the world - that they can't stop - and that she can see what they're doing. She knows that they want to bring about the end of the world.

While Season 2 was much about controlling the world, except for the last two episodes there were no signs they wanted to destroy it. I again believe this is because the third faction or Legion infiltration is now in control of the Group and this may be another reason for the elimination of the remote viewers. They could find out the truth about the nature of Mabius. It is likely that the knowledge of this agenda is known only at the highest levels - those above Patron - and that's why Watts is still in in spite of everything he knows. He doesn't know enough. This is why there are good people doing good work for the group. The people at the lowest levels don't know about the most secret agenda involving those in the highest levels.

It's kind of like those people who work for villains in James Bond movies. Surely the lowest schmuck's in the organization have no idea what the master villain and their henchman are up to. They just know what the general public knows about the organization they work for.

I think it all fits if you look at it from this perspective - profiling the killers and analysing the victimology.

What do you think?

[Guest A Stranger]

I really can't make sense of the Group's invlovemnt in "The Innocents/Exegesis," to tell you the truth. It's perposterous that they would use it as a weapon to kill a select few. It takes the idea that of the Group does not care for individual lives in sake of the good to a ridiculous level. In fact, killing the innocents in the plane crash to save one child makes the woman just as bad. It's just a poorly executed plot. If Mabius is Evil, it's not revealed till the end of the year and I still am not positve he is.

It does make sense that Frank would blame the Group and Peter, though. It just doesn't make sense that they caused it, as he says in "Exegesis." They knew it was coming and secretly prepared in "The Time is Now," they are complicit in the deaths by not informing others. Also, it is implied that Frank has not fully mentally recovered. It's uncertian to me if this was meant to be an issue but having Frank claiming the Group caused the outbreak when that is not what was said to have happened in "The Time is Now," makes Frank seem unreliable. Peter does not understand why Frank is telling people the Group delibertaly caused the outbreak in "Exegesis" and so are we. If you listen to the lagnuage, it seems more likely that Frank is simply still consumed by guilt and looking for blame, still mentally ravaged.

Every episode that takes place after "Exegesis" makes sense to me. It's clear that the Group was going to be used as the enemy, in that they have a very different philosophical idealogy than Frank...and the new writers. In the Group we see the difficulty of dealing with knowledge, with how it should be used. The recurring message is that "no one owns God or the Truth," and that understaning will liberate us. I'm not sure that Mabius' invlovement, if he is Legion, would help explain why the Group was portrayed the way it was in season three, I think it is showing something inherintly wrong with it. Something inherinly wrong with a select few owning the Truth. Legion's involvment would stem from that not explain why it existed.

[Guest A Stranger]

Also, It'd like to add that the MLM Group did not become evil in sesaon three, season three says they kind of always were, or at least always had that part to them. They were testing the Marburg virus in Desert Storm, which takes place long before season two. The victims in "Skull and Bones" date back numerous years according to McCalaren. So the idea that the Group's behaviour in season three is anything new doesn't work. Season three was showing a different side of the Group and from a different light.

[Guest A Stranger]

FRANK [to Mildred]: Why does the Group want you dead? What have you seen?

[Mildred is silent.]

FRANK: I need an answer.

MILDRED: The men who built this place thought they could control the world because they had their fingers on the button. And now? No enemies, no wars, no need for them. But the men you knew can't accept that, can't stop. I see what they do in secret.

[Frank is still sitting on the floor. He takes her hand and looks up at her.]

FRANK: What are they doing?

MILDRED: They want the world to end.

If we accept she's telling the truth then what she's saying is that the military and CIA knew there was no longer a need for the nuclear deterrent and there was no need for Project Grillflame in order to control the world. She differentiates the Millennium Group from them. She indicates without exactly saying it that they still seek to control the world - that they can't stop - and that she can see what they're doing. She knows that they want to bring about the end of the world.

Alright, just one more thing... My interpretation of 512 claiming that the Group 'want the world to end" is that they want the fear of the end of the world to be there, not so much the actual end. I've always taken "Exegesis" as Carter, Johannessen and Co. as getting rid of the "there are 100 days reaming, tick tock..." that season two created. Season one set up the possiblity and the fear surrounding the millennium but never claimed for certian the end of the world was conclusive, like Peter does in "Owls." The recurring message of year three and one, to a lesser extent, is that the future is ours for the making. The child represents that future that the Group of season two does not believe exists. If "The Innocents/Exegesis" does anything, it brings MLM back into the real world and further away from the fantasy the show was falling into...Okay I'm done.