Machines of Freedom

Fanfiction
Title:	Machines of Freedom
Author(s):	amainahurriyeh
Date(s):	2009
Length:
Genre(s):
Fandom(s):	The X-Files
Relationship(s):
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Machines of Freedom is an X-Files story by amainahurriyeh.

Excerpts from the Author's Comments

Machines of Freedom seems to embody, the more I think about it, the ways I approach XF fanfiction as writer. I'm telling this story, not another, because of who I am, and how I think about the series, and how I think in general.

First, there's the title. I chose it in part because I simply love the line; I also love the idea. Elsewhere in the same interview, Foucault says that liberty is a practice, liberty is what must be practiced; we only become free through acting in a free manner, despite the fact that the cards are always stacked against us, that we can never truly escape the oppressive features that surround us. We are free when we act freely. I've always thought the universe of The X-Files is Foucauldian, in that power acts invisibly around us, without necessarily needing instruments; we become free when we figure out how to resist at all costs, because resistance is what makes us free, even when we fail. The Consortium wants a technology of freedom, an agreement with the Other that it will simply not-oppress, a mechanical way of liberating humanity from the coming threat. The project that Mulder and Scully represent, which I have taken to calling the Stark Insurgency (shut up), is instead a project of continued struggle, even in the face of guaranteed failure. Even up until the moment he falls unconscious at the end of chapter 11, Mulder is still free, because he refuses to be otherwise. Even if they had lost, they would still be free. We all are, as long as we never surrender our ability to act.

Second, canonicity and transformation. I'm a writer who wants to get as close to canon as possible in order to see what can be done to it; at the same time, I'm interested in doing transformative things to it. (Yes, all fanwork is inherently transformative; but I'm interested in making the universe do things that it doesn't do at all, generally thematic and political things.) What I wanted to do in writing this was write a story that was almost--almost--something you could imagine being filmed as the third X-Files movie; a story that seemed to capture the spirit of the series, that seemed as if it could be canon, except not quite. So I've got the goddamn ghosts from The Truth haunting the thing, despite the fact that they make no sense. (WTFever, ILU ghost!Krycek.) IWTB was kind of insane for making Scully suddenly, magically a neurosurgeon; nevertheless, a neurosurgeon she is. We've got a smoking informant of questionable allegiance, who seems to know more than is being said; we've got a global conspiracy designed to get the drop on the good guys. And, frankly, Mulder and Scully never actually solve anything, never actually save anyone; any time someone is saved in canon, it's because someone with greater knowledge than they of what's going on parachutes in and does a deus ex machina intervention. Well, that's what we've got here, too.

But--here's the transformative part--I needed to do something to intervene into the constant narrative of the X-Files as a story about fathers and sons. It's the story of Mulder, needing to redeem himself for the sins of his father--for the sins of both his fathers. It's the story of Jeffery Spender, who first accepts, then rejects his father, in order to find his own power in the narrative. It's the story of Bill Mulder and the story of C.G.B. Spender, who want to protect their children, and who end up sacrificing them in the process. It's the story of William, the lost son Mulder can never fully redeem.

And I like this; I like that The X-Files is the story of the Fall of the House of Mulder, the story of how family relations grow burdensome and collapse under the weight of persistent corruption. (Perhaps this is just because I have a family like this one myself, though with fewer aliens.) But--here's the thing--it's never about the women. It's never about Teena or Samantha, except as objects moved around by others; it's only about Scully as it pertains to Mulder, most of the time, at least when we're getting mytharc-y. Here is a show full of fascinating female characters, and yet the central narrative never has any room for them to be the driving forces of what happens. (This is, incidentally, why the show floundered so badly in the last two seasons; even without Mulder present, it somehow still had to be all about Mulder, when it could have, very easily, become all about Scully. But Mulder took up too much space in the narrative arc; he couldn't be moved aside that easily.)

So I wanted to alter this story, and the way to alter it was, quite simply, to make it a story about daughters. A story about Maggie watching her little girl go off to war; a story about fighting aliens and watching Dora the Explorer; a story about a daughter willing to rend the fabric of time and space to fix things.

Reactions and Reviews

In general, I don't like kidfic. There are exceptions to everything, of course, and I've certainly read several wonderful stories in the genre. But I tend to like my Mulder and Scully living dangerously, chasing monsters, not necessarily domestic and happy. So kidfic is a harder sell for me. I'd initially resisted reading this one for a long time, in spite of the many recommendations, because of the kid angle (you mean Mulder and Scully have another kid? Who's not William?) I'm glad I finally gave in, because this story is worth it; a beautifully crafted sci-fi epic that addresses the impending alien invasion and the combined efforts of those trying to stop it. The revelation at the end is incredibly moving, and one I didn't see coming.

The crème de la crème of X-Files fic, “Machines of Freedom” is the 2012 story we deserved from Chris Carter & co. Set several years after the events of The X-Files: I Want to Believe film (a.k.a. XF2), this is the epic story of how Wiliam Scully saves the world—or is it? To do more than skim the surface of the plot would ruin a few magical, game-changing reveals about the Scully-Mulder family, but the oversimplified gist of it is that the agents and their band of found family members hole up in a Montana bunker to try to ward off an impending alien attack.

Cinematic in scope, this adventure full of memorable, character-driven moments will blow you away and make you wish that CC had turned to the fandom for help writing the revival seasons. One original character, in particular, could easily anchor her own spinoff series for a new generation of The X-Files. FOX should really get on that. [...] Tags: post-IWTB divergence, colonization, kid fic, established MSR, dark themes

Taking place as the alien colonization of Earth begins, this novel is completely canon-compliant (yes, including the second movie) and passionately engaged with the core issues of the mytharc. If you’re catching up on where X-Files fandom is today, read this story.

We can never quite get an alien invasion story in The X-Files, which makes the whole of X-Files canon kind of an exercise in edging, only in a very bad way. This story does the thing I love most: it deeply understands The X-Files’s themes and then fixes them and concludes them in a way that the series never could.