Marita Covarrubias portrayed Covarrubias in all appearances of the character.
Marita Covarrubias is introduced as an informant to Mulder after the death of his former source,
X. X scrawls the letters "S.R.S.G." in his own blood as he dies, leading Mulder to the Special Representative to the
Secretary-General of the United Nations. The Syndicate later discovers that Covarrubias has betrayed them and is providing information to Mulder. As a result, Syndicate scientists infect her with the
black oil virus, so as to test a vaccine they have been working to create. A cured Covarrubias later makes contact with Krycek at the behest of The Smoking Man, who wishes to resume the work of the now-eradicated Syndicate. However, Covarrubias and Krycek betray the Smoking Man and leave him for dead. In the series finale "
The Truth," Skinner seeks Covarrubias as a witness in Mulder's trial for murder. She is called upon to testify, and she speaks about her involvement with the Syndicate. However, when she is pressed for further information about the continuation of the conspiracy, she clams up, and at Mulder's request she is dismissed from the stand, for fear that if she divulges certain knowledge, she will be killed. Writer
Frank Spotnitz has described Covarrubias as "young, attractive, vital [and] dangerous" compared to the other characters working for the Syndicate. Holden has compared the character to
Mata Hari, adding that "you can't really read what she's saying or what her intentions are".
Deep Throat Deep Throat is the first of Mulder's informants, leaking information to him to aid his investigations. As a member of the then-unseen
Syndicate, he is in a position to know a great deal of information. Deep Throat feels that the truth being kept secret from the public by the Syndicate needs to be known. He believes Mulder to be the one person capable of exposing this knowledge. However, he believes that there are certain truths that the public are not yet ready to know. In "
The Erlenmeyer Flask," the finale of the first season, Mulder is taken hostage following his investigation into an
alien-human hybridization program. Fearing for Mulder's life, Deep Throat helps Scully to gain access to a high-containment facility, where she manages to secretly remove an alien fetus for use as collateral in saving Mulder. In the subsequent meeting between the operatives and Deep Throat, he is shot and killed. The character later appears in dreams and visions experienced by Mulder during his recuperation on a Navajo reservation, and again years later while being experimented on by the Smoking Man. Deep Throat was inspired by the historical
Deep Throat, Also cited as an influence on the fictional Deep Throat was X, the character portrayed by
Donald Sutherland in the 1991
Oliver Stone film
JFK. The character was intended to bridge the gap between Mulder and Scully and the shadowy conspirators who were working against them; and was conceived as someone "who works in some level of government that we have no idea exists". Hardin's performance has been cited as "the spine of the series", and his portrayal of the character has been met with positive reviews from critics.
First Elder The
First Elder is portrayed by
Don S. Williams. He was a high-ranking member of the
Syndicate. His exact position in the Syndicate was unclear, especially in regard to the
Well-Manicured Man, though at times he seemed higher-ranking than the Smoking Man. He contacted
Scully in person while
Mulder pursued evidence of an
alien autopsy on a train. He also obtained photographs taken by
X of a meeting between
The Smoking Man and
Teena Mulder as proof that one of the Smoking Man's henchmen was a traitor. The First Elder set up a trap to reveal the identity of the traitor and dispatched an assassin to kill him.
X fell for the trap and was executed. He was killed along with the rest of the Syndicate by a group of
Alien rebels in 1999. However, it later becomes evident that Krycek is actually an undercover agent working for the
Cigarette Smoking Man. Krycek also assaults
Assistant Director Walter Skinner and acquires a secret tape from him which reveals a
US government coverup regarding alien visits to
Earth. After a botched murder attempt on Scully results in the death of her sister, the Cigarette Smoking Man attempts to kill Krycek with a car bomb, but Krycek escapes. He lies low in Hong Kong for a short period, selling secrets acquired from the tape until he is found, beaten and apprehended by Mulder who takes him back to the US. Unbeknown to him, Krycek is under the control of an alien organism and he escapes Mulder before he is taken to a missile silo in North Dakota by the Cigarette Smoking Man. Having ejected the alien influence into an alien craft, he is left locked in a missile bay, screaming and banging on the door. When escaping a
gulag in Russia, where Krycek pursues a mysterious rock, his left arm is amputated to prevent some experiments on him. Later in the series, Krycek can be seen switching sides as it suits him, occasionally helping Mulder, Cigarette Smoking Man and other people. He attempted to blackmail Skinner by infecting him with lethal
nanotechnology, but ended up being thrown into a Tunisian prison when the Cigarette Smoking Man discovered that Krycek had stolen an alien artifact from him. In the last season 7 episode, "
Requiem", Krycek apparently kills the Cigarette Smoking Man by pushing him down a flight of stairs. Doggett became suspicious of Rohrer when information was given to him from Rohrer that got a man killed, but it was not until Doggett saw Rohrer meet with
Alex Krycek that he realized Rohrer was a member of the conspiracy. However, in the series finale, "
The Truth", it is revealed that he survived, when
Mulder breaks into
Mount Weather. Rohrer chases down Mulder and in the ensuing scuffle Rohrer is electrocuted. Mulder is then taken into military custody and put on trial for Rohrer's supposed death. Eventually, Mulder breaks out with the help of
Alvin Kersh, and with
Dana Scully, headed to
New Mexico for a final confrontation with the
Cigarette Smoking Man, whom he discovered was still alive. Doggett and
Monica Reyes went after Mulder and Scully to warn them that the
conspirators knew where they were. Rohrer, alive and well, followed, intending to kill them all (including the Cigarette Smoking Man, who had long since outlived his usefulness to the conspiracy). However, as he approached Doggett and Reyes in the New Mexican desert, Rohrer died from exposure to
magnetite. It turned out that the Cigarette Smoking Man figured out that magnetite killed the Super Soldiers, and consequently chose to hide in a
pueblo saturated with it. He is involved in the
Syndicate, a shadow organization within the
United States government that exists to hide the fact that aliens are visiting Earth from the public. Spender is the leader of the
Men in Black (MIB) in the series. To this end, he works with Alex Krycek to develop a vaccine, eventually testing it—successfully—on Marita Covarrubias. In the 1998 feature film
The X-Files, when Scully is infected with the black oil and taken to
Antarctica, it is the Well-Manicured Man who, having grown disillusioned with the Syndicate, gives Mulder the coordinates needed to find her and a sample of the vaccine needed to cure Scully. The colonists had kept secret a secondary characteristic of the black oil—that those infected with it for prolonged periods would gestate a new colonist lifeform, killing the host. Upon discovering this, the Syndicate vowed to work more closely with the colonists in the hope of being spared this fate, while only the Well-Manicured Man wished to continue working on a vaccination for resistance. This rejection led to his betrayal of the Syndicate, and to him committing suicide by
car bomb before his duplicity was discovered. The Well-Manicured Man was portrayed by
John Neville in all his appearances. Conceived as the "voice of reason" within the Syndicate, the character has been seen as representing an opposing viewpoint to that of The Smoking Man. The character has been positively received by critics.
MTV's Tami Katzoff has called him a "legendary TV character", noting his "moral ambivalence about the work of his shadow organization" and his ability to show "empathy for Mulder and Scully".
The San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham has praised Neville's portrayal of the character in the feature film, calling his expository monologue "a
Wagnerian demonstration of the art of declamation".
X X, sometimes referred to as
Mr. X, serves as an informant to
Mulder, replacing
Deep Throat in this capacity. While X's loyalties and his own agenda were often unclear, he has more than once proven that he at least does not want Mulder dead. In the episode "
End Game", he is approached by
Scully, who pleads that she needs to know where Mulder is, believing his life to be in danger. X reluctantly gives her the information after a fight with
Skinner. In "
731", X's loyalty to Mulder is further confirmed. Trapped on a train car equipped with a
time bomb, Mulder is attacked by an assassin. X fatally shoots the assassin as he is about to step off the car, and boards with only enough time left to save either Mulder or the
alien-human hybrid the car was transporting, opting to save Mulder. In the
season 4 opener "
Herrenvolk", X's position as an informant is discovered by the Syndicate, and he is assassinated, but not before leading Mulder to his successor,
Marita Covarrubias. After his death, X appears two more times—in
The Lone Gunmen origin story "
Unusual Suspects," set before his death, and as a ghost in the
series finale, "
The Truth". X is portrayed in the series by
Steven Williams, and made his début in the
second season episode "
The Host", although the character would not appear on-screen until "
Sleepless", two episodes later. The role had originally been conceived as a female, with
Natalija Nogulich cast in the role, however her initial scenes were deemed unsatisfactory by the producers, leading to her replacement. Williams' portrayal of X was intended to introduce a personality completely different from the character's predecessor, Deep Throat, and has been positively received by critics and fans.
Conrad Strughold Conrad Strughold is a fictional character played by
Armin Mueller-Stahl in the 1998 motion picture
The X-Files: Fight the Future. Strughold, a
German scientist and
entrepreneur, is the leader of the
Syndicate. The Strughold
mine in remote
West Virginia, where the Syndicate secretly kept files on and tissue samples of
abductees, is named after him. In the film, he authorizes
Dana Scully's abduction, seeing it as a way to effectively break
Fox Mulder's spirit, and as a more profitable alternative to outright killing Mulder. He lives in
Tunisia. It is believed that he has
Nazi ties and is unable to enter the
United States because it would draw too much attention to the Syndicate. Strughold survived the demise of the Syndicate in season 6, though as of the end of the series, he is probably either dead, in hiding, or working with the
New Syndicate (though the last option is unlikely). He is possibly the only member of the Syndicate to like or trust the
Cigarette Smoking Man, as they are shown as having a slightly more cordial and far less adversarial relationship than with the other members. The season 6 episode "One Son" features a scene where Scully recounts the activities of
Diana Fowley in the early 1990s, in which she monitored MUFON groups in Europe and took weekly trips to Tunisia, the implication being that she was reporting to Strughold during her time on this assignment. He is almost certainly named after
Hubertus Strughold, a Nazi scientist who came to the US during
Operation Paperclip after the end of
World War II. (The original episode to show the mine in West Virginia was season 3's "Paper Clip", although Strughold himself did not appear in this episode, or in any television episodes of the show). ==Minor characters==