It's Coming! It's Coming! It's in the Trees! The Official *LOST - SUMMER SPECULATION 2006* Action & Anticipation Thread! (now with added links/refs to SPOILERS, sorries)

ONWARDS!

luv,
chaik

For one thing: judging by the reactions in the other thread, I'm not the only one who has no clear idea about what the failsafe was meant to achieve. The bigger problem, though, is reconciling Desmond's involvement with the plane crash. I would like to believe that this is intentional misdirection on the part of the writers, or that something else is involved, at the very least. Because that one fact, if true, would undermine one of the main conceits of the show (the idea that there was a plan to bring these people to the island). Has anyone come up with a theory that would integrate Desmond's involvement with what we knew before? Preferably one that isn't overly-convoluted or super reliant on coincidence (something about the idea of Kelvin manipulating Desmond into leaving the hatch at just the right moment and staying out for just the right amount of time doesn't sit well with me).

Also: I haven't seen this idea bandied around anywhere else, so I'll offer it up here. Everyone seems caught up on the idea of "good people" and "bad people" in terms of morality, but I'm beginning to think that this might be linguistic misdirection (a la the Black Rock). Maybe we should be thinking of "good" and "bad" more in terms of...I don't know, selecting fruit at the market. The good people are the ones that fulfill whatever criteria that made the Others/Hanso/whoever want to bring them to the island and perform their wacky experiments on them. The bad people are the extraneous survivors that don't have any utility w/r/t the Big Plan. I don't know that this idea has any merit, but it's worth considering. And I can't think of anything that refutes it.

That's never actually been stated on the show - just lots of audience theorising. Maybe it just seems that way because of a sort of anthropic principle?

The Hanso Foundation was order to cease activity in an African nation and open their labs to investigators regarding the outbreak of a meningococcal virus that had been transferred from primates to humans. Apparently, the foundation manage to spook the investigators, because they quickly sent out a letter retracting these demands.

Alvar Hanso has not been seen in public since 2002.

Thomas Werner Mittelwerk, one of the executives of the Hanso Foundation, never attended Caltech and is not actually a doctor, despite the claims in his website bio.

Hugh McIntyre, another Hanso exec, claims to be dedicated to "family values." There is evidence he is involved in a very expensive affair with a British woman.

Peter Thompson, the final Hanso exec, was a corporate lawyer fighting against claims filed by cancer victims in cases related to tobacco, nuclear power plants, and waste dumping in rivers. He then came down with cancer himself and went to work for the Hanso Foundation. Additionally, Peter Thompson signatures on various documents related to the Hanso Foundation do not match.

Finally, two of the Board of Directors were arrested for corporate corruption-y things in the late '80s, sentenced to rather long prison terms, and got out in a matter of months thanks to Peter Thompson.

So in short, Hanso may be missing and everyone else involved with the Foundation is extremely corrupt. All the information from the game doesn't seem to have too much to do with the show's storylines right now, but I feel like all this corruption might relate to the Others' motives, whatever they are.

But yes, I think there's probably a middle ground between the specific reason for the plane crash, and the reason why some of those people were on the flight that came to the island.

Anyone got any idea why they didn't keep Hurley despite his name being on the original list?

The main problem with this idea is that it doesn't jibe with Henry's comments to Ana-Lucia to the effect that could change and become good (remember, he said Goodwin believed this). I wouldn't say it's impossible -- exactly what "good" means in the context of the Others totally unclear to me -- but it seems unlikely. And somehow Henry's comment to Michael at the end ("We're the good guys") reinforces this for me.

I think that these issues will get much clearer when we find out what happened to the people who were stolen/vanished from the camps.

Presumably to pass the message on to the other survivors to leave them alone, and not try to rescue them.

P.S. For those who haven't had a chance to peruse the supposedly important comic that Walt was reading in season 1, here it is.

And yes, Hurley's role was to be the town crier who stumbles back into the camp and tells them never to go after them. Only, it is almost definitely not going to play out that way - I'm sure by episode 4 of the third season, Hurley will either find himself meeting people we've never seen before or, more likely, hooking up with Sayid, Jin, and Sun.

Is it clear, though? And if it has been made clear, is it because of the Lost Experience stuff? Granted, I kind of took in the whole series in one big rush, so some of the more subtle stuff may have been lost on me, but I don't remember anything in the series proper thus far that has made a firm distinction between Hanso/Dharma/the Others.

Which is not to say that I think you're wrong. I'm just curious about how you came to that conclusion. Getting a handle on the distinction between the various factions is going to be key to figuring out what the eff is going on with this show.

Cursory stab in the dark theory, based on nothing but the show itself: Dharma set the wheels in motion, Hanso engineered a hostile takeover, some of the technology and experiments got loose, Hanso's people (the Others) are trying to re-harness the stuff that they don't have control over and something about the Oceanic survivors (or some of them, anyway...the "good" ones) is supposedly going to help them achieve that end. The main goal: getting people with extraordinary willpower or "psychic abilities" or somesuch to control the nanoswarm (which may have taken the form of some sort of plague at some point). Like Eko's standoff with the smartsmoke times ten.

I'm completely pulling this out of my ass.

Alternate alternate theory: the plague was total B.S. from day one.

The faith thing seems very complicated now - one of the major things from the finale that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is that Eko's visions were RIGHT. So does this mean we should always trust Eko? Or has someone or something been leading Eko along?

Okay. So who are the people who have met the "monster" head on? Eko and Locke. Who were the people who felt most compelled by "destiny" to work in the hatch after their confrontation with the "monster"? Eko and Locke. Who was being told by "visions" to go to places and do things after meeting the "monster"? Where did they both meet the monster? Near the question mark and the Nigerian plane.

I am certain that the other time we've seen the "monster" but didn't know it was when we saw "Yemi" contacting Locke and Eko in "?" Why Yemi? Because it scanned Eko's memories, and we saw that when the "monster" passed over him in "The 23rd Psalm."

-- pleased to mitya (mitya_il...), May 28th, 2006.

Why would the pilot have to know anything? If they were being pulled deliberately to the island, he probably wouldn't be in the know about that, right?

I have no clue where they might be going with this particular story thread, but I think that there's something more going on, and it's probably not super complicated.

Deric, what have Gale's group ever done to suggest that they have any connection to Dharma? Nothing. Nothing at all whatsoever. Except for use some commandeered Dharma stuff, which is exactly what the castaways have done for themselves. We know that they have something to do with Hanso - Tom Friendly has quoted Alvar Hanso. I think we've been led to conflate Dharma, Hanso, and Widmore all along so that they can BLOW OUR MINDS with the reveals over the course of season 3 that there are actually competing interests at play on this island, and there's probably even more than that.

Did I misunderstand your original theory?

There's always the possibility that they were intercepted on their way to another destination other than Los Angeles.

The people are collected onto a plane bound for LA. The "interception" would be the island. How else would you involve a destination other than LA?

I've been trying to suss out what they meant by this in the podcast ever since listening to it, but I've got to say this is almost certainly it. Great job, Matthew.

Again. I'm starting to think Matthew is dating someone on the production team or something.

Man, if they're seriously denying the whole nanos thing, I don't have a clue. I mean...it's gotta be something with similar properties or something supernatural. I'm definitely leaning towards the former. Or is it a mixture of the two? Mysteries abound.

Deric, what have Gale's group ever done to suggest that they have any connection to Dharma?

Nothing, once you presented the possibility. See my "cursory stab in the dark theory" above. I still stand by everything but the nanos.

But, okay: I also contend that the writers may be splitting hairs. It may not be nanos per se, but I'm willing to bet that it could be a technology that's very reminiscent of nanotech.

Am I gonna have to watch this whole thing again?

the consequences of that are supposed to be explained in the next season.

i just think that everyone on the island is psychic to some degree.

that would go a long way towards explaining the "whispers" in the jungle. like why the only distinct thing heard from them just before the others went dart-crazy was "elizabeth" shortly after desmond returned to the island.

Don't you see! He is one of "them"! Get him!

If not Sarah theres another character on there i don't think i recognise. Juliet (played by Elizabeth Mitchell)

Interesting theories about this here.

sorry, as you were

And Libby's husband was Dr Marvin Candle from the orientation videos.

SO EXCITED NOW.

Dr Marvin Candle was also Dr Mark Wickman in another vid. Still on the candley theme.

the Eko one all I can remember is that if you freeze-frame the smoke monster it seems to flash a bunch of Eko's memories

New thread for season 3's beginning?

Watercooler, wai 2 brake teh_kit's hart tbh.

(yes, yes i know, still early, prob not enough seeders yet etc but it's really crawling...)

fuckin a.