Locke and Jacob

I haven't seen tonight's show yet, but I have a theory as to what might happen.

In the book Lost Horizon, the monks in the monastery of Shangri-La knew all about the people on the plane crash, just like Ben knows all about Jack and the rest of the survivors. It's revealed that they've been doing some research about the main character, Conway, because they think he can fulfill a very particular role in Shangri-La. The High Lama is dying, and they need someone to take his place.

Conway and the High Lama sit down and have very long discussion about philosophy, religion, and the future of the human race. The High Lama reveals to Conway that the reason why they brought the plane, crashed it, was to get Conway to Shangri-La and take over this important role.

I think in tonight's show, "Cabin Fever," Jacob will say the same thing to Locke. That he was brought to the island to take his place...

Tovard's Ledger - A Proposed History

As we learned in "The Constant," the Black Rock ledger was the journal of the first mate of the Black Rock ship.

According to the auctioneer (and other sources like find815.com), the ledger is the only surviving artifact of the final voyage of the Black Rock, which was thought to be lost at sea following its departure from Portsmouth, England, March 22, 1845 on a purported trading mission to the Kingdom of Siam. The ledger was discovered in 1852 among the artifacts of pirates on Île Sainte-Marie, an island off the coast of Madagascar that at the time was a notorious pirate haven. It eventually came to be owned by Tovard Hanso.

The contents of the ledger were never made public and were unknown to anyone outside the Hanso family.

So what in the world is this about? I think it can be easily surmised that Widmore wants the ledger to help him learn about/locate the island.

We know that Widmore was certainly working alongside the Hanso Foundation, but in what capacity is still a mystery. Here's a possible history that I've come up with:

Back at the turn of the century, the Black Rock runs aground at the island. Magnus Hanso discovers a lost civilization much akin to Shangri-La. Magnus (or the first mate) leaves the island with the ledger, telling people of the amazing discovery they made. The Hanso family, with perhaps the wrong intentions, makes a difficult journey back to the island.

Chaos ensues. Like many islands that were colonized by westerners, the indigenous population is killed off and the island is mined for its resources. After decades of having the island to themselves, the Hanso family sets up the Dharma Initiative, to allegedly solve the problems of humanity (or maybe just finding new ways to manipulate and profit from the island).

Some members of the Dharma initiative learn about the history and magic of the island, decide to revolt against the Hanso foundation, and create a new utopia/Shangri-La of their own. Ben gains power within this group, and they take over the island and all of its communications, thereby making it once again invisible to the outside world.

Widmore, whom has been working with Hanso and profiting from the discoveries made on the island, decides to take matters into his own hands. Now that communications are controlled by the insurgents, he acquires the ledger, which is the only known guide to locating the island. He holds a boat race around the world, perhaps in order to get people to end up there. He knows that flight 815 crashed there, and in order to stop people from searching for the wreckage he plants a fake plane at the bottom of the Sunda Trench and backhandedly gets Sam Thomas to find it.

Penny Widmore knows something about what her father is up to, and when Desmond goes missing she learns that her father sent Desmond to the island. She then sets up her own team of people to search for the island. When the hatch implodes, she is able to locate the island.

But Charles Widmore is also able to locate the island, and sends out a boat to go there. He hires Abaddon to be in charge, with the main goal to take Ben out in order to regain control of the island and its communications.

But for whatever reason, it doesn't work...

In the future, control of the island is still in Ben's hands. Abaddon is still on the hunt for him. Sayid, after trusting Widmore and then seeing one of the losties killed because of it, sides with Ben in order to protect the rest of the people on the island. He starts offing key people in the Widmore Corporation, but aims for Charles Widmore himself, "The Economist."

Time Travel: Consciousness vs. Physicality

In "The Constant," Faraday reveals that Desmond's consciousness, his mind, is traveling through time. I'm guessing that the natural tendencies of the island that cause this is the 'casimir effect' discussed in the Orchid orientation film. I'm also guessing that the experiments in the Orchid station are attempting to amplify this effect so that it isn't just consciousness that is caused to travel, but an entire physical being (like a bunny or a polar bear).

The Dragon Triangle

From the History Channel:

More Time/Space Clues

I listened to the latest LOST podcast which has writer/producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse answering viewer questions, although somewhat obliquely. They added some major fuel to the time travel/wormhole theory. Here's an excerpt:
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Damon: "Faraday was conducting some interesting experiments in 'The Economist,' and I was wondering, Carlton, if you'd like to explain to me at least, because I found it very intriguing, what's up with all this rocketry/digital watch fiasco."

Carlton: "Well there was kind of a time shift that obviously occurred. This rocket was launched and was synchronized with Faraday's watch, but in fact when it arrived the digital clock had a slightly different time. Which would suggest that there was some sort of time fluctuation that occurred in that rocket's journey from the freighter to the island, and I think that's something which is pretty important."

Damon: "That's interesting, that's why I was asking."

Carlton: "Thanks for asking, that was a good question. You picked up on something very important in that episode."

Damon: "That's good, because we wrote future episodes about that very thing, and if we hadn't picked up on it, it would have been a detriment to the show..."

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Carlton (reading a fan question to Damon): "How does a polar bear with a Dharma collar get in the middle of the desert?"

Damon (after some silly meandering): "There are properties of the island that are potentially capable of shall we say transporting things from the island off the island."

Carlton: "It might be helpful actually for those viewers who are interested in this question to go online and find the training film for the Orchid Station."

Damon: "Yeah, that would be a very good place to start."

Carlton: "Rarely do we actually have things that aren't in the show that are important to the show, but in this case it is important. Yet if you don't see the Orchid trailer, when we get to it later in the show..."

Damon: "But it's good to say that if you're curious about how a polar bear with a Dharma collar ends up in Tunisia, watch that film because that polar bear has certain things in common with say, bunnies with eights on their backs."

Carlton: "That's right."

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Carlton (answering a question regarding C. S. Lewis): "Let's just say yes, the homage to Clive Staples Lewis is very intentional, and there are definitely themes in the Narnia Chronicles that are very relevant to Lost.... Yes, I think a reading of the Narnia books is not only enjoyable but probably somewhat instructive."

Damon: "Yeah, in the same way that I think Alice in Wonderland is something that we refer to and Oz... What's great about those worlds is they're all world on the other side of earth. That is to say that they're not fantasy realms like Star Wars, Narnia is actually connected to the world that we know and so is Oz, as is Wonderland."

Carlton: "As is our Island."

Damon: "As is our Island."

Time Travel

In the book Lost Horizon, there is a crucial moment at the end of the story. Conway, the main character, and another of the plane crash victims struggle to make their way out of Shangri-La. With them is the character Lo-Tsen who looks about age 19, but has lived in Shangri-La for an untold number of years. When the three of them finally get out of the valley and into the mountains, Lo-Tsen instantly ages, becoming a frail old woman in a matter of seconds. It was as if time completely caught up with her the moment she leaves Shangri-La.

Last night on "The Economist," we were shown that due to whatever strange magnetic features the island possesses, time on the island moves more slowly. But I think the time difference between the island and the world is much more than 30 minutes. My theory is that time off of the island has progressed along with our own. While only 100 days have passed for the crash victims, in the rest of the world it's winter of 2008.

• In the ARG Find815.com created by the writers of the show, the ship Christiane I finds the remains of Oceanic flight 815 in the Sunda Trench, as later tied into the show. The timeline of the finding was very specific - it took place over Christmas of 2007. If the discovery of the wreckage took place before the freighter brought our four new characters to the island, then it must currently be 2008 or after.

• During this summer's Comic-con in San Diego, the writer/producers Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse were on hand to talk about the show and answer some questions. Here's an excerpt from the interview:
Damon: It’s interesting that you should ask about time because… you know… you’re making a basic assumption that they’ve been there, y’know, as long as they think they’ve been there. [Crowd murmurs, someone says “Oh, no.”] I would say by the end of Season 3… that very different idea…
Carlton: Stop right there, Damon, stop right there.
Damon: Well, I was just…
Carlton: Stop right there. Nope, nope, no.

Seems like he was talking about something very key to this season.

• In the new episode Confirmed Dead, the new character Charlotte Staples Lewis is introduced. Her name is a reference to author C. S. Lewis who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia. In those books, time passes in Narnia at a different rate - what seems like months and years in Narnia is only minutes in the outside world, and months passing in the outside world is a thousand years in Narnia.

So If time is moving the way I'm thinking, it could explain several things:

• Walt is taller because he began aging normally after he left the island. Several years have now passed for him.

• Mittelos Bioscience, the name of Richard Alpert's company, was confirmed as being the plot-significant anagram LOST TIME. This refers to the time lost while on the island.

• Alpert shows Juliet a CAT scan during the Mittelos recruitment. Juliet states that they appear to be from a woman in her 70's, while Alpert says the woman is only 26. It is possible that internal aging continues to occur at standard time, though time for the woman (and appearance) moves more slowly. It could also be the result of a woman leaving the Island; like in Lost Horizon, upon leaving the Island and reentering standard time aging may occur rapidly, thus a woman who only lived for 26 years (on the Island) could suddenly become old and die upon leaving.

• Alpert tells Juliet: "You're gonna be amazed at how time flies once you're there."


Regarding time, what might be most intriguing of all is the new orientation film for the Orchid station released by the producers last summer. In it, Edgar Halowax (aka Marvin Candle) says "The unique properties of this Island created a kind of Casimir effect, allowing us to..."
Later in the film a bunny identical to the one he's holding appears out of nowhere and everyone freaks out.

So if we do our research and look up what the hell the Casimir effect is, we learn that it's a physics term that relates to energy fields. This is a quote from the wikipedia entry:
"...the quantum mechanics of the Casimir effect can be used to produce a locally mass-negative region of space-time, and suggested that negative effect could be used to stabilize a wormhole to allow faster than light travel."

Ok, so suddenly we are introduced to the idea the the island has the capability to create wormholes in time/space. This would explain a lot.

• Perhaps when Desmond turned the failsafe key, perhaps he created a wormhole and was able to move freely about in space/time. He arrived at the place he wanted to be most - the time when he should've proposed to Penny.

• The polar bear found in Tunisia with a Dharma collar was an experiment in sending an animal through a wormhole to a different space/time.

• The reference to the book "A Brief History of Time"

• The recording in Room 23 saying "only fools are enslaved by time and space"

• Ms. Hawking (another reference to Stephen Hawking) - In an interview with ew.com the producers suggest that she travels through time.

• Sawyer is seen reading the book "A Wrinkle in Time" in the first season.

• The name of the airport that is shown to be used by Mittelos Bioscience in "One of Us" is "Herarat Aviation." Herarat is an anagram of Earhart, as in Amelia, whose plane mysteriously disappeared over the South Pacific. The reference to Amelia came back in Find815.com, when Sam overheard a transmission from the time of her disappearance on his radio in the cabin, which was unexplained by the radio station. The implication is that the transmission traveled through time.

Basically, my thought is that time on the island moves very slow, and contains the possibility of time travel.

I am dead, but I'm also here.

So far in the new season, they've presented us with plenty of new questions (Who are the Oceanic six? How do they get off the island? What is Hurley and Jack's secret? Who are the people on the boat? etc etc.). I'm guessing that the majority of these questions will be answered by the end of the season. But the main question, the big question we have for this show has to do with the biggest character of all: the island itself. What is the story of the island? Why is it the way it is? What exactly makes it so different, and why? (John Locke's character represents the search for this answer - when Ben told him that he had answers, Locke didn't want to know about the crewmen, he wanted to know what the smoke monster was, perhaps the biggest mysterious characteristic of the island) The question of the island is the big question of the show, and I don't think we'll get the full answer until the end of the entire series.

In the first two episodes of the new season, if we look past the other plotline mysteries they keep throwing at us, we'll see that they've been giving us some pretty strong clues about the nature of the island, and it has to do with death.

Naturally there've been plenty of clues about death earlier in the show, I even wrote a post about it (check it out here). But in the new episodes, there have been two larger efforts to make the presence of the dead on the island seem much more concrete. In the past, when we've seen or heard the dead on the island (Jack's dad, for example), it was treated almost as a hallucination, and it left the viewer wondering if the vision was real or imaginary. But now the dead are literally slapping us in the face. Hurley directly confronts Charlie with our own concerns. "You're dead, and this is just a hallucination, right?" But Charlie demonstrates otherwise, and another inmate sees him too.

And then we have Miles Straume. I think it's very significant that this new character, who might be even more matter-of-fact than Sayid, plays a ghost hunter. This is someone who seems incredibly practical and down to earth, unlike the new physicist Daniel Faraday. We don't doubt that he spoke to that kid in the bedroom and got the facts from dead Naomi. I think this is very intentional. Somehow the voices of the dead on this island are very real, not hallucinations, and this is a revealing bit of info on the island for us to chew on.

I see the island as a psychic amplifier. Whatever is going on with the electromagnetic anomalies it creates, it enhances all manner of psychic abilities, which also means people abilities to communicate with the dead, and vice-versa. If you are already gifted in this arena (like Walt, for example) it only makes your skills stronger.

Other thoughts:
- Perhaps all children tend to be better psychic communicators, have these skills, which is why they were being stolen.
- After seeing the ABC "Missing Pieces" short, I'm also convinced that Vincent the dog can see dead people.
- Perhaps the whispers we keep hearing are the voices of the dead.

I welcome your comments!

The Crash Synchronized

Thoughts on Jacob

So this Jacob character was at first presented as this all-knowing guru or guiding figure. He was considered leader of the others, had a list, and was loved by God. Ben seemed to use him as an excuse to do all sortsa crazy shit.

Here are my thoughts on Jacob:

In the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain," when Ben first meets Richard Alpert by the sonar fence, Ben explains that he was out there looking for his dead mother. Alper doesn't seem to think that this is a big deal. Only when Ben mentions that she didn't die on the island does Richard think Ben is pretty special.

This leads me to believe a couple of things. First, it kind of explains that seeing people on the island that were supposed to have died there, or their bodies are there, is a kind of natural occurrence (see Christian Shephard, Boone, Yemi, etc.). Second, it demonstrates that Richard thinks Ben is special, much like Walt was thought to be "special." So the others seem to put a premium on psychic abilities, powers, or what have you. With this I'm going to surmise a story about Ben and his relationship to Jacob.

In my Shangri-La theory, there was an older civilization on the island that lived in a kind of paradise on the island. In Lost Horizon, this place was ruled by the High Lama, who was originally a jesuit priest who made his way into the valley, combined western religion with eastern philosophies, and used the natural tendencies of the valley to lead people into a kind of utopian ageless paradise. For right now, I'm going to say that this character of Jacob represents this High Lama guy. But at some point in the history of the island, something went wrong. The original inhabitants were killed off, some crazy corporations took over to try and mine the place of its riches. There was an incident. Or something. This act of destruction caused Jacob to be left in some sort of limbo.

The others that Ben joins are westerners, possibly ex-dharma scientists, that somehow discovered the original history of the island and want to re-create the Shangri-La that once was. Already they've discovered some of the island's natural tendencies (like psychic reconstruction of the dead and agelessness). They know that the previous civilization was perhaps ruled by Jacob, that he's supposed to be in that cabin, but they're not quite sure how to talk to him. Enter Ben Linus. When he becomes initiated into their group, they think "just how special is this kid?" They tell him that he should try and communicate with Jacob, see what happens. So he goes into that cabin and tries, but doesn't hear or see a damn thing. But Ben's a slimy mofo, and out of fear of rejection or whatever, he lies and tell the people that he did, in fact see and talk to Jacob. So suddenly he's the only one that can talk to Jacob, and over time Ben uses this to become an authority on Jacob's wishes and leader of the Others.

Ben, being the twisted dude that he is, tells the others that Jacob wants all sorts of mayhem. Kill the scientists. Kidnap the children. etc.

So when Ben brings Locke to the cabin, he doesn't expect Locke to hear a damn thing. And when Locke doesn't hear anything, he would then tell the others that Locke isn't that special after all. But Locke does hear Jacob, and suddenly Ben is threatened. The entire authority that he's falsely constructed for himself is about to be challenged. So his only choice to stay in power is to kill Locke.

I would also say that this abuse of power is what caused Ben to get ill with the tumor. Locke keeps saying how Ben's wheelchair demonstrates that he's not the real leader. Somehow, the island picks its own, and Locke knows this. Jacob isn't this floating metaphysical entity that makes commands to steal children and kill the bad people, he's a guy stuck between worlds and needs help from our main man John MFing Locke.

Original Orientation FIlm

As time has gone by, I'm discovering that lots of people I've been talking to haven't seen or heard of the original Dharma film that was released online during the summer of 2006 ARG. If you haven't seen it, it's certainly worth a look:

Saying Goodbye to My Free Time

The new LOST arg starts here:

http://www.flyoceanicair.com/

And so it begins.