Anyone Fancy A Quick One?

[ethsnafu]

May I applaud you, most rapturously, for a sound piece of investigative Googling and for putting an end to many months of my wondering what the picture signified and, more importantly, who it depicted - I owe you one for your hard work in this respect. The more I consider your solution the more apt it seems: it is noted that the Old Man and Odessa are uncomfortably familiar to each other and Axxman displays enough insight into the Old Man to predict that he would approach Frank Black after descending from his self imposed exile thus it seems plausible that in light of the historical association between Odessa and the Old Man ...."It's a third party. They've recently been after you, Frank, and they've always been after me."....that he has surveyed Axxman for some time (especially as the picture, as indicated by the nearby news clipping, forms part of the evidence archive the Old Man has scattered about his shack.) This in many ways makes the Owls/Roosters duology even more cryptic. I have always believed it disingenuous that Odessa penetrated the Millennium Group so fully (remember it is noted that their operative has progressed to a lofty rank inferior only to the Old Man and to the Elder) whilst the group remains clueless and deeply suspicious of its own. Given the Old Man's clear knowledge of Odessa and Peter's subsequent exegesis of their activities it is certain the Group has surveyed them for over half a century and yet when they attempt an insurrection from within the Group is apparently befuddled - I assume it was this that lead Lara to assume that Peter was deliberately withholding information from circulation when he withheld the imaging plate showing the mark of the Sig Rune. Again I find it odd that a man so conversant with Odessa and its activities would be barely able to recognise a Sig Rune, which is a universally recognised symbol of Nazism, but is able to reel of huge portions of Odessa history after, and only after, the Old Man has been killed. It is quite amazing to see how obtuse he is, embroiled in petty squabbles with the Owls only to become a fountain of knowledge once the Old Man is going cold on the slab - make of this what you will.

It is also worth mentioning something that I have noticed a few times, though where escapes me, that has always irked me a little with regards to Owls/Roosters and it is the grilling the two-parter receives for depicting the end of Odessa in such a swift and sudden way and I would be the first to conclude it was deserving of the derision if this was the case. Screen time is given to explain to us that Odessa is a covert, multi-national organisation having identified cells in the UK, the US, Argentinia and Germany and whilst we see the end of Aerotech we only see the demise of a cover organisation formed to assist in the acquisition of the Cross Of Christ - undoubtably Axxman is torched and Aerotech is raided but Odessa remains very much intact losing only a subsidiary company. On this score, at least, the episode leaves with its integrity in tact. Would anyone care to have a stab at the picture Clear Knight displays in her office. Many have tried, myself included, but no-one so far has identified the painting attributed to Hitler.

Oh well,

Eth

mountain.bmp

[Guest ein042]

You are much too generous in your praise Eth, in fact my observations were certainly influenced by your previous references and your own depth of understanding. If I might stray off topic a bit, your comments on another thread - 4H's On Borrowed Time, regarding Samael's origins are stunning, and I think answer many questions about him throughout the series! This has been something I've wrestled with for years .Other than in PPT&D Samael's activities have been decidedly "Legion-istic" I really believe much of the Myth-Arc for Millennium stems from this character.

Angel of God

If you believe Samael is 'The venom of God' and is powerless to act on his own then it follows that Franks desperate prayer's - at least according to the above link - protected Jordan from the angel of death. I was always uncomfortable with Frank's praying in that episode, seeing him as a man who follows his own code. (i.e. - initially rejecting the priest trying to give Jordan last rites)

But if one accepts the myth one must recite the talismans. Samael as the 'fallen' Nephilim,

is the recipient of a human death. I'm no expert on Gnostic text but some googleing gave hint's that some of these creatures imparted forbidden knowledge to man.

In legend, Enoch is said to have a connection to the Freemasons. A quote from The Pseudepigraphical (unverified) book of Enoch;

""Enoch was the first who invented books and different sorts of writing. The ancient Greeks declare that Enoch is the same as Mercury Trismegistus [Hermes], and that he taught the sons of men the art of building cities, and enacted some admirable laws"

Weird ... Back to Roosters again! and Peter thrusting the dollar bill in Franks face pointing out the Pyramid.

I couldn't identify the collar sig on the uniform of the photograph - I thought it looked kind of like an A with wings - now i just stumbled on this.

Last one Gra- Promise!

Now My head hurts :(

Edited January 2, 2006 by ein042

[Guest Sinestro]

What I want to know is why Emma's father, after the procedure, told her that she shouldn't have let it happen. What happened to him? Was his mind awakened through the procedure to the horrors that, not only the group knew of, but of the world as a whole?

[Viivi]

What I want to know is why Emma's father, after the procedure, told her that she shouldn't have let it happen. What happened to him? Was his mind awakened through the procedure to the horrors that, not only the group knew of, but of the world as a whole?

Maybe Emma's father thought that Emma had "sold her soul to the devil" by (evidently) bargaining with the Group and that she should've not done that even for her father's sake, because the price was too high. Most parents want to protect their children from all evil.

Edited to add: The Beginning and the End dealt with the same subject, IMO.

From the dialogue between Frank and Peter:

FRANK: And the pact you made?

WATTS: I'm still keeping up my end. I can't speak for who I made it with. But

I'm starting to wonder if you can sacrifice one thing to get another. I know there's a

price to be paid.

And at the end of the episode Catherine says to Frank:

But I feel like you lost something. Sacrificed -- something, for

the safety of Jordan and me. And I need time. You need time, and distance, to know if

we can ever get it back again.

Edited January 3, 2006 by dontbesodark

[ethsnafu]

The greatest change in four hundred thousand years is available to us as a species. It's a realisation of the age-old alchemical dream, which was never about the transformation of lead into gold, but about the transformation of mankind.

I agree that Emma's father was making comment on his daughter's pact with the Millennium Group but on the subject of James Hollis I suppose if you disregard the implausibility of the group affording him a detailed synopsis of their bargain with his daughter then you have to conclude the other alternative (with regards to how he knew what she had done) that his augmented neurophysiology imbued him with a super normal awareness akin to Frank's psychic acuity and whilst this may seem like too far a leap of judgement it is without question that the Group coveted those with psychic ability. It is not unlikely that at some point the Group sought to replicate that which they sought, Lara Means was to make a curious assertion, that barely registers when you first view the episode, that both her and Frank's abilities were boosted purely from contact with the Old Man and it would be fair to assume that in whatever context this occurred that the Group already had some experience of psychic development. Both Lara and Frank were conscious of changes in their abilities and both believed that Millennium actively sought to direct them to cases that would aid them as lessons and if their beliefs were justified it is safe to assume that Group were actively directing the evolution of their abilities for their own ends - I am a firm believer that Lara's ultimate fate as a wildly delirious apocalyptic oracle was intended as a group so immersed in the doctine of shepherding the apocalypse would have much to gain from a member who was a psychic conduit for Armageddon itself but I guess that's another post.

A recurrent theme in Season Two was the ongoing mutation, and manipulation, of Frank and Lara's powers as well as a proactive search for those with burgeoning abilities such as Danielle Barbakow and Claire McKenna and whilst Season Three may have jettisoned this exploration of the psychic it brought along a more organic study of the supernatural which implied to me that the Group had abandoned its attempts to harness the supernatural but had chosen instead to dissect it, quite literally, from a bioscience perspective - given the uncontrollable psychic rapture that Lara was to endure in her post-initiation phase it would appear that this shedding of its mystical trappings was a wise and timely decision. If we take on face value the opening opus of Season Three and its suggestion that Marburg was a group engineered bio-weapon then we have at least confirmation that it had begun to cast a more practical, scientific eye over its doctrinal landscape and it would seem logical that in its metamorphis it cast aside the lessons, rituals and analogies designed to unlock psychic potential and instead hungered after a scalpel assisted method of certain results. If, in tinkering with James Hollis, they succeeded in unlocking the latent abilities rumoured to be ever present in the human mind then it is apt that Peter should evetually hand Frank his case files and finally relinquish his quest to return Frank to the Group. What need would the group have for a man who's abilities they could repliacte in any of its members and how dangerous would that Group have become had they not ceased to exist so shortly after.

Edited January 3, 2006 by ethsnafu

[Guest A Stranger]

Emma's situation was similar in many ways as to what happened to Frank at the end of season two. Although Peter does out and out give Frank an invitation to become a full member we see that the Group had plans that they figured would make him one. Frank is cured and as Peter says, they will expect him to stay with him. My feeling is that this is what Emma felt. She was forced into horrible situation that only the Group could get her out of by curing her father. The Group have been trying to obtain Emma as early as "Skull and Bones" and she hides her growing relationship from Frank and that is where her guilt comes from because she knows that in accepting their help they want her to join, she's known that for awile. By finally agreeing to work with the Group she works against Frank and the guilt breaks her down and makes her open to what they have to say. The Group is trying to break Frank down at the series finale as well with the same hopes.

I don't think that James Hollis has physchic ablities, my guess is that they told him what happened, but I could be wrong.

[Guest Sinestro]

So the group made lucas Bar into a killer or what? I admit I haven't watched Via Doloraosa in a while but I did watch Goodbye to All That the other night. Does the procedure that they have "discovered" have the same basic effect on everyone it is performed on? I hope I don't sound obsurd or stupid, I am just trying to come at this from all angles.

[ethsnafu]

Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in you life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind.”

Now forgive my foot stamping in a childish manner, I urge you to believe I am not usually prone to it, but there is no way on this Earth or fuller's that the Millennium Group took a post-operative James Hollis, sat him down and calmly explained what they had done to him, to his daughter and to the world at large which would, in essence, be the three things he would need to know to make the informed comment he makes to Emma. The whole essence of the Millennium Group, evident in all its glory in any of the episodes in any of the Seasons, is that is obscure, duplicitous, covert, arcane and secretive. It is the group of nameless phonecalls, deliberate misinformation, sequested files and guileful members. It is the group who hid the Polaroid man from Frank, the Marburg vaccine from just about everyone, and a 1001 other deliberate lies that proved it the unrivalled apocalyptic demagogue of modern times and at no point was it sitting people down and telling them what it was doing to them and why. Now I understand why accepting that James Hollis has some extra-sensory perception is a large mouthful to swallow but there is evidence for it. Petter Watts asserts, with reference to the procedure James undergoes, that it results in "...thirty thousand neural connections forming every second of every day..." now for anyone round here not involved in the medical sciences it is interesting to note that the human brain has 100 billion neurons. Even if James Hollis had no neural connections to call his own he would have in excess of that found in the normal human brain in under four days. In less than four days after the procedure he would have a neural map capable of processes hitherto unseen in humanity and in no way should we assume that James Hollis would be anything other than an extraordinary individual. In a not-all-that-related example I site a rare but tantalising condition known as synesthesia in which strangely gifted people see colours in association with words. It is an example of how the human brain sometimes connects functions in unexpected ways, like a computer with eccentric wiring and according to one idea, irregular sprouting of new neural connections within the brain leads to a breakdown of the boundaries that normally exist between the senses. In this view, synesthesia is the collective chatter of sensory neighbours once confined to isolation. The idea of the left and right hemispheres of the brain opening up new lines of communication between each other is a much discussed topic in the annals of parapsychology in which synesthesia is regarded as a prime example of how neural connections can take the sensory experience to uncharted waters. Of course it could be argued that James Hollis was simply aware of the events that transpired around him but was unable to verbalise his objection until he gained more control of his faculties but this is a common error in thinking that still pervades. Alzheimer's patients do not have a perfect orientation to time and place that is simply miscommunicated by a lack of expressive capabilities rather they have an inability to use language and form incoherent communication, make disconnected utterings and have a marked inability to think and to make decisions. This detachment from reality would mean James Hollis would remember nothing coherent of the events around him prior to his neuro surgery. Of course I could be wildly wrong and accept that I probably am - it's all in good fun after all. As for Lucas Barr...this had me wondering from the moment I first heard it. I believe it is implied that the group has somehow implanted the mind of Lucas Barr in anothers which begs the question how they had his mind, and in what unimaginable format, to implant in the first place. I shall open the Dairy Milk tonight and settle down for a two parter par excellence and give it some thought.

Take care,

Eth

[vain68]

I wanted to add from afar that the recent smattering of postings such as this one are indeed elegant and brilliant. I have enjoyed surveying them all and digesting the comprehensive philosophies and commentaries within them. It is interesting for me to consider the outlook of the individual who offers a certain view on any relevant episode or theme, or even still a certain microanalytic piece of a given episode. Becuase of the somewhat fractured nature of the various seasons and the inchoate themes outlined in this very thread, there is rich potential for the human psyche to engender their own journey, much as we can, with our own inherent developmental histories, draw conclusions as to what lay ahead on the road for Frank and Jordan. But this reveals much about us. And I think this is exactly what CC wanted. At any rate, kudos to all involved. I'll be around the block soon with a discursive commentary on Darwin's Eye.

V>

[ethsnafu]

"When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse."

I wait with eagerness your commentary on Darwin's Eye Vain, I am ardently on-topic most of the time and love reading other posts about 'Millennium'. Hopefully you may chuck your immense mind into the following conundrum as it is something I am practically begging someone to help me deduce since we seem to have closed the topic of Marburg. My 'pause for thought' is the nature of the group in Season Three which many of us seem to readily accept were 'evil' yet little discussion ever takes place with regards to this and more importantly no one ever seems to question it. To my mind Season Three did what Millennium was originally intended to do which was tell Frank's story, a wise an welcome move, but for a smattering of us Morgan and Wong's shift of emphasis to the group had created an entity almost as engaging as our protagonist. For fear of reading like a tiresome fanboy staunchly defending his icons (which I'm not) I did miss the philosophy-lite plunge into the group schema. I was endeared to the mechanics of the enigmatic body of misfits and whilst many may consider Season Three sensible in its shedding of the myth and magic of season two I do believe it erred in tuning its back on the potential for a fresh, revelatory insight into the group complex: Morgan and Wong had remade the group in their own image and I would have loved to see Chris Carter offer his own take on the more in depth underpinnings of his own creation.

It would have been tantalising, even somewhat respectful, for us to be informed as to why the group became so damn destructive, why it courted shape shifting demons amongst its members, why it had a hitherto concealed propensity for mass execution, why it had abandoned it's theological superiority and relationship with godhead, why it had begun to tamper in wars even to the detriment of its own and why it had become obsolete with every member untraceable only a matter of months after the end of Goodbye to All That. All of this may seem somewhat inconsequential but given that we had seen two seasons of a group who had essentially benign intentions it begs the question - what happened to the group in the hiatus between the The Time Is Now and Innocents.

It has never ceased to strike me as odd that after making such a concerted effort to abandon the metaphysical adornments of Season Two that they chose to depict the group, in its swan-song, as circle casting, necromantic zombie-raising-sorcerers which is quite alarming considering the vitriol and aggression spewed in light of Morgan and Wong's attempts to tell stories far less fantastical than this. And so we have the group in four incarnations, apocalyptic-minded law enforcement agents, Gnostic theologians, political antagonists and black wizards yet scant evidence was ever served up to explain why the group underwent these metamorphoses. Owls and Roosters could be interpreted as hinting that such things were the result of a battle of wills, waring fractions vying for supremacy and Matroyshka could be interpreted as strategic changes introduced to ensure the group's continued survival and relevance yet I still look for that pivotal moment when something malign came to prominence. The Old Man was portrayed as a somewhat harmonising factor as Beware Of The Dog suggested that whilst the symbolic-of-evil-hounds did not belong to the Old Man he was capable of exerting a tempering influence over them and my theory rests in his death allowing the balance of power to shift in favour of the satanic.

If Season Three is to be understood as Chris Carter's way of returning the show to a state more in keeping with his original vision then why make the group evil? This was never his own intention nor was it Morgan and Wong's so where the devil did this change come from and why? I am pretty sure that Season Three depicts the death of the group , a once mighty organism riddled with cancerous pockets of doubt, fear and paranoia, a lofty group of Gnostics metastasised with legion-cells but I have yet to understand why.

It doesn't appear to me that the size and scope of the group is ever clarified and could very well be nothing more than a small cabal but given the noted scope of Odessa and the group's implied decades long war with them I assume that they, like Odessa, were a multinational concern that had an historical ancestry that survived numerous internal and external aggressors and yet this further confuses the idea that the group went from all to absolute zero in the mere months between Goodbye to All That and X-Files: Millennium - considering also that Goodbye depicts them at the zenith of their scientific prowess: holding the keys to the human genome and poised to create a superhuman army of Millennium group members. My questions are.....Why did the group become evil? What happened to the group in the months between the end of Millennium and the X-Files' final millennial word. Anyone care to add some clarity?

Eth.