My Attempt to Explain Dharma, Hanso, Quarantine, Desmond, Widmore, Mikhail, and Food Drops!
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By HappyAtheist
- My Attempt to Explain Dharma, Hanso, Quarantine, Desmond, Widmore, Mikhail, and Food Drops!
- Created: Jun 4, 2007
- Last updated: Sep 5, 2008
- After episode: 3.22: Through The Looking Glass
- Status: Current
- Flags: Debunked
- Flag this theory:
We’re dealing with THREE main groups here: the idealist, leftist DI; the separationist, utopian Others; and the capitalist, utilitarian Widmore Industries.
— HappyAtheist
Here’s one (LONG) version of the events surrounding Dharma, Ben, Kelvin, Desmond, Hanso, Widmore, and more :
I love this theory by Dharmacist. I think mine is my attempt to tell the story of what came before. I’m sure that I’m not giving credit to other theories I indirectly cite; I give my apologies in advance for my poor, poor memory.
Around the time Ben joined with Richard (and the so-called “Hostiles”) to exterminate the DI, his team (known to the Losties as “the Others”) communicated with other sections of the real DI stationed off the island. Ben and his people convinced the mainland DI that they, the DI members still on the island, were dying from a mysterious illness (possibly related to their experiments).
They told the DI that they’d have to put themselves in quarantine to prevent the disease from spreading. Maybe they said that the disease came from the indigenous hostiles; or maybe the hostiles were diseased members of the DI that were quarantined/cast out of the community. Either way, Ben et al. assured the DI that those unexposed or immune would continue to live on the island while seeking a cure and fulfilling the all-important task of pushing the button. The island would be cut off from DI at this point because of “the incident”. But Ben while et al. asked that the DI’s support of them be kep secret, he also asked that reinforcements be sent in periodically to help them push the button. Mikhail himself probably faciliated this conversation between Ben posing as faithful DI and the DI on the mainlands from the Flame station. Under the terms of the quarantine, people could enter the island, but they couldn’t leave.
That’s how Kelvin and Radzinsky came to be recruited to the island. Still reeling from the horrible things he’d ordered done and done himself during the war, Kelvin was up for a suicide mission when he was recruited by the top-secret, private sector DI mission in the early 90s. During his tenure, he found out the secret from Radzinsky: the mystery illness was not real and all was not what it seemed to be. The DI thought they were indirectly control of the quarantined island, but they weren’t. Of course, there was no way off the island, and if they stopped pressing the button, the world would end. So they were stuck. They took turns exploring the island while the other one pushed the button, but they knew it was dangerous, especially with the crazy Others and smoke monster around.
They tried to recreate from memory a map of the DI stations and everything they knew or had heard about the current state of the DI imposters. They filled it with their observations and hypotheses. For example, they wrote, “Road or other route of travel” because they know there’s a passageway there based on their time with their hosts/imposter employers and short forays into the jungle, but they haven’t seen the road. This is the “blast door map”. Of course, eventually, Radzinsky dies a death much like the one Kelvin will have in the future.
By the time Desmond gets there, Kelvin is completely demoralized by the death of Radinsky, and is in full survival mode. He decides he needs to fool another human subject into sticking with the button, much like he was initially fooled, in order to have a real shot of getting off the island. He feeds Des the story about the illness, puts on a hazmat suit, and goes out to fix the sailing boat he’s found.
During all of these years, of course, the DI has still been dropping food. Their Hanso Foundation funding was NOT cut in 1987, as Hugh McIntyre claimed in his interview with Jimmy Kimmel as part of the Lost Experience (Lostpedia.com). The video of Mittlewerk saying in 2006 that the DI has failed also contradicts the idea that funding was actually cut off in 1987. Rather, 1987 is the date of Ben’s near-extermination of the DI on the island, and of his convincing the DI that the island be quarantined. In 1987, only a few high-ranking DIs knew (or thought) that the island was functioning as it was intended to but under quarantine.
The submarine has not gone actually anywhere since the Quarantine (although it did actually bring Ben to the island); it’s been disabled from the outsidem as part of the Quarantine. Only Ben and high-ranking Others know it’s a ruse, to convince the newer inhabitants that they arrived that way. The actual mode of transportation is top-secret (and sure, may involve anomalies in the space-time continuum). There’s a split here between high-rankers/old Others who’ve been on the island much longer, and have bonded with it, and relative newcomers, like Juliet, who can still feel homesick after 3 years and want to go back.
But, okay, the DI on the mainland think they’re still operating a top-secret thing on the island, whose goal is to save the world, even though it’s a quarantined mission. That is, until, of course, the explosion of the Swan hatch, and the release of all of the electromagnetic energy. For the first time, the DI has reason to doubt that they were getting the full story about what was going on inside their quarantined island. They sent out a team to investigate.
Widmore Indsustries knows that Desmond washed up on the island because Penny was searching for Des. Her Dad was spying on her the whole time, because he’s the meddling father par excellance (cf. his bribery of Desmond). Mr. Widmore worried when she became distraught over Des’s disappearance in the race, broke up with the guy she was seeing, and used a huge amount of money to search for Des. Penny’s real Portuguese team is surprised and confused by the electromagnetic anomaly. Papa Widmore knows exactly what it is, because he and Paik have joined together and been been secretly funding the take-over of Hanso via Mittlewerk! So, in another example of synchronicity, Widmore finds the island he’s been searching for over the past several years through the coincidence that his daughter’s love has washed up there, and her expensive team has almost found them. Widmore, however, has more information than Penny. He understands how to locate the anomaly becuase he has another piece of the puzzly. So, old Mr. Widmore has really found them, not Penny.
The mainland DI also has all the pieces to the puzzle, and they keep an eye on the island through an old station. Or maybe they’re researching electromagnetism or seismicity on the mainland/Antartica, and their screens registered the blip also, and the high-rankers knew it was from their quarantined island.
The DI knows that the Old Widmore/Paik team is on its way to the island, but their team gets there first. Naomi pretends to work for Penny Widmore because she’s been briefed on the Des story. She knows Des might be there. She can’t afford to come out as an authentic DI because that could lead to danger on the island, depending on who she’s talking to. None of the island-dwellers, however, will have heard about Widmore Corp, a relatively newer enemy of the DI and it’s mission. Meanwhile, if the guy named Des thinks she’s resuing him on behalf of Penny, she knows she’ll be greeted warmly by him. So, she poses as part of Penny’s team, and has the pic of Des as evidence. She has no idea the Losties are there,a nd is genuinely surprised when she tells them their plane was found. When she asks Charlie for info about the different warring groups on the island, she’s trying to get info about the situation on the ground to bring back to the DI.
When Naomi tells Mikhail, “I am not alone” in Portugese, he’s wearing an official DI jumpsuit and being held captive by a bunch of raggedy-looking people and Desmond. She assumes that these people with Desmond are the diseased hostiles who have been thrust out of the community (or, maybe pre-dated the DI). She recognizes Mikhail as a communications officer from his Flame jumpsuit (she knows about the DI history), and she speaks to him in Portuguese, a language ranked 6th in the world in terms of number of people who speak it, and is therefore required knowledge for somebody in the Flame. Plus, she feels pretty sure from hearing the other’s accents that they don’t speak Portuguese. (Hurley speaks Spanish natively, and she knows that most native Spanish speakers 1) don’t read or speak Portuguese and 2) can make out Portugese if they’re reading it but not understand it spoken.)
At the end of the day, once we’ve seen just how thoroughly the season 3 finally “changed everything”, it’ll become clear that we’re not dealing with the Losties vs. the Others. We’re dealing with THREE main groups: the idealist, leftist DI; the separationist, utopian Others; and the capitalist, utilitarian Widmore Industries.
The Losties throw a major wrench into their plans.
the ideological breakdown: Widmore/Mittlewerk wants to use the island for personal gain. They’re want to use it to profit from the shittiness of the world. They don’t care about the fate of their offspring, so much as they care about themselves. They’re willing to release a virus that decimates the world’s population as long as they manufacture the only cure because they’ll be rich, and be able to extend their own lives on the island. Sawyer’s character tends to embrace this view, and other characters have passed through dark, selfish phases.
The Others want to live in harmony with the island, isolated from the ugly, incorrigable world that’s going to hell in a handbasket (and that’s if we do get out of Iraq). This attitude motivated their separation from the DI in 1987. They didn’t beleive the Valenzetti equation could ever be solved, and they saw in the island the possibility for a new human race to survive after the demise of the rest of us. Coming to terms with your father is important to them, because inheritance is important to them. They see themselves as inheritors of Jacob, a wily second son of the human race, a new line conning everybody in order to inherit it all. Unlike the capitalists, they DO care about their line, alas, they can’t procreate! Obviously, most of the people on “Jacob’s list” who are living among the Others seem to be adapting just fine. Locke’s character subscribes to this view of the world—plus, he’s had experience living in a commune.
The Hanso DI is a holdover from the sixties. They are true idealists who believe they can save the world. The status of their mission is very much in question at this point. Jack’s character embodies this attitude.
As for the fourth group, our Losties, well, they’re all just struggling to find out what they want.
At the end of season 6, one group will have won out.
EDIT: I’m folliwing Kat’s advice in order to get this theory out of the “debunked” section because I have heard of no evidence that would debunk this theory. Thanks, Kat!
Update: So, basically, this theory is stuck in a loop (see my comment 31 below). Somebody, or somebodies, Debunked it on no grounds whatsoever, so now, I have to edit and re-save in order for it to appear in the Highest-Rated section. Alas, every time somebody comments, it goes straight back to the Debjuked section. What to do?
Key episodes
| # | Title | Aired | Central character | Theories |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.22 | Through The Looking Glass | 5-23-2007 | Jack | 1251 |
| 3.8 | Flashes Before Your Eyes | 2-14-2007 | Penny | 233 |
| 1.21 | The Greater Good | 5-4-2005 | Claire | 63 |
| 1.20 | Do No Harm | 4-6-2005 | Jack | 70 |
Key locations
| Theme | Relevant Episodes | Theories |
|---|---|---|
| The blast door map | 2.17 | 156 |
| The Pearl station | 2.21, 3.5, 3.14 | 229 |
| The Swan station | 2.20, 2.23, 2.14, 2.17, 2.1, 2.2, 1.11, 3.3, 3.8 | 460 |
Similar theories
| Title | Author | Cmnts | Votes | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A possible explanation of the events in LOST | Stip | 24 | 31 | +23 |
Wow… what a comeback, HA! Great work!
good
Wow, great job—the purge/quarantine and continued food drops makes perfect sense. One bit of tweaking that I’d suggest is that I don’t think the purge and the incident are the same. I think the incident preceded the purge, is responsible for Jacob’s present state, and may explain why the Others felt they had to purge the DI. Do you think the motive for the purge might have been that the Others felt the DI was in someway compromised and perhaps came to this conclusion based on the earlier accident/incident? I’m also wondering in the present, why Ben is keeping the Looking Glass station up and running and lying to most of his people about it.
a fantastic read - I think you’ve nailed the major factions (and their motivations) in what will turn out to be an Epic story!
HapA: great stuff! I like the way in which you take into consideration each person’s motivation - at that moment in time - into the explanation. Your handling of Naomi’s role makes so much sense - and why she’s expendable as a character. Do you think there is any relevance of the ancient temple and 4 toed foot - or is that simply red herring for us posters? Also, are you saying Jack and crew crashing on the island was a random event? I have to believe DI manipulated that somehow to either solve the pregnancy problem or the Valenzetti Equation. The numbers seem to be too important to the plot to be irrelevant.
Love the attention to detail!
Very good theory,
I like it because you have not got bogged down in scientific theory like some other theories. This theory is plausable and could easily be explained to the ‘general public’ in the last 3 series.
The theory is good but would not be surprised if the lost writers have anticipated this sort of theory and dangled a carrot.
s12s
Wow! Great post! It sounds very realistic to me…
You did a fantastic job of defining the competing parties. It also lends support to the idea that there is much more to the Charles Widmore story than we know so far.
I love this theory. Just a few minor details:
The sub doesn’t necessarily have to be a ruse (throwing the necessity of a time-space travel idea out of the picture). Perhaps Ben/Ethan/Richard are the only ones that know how to operate the sub, and have made trips back to the mainland out of necessity, i.e. recruiting Juliette.
If the mainland group was being misled that there was a viral outbreak on the island, why wasn’t Naomi wearing protective gear, even if only as a precaution?
Ben’s control of the Others group is deeper than just “we don’t agree with the DI”. He takes his orders from Jacob and the Others follow him because he’s the only one talking to Jacob. So there’s some other, if not greater, impact to why they’ve taken over the island. I mean after all, Ben was the son of a janitor, why would they choose to follow his lead?
Bravo!! Very Well done!
Thank you all for your kind words. It’s really fun to work these things out with you all.
JazProf: Sure, I think “the purge” and “the incident” could be separate events.
I do think that you offer a great motive for the Others killing the DI members. I like the idea that some “purists” felt that the DI was compromised, had betrayed the true nature of the project. I guess the little motive I offer in my theory above is that it was an ideological conflict. But, you’re right, I think we really need to think about MOTIVE for the purge.
Some time ago, a few of us on here discussed the idea that the struggle for control of the island went back far beyond the Others, possibly leading back to an indigenous group responsible for the four-toed statues. But, yeah, the idea was that there were more warring groups than we knew about, the struggle for control of the island pre-dated Ben. I hope that, when we get to The Temple, and spend more time with the Others, that we’ll get closer to this answer.
One story about the motive that comes to mind now, that would explain the four-toed statue, is that “the Incident” involved the DI sacrificing/hurting the indigenous people for the sake of their project to save mankind. Maybe the DI made decisions relating to the incident that some felt hurt the isolation of their project. Maybe the DI wanted to go public with their findings (about eternal life, changing the equation) and open the island up to outsiders, and the people now known as “the Others” felt that their fantastic life on the island would be threatened. Or maybe, they felt that the DI was deeply misguided, and they truly were “the good guys”.
Or maybe, while the majority of the Others believe that they’re living in moral and bioligical harmony with the island, and that that was the motive behind the purge (because of something the DI heads chose to do related to the incident), some of the elite Others (Ben, Richard) know that the purge happened in order to maintain their way of life on the island. Maybe they don’t really care about what happened during the Incident. One thing is clear, Ben knows how to lie, and does often, to his people. Maybe that’s related to why nobody knows about the Looking Glass.
Stip: Either the Losties are an accidental wrench thrown into these warring conspiracies, or they’re not.
I love WhiteRbbtrd’s theory about the Losties as Course-Correction. This is a great way to explain the Losties and Synchronicity.
Crobolosan: Thanks for the great questions. Yeah, the sub as a ruse doesn’t have to be the case. But I do think there is some manipulation of time/space at work here. I think that the creators told us there would be “no time travel” during season 1, but that was an attempt to lead us off the track. It’s clear that they were referring to time travel as depicted in the sci-fi genre. They did not rule out alternative universes, time rips, time ripples, time doors between two parallel universes etc. I think they needed to rule out “time travel” at the very beginning to throw us off the trail. It was a smart move on their part, I think.
NAOMI:
Here’s what Lospedia says about her arrival on the island: “While flying the helicopter back to her ship, which was (anchored) 80 nautical miles from the Island, the clouds suddenly parted and she saw land. The instruments on the helicopter then began to malfunction, and Naomi parachuted out before the craft crashed into the ocean.”
So, Naomi was not planning on landing on the quarantiend island, and that’s why she wasn’t wearing a hazmat suit.
Once Naomi got there, surrounded by the jabbering Losties, her quick-thinking self (she must be from the Special Ops branch of the DI), realized that the inhabitants weren’t sick, confirming a suspicion the DI had begun to have after they saw the electromagnetic anomaly and heard of Widmore’s dastardly plans. So, she didn’t ask about the sickness because she intuited that they’d been right to suspect the need for the Quarantine.
Naomi was very cautious. She gave very little information. That’s why we learned so little from her. Although, I do think that flashbacks will reveal that she did say things we never saw onscreen. Maybe she tried to warn some people—nto Jack, because he was in cahoots with an “Other”—about what was really going on.
This is great. It is SO Ben. Even though you might hate him, what a master manipulater.
Great theory. One thing I noticed recently when I went back and re-watched “Flashes Before Your Eyes”. When Desmond and Penny have the picture taken is by a photographer with one of those old Polaroid style cameras where you take the photo, then pull the picture out of the camera, wait a few minutes and peel the backing paper off to reveal the photograph. This may seem like a minor detail but it means that when the photograph was taken there was only a single picture and no negative. If you watch the episode Desmond keeps the picture (which explains his having it in the hatch). So the obvious question is; how did Naomi get a copy of it? Is this a simple oversight by the writers or is it a clue that the photo is the same one and there is some sort of time or parallel universe?
I also found it interesting that the first time we see Desmond’s physicist friend, he is talking to a student about a theory….
“Your thesis is a bit neat. A wild card part which is the unpredictability. Run the same test 10 times, you’ll get 10 different outcomes. It’s what makes life so wonderfully chaotic…”
This line went pretty much unnoticed at the time since we hadn’t really started to consider the possibility that the island is a grand experiment and that fate and time travel and free will were all about to come into play.
It’s entirely possible that a copy was made from the Polaroid. We live in a world of computer scanners, photo printers and color copiers. It’s still possible that this is significant, though, especially if it becomes clear that the second photo is also a Polaroid (the same?).
hapa
This is an excellent post; your theory is very well explained. One question. I’ve never understood DI’s reason/necessity for pushing the button in order to “save the world.” To save the world from what? Was anything actually accomplished by pushing the button, or was this another lie - and if so, for what purpose?
Alice: That’s a good question.
Here’s one possible answer: The DI built the Hatch and surrounding area in order to harness the electromagnetic energy or some such force. While they were at it, they used it as part of a psychological experiment. The observers in the other hatch making futile observations were the real subjects of the psychological experiment. They were fed the meta-story about the psych experiment they were participating in, and that story soon led them, much like Locke, to wonder whether they themselves were subjects of a psychological experiment. The fact that their notebooks were deposited in the middle of the jungle speaks to the actual futility of their work. We’ve had no evidence about the futility of the button-pushing. The explosion after Desmond turned the key actually suggests that the button-pushing did serve some function.
So, the computer did diffuse the electromagnetic energy that they had harnessed. (I’m not a scientist, however, so I’m thinking of the energy as some unnamed, powerful force within the island that they were studying, had managed to harness, but could not be fully unleashed without disasterous consequences.) Maybe they could have set the late 80s computer to “push the button automatically”, but they had the human subjects there pushing the button so that they could be observed by the subjects of the psych experiment being conducted in the other station.
Either way, the computers haven’t been updated because computer upgrades have been dropped by the mainland DI during the Quarantine but the Others haven’t installed them because, for some unknown reason, they don’t actually care about the button being pushed; they simply put Kelvin and the other replacements there to keep up the farce and avoid interference from the mainland. (Interestingly, they seem to have updated the equipment in Mikhail’s station—which proves that they neglected the Hatch.) Maybe Ben and the Others thought that the Hatch and button-pushing was meaningless part of the psych experiment. Or maybe their top brass knows (after receiving instructions from Jacob?) that they need to let things unfold, maybe they have the blueprint of the future or something.
So, something was accomplished by pushing the button: the dispersal of the force the DI has harnessed, or the renewal of its prison. And Desmond not pushing it did crash the Oceanic flight. And later, Desmond deactivated the force by turning the failsafe key and causing the implosion, the purple sky, etc. That’s one possible answer.
I exceeded the character limit; here’s the last bit of my comment:
The big question is: did Ben know what was going to happen? Did he ignore the Hatch until he was a prisoner there and until he played upon Locke’s fears and doubts about pushing the button because he’s a master manipulator and he was getting them to do what he wanted, which would eventually help the island be even more secluded? Did he know that he was risking detection from the outside by encouraging the same chain of events that would prevent the island from communicating with the outside world (the purple sky/anomaly)?
wonderfull. this explains the history of the DI. i totally think the quarantine is impt.
Fantastic, I can imagine the writers already desperately re-writing the story line. By the way, I think Ben has been spending a bit of time off the island. Hence his aging and the development of his Tumor. Perhaps the result of his time spent information gathering on the survivors? And who stays on the island, now that for some/all rescue is assured? Desmond? John? Ben? Certainly I can’t imagine either Ben or John leaving.
Lostinnz, I do think it’s fascinating to consider whether Ben’s cancer is the result of his leaving the island to further his dastardly plans in some way. I don’t think he needed to gather info. on the survivors. Jacob and/or Mikhail seem to have got that info-gathering covered. But who knows to what extremes Ben has gone to to protect his island.
wow, this is my first time reading this….very very well done.
HappyA: I love reading your stuff. What happened - why did this theory get debunked? And no comments around anyone opposing the theory.
HA: glad this is back!
And a few days later, it’s back in the Debunked section.
Why would somebody do that? Very strange.
I cant believe I havent read this before.
I think If you repost it from scratch,it will stay out of debunked.+1!
Interesting…
But if I re-post it from scratch, it will lose its high vote. And if it loses its place on the Highest-Rated section, fewer people will see it and comment. I really want as many people as possible to see it and comment. That’s the whole point. But if I leave it as is, every time somebody comments, it goes back to Debunked.
What a conundrum!
I guess what I’ll do for now is restore it, and hope that when it eventually goes to Debunked more people will read it than if it were buried under all of the new theories.
In the future, I was thinking I could leave this original version to be Debunked, but re-post it as a new theory. Then there would be two versions of it, one highly-rated version getting Debunked every time somebody comments, and the other (hopefully) being read and eventually getting rated high enough to appear in the special section. The real solution, as Kat has pointed out, is for the site creator to change the site’s Debunking rules—which, at present, allow a single user to register for different screen names in order to permanently Debunk a theory on no grounds whatsoever.
Would having 2 versions be unethical? What do you think?
One Problem with the theory.
“(Hurley speaks Spanish natively, and she knows that most native Spanish speakers 1) don’t read or speak Portuguese and 2) can make out Portugese if they’re reading it but not understand it spoken.) ”
That’s not true.
My brother speaks fluent portugese. He can turn on the spanish channel on T.V. and translate what the people are saying. So that part of the theory is wrong.
HappyAtheist…….posting the same theory twice would not be unethical.
Using different user names to debunk a theory is what is unethical.
This theory ,unlike WWs theory,has practically full support(Judging by the positive votes)
I think if you mention your concerns about not receiving the same amount of votes as your previous posted theory,the LTcommunity should come together to vote it back where it belongs.Good luck :)
Andy, thanks for your comment.
I agree that native Portuguese speakers, like your brother, usually understand spoken Spanish quite easily.
Native Spanish speakers like Hurley, on the other hand, have a very difficult time understanding spoke Portuguese; although they may be able to make something out if they read it.
This is partly because Portuguese has 12 vowel sounds, while Spanish has 5. So, it’s infinitely easier for Portuguese speakers to understand Spanish than vice versa.
I speak from experience too, because I’m a native Spanish speaker, and I found French much easier to learn than Portuguese. My Spanish-speaking friends and pedagogues tend to agree.
But, I admit that this is a minor, weaker point in the theory. We’ve yet to discover the true Portuguese connection.
Thanks, wtf, I think I’ll try that. It would be great to get some fresh comments and dialogue.
Happyatheist. i thought your comment of “Maybe they could have set the late 80s computer to “push the button automatically”, but they had the human subjects there pushing the button so that they could be observed by the subjects of the psych experiment being conducted in the other station” hit the nail on the head for me. in episode 2:18 Dave, Ben tells Locke he never pressed the button and the system automatically re-set itself, and that the hatch is a joke.
When Naomi talked to Mikhail she was not talking in Portuguese .. but in italian. And the penny’s team, they were brazilians (just for curiosity)