Full
Name: Dana Katharine Scully
Job: Special Agent,
Medical Doctor
Date of Birth: February
23, 1964
Eye colour: Blue
Hair colour: Red
Height: 5’2″
Martial Status: Single/Never
Married
Children: Emily Sim,
William Scully
Parents: Captain
William Scully and Margaret Scully
Siblings: William
Scully Jr. & Charles Scully and Melissa Scully
Address: Georgetown
Phone number: (Home)
202-555-6431; (Cell) 202-555-3564
Badge Number: JTT0331613
Denomination: roman-catholic
Personal file number:
121-627-161
History:
Special Agent Dana Scully
is not only a medical doctor with a specialty in forensics, but a firm
believer in reason who thinks there is a scientific explanation behind
every X-file. Her beliefs have been tested, and sheís seen things while
working on the X-files that neither science nor logic could explain. She
has even begun to believe in the reality of aliens.
Against her parentsí wishes,
Scully went from medical school to Quantico, where she taught for two years
in the FBI’s training academy. From there she was assigned to work with
Mulder on the X-files under the strong implication that she was to debunk
his outrageous theories.
Over the years, she has given up much of her own life to the cause of the files. Scully was abducted, and, when mysteriously returned, left infertile by the supposed tests. She then discovered that a chip had been placed in the base of her neck. Its removal caused the onset of cancer. The disease went into remission with the implant of another chip. An assassination attempt on Scully resulted in the death of her sister Melissa. She successfully found her abducted partner, and even figured out a way to revive Mulderís life-draining body after he was subjected to alien testing.
The hard facts of medicine, however, still donít explain how Scully became pregnant after years of infertility. Although she and Mulder feared the worst, William is born human and healthy. As they begin to accept that the baby was conceived through natural reproduction, mysterious clues indicate that perhaps William is more of a miracle than they had imagined. And this puts all of their lives into jeopardy.
More …
Childhood Address: Brought up, at at least some part of her childhood, in Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego (“Piper Maru”) One of her school friends was Richard Johansen, son of Commander Johansen who experienced the oily alien in the submarine. The family home on the base was a little red-bricked house, as seen in “Piper Maru.” Either this house or another one they lived in in San Diego, where she shared a room with Melissa , was like the one her brother is staying in in “Christmas Carol.”
A photo of Melissa (“Christmas Carol”) shows that the family went to Japan at some point, though it’s not known whether this was a vacation or a more long-term posting.
At time of her smallpox vaccination (“Paper Clip”) her address is given as 3170 W 53 Rd, Annapolis, Maryland. Whether this is her childhood address or a later address is not known.
Answering Machine message: Heard frequently in “Colony: “Hi. This is Dana Scully. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Car: We normally see Scully (and Mulder) driving FBI cars or rental cars, so it’s not even clear which car actually is Scully’s own. But, whatever it is, we learn in Milagro that she’s driven the same car since at least 1993.
Dog: Queequeg, acquired September 22nd 1995, eaten sometime in March or April 1996. Named after a character in “Moby Dick,” a novel special to her and her father, who, ironically, also did some cannibalistic things.
Handedness: Scully is seen writing with her right hand, as in EBE (before her pen is “borrowed”)
Pregnancy: In “Requiem,” which aired May 21, 2000, Scully discovered that she is was pregnant. From her behavior and the context of the scene where she announces this fact, it seems clear that she believes Mulder is the father. Whether she is correct in this belief remains to be seen, of course.
Mulder’s abduction: Mulder was abducted by aliens at the end of “Requiem,” and has not been returned. Scully had only one brief scene after the abduction, but it’s a given that she will be deeply affected by this.
Life before the X-Files
Childhood: See the page on Scully’s family for the general information about where they lived etc
Scully was a tomboy as a child, preferring to prove to her father that she was the equal of her brothers. For example, she went with them when shooting in the woods, and joined them in shooting at a snake. When she realised that she’d killed it, she cried, holding it in her hands even though deathly afraid of snakes.
Once she crept down at night and smoked one of her mother’s cigarettes, feeling very scared and excited. (“Beyond the Sea”), half hoping her father would find her and be angry. (“Never Again”)
She had a grey pet rabbit, which she accidentally killed when she hid it in a lunch box to save it from her brother’s threats to stew it.
Her childhood ambitions did not include wanting to be an astronaut, but she did want a pony and to learn how to braid her own hair. (“Space”)
She was given a gold cross by her mother, either at Christmas or on her 15th birthday, depending on what episode you believe (“Christmas Carol” or “Ascension.”)
According to Scully, in “Small Potatoes,” the “12th grade love of my life” was called Marcus. They went to their senior prom together, she wearing moire taffeta, he wearing a tux with a kelly green cumberbund. At 2 am, they were off together, likely making out, because Scully said it was the “now or never” moment for Marcus. Then, they heard a siren. The friends they were with (Sylvia and Burwood) apparently let their campfire get out of control. The fire department arrived, and everyone rode back on the pump truck.
Education: Scully studied physics at the University of Maryland. Her senior thesis is, rather implausibly, “Einstein’s Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation,” published by the University of Maryland on May 15, 1986 (“Musings….,” in which her thesis seems to include references to MJ-12 and the establishment of a “super-secret” operation during the Eisenhower administration). In “Jersey Devil” we see Dr Diamond, one of her professors. His speciality is anthropology.
[Kevin Anderson’s novel “Ground Zero,” which is officially approved so may or may not be taken as X-File canon, has Scully spending her first year of College at Berkeley, California, before her father was posted East and she transferred to Maryland. As an undergraduate she would have laughed at someone in a suit – someone like she has become. She was a good student, working hard with her physics, aware of how much money it was costing her father, but had flirted with activism. She read lots of leaflets about nuclear weapons, and had nightmares about them. While she didn’t actually join a protest, she did argue with her father about nuclear weapons – the first subject they’d disagreed on, though they’d later disagree on her joining the FBI]
On the subject of her thesis, the twin paradox is a fairly simple explanation of what happens in time travel, if one twin goes a-travelling in time and comes back younger than the one who stayed. She could hardly have reinterpreted this, without challenging the whole of the theory of reletivity. However, it is a nice allusion to all the time stuff we see inthe X-Files, such as Mulder’s two stop-watch trick (“EBE”) and the fact that Samantha could well still be a little girl. Mulder keeps citing Scul;y’s thesis in “Synchrony”.
After that she went to medical school, though we don’t know where. She decided not to practice it, but joined the FBI instead, saying that she thought she could “make a difference” there. Her father disapproved of this decision, and her stubborn determinination to succeed could well be an attempt to prove to him that she made the right choice. Maybe to prove to herself, too, for in “Christmas Carol,” we see her struck with doubts. Despite the fact that Melissa urges her to remember that it is not her father’s life she is living, Dana says that she fears she’ll regret it. When she started medical school, she says, she thought it was what she wanted to do, but later realised it wasn’t. What if she ends up feeling the same about the FBI?
By the end of the movie, though, she seems reconciled. She will be a doctor within the FBI, and the X-Files, she says. She has found viruses and vaccines to study, and lives to save.
In “all things,” we learned that while she was in medical school she had an adulterous affair with one of her professors, and this apparently was the catalyst for her decision to give up the practice of medicine. Presumably the other issues are still there, and Scully does reiterate in “all things” that she finds her work with the FBi important and fulfilling.
At medical school, she seems to have decided to specialise in forensic pathology pretty quickly. Certainly, as we learn in Agua Mala, she has never delivered a baby, and it also seems as if her bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired – though the stressful circumstances of the delivery may have something to do with that.
Unlike Mulder’s mess, her pre-X-Files FBI career is simple, as long as we forget real life training needs. Just two years teaching at the Academy – a position she went back to in the summer of 1994 when the X-Files were closed down. She lectured on pathology to new agents, teaching them what to look out for on dead bodies and such like.
Of course, this doesn’t fit in with real life. A forensic pathologist would go to college, then medical school, then have four to five years of residency and two years’ fellowship, and this all before joining the FBI. After that, she would have needed to have spent at least two years in the field before getting the Quantico job.
She was assigned to the X-Files in March 1992, but see the Timeline for all the problems with this.