4815162342.com

[Manoover]

FOREWORD

The support I draw for this theory spans the scope of the LOST broadcasts, as well as the canonical multimedia elements of The Lost Experience alternate reality game. If you consider the ARG materials to be spoilers, you may want to avoid this thread.

Beyond this foundation, I've filled in a fundamental story arc. The discussion on this thread has helped to enrich it greatly! Some hypothetical details--many of which are full-blown theories in their own right--have been fitted in, down in the thread...and I'll leave them there, for now. Those wishing to dispute those independent details will hopefully find one of the many focused threads in which to do so. However, more discussion of how additional details might fit in, or not fit in, is welcomed! In the context of this theory, certainly, not all LOST mysteries have been evaluated. Please feel free to discuss how these mysteries support or defeat my proposals. Also, I LOVE to write when I have a chance, so please no cracks about how I choose to waste my "spare time." Moving on....

THE STORY

At Princeton, a miniature scroll was fastened in his cubicle, bearing the calligraphic Latin inscription, "COGITO ERGO DOLEO." English translation: I think, therefore I despair. A scholarly joke, really. "My motto," he sighed.

Enzo Valenzetti was depressed. He got that way by thinking too much. But the patterns just wouldn't stop! They came to him so naturally, he didn't really understand why they weren't clear to everyone. Of course, not just anyone would be looking from his perspective.

Already, his worldwide reknown as a brilliant mathematician had been firmly established, ever since he had solved the venerable mystery of Fermat's Last Theorem. The truly magnificent scope of his "renaissance" intellect, however, was largely unrumored. No suprise, really, because he didn't get out much. Great thoughts ruled his life, and the realms of astronomy, astrophysics, biology, chemistry, cosmology, geology, medicine, meteorology, and zoology were only a few of his mental playgrounds. Most recently, he had been assembling a historical overview of the literature on some "softer" sciences: paleontology, agriculture, ecology, economics, government, jurisprudence, military science, politics, psychology and, of course, history itself. He frequently mused about the "connectedness" of it all, and thought he could publish something new, without much math. He was a little tired of being "that Fermat guy."

But then...gestalt! Cognizance!! Mathematics was a part of--no, instrinsic to--the connections!!! He set to work, quantifying and codifying the patterns of connections across the history of disciplines, across all of mankind's learning, really. Notebooks were filled...THE EQUATION EMERGED.

And that's when the depression got started. Civilization, mankind's vehicle to peace and advancement, was in peril. Nay, doomed. Every nation-state in history, under every system of government, was subject to the convergence in probability of a massive number of nemeses to its continuing success. The sources of threat ranged from societal and political pressures, to economic concerns of population and resources, to competitors big and small from the natural kingdoms, to the weather, the earth itself, and things yet more cosmic. He calculated all the odds. Rome, Greece, and other stand-out examples of historical empires all met their demises quite predictably, he found, within the paramaters of his equation. He applied it to Soviet Russia, and saw the coming fall. He checked other then-current, seemingly robust governments...and began to be afraid. Bad outcomes, seemingly inevitable, were the rule.

Desperate to find the exception case, he went back to the beginning. The legendary Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh claimed that the ancient god-king of Uruk was the founder of mankind's civilization, but Enzo knew that, internationally, it really began in the Egypt of 2613 BC. This was the reign of Sneferu, who built the first true pyramids, aligining them with the arc of the Sun and imbuing them with the sacredness of his royal cult. Snefuru, first Pharoah of the 4th Dynasty, who documented the very first trade agreements with other nation-states...he was the beginning of peaceful coexistence on earth--at least, the overall attempt--as much as it exists today.

He looked at his small chart of royal cartouches for a moment, lost in thought. Almost unaware, Enzo found himself, from this starting point, running the calculations for the entire sweep of modern civilization. At first, it didn't look too unmanageable. Many formidable challenges were predicted around the globe, but Enzo had hope that the greatest efforts of humanity could address these, if given the proper awareness to act in time.

But then, as he continued to calculate into the future, the inescapable threat swelled in his analysis, drawn from a scant 17 days of observational data in 1950. Astronomical observation had captured just that much of the path of 1950 DA, a dense, Mars-crossing asteroid. Enzo did the rest of the math, and discovered that its closest approach to earth would be March 16, 2880. The chance of collision was 1/300, but the chance of worldwide panic would be 100%, as the object loomed visibly in the sky during the last century of its journey. The chaos of fear and finality would reduce our societies, and all their progress, to ashes, and banish our remnant back to the caves. Of course, if the asteroid actually hit the earth, there wouldn't be a remnant of humanity to remember even the concept of civilization. Obsessed, he worked out the hours, from Sneferu to The End: 48,151,623:42.

He hadn't slept much since then. He couldn't tell very many people what he'd found, and those few he'd trusted had not been supportive, smiling their denials before getting back to work. They seemed to refuse to see. His days were now a hollow routine, as he came to work, had some coffee, and tried to attend to such mundane, and now meaningless, chores such as the evaluation of student theses.

He checked his watch. He was late for a guest lecture, some new ideas about Skinnerian conditioning and utopian social protocols, by a pair of visiting grad students, Gerald DeGroot and Karen Hanso. They appeared to be well-funded, and had actually begun some field work in experimental communities. He figured he could kill a few hours. He'd try not to ask many questions...and to restrain the urge to argue. What would be the point?

***dialing down the literary pretention factor just a bit, to inject an aside***

As you can see, for this update, I've elaborated a story for Valenzetti, and how he met Gerald and Karen. I've also added a new wrinkle, by having Gerald marry Alvar's daughter Karen...which helps to cement how a pair of academic social-sciences types could erect such a prestigious partnership with The Hanso Foundation. The Foundation's multidisciplinary science research was backed--and fronted--by the respected Alvar Hanso, who had refocused his life's work. He had parleyed has origins, as a purveyor of advanced arms to the winning allies of WWII, into his new role as the steward of mankind's technical progress. Due to the highly-placed connections he had developed with world leaders over the course of his career, his egalatarian good intentions, and his intelligent, persuasive, and charismatic eloquence, Alvar had become universally regarded as, "Humanity's ambassador to the future."

By the time his daughter approached him with Enzo's depressing predictions, she and her intended husband had already attacked the problems with their activist social philosophies. They had a promising program for improving human society, and "hardening" it against future destructive pressures, but more was needed. Hanso had the hard science that could address some of the potential pressures head on, by vanguarding technological innovations to improve our fighting chances against disease, natural disasters, genetic drift...and hopefully, the threats from outer space.

Alvar believed. The mission was clear, and the Dharma initiative to save civilization was born. Peace, justice, equality, and mankind's progress towards true enlightenment would not be permitted to perish from the earth.

As a practical and ethical matter, Alvar knew the world would have to help save itself. His existing, expensive lines of research into genetics, nanotechnology, and control of the fundamental force of electromagnetism...these would have to be stepped up to a whole new level, and quickly. The Hanso PR team assembled a presentation and made some phone calls, arranging a closed-session visit to the United Nations security council, where Alvar presented the plan for combatting the apocalypse.

But agreement could not be reached. The nations of the world could not unite and cooperate for this purpose. Many didn't believe The End was nigh, and some of the more controversial aspects of research related to genetics, social controls and parapsychological studies seemed to bar any progress toward consensus. The arguments waxed and waned as the years slipped by, while Alvar fruitlessly attempted to keep the dialogue lofty and the perspective global. He had been funding the research, but in order to proceed with clinical and field trials, an enormous investment would be needed, and opposing interference would have to be mitigated. The long project timelines for dealing with the most crucial probablities were already stressed, and there really was no more time to waste in fruitless debate.

He accepted a curious invitation from America's UN Ambassador, and found himself in a quiet conversation with representatives of the Pentagon and the CIA. They had independently followed-up with Valenzetti, and they agreed that the work--ALL of it, controvesial or not--had to proceed immediately. The acceptance and backing of foreign and domestic political bodies was not assured, and could no longer be pursued. The US would fund Dharma as a covert project, and would work behind the scenes to ensure that the world didn't interfere with its own salvation. With deep reservations but seeing no other choice, Alvar agreed to the deal, and Dharma went underground.

Widmore Labs & Contruction and Paik Heavy Industries had been useful and discrete partners for Hanso in the past. They were enlisted to quietly build research facilities in Iceland, Zanzibar, and offshore from Korea. Additionally, a very special proving ground would be assembled on an uncharted island in the South Pacific. The money changed hands, and construction proceeded briskly. Scientists, researchers and technologists from the Foundation, the US government, and some few trusted members of the world's academic community began to populate the installations...and the experiments got underway.

But there were horrible problems. Efforts to exert electromagnetic control over seismic activity and the world's weather were making remarkable progress, but the pace of research and testing had led to some tragic oversights and costly accidents. Defusing suspicious inquiries from world bodies about freak storms and earthquakes was becoming more and more difficult. Containing leaks about human genetic engineering and parapsychological/psychological manipulation was essential, and the ethical dilemma therein haunted Alvar constantly. Even misleading the subjects of the experimental communities--who were made to believe that the Apocalypse was Now, that their struggle to survive was real, and that their obedience to the protocols was the sole hope for our species--these things weighed heavily on Alvar's conscience.

The DeGroots had also expressed their reservations about US control. When successes of genetic improvements in the experimental communities began to emerge, the government had unsubtly steered the operant conditioning of the subjects towards military and intelligence applications. They wanted the hardier, stronger, faster and brilliant colonists to be made ready as soldiers and spies, so their heightened intuitions, perceptions and abilities could be put to use "just in case." Maintaining control of the subjects was a problem itself; they were curious, smart, and worried...by design. The CIA had helped to engineer the conditioning programs into an amazingly effective weapon for propaganda and disinformation (the PR efforts had benefited from this as well), so manipulation of the colonists was still possible, but the limits were fast approaching.

From the Zanzibar installation came more disturbing news. The meningococcal strains engineered there, whose potency was intended for rigorous human testing of the successful new super-vaccines, were being mass-produced by order of the Pentagon. The germs were already stockpiled at levels well beyond the needs of testing...and well beyond the amount of vaccine.

And then there were the reports that secret recruitment efforts were being conducted out in the world, using Dharma techniques to identify and manipulate the lives of a wave of future candidates. To Alvar, if this were true, it seemed highly premature. He knew that the government faction in the project had been working very closely with Valenzetti, studying the predictions...and now it seemed that Enzo had disappeared. Ever depressed, had the brilliant man finally been driven to suidcide? Or did the government now know more than they were sharing with Alvar? He saw the signs of a hidden, sinister agenda, and became alarmed in the extreme, suspecting that some senior members of his Foundation could be cooperating without his knowledge.

His concerns were not allayed by the upcoming test of the Surveillance, Weather, And Neutralization system. The control of weather through electromagnetic directing and warming of ocean and air currents, and charging of atmospheric particles, had been achieved, despite some painful stumbles...but now the station had been fully powered--prematurely, he thought again--for a hurried test of it's object interception/repulsion capabilities. Not wanting to wait around for an incoming meteor to zap, the Pentagon had supplied a ballistic test missle for the SWAN to grab out of the sky. The tenor of the government's involvement had gotten entirely too martial for Alvar's tolerance...he knew what War was, and understood better than most the dark contingencies that drove world leaders to make less than noble plans, "just in case." The potential for misuse of the most dangerous Dharma projects could no longer be ignored. Ever forthright, Alvar wrote letters to his government sponsors, insisting on revising the agreements for organizational control of Dharma, and suggesting that the work should once again be returned to the world stage. He contacted the PR department about a new series of press releases to get the ball rolling.

The response was immediate, if not quite above board. Alvar, Gerald and Karen would be silenced during their next tour of the Pacific facility--a convenient, covert locale for disposal, and their travel there would not be on a public flight plan. The SWAN would be engineered to disable their plane during the interception test-fire, and their outside communications would be jammed until the government could arrange a cover story to persuede its colonist operatives to "eliminate the leaks."

But again, the hasty plans went afoul. Some time during its development, the SWAN had been reprogrammed to ignore a new Rohini surveillance and weather satellite, which the Indian government had inconveniently launched into a polar orbit that coincidentally intersected the position of the South Pacific Dharma Island. When programming the destruction of Alvar's plane, the CIA technician had inadvertantly hooked in to the satellite "blinders."

This precipitated The Incident. After Alvar landed on the island and begin to tour the facilities with Gerald, Karen, and an entourage of his trusted senior advisers and scientists...the CIA initiated the program to spring the trap on Alvar. The agent actually pushed the button in full view of the executive visitors, during their visit to the SWAN. Other project members had assembled outside on the beach, some distance away from the station, anxious to watch the interception test play out in the sky.

The satellite swept by overhead.

The Island reverberated with a cacophony of dynamic and mechanical sounds. A hypo-sonic vibration saturated the ground and air, driving all personnel on the Island to their knees, and rendering the delegation and staff in the SWAN station instantly unconcious.

A paroxysmal eruption of EM energy, perceived by and overwhelming all senses, physical and otherwise, raked the Island. The devastation was horrifying, both physical and electronic, as would be discovered later after the damaged SWAN shut down and a survey team was dispatched for assessment and repair work. The project was set back considerably, but the threat of exposure was now fully contained (for the most part)...and the new leadership of Dharma would make sure it stayed that way. Of course, the research and technology program would have to be accelerated yet again, whatever the risk...and the recruitment efforts to replace the project operators and subjects would need to be redoubled.

At the top of the priority list was the restoration work on the SWAN...but when they put it back on line, they found it was no longer fully under their control. It couldn't be shut down again, and was ready to execute it's default programming when triggered, even though the results COULD be as disastrous as last time. There wouldn't even have to be another EM explosion for the project to be further jeopardized; while unmolested by the Incident, the Rohini satellite had noticed SOMETHING had happened below. Just what had happened was unclear, and the government media message had succeeded in dismissing it as an atmospheric anomaly...for now. But any further sightings could not be permitted.

So a new protocol was instituted in the SWAN station. It was dubbed "The Valenzetti Countdown," because the passcode was derived by separating Enzo's total hours of civilization into basic ascending numbers, which convienently summed up to 108; the orbital period of the prying satellite. Entry of this passcode during the scheduled fly-by time windows would divert the SWAN's programming; instead of grabbing at the satellite, the system would execute a cover program, erecting a minor electromagnetic screen to simulate a storm when veiwed from space. The eye in the sky would remain ignorant, and the world's suspicions would not be triggered, while the Dharma overhaul planning proceeded apace.

The Valenzetti Countdown required manual intervention, and could not be automated due to the SWAN damage. It would be executed by highly-conditioned experimental subjects, who would be told only that "the button must be pushed" in order to "save the world" from even further devastation than that which they believed had already occurred. Meanwhile, the SWAN mechanism was segregated from the station behind a concrete barrier, with alternate access tunnels for the Dharma technicians who would perform such repairs as could be devised over time.

Yet more distractions arrived when the experimental subjects began to revolt, and Dharma had to employ insider staffers to operate the station. Recruitment efforts began their culmination in order to prevent further delays to the project. The partially-repaired SWAN machine was used to snare passing ships and planes, but the random passengers of these vessels proved to have a very low percentage of "good" candidates for indoctrination.

So a very special passenger list was assembled for Oceanic flight 815, and the machinations and manipulations, which set the stage for our show, were carried out....

Author's notes: I hope to expand this story as the script and the ARG continue to unfold (and as I remember to include some of the ideas I probably left out in the update!). I wish it to be modular, so it can incorporate the rest of the yet-to-be revealed mysteries under its umbrella. I'm inviting (nay, pleading) for additional rough-but-intelligent commentary that can be used to further refine the shape of the theory; please look to the excellent examples of beautiful discourse provided in the thread so far, both by my creative communal cadre (melanie, IamTotallyLost, and zombie_soiree), and by others who have made fair contributions of ideas, both on and off this thread. Thank you all so much!!

P.S. The theory, as originally posted raw, is archived at this link on About.com.

[bwannabeast]

My God . . . Its full of Stars!!!

Nice work!

[xirxious]

Good theory, and for the purposes of the show, they would assume the Vanzetti eqns are true. Many people have shown how they do not apply to humans. We are the first species to leap out of the 'only the stong survive' model and for the first time on the planet, have the means to hold back out own extinction. we rose to the top of the food chain and Vanzetti didn't account for that.

[melanie]

griped about the lack of anecdotal info gleaned from "the thread's pole "

griped about how broad a scope the theory was intended to have, as it then only included explanations for focused phenomena


"Having theorized that the end of civilization would occur on day X, the Degroots planned to create a super race that could survive past that date."

Seems to be the "gist" of what you've theorized. Period.
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prodded for whether Valenzetti viewed a mere change in the type of civilization which could outlive the "whatever would be happenning" or if NO human could survive

That affirmed, my first suggestion is that you clarify what Valenzetti meant by "civilization".

Did he MEAN we as a species won't be able to survive some event....like fallout of war....or global warming which finally destroys the balance the earth'd otherwise enjoy....at which point our ecology would no longer support us (without time for adaptation...)?

(because the nature of civilization's END would affect to what degree a "super strain" of humans could be "trained"....

Sometimes, we're just going to be animals at the will of the elements....)

Or is it meant that the "nature" of our civilization will change (i.e., we'll evolve from being a modern civilization to a postmodern one...)

In that case....yeah....I guess some measures could be taken to create a group who'd survive the change.....but, isn't that the purpose of unaided human evolution , anyway? I guess "survive" even in my own questioning needs defining.....Are we talking actual ability to maintain LIFE....or "thrive" (and by who's standard?)

If Valencetti was saying:
"There'll be some incident, and "modern civilization" (which is used as a fancy way of saying "WE") won't physically have what it takes to make it through"....then, of course, any experimentation would seem rather futile....particularly if "event" is left without definition.... (do we prep for flood? famine? too hot? too cold?)

If Valencetti's using "modern civilization" in more a qualitative manner.....as to say"
"This SORT of mindset will benefit one wishing to keep up with the times"......then, yes, perhaps some experimentation would be in order, towards to goal of preparing some to have the neccessary adaptive skills to achieve SOME unknown form of "survival"


...whether that be at the most basic level....like keeping on breathing or something more subjectively determined....like ...um.... "maintaining a continuity of culture" at some level....


BUT- before we can LOOK to what the "experimentation"might have had as its goal....we've got to know how the Degroot's defined the "need"......and, so, we've got to know the specific warning Valencetti sent out
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Assuming that you can convince us that Valencetti's concern is something that some careful planning might be able to address,

You would then need to convince us that the SORTS of experiments we're learning of would make sense to be to an end of addressing the worry that what Valencetti predicts, will , in fact, commence on day X.

Then, you could land with:

"There were some experiments planned in order to eventuate in the development of some group of humans who could ________ (breathe, thrive, and how?) past this date they'd theorized on which SOMETHING would occur."
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I think that's the whole of the theory you wish to have approved now..... and the rest of what you've written is just re-cap of what else is happenning - for which, you offer no explanation.

So, I can ONLY say, NO, I can't accept the theory, because you haven't given me any reasons to think this is so. You've got to go back and answer those bits I've mentioned....and maybe more that others will ask about.

scanning your draft now
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hmm...I THINK you're trying to say that you can answer for many other questions...yet you don't mention HOW...which is why I can't consider any further as a theory. I can only see the rest as you saying "I wonder if....". This is FINE, as it's where all theorizing begins But, you've got to be clear that that's where you are in your process- OR, you've got to lay on the evidence
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I think the question I have that's most unsettling...one that actually elicits feeling rather than just my sense that there's only a surface that's been considered, but no depth which can answer for such....

is this:

WHY...if the purpose of DI is to find a way to best prepare the human race to survive "whatever"- and then DO it....

would their efforts be covert?

Why wouldn't they be seeking grants everywhere they COULD? publicizing everywhere they COULD?

In that their goal would be to safeguard the human species from "something" (need that definition).....it only makes SENSE that the research would be publicly funded.

I'm really confused.

[melanie]

[Manoover]

Ms. melanie, I'm thrilled that you looked at this with a discerning eye. Your criticisms are well ordered and thoughtful.

Let me say first that I used broader strokes to avoid writing several pages in my initial post, which was close to the tolerence limit for even dedicated readers like yourself (and probably over the line for most). I tried to make it entertaining...so maybe it's a little too "fluffy" for the incisive mind.

Secondly, I really only wanted to get a general up-or-down feeling from the poll, not a nuanced grade. "Mostly like" or "mostly dislike" is good enough for me.

As to my overall purpose: I'm trying to integrate several mysterious elements of the ARG (including the HF website and phone number, and the Bad Twin book), and several more such elements from the show's flashbacks and film clips, into an arc that fits the story-so-far on our show. I'm hoping it's an overall explanation that not only fits the observations we've already been given, but which can also support further hypotheses about other details. If I'm really lucky, it might be close enough to the actual LOST script-bible that it won't fall apart under future twists and reveals as the series progresses. (Or it may go down in flames when Joop timewarps back to the Big Bang on his 108th birthday, and blows out all our Candles.)

As you know from my previous post in the General Forum topic The Log File, my central, specific (and, I hope, somewhat original) proposition has to do with the meaning of The Numbers! After many, many hours of fruitless pondering, I feel like I have a grip on this for the very first time, ever. It's got me all a-twitter. They, and Gilgamesh, have been the subjects of some of my longest forum ramblings to date, and it's very exciting for me to tie them together like this. I just KNEW there was a reason that hacked crossword puzzle was parked next to the Swan's computer!

That doesn't mean I'm brave enough to speculate about every appearance of The Numbers in all the episodes. In particular, I still don't have the answer for their effects on the lives of Hurley, Leonard, and Sam. I don't have anything new to offer about how the plane went down, or whether Walt has powers, or the signficance of his b*tch, Vincent. I try, but sometimes fail, not to stray too far from the supportable ideas, much as I might like to toss out the Mark/Marvin and Alvar/Magnus clones, or guess about Adam and Eve DeGroot...I just don't know enough yet. The Producers still have lots of room for surprises, some of which will be coming soon!

Now, to grapple a bit with some of your specific questions.

I'm guessing that Valenzetti the Brilliant detected a pattern in the repeated waning and/or failing of advanced and powerful conquering civilizations, such as Sumer (land of Gilgamesh, arguably the earliest in the archaeological record), Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Macedonia/Greece, Rome, China and Mongolia. He discerned it also in the cyclical rise and fall of systems of governance like despotism, republicanism (no, not the GOP), empire, feudalism, theocracy, monarchy, etc. He saw this pattern continued in the more current examples such as Saracen Arabia, Napoleonic France, the Ottoman and British Empires, the Third Reich and Imperial Japan. It would not be a simple pattern, to be sure, as these societal eras ended (or dramatically mutated) for various reasons of resources, economics, politics, warfare and social discontent...but he spotted it. He crunched it with his enormous mathematical talent, and...he figured it out. He applied it to the current regimes of the world, and it revealed their inherent weaknesses. He then applied it to the sweep of known history, and calculated The End of Times for all Civilization. Cogito ergo doleo - I think, therefore I despair (quoted from the black-light map). He showed it to a few of his contemporaries, then threw it away and headed to the liquor store.

But the DeGroots heard about it, tore in, and redeveloped it. Alarmed, they approached the philanthropic and fabulously wealthy Alvar Hanso and his famous scientific Foundation, convincing them that working for the betterment of mankind was not just a corporate slogan, but a contest with the very highest stakes. Quoth Alvar, "Let's get'er done!"

Did Alvar call in his government buddies, or did the world's most potent superpower find out themselves and crash the party? Regardless, the USA developed more than a mild case of national insecurity when they became aware of how the equation applied to our capitalist, bi-partisan federal republic. Our paltry 230 years of nation-statehood is but a pittance next to the glory of Rome...and look what happened there! Quoth President Reagan, "Mr. Gorbachev, your evil empire is next on the V-List, so tear down this wall! We need the bricks for Mr. Hanso! Alvar, let's get'er done for the Gipper! We don't want The West getting Wild again...Dharma is go!"

Much like you, melanie, the nascent Dharma Initiative wondered what to work on; what would be The Means to The End.

Weather? Check.
Conflict? Check.
Disease? Check.
Famine? Mass Hysteria? Insanity? Nuclear Armageddon? Meteors? Genetic weakness? Check, check, check, check, check and check. It was a check-writing frenzy. Basically, they considered all the ways the world as we know it might end, and developed action plans for dealing with all of them, even the ones that couldn't be stopped. Then they hired the contractors and got busy. After all, they had to build a better human organism (smarter, tougher, longer-lived and more reproducible), test improved social, educational, and governmental systems, discover new medicines, learn to control the environment, invent new defenses against the barbarian hordes, and securely reposit the accumulated knowledge of all human history. Plus a few more things that could be extrapolated by viewing the HF website.

Whew! Let me hit your other points more concisely.

Hanso was nominally in charge, because he's the UN-addressing, brilliant, universally-respected international celebrity scientist who's on the side of mankind. Paik is a successful, but mobsterish, S. Korean (small-pond) industrialist, a mere shadow of Alvar's luminosity. And, per Bad Twin, Alvar sat on Widmore's board. He was the boss alright. But when GI Joe and the Spooks entered the picture, the decision-making power shift would have been inevitable.

My hypotheses about the Korean and Zanzibar facilities' demises respectively stem from the Hanso phone number (Hugh McIntyre's and Peter Thompson's phone greetings, and Hugh's voicemail from Darla) and from the secret correspondences about meningococcus outbreak (found on the current and prior versions of the thehansofoundation.org website). I believe this to be another "Manoover original," and I feel pretty good about it.

Less well-drawn, I agree, are my thoughts on nanites, clones, and the sickness. These are current LOST mysteries I'm dumping in my "well-intentioned technology gone wild and turning on its master" bucket. Maybe it's not even MY bucket, being sort of an homage to Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice. But it fits MY storyline, so I'm keeping it (until the Shark eats the Polar Bear and explodes into psychic black infected dandruff, in which case I'll humbly stand corrected).

My bit on the zealotry of button-pressing IS a bit over the top. I was trying hard to offer a human justification for the current use of the numbers, because I just feel so damn good about explaining their meaning. Maybe I've overshot a bit, but the Pearl Orientation tape does talk about belief in important work, so I augmented that. A lot. I'm ready to let this one go in favor of a more complete answer...if I can find one, that is.

My answer to your ultimate question lies in twin sources: Mittlewerk's statement on the HF website about the responsibility of the brightest lights to lead humanity, and the implications of my interpretation of Valenzetti's work that we primarily have to save ourselves...from ourselves. The world at large cannot be trusted with this task...hence, the secrecy. Plus, there's only so much vaccine to go around.

See what happens when you get me started?

[IamTotallyLost]

Regardless of Melanie's concerns, and the fact that there's a lot of "working bits" to be figured out about the button, clones, why and how the plane crashed, nanites and what importance the losties are to the whole thing, I think you've nailed Dharma, it's purpose, and it's motus operandi perfectly. It fits, it makes sense, and it pulls in a lot of the peripheral mythology that just didn't make sense before.

A couple of things that could fit in to this explanation:

I'd offer up that the Hanso Foundation is the public facing side of the Dharma initiative. It's a shell company to the rest of the world that engages in fund raising and sharing some of the breakthroughs of the Dharma group with the rest of the world.

As for the plane crash, and the people on the plane:

My guess is that the Nanites did indeed cause the crash at the direction of the Dharmites. The nanites also slowed the fall of the chosen test subjects. The Good ones, or the ones that could still be salvaged. It was likely given a manifest...

As for why they were on the plane in the first place:

Dharma set out to find specific types, most likely children or relatives of Dharma researchers and employees, or people associated with the numbers (like Hurly). People like Libby, Claire's Psychic, Christian Sheppard, Locke's father, and so on and so forth were working for Dharma to get these people to Australia, and eventually on that plane. Gary Troup was put on the plane as well, with the motivation being for him not to live through the crash so that his anti-hanso info couldn't be spread to the rest of the world.

The Others are most likely the original test subjects...

[| 24 | 32 | 61 | 51 | 8 |]

HOLY $#!%, calm down with the writing... im tired of reading just 1 of them!
_________________
Hurley: So this is all in my brain??
Dave: Every rock every tree.... every tree frog.

[melanie]

[Manoover]

My gratitude, IamTotallyLost...I feel like you're seeing the same potential in this framework that I do. To your points....

The HF was a fully-formed concern before the DI became its raison d'etre. In Alvar, they had a charismatic statesman as their figurehead, who had long experience in global power politics and international relations...and an altruistic, populist platform. The Foundations's PR machine would have had an easy time of highlighting their non-controversial projects (such as feeding, healing and educating the third world) and diverting attention from the more highly-charged topics of arms (including biological), genetic engineering (including cloning), remote viewing, and the like.

Enter the DeGroots, with their "China Grove"-style eatern philosophical bent, and their mathematically-substantiated dire predictions. By joining the HF, they provided a clear locus for ALL the diverse Hanso scientific projects already in progress, making the whole Foundation more goal-oriented than ever before. Of course, HF handles the public relations. It's no stretch to think they hid the Doomsday prediction (although, it being 700+ years away, it would be perceived as academic by most, and be unlikely to move the public to panic). The major PR challenge for them is covering up when DI/HF projects generate imminent problems in the real world.

Quickly: I'm SURE the plane was brought down on purpose, and that the technology for this was easily within Dharma's means. This action culminated the interventionist harvesting/repopulating mission of the latter-day Dharma Operatives (and I think at least two of your guesses are on the Operative roster, along with Inman and Desmond). I think we're painting the remnants of the original Island population--both the directive types and the experimental citizen-subjects--with the broad-brush label "Others." These are not original thoughts...but they fit the story I'm trying to shape.

NOW I'd like to fill in melanie's request for a more detailed definition of civilization-a-la-Enzo, and how the DeGroot/Hanso collaboration, combined with the US government's involvement, may have caused the "action plans" to develop in a sinister way.

"Civilization" is all about coexistence in relative peace, by protecting the weak from the self-interest of the strong via a structured framework for resolving conflicts. It attempts to move beyond the "survival of the fittest" to support the survival of everyone. It's a human endeavor that hasn't been perfected, as is evidenced by the many failures of historical systems.

Valenzetti proposes--and proves--that the whole idea of civilization is doomed to failure. Nature is "red in tooth and claw," and the preeminence of force will not be denied in The End, despite all efforts.

The DeGroots and Alvar couldn't accept this prediction. They had a scholastic ("mankind is curious") and spritual (notice the Taoist Taijitu "Yin/Yang" symbol in the new Hanso logo) kinship. They felt that Evolution was about continual improvement, rather than about bare survival...a mistaken conclusion, to be sure, but one that springs from optimism. They viewed mankind's emergence from the caves to the cities as a manifest destiny for our species: to move beyond our hunter-gatherer "animal" roots, to a higher collective purpose of imagination and constant advancement. The essense of "dharma" is justice through enlightenment...almost a synonym for "civilization."

But they couldn't escape the Valenzetti data. One dumb viral strain, or even just a big stupid rock, could (and probably will) wipe away all our progress, and defeat the destiny of our dreams...the natural way. Even our bare survival shall then finally rely on our instincts of aggression and self-interest...the very same basic drives that seem to constantly defeat our achievement of a perfect civilization. Anathema!

Since all progress is made by unreasonable men and women, the Dharma Initiative was born of the DeGroot/Hanso alliance. They took spiritual scholasticism, plugged in aggression and survivalism, and went to war with "the inevitable." Many lines of research focused on staving off the destructive forces of nature. But if the planet-killer couldn't be stopped, they needed a contingency plan: move back to the caves, and take human progress along, too. Could it be done?

They had to find out, so they put experimental subjects on long-term assignments in bunkers, with a few amenities, with the threat of danger outside...and observed them to see if they could survive without going insane. Drugs, psychology, and social conditioning were the controlled variables. Would they OBEY to save the species?

The outcome was in doubt, because the basic animal drives exist in everyone, to a greater or lesser extent. The eastern philosophies are heavy on the concept of eliminating these drives, and achieving Enlightenment through asceticism, meditation, and rebirth. Many struggle for, but few attain, the Nirvana of perfect contentment and "oneness with all things."

Now for the sinister part. One of the fundamental threats to the Dharma vision is the baser nature of man. Combine the east-facing idea of the select few enlightened ones, with the west-facing idea of "you're either with us or you're against us," and the Petagon-approved plan emerges.

Get with the program, or get eliminated as a threat. We have the meningoccocal strain, and we control the antidote. We'll preserve the best parts of "civilization" by destroying the rest of it, and Tomorrow will be a Better Day.

Welcome to the Dharma Initiative. Namaste.

[IamTotallyLost]

Melanie, your posts are a little tough to read and follow, not because they're not intelligent, they certainly are, however, (and please don't take this as an attack on your person), it seemds you tend to ramble, and it makes it difficult to pick out the point you're trying to make in all that text

I've always thought it takes more intelligence to make your points succinct and on point, and for my sanity, I'd request that you strive to help make the discussion all the more poignant as we move forward.

Anyways, the one main concern you seem to have is the following:

[melanie]

[melanie]

[Manoover]

Hi melanie, and thanks again for your penetrating questions and observations!

Just to clarify, I don't believe Enzo Valenzetti is a real person, or that his Equation is a real work. Beyond the appearance of his (misspelled?) name on the blast door in the Swan bunker, the primary canonical reference I can find for him is on Disney's Gary Troup site. I'm sure you know that Gary isn't real, but he's the credited author of the so-so detective fiction novel Bad Twin, which manuscript Jack recently burned on the show, and which is now on sale for real (I read it). On his website, he's also credited with a non-fiction book called The Valenzetti Equation...and the sales blurb asks, "What if a mathematical equation could predict the apocalypse?"

That's all we REALLY know of the VE, from a technical standpoint. So far, his site, and some canonical videos of Troup interviews, have dropped clues about circulation of the VE at the United Nations, as well as with defense and academic establishment connections. Apparently, at least some of it was classified material...and it seems to be suggested that the out-of-print-and-unavailable Troup expose may have been suppressed.

We know from the blast door map that much of Dharma's Island research was Valenzetti-related.

I'm speculating, due to the big, fat GILGAMESH crossword-puzzle hint ENKIDU'S FRIEND, featured so prominently during a shot of Locke passing time on Numbers shift-duty in Station 3, that:

1. The VE "apocalypse" is the end of human civilization.
2. The output of the equation is solely mathematical, hours:minutes until The End...the Numbers...48151623:42.
3. Gilgamesh's time was used as The Beginning, which puts The End sometime in the 28th century.
4. The VE doesn't predict what The End will be, just when. I hyposthesize that Enzo incorporated the odds of occurrence for many different nemeses into his calculations.
5. I further propose that the leading cause of "civi-cide" in the VE could be Human Nature. Our progress--such as it is--could be destroyed by our lack of ability to UNITE against any number of predictable threats, which we might otherwise overcome...particularly if that unity requires self-sacrifice (or even a denial of self-interest).

OK, so, while writing this out, and backtracking over your notes, I've found some refinement. (No, not for me, for the theory. I'm incorrigibly coarse.)

After the DeGroots approached Hanso with their VE work, and Alvar became a believer, he agreed to dedicate his established research projects to the effort, and to work with Gerald and Karen on additional planning.

Then, Noble Hanso DID go to see his government buddies...at the UN Security Council. All members instantly agreed to put aside their differences and work together on a plan for the future, using all resources at their disposal to address the problem immediately.

<shakes head to clear>
Sorry, I got lost in a comic book for a minute. This is the UN, not the Superfriends, and they did no such thing. They couldn't quite agree to accept the VE findings, and even those members who found the work credible were divided in their interpretations and proposals. Most wanted more detailed information about specific threats. Some wanted to plan on their own, prioritizing provincial problems. Some felt threatened by others' ideas, and argued against them. Some simply wouldn't cooperate with others, no matter what.

Watching Valenzetti's proposed primary destructive dynamic (selfish disunity) playing out before his eyes, Alvar despaired. No consensus meant no resolution and no funding. The HF's forecasting had already provided the long project timelines, and some of the critical deliverables had no time to waste. Against his better judgment, with well-founded fears of losing agenda control, Alvar found himself agreeing to the side deal offered by the US...to take the project underground.

The construction of facilities proceeded as I earlier described.

Much later, Alvar's worries about usurpation of the DI were realized, and Dharma was corrupted. Angry and ashamed, he prepared to go public again. But there was an Incident during a scheduled facilities inspection....

Plausability rating, please

[IamTotallyLost]