Black oil

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The X-Files character
Black Oil
Affiliated with	Colonists
First appearance	3x15 Piper Maru
Last appearance	Vienen
Portrayed by	None

Black oil is a creation of the TV series The X-Files, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.

In the series, the Black Oil, also called Black Cancer, Purity, and the Alien virus, represents an alien entity/life force/virus. It appeared as a liquid with the consistency of crude oil, which could move on its own, and was sentient. It could hibernate (thousands of years), usually in petroleum deposits. When it would come into contact with humans, it would absorb itself into the host, sometimes appearing to move directly under the skin and over the eyes of the victim. After pooling in the third ventricle of the brain (Vienen), it would take possession of the person and control them. The oil was able to kill other humans by inflicting massive doses of radiation, though it was somehow able to simultaneously protect its host from injury. According to a conspiracy theorist Mulder encounters, the black oil was used by Iraq during the Gulf War.

The Syndicate, the shadow government of The X-Files, in cooperation with the alien colonists, were developing a way to quietly introduce the virus into an unsuspecting public, through the use of bees. The colonists would then be able to use human beings as a slave race. The Syndicate, however, secretly tried to create a vaccine, which they codenamed "Purity Control", to protect themselves, though not the rest of the planet. While the Purity Control project ultimately failed, a rival Russian shadow group was successful in developing a weak vaccine to the Black Cancer, which eventually fell into the hands of the Syndicate.

Later in the X-Files film, it is discovered that the black oil is able to use a human body as an incubator in order to gestate (and as a result, killing the host) a mature gray alien being. The Syndicate was dismayed to learn this, but continued to pretend to work alongside the colonists, while attempting to strengthen the weak vaccine they had acquired from Russian conspirators.

According to the Well-Manicured Man, the entity first walked the earth before dinosaurs. Then, as told by Cigarette Smoking Man, the oil influenced human evolution, and eventually went into hibernation underground. Cassandra Spender recounted that the colonists were planning to use the oil as part of their plan to repopulate Earth, as they had done before to other civilizations in the universe.

Human alien hybrids have an innate immunity to the virus, so the voluntary abduction of the conspirators' family members was in order to facilitate their future. The entire conspiracy plot to cooperate with the alien colonization plan was implemented with the aim of being given access to the black oil, in order to try and develop a vaccine. This attempt was semi-successful, as the "weak-vaccine" administered to Scully while in the Antarctica alien ship caused the entire ship to depart its underground residence.

First introduced in the season 3 episode "Piper Maru", it is believed that the idea was taken from an earlier episode, "Ice", which featured a similar substance.

[edit] Trivia

• The black oil is served in the school cafeteria in the Invader Zim episode Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom.

The X-Files
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The Syndicate	Cigarette Smoking Man | Marita Covarrubias | Deep Throat | First Elder | Alex Krycek Knowle Rohrer | Second Elder | Conrad Strughold | Well-Manicured Man | X | Alien Bounty Hunter Black oil | Colonists | Men in Black | Purity Control
Related	Songs in the Key of X | Millennium | Harsh Realm | The Lone Gunmen