The Others are Dharma
+17 17 Votes
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By SarahShepherd
- The Others are Dharma
- Created: Jul 24, 2008
- Last updated: Aug 14, 2008
- After episode: 4.13: There’s No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3
- Status: Current
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This theory builds off of a number of theories that have been posted on this and other sites. My apologies if it doesn’t turn out to be original.
I think that the Others are Dharma.
First, some background. We know that the island can “move” in space and time. Ben moved the island by turning the donkey wheel, then Ben woke up in the desert in Tunisia. It appears that the island has moved at least one other time. We have hypothesized that the black rock came to be on the island when the island appeared beneath the Black Rock. We also know that a polar bear with a Dharma collar died a long time ago in the desert in Tunisia, presumably because the bear turned the donkey wheel. The bear’s skeleton is pretty old, and the Black Rock is pretty old. Maybe when the bear moved the island, the bear ended up in Tunsia and the Black Rock ended up on the island.
Here’s the heart of my theory:
Members of the Dharma Initative were on the island when the bear moved it. The DI was experimenting with the island’s unique properties. They wanted to see if they could move the whole island, and not just individual bunnies. The DI built the donkey wheel and trained a polar bear to turn it.
When the bear turned the wheel, the island was sent back in time (and possibly to another point in space). The island appeared underneath the Black Rock. The captain of the Black Rock was Magnus Hanso, Alvar Hanso’s grandfather (or something like that). This is how Hanso, Dharma, et. al. originally discovered the island!
But when the Black Rock “landed” on the island, there were already people there— the DI members from the future! The Black Rock crew thought that the DI members were the original inhabitants of the island. The original DI members came to be known as the natives, hostiles, and others.
This explains why Richard and the others do not age. The others won’t age until they “catch up” with time (i.e. their time traveling selves reach the point where the bear sent them back in time.) It also explains the pregnancy problem. The others cannot reproduce because their wombs are still aging and/or time travelers having babies would mess up the course of destiny. For more on this line of thought, see theories about the island being stuck in a time loop.
This also explains why Ben tries to keep the others on the island and cuts off outside communication. If the others meet themselves in the future, it could get ugly. I know— how very “back to the future.” But in the Orchid video on youtube, Dr. Candle-wick-what’s-his-name is very concerned about time traveling bunny meeting present bunny.
If the Others are Dharma, it may also explain the purge. The Others killed off Dharma to prevent Dharma from continuing the cycle. See, without the purge, maybe Dharma would have discovered the wheel room, trained a bear to turn the wheel, sent the island back in time, and the Black Rock would have discovered the island all over again. The Others would be trapped in the cycle indefinately.
Two caveats:
This is a theory about the plot. It does not explain the whole plot. I’ve been working on a timeline, and there are lots of elements that don’t add up (i.e. Rousseau lands on the island ~1988, but the purge doesn’t happen until 1992). This suggests that the island has moved more than once. This theory also doesn’t address Widmore. What’s his stake in the island? How much does he know about the Others?
Second, this theory doesn’t address the mystical elements of the show— Jacob, smokey, the four-toed statute, etc. There is something going on on the island that is independent of Dharma (both present day Dharma and the Others).
it doesn’t explain the dogs!
I really like this theory. +1 from me :)
interesting theory!! One thing is kind of unclear, you said that when the island moved, it “landed” underneath the Black Rock, after the Dharma polar bear turned the donkey wheel. I thought that the Black Rock was from the 1700s? Or are you suggesting that the island moved back in time, while the donkey stayed in the present, only moving through “space”? I really like how your theory goes to explain the pregnacy issues alongside the time travel and how it doesn’t fit in with destiny. good theory. +1
I think that when the polar bear turned the donkey wheel, both the bear and the island ended up in the 1700s. The bear must have died some time ago (i.e. the 1700s) to be “fossilized” when Charlotte finds it.
There is more evidence that the “wheel turner” and the island travel both travel in time and space. It appears that Ben time traveled when he moved the donkey wheel. He wasn’t sure what year he woke up in. It turned out to be 2005. So maybe Ben moved the island ahead in time by just little bit; both Ben and the island moved as little as a few seconds (up to one year) into the future. Hiding the island was more about moving it in space (since moving it in time has proven to be problematic for the others, and it’s an option of last resort). The island is hidden from Widmore because it has materialized in a different place in the ocean sometime in 2005.
When the island moved other times (to explain inconsistencies in the show’s time line), it also seems like it didn’t move very far in time. This part of the theory is very incomplete (which is why I didn’t post it above), but I’m thinking that Widmore moved the island after the purge (1992) back to ~1988 when Danielle’s crew arrived. That’s why it seems like the island was unoccupied when Danielle arrived (she was able to change the message at the Dharma radio station, she doesn’t mention ever seeing any other people on the island, such as DI members, all she hears are the whispers), and why her team died from a disease contracted from the others (maybe the others thought that Dharma was back, so they made Danielle’s crew sick too). That would explain why Widmore can’t return to the island himself, and why he tried to get Desmond and the freighter people to find the island for him. This last paragraph is a tangent— but that’s the direction my thoughts are heading.
I also have a separate theory on how the island moves in space and what’s going on with the live/dead people (Christian, possibily Claire, Ben’s mom, etc). It invovles quantum mechanics and Schrödinger’s cat. I’m not smart enough to explain it, but if you want to make sense out of it for yourself, this is a good place to begin: http://www.physics.uiowa.edu/~umallik/adventure/quantumwave.html. Also look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger’s_cat and http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4260687.html.
As far as the pregnancy issue goes… it does not explain the reason why Sun must get off the island to prevent her baby from dying. Her baby would not have a chance of meeting itself in the outside world.
Otherwise, I like the fact that this is actually a theory and made me think.
Not bad at all +1
This expresses space and time continuity in an original way. Good stuff.
Why is it necessary for a polar bear to have turned the Donkey wheel? Perhaps at an earlier time the island was in the Mediterranean Sea and the Bear simply migrated to Tunisia. I know a lot of people think that the Polar bear must have turned the Donkey wheel and experianced a similiar consequence as Ben, but I think that the writers are misdirecting us from the true consequence of turning the Donkey wheel. I have a problem with a polar bear being brought down to the wheel through the elevator and then breaking thru the ceiling and then trained to turn a Donkey wheel that is only turned once. It’s not like a normal Donkey wheel that is milling grain or needs to be continuously turned in the open. I think an even likelier scenario may be that the Dharma Initiative was conducting experiments in Tunisia. I believe the Hanso Corporation was conducting experiments in Zanzibar, why not Tunisia. The bones may rather recent..
That said, I do like your theory, although you haven ‘t quite conviced me that the others are Dhama. +1
I don’t understand this concept that traveling through time could cause you not to age. I suppose the writers could give time travel any kind of properties.
what about the “dogs” we see in the show? it is quite recurrent and you haven’t explained it…
nice .. +1 from me
i agree to quite a lot, except maybe the purge… the island already had the bears and the cages before the purge, so that means that they already discovered the wheel and trained bears to do it no? so the purge happened after that. so your theory doesn’t explain the purge
another question: Ben, as the leader of the others.. should he not know that the reason for the pregnancy issues is the incompatibility with the time they live in? Of course he should.. why is he then searching so hard for a remedy through science (juliet) ? If the problem is “time”, then there is no solution!
Interesting, +1.
Regarding the Purge, though, you say that it is done to prevent the island from being sent back in time again, because that would keep those on the island in a never-ending loop. But wouldn’t it also mean that the Black Rock never ended up on the island in the first place, so no one inhabited the island and discovered the Orchid Station’s abilities, so no one sent the island back in time…
I guess I don’t understand how it explains Richard not aging, or the pregnancy issues either.
Good theory…. +1.
Also, to Blacksmokemiror: why not respond to the actual theory in this thread, instead of bringing up you own theory in every single new post since your own theory about the dogs?
Your theory is well thought out and many parts of it made sense to me. The difficulty in pregnancies, why Juliet cautioned Sun, and Claire gave birth successfully are additional points to ponder in this theory.
All in all a good theory for many parts of the LOST mystery +1
On the pregnancy issue:
Check out Segwaypirate’s theory about self-consistency in time travel at http://www.lost-theories.com/theories/2008/apr/01/novikov-self-consistency-princ/.
The Others cannot have babies because that would change a future that’s already been written… Only the time traveling otheres cannot have babies because having babies would create a paradox. Claire and Sun can have babies because (as far as we know) they aren’t time travelers. Juliet is NOT an original other. She can probably have babies too. Ben is not an original other either. Ben and Juliet are trying to solve the pregnany problem, but it looks like they don’t have all the information they need… Ben and Juliet may not be aware that the Others can’t have babies because they traveled back in time too far.
And on the aging issue:
Let’s say that Dharma trained the polar bear to move the wheel in 1995. In 1995, the island (with it’s Dharma members) were sent back to 1700. The original Dharma members— now the Others— live without aging from 1700 to 1995.
Now it’s the Other’s second time through the 1980s— Dharma 2 comes to the island and starts experimenting with sending bunnies through time and space. The Others need to kill off Dharma 2 before they meet themselves in 1995. The Others also want to avoid being stuck in a time loop forever, so they don’t want Dharma 2 to advance to the point of where the bear moves the whole island again. So in 1992, the Others kill off all of the Dharma members.
Add this to the new Comic Con video— maybe the purge is inevitable because of the time loop/paradox that Dharma has created for itself (i.e. Dharma discovers the island because Dharma moves the island back in time).