The War of the coprophages
the War of the coprophages is the 61e episode of the Televised series X-Files.
Data sheet
- Season 3: Episode 12
- original Title: War Off The Coprophages
- 1st original diffusion: January 5th 1996
- 1st French diffusion:
- Realization: Kim Manners
- Scenario: Darin Morgan
Summary
- CELLAR OF THE RESIDENCE OF DR. NEWTON, MILLERS GROVE, MASSACHUSETTS
" Look at, here a splendid specimen of cockroach. It is thought that their origin dates from the period sidurienne, i.e. a few 350 million years. They were spread in all the parts of the world, from the Tropics in the Arctic. One listed approximately 4000 species of them. And in one year, only one female can generate more than one half million of descendants. Radiations do not kill them. According to the evolutionary standards, they are almost perfect… but antiquated creatures having a very simple nervous system. Their behavior is guided only by answers to the stimulis of the environment. These creatures are stripped completely of thought, like the self-awareness. Compared with the cockroaches, I am God. And it me must act consequently. "
Dr. Bugger, exterminator of cockroaches, crushes the specimen with the great relief of his customer, Dr. Eckerley, for whom it cleans the cellar. Eckerley cannot support the cockroaches and lets Bugger finish its work. When it returns in the cellar, it is to discover the body of the exterminator collapsed on the ground, failing, and covered of cockroaches.
Since its car, in middle of the night, Mulder contemplates the starry sky. It has to leave its apartment for the weekend, due to disinfection. It receives a call of Scully, worries not to find it at his place. (It cleans its weapon during the call). Mulder philosophizes on the possibility of the existence of a form of life beyond stars. Obviously, Scully is refractory with this idea. " Idea not only improbable, but from the point of view of the Evolution, completely anti-darwinienne."
The communication is abruptly cut by the arrival of a patrol of police force. The sheriff of the corner comes to question Mulder on his suspect presence on a deserted road in middle of the night. He changes attitude completely when Mulder shows him its badge of the FBI and starts to question it in return on observations of luminous objects in the sky of this area. They are then stopped by a radio operator call: " Still an attack of cockroaches! " he says to Mulder before leaving.
Mulder calls Scully for him to advise to come (it is eating in front of television). It accompanied the sheriff in the cellar by Dr. Eckerley. It would seem that cockroaches attack human beings mortally. According to the sheriff, two other bodies were found under the same conditions in end-of-day (a molecular biologist and an astrophysicist). Dr. Eckerley, is to him an alternate fuel researcher. This last in state of shock after its horrible is discovered and decides to go to spend the night in a motel. Scully proposes an explanation to Mulder: a shock anaphylactic, a powerful reaction of allergy which can become mortal in certain cases. A reaction attends at the entomologists or the agents of disinfection.
Three teenagers, Dude, Stoner and Chick, smoke of unite and distill of the manure in an attic. The methane emanations are used to them as powerful hallucinogen. Whereas they try to convince Chick to take a puff of it, Stoner starts to howl: a cockroach has been just introduced inside its before arm by a small notch. Taken of panic, it collects a razor blade and tries to make leave the cockroach.
20:15 - Mulder joint with the helps called on the spot. It calls at once Scully (which is washing its dog with a product anti-chips). According to the description of Mulder, Scully supposes that the man was victim of hallucinations following the products which they smoked - disorder psychotic associated with an overdose with narcotics. Once more, he advises in Scully to remain at her after him to have asked to come. Before leaving, Mulder notices a cockroach under a table. By collecting it for analysis, this one disintegrates literally in a metal dust which notches its hand. How if the cockroach had a metal exo-skeleton!
The doctor of the corner finishes looking after the notches of Mulder and a question poses to him: what does it occur? does it have to advise with its family to leave? It is reassured little in front of the total ignorance of Mulder on the reasons of these four dead. Whereas the doctor goes away in the toilets, the sheriff puts the same questions with Mulder. He adds rumors according to which the government would be devoted to suspect experiments. An agent claiming to belong to the Ministry for Agriculture moved into a house of the city - nobody knows exactly what it manufactures, secret signal. According to him, the cockroaches could be the genetic results of missed experiments well (like the tueuses bees). Abruptly, a howl coming from the toilets. The doctor is found died, covered of cockroaches according to the witness who found the body in first. This time still, the cockroaches disappeared on arrival from Mulder and the sheriff. But Mulder locates one of them, on the edge of a wash-hand basin. The insect escapes to him from accuracy while passing in piping. Mulder once more calls Scully (which was reading a novel). She asks him to check the eyes of the doctor. As they are injected of blood, Scully suggests a cerebral angioma, probably because of overwork or an excessive tension.
Scully points out Mulder in the night later, whereas this one is about to penetrate discreetly in the house where according to the rumors the experiments of the government take place
(Scully is eating an ice in front of its portable). According to some research, an Asian cockroach of origin spread itself from one end to another of the USA since the Eighties. It puts forth the assumption that these events could correspond on arrival of a new species attracted by the human beings.
Against the warning statements of Scully, Mulder enters the house nevertheless. It describes to him the place (a banal house) until arriving in the kitchen. There, the walls move and undulate. Thousands of cockroaches leave the walls and submerge the ground around its feet. And sudden… the light of the kitchen ignites. Mulder cuts the communication with Scully. The agent Lucy Berrembaum, the service of the Ministry for Agriculture, asks for Mulder the reasons of its presence on a private property. While Mulder makes knowledge, Scully morfond, corroded by concern.
According to " Bambi" (charming nickname of Dr. Berrembaum) its research relates to the study of the cockroaches in a pilot house to find the best means of the éradiquer. They did not spread research not to frighten the population in their learning that thousands of cockroaches were injected voluntarily into a house for study. She explains to Mulder why the common species of cockroaches have habit to be washed after a contact with the human ones. Some can enter well by an opening an human body (ears, nostrils) but never they did not attack human beings to its knowledge. Lastly, it presents a personal project to him: while placing an insect in an electric field, its body covers sparks. She hopes to prove that swarms of insects crossing an electric field in altitude shows the same characteristics of abrupt displacements, interferences, buzz and luminosity that an UFO. Mulder does not hide its fascination and affirms in Bambi that it always tested a passion for the insects.
While in a room close a flash to topicality contradicts the rumor according to which the cockroaches would transmit the Ebola virus to their victims, Mulder does not manage to find the sleep. It is continued by the idea of cockroaches being introduced by the nostrils. To change the ideas it invites Scully (which slept beside its telephone). He tells him his meeting with Berrembaum as some details which he could learn (Scully does not fail to notice that Dr. Berrembaum is a woman of the name of Bambi). But especially he entrusts to him that he detests the insects - he tests even a phobia since he took a religious mante for a sheet which goes when he was child.
Abruptly, a howl bursts in a close room. A man is found died in his room, cover of cockroaches - Dr. Eckerley belongs to the horrified witnesses who discover the body. When Mulder points out Scully, this one is finishing its bag for Massachusetts. Apparently, the man died of an heart attack because of the rumor on the cockroaches. Moreover, Mulder confirms in Scully that it was right on preceding deaths
(shock anaphylactic, hallucinations and cerebral angioma). It finds a fragment of insect left after a moult under a shelf. While passing it under the microscope, Bambi is surprised to note that the leg of the insect resembles a microprocessor curiously. She advises in Mulder to go to see Dr. Ivanov, specialist in robotics in a close research laboratory.
Mulder is accommodated by an insecticidal robot, which follows it without leaving it of the two globulous eyes of its cameras. Professor Ivanov is a crippled man, nailed on a wheel chair and speaking thanks to a vocal amplifier. He quickly explains to Mulder the aim of his research in robotics and artificial intelligence: to send over Mars a myriad of autonomous robots, similar to insects, intended for the exploration of planet. Its only problem is that of the energy source. It also supposes that when a advanced form of life wants to explore the Earth, they will send probes improved as of the insects instead of coming in person as the victims of washings of brain operated by science fiction believe it. But when Mulder shows him the leg of insect, professor Ivanov remains without voice. It forever considering something of also advanced.
On its way to join Mulder, Scully unloads in a mini-market in full collective hysteria. The customers tear off the fly sprays, food, sugar, etc… and leave while running. Some speak about invasions about cockroaches, others of conspiracy and Ebola virus. Scully is forced to hold up its badge of the FBI to recall the customers to the order and to ensure to them that there is no danger. Abruptly, two women dispute the last insecticidal bomb, one of them rocks on chocolate display units which scatter on the ground, like cockroaches. It is panic and the store is deserted in a few seconds.
During this time there, Ivanov divides whiskey glass with Mulder to celebrate this amazing discovered. By leaving the laboratory, it finds a cockroach on the ground… and the welcome wishes him on the planet Ground! It brings the latter cockroach to Bambi, which certifies that it is well a specimen " normal". Scully calls it in full observation of the specimen to propose a theory to him: Dr. Eckerley worked on an alternate fuel containing methane coming from manure. He has a license enabling him to import of the manure from abroad. Cockroaches of a foreign species could very well have come from there - the cockroaches are coprophages. Mulder proposes another scenario to him: the cockroaches could be very well ultra probes sophisticated and autonomous, sent by a advanced extraterrestrial civilization. These probes being coprophages, they would have at their disposal an infinite energy source for their exploration, while extracting from methane starting from manure.
Accompanied by Bambi, Mulder goes in the warehouses of the research laboratory of Eckerley. He prefers to only enter for safety reasons. He falls nose to nose with Eckerley, in the middle of bags of covered manures of cockroaches. The professor is obviously disturbed. He directs a weapon on Mulder, by repeating that the cockroaches type to him on the nerves. And then, what proves that Mulder is not him even a cockroach?! They are everywhere! Scully arrives on the spot and crosses Bambi. To locate Mulder, it invites it on its cellphone. Eckerley interprets the ringing like a buzz of insect and fact fire. Mulder precipitates with the outside, involving Scully with him with the passage.
They have hardly time to leave before the worst does not arrive: the shots explode the methane contained in the warehouses. The explosion blows the building and projète of the manure on the two agents. In the small hour, the firemen come finally to end from the fire. According to the sheriff, there were 4 other fires and a score of automobile accidents due to the insecticide excess. Professor Ivanov joined Mulder to ask for to him the fragments of insect for more thorough studies. He makes the meeting of Bambi then - both set out again together, fascinated by their respective research, to the great displeasure of Mulder.
" The development of our cerebral cortex represents the most important result of all the evolutionary process. The good deal… While offering the joys of the intelligence, and the torments of the conscience to us, it often, too often, is dominated by our antiquated, primitive brain. That which starts our reaction and not our reflection, our agitation and not our meditation. Perhaps let us have reaches our limit. Perhaps that the next stage will be reached by beings which us will have even created thanks to our technology. By forms of life which we will have even programmed so that they are not subject in the final analysis to the rules of survival. Or perhaps that this stage was already reached on another planet by organizations which had a billion years in advance on us. If ever these creatures visit us, will be able to recognize them to us? And when they see us, won't they be horrified to discover beings such primary, stupid, and pushing back? "
On what Mulder crushes by reflex a strange cockroach which has just ventured on its desk.
Distribution
- Agent Fox Mulder: David Duchovny
- Agent Dana Scully: Gillian Anderson
- Frass Sheriff: Dion Anderson
- Dr. Jeff Eckerley: Raye Birk
- Dr. Bugger: Alex Bruhanski
- Dude: Alan Buckley
- Dr. Newton: Bill Dow
- Dr. Inanov: Ken Kramer
- Stoner : Tyler Labine
- Chick : Nicole Parker
- Dr. Bambi Berenbaum: Bobbie Philips
- Orderly: Wren Robertz
- To defer: Wick
- The Motel Manager normalized: Tony Marr
- Resident #1: Tom Heaton
- Resident #2: Bobby Stewart