The X-Files Friday Feature: You Got Your Science In My Fiction

Or maybe you got your fiction in my science? (Hrm, now I want some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.)

One of the things I really like about The X-Files is that it's what I consider 'real' science fiction. As opposed to the more general speculative fiction and fantasy that a lot of people call science fiction because it takes place in the future or outer space or has aliens or whatever.

To me, science fiction has to have, well, science. But not just that, it has to be a large basis for the work, not just something that got them to a particular setting. So things like Star Wars and Firefly aren't really science fiction by my definition. They take place on distant worlds and have spaceships and technology that doesn't exist on earth today, but you can remove all that and still tell exactly the same stories.

In The X-Files, you can't. The show is completely dependent on the science, and I think a large part of that was the decision to make Scully a doctor and a scientist. Without that scientific rigour, the show would just be Mulder investigating paranormal cases and making assumptions about why the people involved could act the way they did.

There are obviously a lot of pure fantasy elements to the show, too, though. I'd classify some of the alien plots as more fantasy than science fiction, except that once they merge that with the cloning and human-alien hybrid research, the show gets back into science fiction territory.

I know this tends to be a pretty contentious issue that a lot of people disagree with me on. After all, I'm pretty sure most stories that at all involve space ships or aliens are automatically classified as science fiction, no matter how tenuous the connection. And also, think about it - space ships exist. Sure, they can't travel interstellar distances, and we haven't colonised other worlds, but not only are those things theoretically possible, most of the fiction that involves them doesn't really get into how they're possible. It's just taken for granted that they are.

And aliens, well, I've discussed that before. The universe is huge. With somewhere on the order of 10²⁴ stars, the odds are very high that there's even another solar system nearly identical to ours. And even then, 'life' is only what we call life, and aliens in fiction tend to be rather humanoid. What if they're not? What would we call it? Either way, the point is there's probably intelligent life somewhere. So I guess evolution is considered science, but also, look at most science fiction, even by my definition - the science isn't natural. It's humans interacting and interfering with natural processes.

So the existence of aliens, at least, is neither science nor fiction. Them visiting us and being shapeshifters and involved in cloning, well... that's another story.

I think what I like about shows like The X-Files and Fringe and Dollhouse is not just that the scientific elements cannot be separated from the stories being told, but that that's what makes them more interesting to me. Pure fantasy is fun, but it's almost too easy - you get away with just about anything. And even in space-based fiction, you can get away with pretty much anything, since you aren't basing the story on certain scientific rules.

Yes, the magic of Harry Potter had rules, but J.K. Rowling could make those rules whatever she wanted, and the readers would largely accept them. In science fiction, there are some limitations you just can't avoid. And The X-Files uses that to great advantage in having Scully keep Mulder grounded and keep the X-Files legitimate. The rules are what make the show work.

I think this is probably a very roundabout way of just saying Scully is awesome, but hey, she is. She's the reason Mulder still works for the FBI. Actually, for that matter, she's probably the reason he's still alive, too. But that's probably something for another post.