Ordinary, decent people

That moment when Mulder asks if there is "any indication or suspicion that Flight five-forty-nine may have been forced down?" In a crowd of people who all supposedly know why they are there and the job they have to do and one person speaks up with a perspective that hasn't been considered. Can't be because it's, as Americans are so fond of saying, 'outside the box'. Ordinary, decent people, who follow the rules as a way of navigating their way through life, undesirous of the attention a personal view might draw down upon them, never ask the question that forces others to think.

Mulder has, time after time, shown he is unwilling to merely accept the standard view. Way back, in Season One, in 'Squeeze', after being invited backhandedly onto a case by a colleague of Scully's, when asked if it might be a case of little green men, Mulder responds with "Grey".

Tom Colton: Excuse me?

Mulder: Grey. You said green men, a Reticulan skin tone is actually grey, they're notorious for their extraction of terrestrial human livers. Due to iron depletion in the Reticulan galaxy.

Tom Colton: You can't be serious.

Mulder: Do you have any idea what liver and onions go for on Reticula? (cf. insidethex.co.uk)

It's a scene that sets Mulder up as one willing not only to see a situation as others don't, but more than ready to voice his thought even at the expense of the usual acceptance most human beings seek. For Mulder, the possibilities are infinitely fascinating and worthy of attention. The cost to his reputation is worth that moment when he gets to show others as too limited and restricted by convention.

In 'Tempus Fugit', at a meeting of people who know how to deal with the task at hand, people every bit as qualified in their field as Mulder, every bit as experienced at what they do as Mulder, still he is willing, ready and able to ask that question he knows they won't have thought themselves.

The question that will draw the ridicule and laughter of his audience. The question that, ultimately, would lead to a successful examination of the facts.

Only it won't, because the question would take them too far outside their box for comfort. These are ordinary, decent people who want to go home after a day's work to a wife and family, knowing that the world makes sense, that, despite the sudden and violent demise of over a hundred souls, all is as it should be when they turn off the lights at night.

Such people work effectively within the boundaries, keeping the wheels of industry well oiled and on the tracks. Piecing the puzzle together bit by bit, they will eventually build to a conclusion grounded in the physical evidence. Their truth can be touched.

Should a piece of the puzzle be missing brings only an annoyed shrug of the shoulders and an acceptance of a hole in their picture.

It takes a Mulder, not confined by a box of any size, to ask the question that would bring, along with the ridicule, the solution to the mystery.