As we see Dharma in 1977, they're in full swing. They have a truce with the Hostiles, they have at least one established station, The Flame, and they are about to (secretly?) build The Swan. New recruits are arriving on a regular basis.

Most likely, some incident is about to occur, in or around 1980, involving The Swan.

Next thing we know about, is 1988. The numbers are still being broadcast, but due to reasons unknown, they are not encrypted and are heard by outside listeners. The radio tower, built by the DI, seems not to be maintained by them any longer, as Danielle is able to change the transmission. No one sets it back to the numbers for 16 years. An adult Ben captures Alex.

And suddenly, in 1992, we see Dharma back in full swing, as if nothing had ever happened. Roger is making deliveries to The Flame. Horace is still there. A strict protocol is supposedly being in place at The Swan. We see Ben fully integrated in Dharma, no sign of Alex. What did Ben do with her for the last 4 years?

Why did Dharma allow Danielle's transmission to go on for the last 4 years? Why would they simply ignore when someone changed the message being broadcast from it? Did Dharma loose control of their radio tower, and why don't they care about it? They still seem powerful enough to maintain control of The Flame. If the radio tower didn't matter that much, why build it in the first place? Why ignore the arrival of a team of scientists (The Frenchies) - potential spies! How could Danielle not stumble upon Dharmaville in full swing, with all their cars and what not, for full 4 years? It's almost like there's two different Islands between 1988 and 1992. Or, dare I say it, two timelines....

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.

This was on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHARMA_Initiative

Both the Swan Station orientation film, as well as revisions of the map on the blast door in the station, suggest that there was some sort of "incident" that took place on the Island at some point, ostensibly before the time the Swan Station's film was made in 1980. In the edit of the film (found in the Arrow Station by Mr. Eko), Dr. Candle insists that the computer at the Swan Station not be used for any other purpose, specifically to communicate with other stations, and indicates it had something to do with the incident and the need to prevent another one. It remains to be revealed just what this "incident" was.
After the incident, according to notations on the blast door map, the Dharma Initiative's facilities on the Island seemed to fall into disrepair. The blast door map has many annotations about destroyed access tunnels, a breakdown in the Cerberus Security System and mentions facilities being abandoned or destroyed via other 'incidents' or 'accidents' specifically happening on October 28 1984, one in 1985 and another one on Dec 7 1987, . By the time Rousseau and her freighter crew shipwrecked on the Island, in 1988, many of the facilities on the Island have been abandoned including the radio tower. At no point did the Dharma Initiative attempt a search and rescue for Danielle or her crew, even during the 4 years between Danielle putting her message on a continuous loop and the time of the Purge.

The Hostile/Others knew Danielle was on the Island because they were the ones who kidnapped Alex but I don't know if Dharma was even aware that Danielle was on the Island.

Danielle was looking for Alex and she avoided other people on the Island probably fearing that they had the sickness like Robert, Brennan and Lacombe.

No thoughts as such but the Arrow is referenced as operating in 1974 by Horace and possibly the Looking glass in 1977 (Rabbit logo jumpsuit is seen being worn)

No thoughts as such but the Arrow is referenced as operating in 1974 by Horace and possibly the Looking glass in 1977 (Rabbit logo jumpsuit is seen being worn)


All of the known stations were listed on Radz security screen in 1977 EXCEPT:

Swan
Pearl
Orchid - We know the Orchid did not exist in 1974 (the well was full of dirt). Apparently, it didn't exist in 1977 either.

Those listed on Radz screen included: Flame, Arrow, Looking Glass, Medical, and interestingly, the Temple.

So Dharma had a presence at the Temple in 1977.

All of the known stations were listed on Radz security screen in 1977 EXCEPT:

Swan
Pearl
Orchid - We know the Orchid did not exist in 1974 (the well was full of dirt). Apparently, it didn't exist in 1977 either.

Those listed on Radz screen included: Flame, Arrow, Looking Glass, Medical, and interestingly, the Temple.

So Dharma had a presence at the Temple in 1977.

I must be going blind but I can't find it :frown:

Next thing we know about, is 1988. The numbers are still being broadcast, but due to reasons unknown, they are not encrypted and are heard by outside listeners. The radio tower, built by the DI, seems not to be maintained by them any longer, as Danielle is able to change the transmission. No one sets it back to the numbers for 16 years. An adult Ben captures Alex.

This to me is very interesting. One...how did Danielle have Alex? Did she do it alone (nearly impossible)? Did someone (maybe Ben or Richard) show up from the jungle and help her (this seems strange too since she's already shooting people she's known for years...doubt she'd be willing to trust "some guy" out of the jungle to help her)? Maybe though Richard comes out of the jungle and tells her information about herself, how he knows about her situation, etc... But even that seems like something that would make Danielle shoot him.

I think the most likely situation is that they pull an Ethan and capture Danielle somehow, take her to the Caduceus station and help her with the delivery. Richard and Ben would almost have to be working together on this at this point.

And suddenly, in 1992, we see Dharma back in full swing, as if nothing had ever happened. Roger is making deliveries to The Flame. Horace is still there. A strict protocol is supposedly being in place at The Swan. We see Ben fully integrated in Dharma, no sign of Alex. What did Ben do with her for the last 4 years?

Good thinking. I hope we're going to visit that with this next episode.

Why did Dharma allow Danielle's transmission to go on for the last 4 years? Why would they simply ignore when someone changed the message being broadcast from it? Did Dharma loose control of their radio tower, and why don't they care about it? They still seem powerful enough to maintain control of The Flame. If the radio tower didn't matter that much, why build it in the first place? Why ignore the arrival of a team of scientists (The Frenchies) - potential spies! How could Danielle not stumble upon Dharmaville in full swing, with all their cars and what not, for full 4 years? It's almost like there's two different Islands between 1988 and 1992. Or, dare I say it, two timelines...

I hadn't thought too much about it before, but if Sayid's math on the iterations is correct and the transmission has been playing on a loop for 16 years then that puts the source date as 1988, which was the year her and her crew crashed there, right?

So how does a pregnant woman (or even a woman who gave birth recently) climb a mountain, fight off any threats in the way (smoke monster, hostiles or Dharma) and change the message?

Another question to ponder...Ben looks the same in 1992 as he does when Danielle catches him in her net. If he's the one that took Alex from her (in 88 or 92...do we know the year when he took her?) then you'd think she'd remember him, right? This leads me to believe that Alpert and his crew are the baby thiefs.

-- J

I think the most likely situation is that they pull an Ethan and capture Danielle somehow, take her to the Caduceus station and help her with the delivery. Richard and Ben would almost have to be working together on this at this point.
This could be. Maybe they even treated her well and let her live with them for a time, like Claire. That would explain why Alex's name stayed the same.

As for Ben and Alex, I've always assumed he didn't "adopt" her until he joined the Others. So she was actually with them for four years before he was.

Another question to ponder...Ben looks the same in 1992 as he does when Danielle catches him in her net. If he's the one that took Alex from her (in 88 or 92...do we know the year when he took her?) then you'd think she'd remember him, right? This leads me to believe that Alpert and his crew are the baby thiefs.Although I believe Alex was not taken personally by Ben, I think Danielle does hint that she knows him when she captures him. She knows that he will lie, anyway.

Thanks for all of your input!

I frequently refer to Lostpedia, but it actually never occured to me to search Wiki for "Dharma". ;) So thanks for pointing me in that direction, NBC. It's an interesting article.

So, basically, the Dharma Initiative never quite recovered from the incident and fought a long war throughout the Eighties, loosing more and more of their territory, up to the final coup de grace in 1992.



The Hostile/Others knew Danielle was on the Island because they were the ones who kidnapped Alex but I don't know if Dharma was even aware that Danielle was on the Island.

Danielle was looking for Alex and she avoided other people on the Island probably fearing that they had the sickness like Robert, Brennan and Lacombe.

Sounds plausible. Maybe she even did capture some people and tested them, like she later did with Sayid, and found them wanting, aka carriers of the sickness. That's why she states she's never met "people".

So Alex was kidnapped by the Hostiles, and adopted four years later by Ben. Or was she abducted by Dharmites, and Ben just brought her with him to the Others? Maybe they mistook Danielle for a Hostile, and took her kid away in retaliation to some previous misdeed by the Others.

All of the known stations were listed on Radz security screen in 1977 EXCEPT:

Swan
Pearl
Orchid - We know the Orchid did not exist in 1974 (the well was full of dirt). Apparently, it didn't exist in 1977 either.

Those listed on Radz screen included: Flame, Arrow, Looking Glass, Medical, and interestingly, the Temple.

So Dharma had a presence at the Temple in 1977.


That's interesting. I did not realize that the stations were listed on the security screen.

Personally I think it was a goof at some point that gave us the Purge in 1992. That's way too late to me. 20 years Dharma survived on the island without the hostiles wiping them out the way they did the US army. 1992 just doesn't make sense to me. Especially given the whole radio tower thing!

I think the most likely situation is that they pull an Ethan and capture Danielle somehow, take her to the Caduceus station and help her with the delivery. Richard and Ben would almost have to be working together on this at this point.
They take her to a Dharma station while Dharma was still functioning? 1992 for the purge date doesn't fit

They take her to a Dharma station while Dharma was still functioning? 1992 for the purge date doesn't fit
Oh, yeah......

There are too many holes in the timeline to accurately figure it out. Also, Widmore was the leader of the Others for 3 decades, presumably from the mid-late 1950s thru the mid-late 1980s. Perhaps the ousting of him as the leader coincides with the date of Danielle's arrival in 1988 and accounts for her use of the radio tower. This implies some kind of power struggle amonst the others and that could have led to the Purge. The Others were leaderless and feared that the DI would use that to their advantage. So they orchestrated the Purge and placed Ben in a leadership role. That would mean the Purge took place earlier than 1992. Of course, how was Mikhail recruited for the DI in the early 1990s? How was Kelvin recruited for the DI after his stint in Desert Storm? Too many questions.

All of the known stations were listed on Radz security screen in 1977 EXCEPT:

Swan
Pearl
Orchid - We know the Orchid did not exist in 1974 (the well was full of dirt). Apparently, it didn't exist in 1977 either.


i think the orchid was being built or completed by '77 as Sawyer/Lefluer states to the O5, in '77, that Faraday wasn't there anymore, and at the start of the season we see Faraday helping to build said station. unless sawyer literally means he isn't on the island and he comes back later to build it, and not that he's gone crazy/dead from breaking down the wall of exotic matter.

I must be going blind but I can't find it :frown:

The Temple is listed on Radz security screen. I had to go frame by frame to find it.

I'll try and find a screencap somewhere.
100%
i think the orchid was being built or completed by '77 as Sawyer/Lefluer states to the O5, in '77, that Faraday wasn't there anymore, and at the start of the season we see Faraday helping to build said station. unless sawyer literally means he isn't on the island and he comes back later to build it, and not that he's gone crazy/dead from breaking down the wall of exotic matter.


Unfortunately, none of that proves the Orchid existed in 1977. Perhaps if it was being built, it wouldn't be on the security screen listing of stations. But if it was already built, one would think it would have been listed.

This to me is very interesting. One...how did Danielle have Alex? Did she do it alone (nearly impossible)?
Why is it impossible for a women to give birth to a baby alone?

I hadn't thought too much about it before, but if Sayid's math on the iterations is correct and the transmission has been playing on a loop for 16 years then that puts the source date as 1988, which was the year her and her crew crashed there, right?

So how does a pregnant woman (or even a woman who gave birth recently) climb a mountain, fight off any threats in the way (smoke monster, hostiles or Dharma) and change the message?

She recorded it three days before Alex was born.

[The group trek up a hill to see the radio tower dominating the sky. Inside the French message can be heard playing on loop. The recording is from a machine in the room by a speaker]
ROUSSEAU: I recorded this sixteen years ago. [To Alex] Three days before you were born. I guess we don't need it anymore.
[She turns off the recording and removes the tape]


Another question to ponder...Ben looks the same in 1992 as he does when Danielle catches him in her net. If he's the one that took Alex from her (in 88 or 92...do we know the year when he took her?) then you'd think she'd remember him, right? This leads me to believe that Alpert and his crew are the baby thiefs.
-- J
I believe it has been said that it was the others who took Alex and they took her a week after she was born. I can't find that quote. They could taken Alex while Danielle was sleeping or while Danielle was looking for food she might have left Alex alone and they took her then.

[quote=mrain01;2141510]The Temple is listed on Radz security screen. I had to go frame by frame to find it.

I'll try and find a screencap somewhere.
100%

http://getlostpodcast.iimmgg.com/image/5a12bb17c9d66e6a85c4bb53eea45511

This is the list of stations on the security screen.

Unfortunately, this screencap isn't in good focus - there are other frames available in better focus. But for some reason no one has really focused on this list of stations and gotten a good HD screencap. In this view you can actually make out the two-word stations - Lamp Post Station, Looking Glass Station.

Another interesting tidbit - the Lamp Post Station was manned, and answered Radz query regarding a plane. How would they know about a plane on the island.........in LA?!

If you go frame by frame in HD DVR, you can read all the station names. And there are two pages. The screen shifts to a second page later.

And I think its telling that the Swan, Pearl, and Orchid are not listed and the Temple is.

[quote=mrain01;2141510]The Temple is listed on Radz security screen. I had to go frame by frame to find it.

I'll try and find a screencap somewhere.
100%

http://getlostpodcast.iimmgg.com/image/5a12bb17c9d66e6a85c4bb53eea45511

This is the list of stations on the security screen.

Unfortunately, this screencap isn't in good focus - there are other frames available in better focus. But for some reason no one has really focused on this list of stations and gotten a good HD screencap. In this view you can actually make out the two-word stations - Lamp Post Station, Looking Glass Station.

Another interesting tidbit - the Lamp Post Station was manned, and answered Radz query regarding a plane. How would they know about a plane on the island.........in LA?!

If you go frame by frame in HD DVR, you can read all the station names. And there are two pages. The screen shifts to a second page later.

And I think its telling that the Swan, Pearl, and Orchid are not listed and the Temple is.

This is very curious. I wish there was a better cap. I can see Looking Glass and Lamp Post but it seems to me like there are a LOT of stations listed here. Way more than the eight or nine we know about. Plus, if the Temple is on the list, what does that even mean?
As far as the Lamp Post knowing about the plane, I imagine that place is stocked with every kind of monitoring device imaginable, all pointed to that island. They don't want to lose it again...

Personally I think it was a goof at some point that gave us the Purge in 1992. That's way too late to me. 20 years Dharma survived on the island without the hostiles wiping them out the way they did the US army. 1992 just doesn't make sense to me. Especially given the whole radio tower thing!


They take her to a Dharma station while Dharma was still functioning? 1992 for the purge date doesn't fit

Why do we know the Purge was in 1992? Joe Kelvin Inman was clearly in Kuwait in 1991 and is later seen in the Swan (overlapping with Desmond 2001-2004), claiming that he had been recruited by the Dharma Initiative. And Ghost Horace said (in 2004) that he had been dead for 12 years--the only specific date reference. We saw his post-Purge dead body both in Old Otherton and in the Pit.

Could the Purge have happened before 1992, with the Hostiles managing to masquerade as Dharma to the outside world so that they could continue to receive food, resources and recruits (such as post-Gulf War Inman)? (Mikhail also initially claimed to have been recruited by Dharma, although he later said that had been a lie.)

We do know that several Dharma people ended up with the Hostiles (Ben, Ethan, possibly Amy if she's also Amelia--and Radzinsky survived in the Swan long enough to overlap with Kelvin).




Re another point, Danielle said she delivered Alex by herself. I think the Hostiles just boinked her on the head--they weren't too subtle when they were kidnapping Tailies.

Remind me why we know the Purge was in 1992? Was it ONLY because Joe Kelvin Inman was clearly in Kuwait in 1991 and is later seen in the Swan (overlapping with Desmond 2001-2004), claiming that he had been recruited by the Dharma Initiative?

Could the Purge have happened before 1992, with the Hostiles managing to masquerade as Dharma to the outside world so that they could continue to receive food, resources and recruits? We do know that several Dharma people ended up with the Hostiles (Ben, Ethan, possibly Amy if she's also Amelia--and Radzinsky survived in the Swan long enough to overlap with Kelvin).

Mikhail also initially claimed to have been recruited by Dharma, although he later said that had been a lie.

Re another point, Danielle said she delivered Alex by herself. I think the Hostiles just boinked her on the head--they weren't too subtle when they were kidnapping Tailies.
Horace died in the purge. Horace told Locke he had been dead for 12 years in Lockes dream in "Cabin Fever" which was in 2004.

[Switch to an open eye. It is Locke’s as he awakens from sleeping in the jungle. There is a small plume of smoke from the campfire. Hurley and Ben are still asleep. We hear someone grunting and chopping. The sequence continues 17 times.. Locke gets up and walks toward the noise. He encounters Horace who is now pushing down the tree he was chopping.]
HORACE: Hello there.
LOCKE: Who are you?
HORACE: I'm Horace. Whew!
LOCKE: And what are you doing out here?
HORACE: Oh, building a place. A little getaway for me and the missus. No, I mean, sometimes you need a break from the D.I., y'know? The Dharma Initiative? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I'm not making any sense, am I?
LOCKE: No.
HORACE: That's probably because I've been dead for 12 years.
[Horace now has a bloody nose. He has been chopping while talking with Locke. He turns and pushes down the same tree he just chopped down. Locke looks and the tree is back again. He is both amazed and confused. Horace is now chopping the same tree again.]

Here are 2 of my fav. 'annotated' versions of the blast door map for reference:
I posted then yesterday on another thread; maybe of interest here.
the Orchid is not listed on it either, but a "C3" station in the mtns is on the upper right. So Rad didn't seem to know everything even at that point. No mention of the Tempest or Looking Glass either.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/b51d3e31279523

http://www.imagebam.com/image/83561931280485
100%


Could the Purge have happened before 1992, with the Hostiles managing to masquerade as Dharma to the outside world so that they could continue to receive food, resources and recruits (such as post-Gulf War Inman)? (Mikhail also initially claimed to have been recruited by Dharma, although he later said that had been a lie.)


I think so as well, regarding the food drops, recruiting etc., even up to when Desmond arrived and the Losties still got food drops.

Benry would know when the Purge really was, better than a ghost (with no calendars, lol.). It would seem to fit better if it was closer to the Incident in the 80's. As you pointed out, the Others had infiltrated Dharma far beyond just Benry before the Purge.

I haven't been able to look at the caps, but are you sure it says Temple and not Tempest?

Tempest makes sense and, being a power station, seems like it would be one of the first.

Temple being DHARMA makes no sense to me.

just asking.

I haven't been able to look at the caps, but are you sure it says Temple and not Tempest?

Tempest makes sense and, being a power station, seems like it would be one of the first.

Temple being DHARMA makes no sense to me.

just asking.

Oh, I'll bet your right. I forgot about the ol' Tempest. That makes much more sense. The Temple thing had me second-guessing everything I thought I knew about the DI.

Second-guessing is never a bad thing! Specially with Lost.

I'm looking forwards to seeing just how Alex and Danielle were separated in 1988. To me, it seems that during the Eighties, chaos, sickness, and battles between warring groups reigned on the Island. Dharma and Others seem intertwined in more ways than we might ever had imagined.

1960s Island's location found via Lamp Post

1967 Valenzetti equation

1970 Dharma Initiative founded by DeGroots

1974-1977 Dharma recruiting people, Flame, Arrow, Lookin Glass, probably Hydra and Staff in operation, Swan about to be built, no mention of Pearl, Orchid

around 1979 Incident - resulting in explosion at Swan, protocol at Swan, chaos, horror all around ;)

1980 Orientation films for Pearl, Swan

1981 H.G. Delegation Inspection/maybe to survey damage after Incident

1984 Blast Door Map states "Shutdown Date" for some unknown station/territory

1985 AH/MDG Incident, possibly leading to abandonment of The Staff

1987 Hanso Group cuts funding for Dharma Initiative

1988 Radio tower is abandoned, French team arrives, Sickness, Alex abducted, Danielle changes Numbers transmission to call for help

1991 Kelvin Inman joins Dharma Initiative, mans The Swan, he later maintains that his partner has been Stuart Radzinsky

1992 the infamous Purge kills most of the people in Dharmaville

1992-2001 at some point Radzinsky kills himself (or so claims Inman) and Inman completes map

2001 Desmond arrives, joins Inman in The Swan

So far, so mysterious. To tell you the truth, I don't like these Dharmites all too much, but looks like these people go through hell during the 80ies. That's why I'm always so baffled by the picture of idyllic Dharmaville in 1992. Did they have a final break-through? Were they about to finally get an upper hand again and win the war? Only to be squashed with the help of treason. Trojan horses.

But you know, the Dharmites had to have spies within the Others, too! I can't believe that they didn't try to infiltrate them, or that there weren't Others willing to join or trade secrets with Dharma.

And don't start me on Charlie Widmore. How he fits into anything is anyone's guess! His statement of "keeping peace", for 30 years, no less, certainly doesn't fit into my prognosis of chaos, war, and the plagues of Egypt, by any stretch of imagination. What did Widdie mean by "everything that Ben has, he had stolen from him"? Come on! Everything, or, ok, lots of things the Others had, they had stolen from Dharma. Hyprocrite.

Edited to Add: A horrible thing just occurred to me: Ben is the ultimate Dharma spy! :grin:

Horace died in the purge. Horace told Locke he had been dead for 12 years in Lockes dream in "Cabin Fever" which was in 2004.Totally agree with that data point. I'm just not sure exactly how anchored in time an apparition has to be.

How about this:
Apparition Horace gets the bloody nose, which we know is a symptom of bad time skipping.
And in the vision, he appears to be stuck in some kind of loop, cutting down the same tree over & over. So using the record analogy, you know how you can get a tiny scratch or even a piece of dust on the record, which is just enough to keep shoving the needle back to the groove one rotation back. So, the Horace apparition said he died 12 years earlier, but I'm not so sure that necessarily means 12 years before "current island time". Could apparition Horace somehow be stuck in a different time loop?

((Looks like Lostpedia is down at the moment. I'll be back to this thought after I can look at a few other dates.))

Totally agree with that data point. I'm just not sure exactly how anchored in time an apparition has to be.

How about this:
Apparition Horace gets the bloody nose, which we know is a symptom of bad time skipping.
And in the vision, he appears to be stuck in some kind of loop, cutting down the same tree over & over. So using the record analogy, you know how you can get a tiny scratch or even a piece of dust on the record, which is just enough to keep shoving the needle back to the groove one rotation back. So, the Horace apparition said he died 12 years earlier, but I'm not so sure that necessarily means 12 years before "current island time". Could apparition Horace somehow be stuck in a different time loop?

((Looks like Lostpedia is down at the moment. I'll be back to this thought after I can look at a few other dates.))
The day of the Purge Horace is shown, after he died, sitting on a park bench with a bloody nose. Roger Linus also had a bloody nose after Ben released the gas in his truck.

1960s Island's location found via Lamp Post
1967 Valenzetti equation
1970 Dharma Initiative founded by DeGroots
1974-1977 Dharma recruiting people, Flame, Arrow, Lookin Glass, probably Hydra and Staff in operation, Swan about to be built, no mention of Pearl, Orchid
around 1979 Incident - resulting in explosion at Swan, protocol at Swan, chaos, horror all around ;)
1980 Orientation films for Pearl, Swan
1981 H.G. Delegation Inspection/maybe to survey damage after Incident
1984 Blast Door Map states "Shutdown Date" for some unknown station/territory
1985 AH/MDG Incident, possibly leading to abandonment of The Staff
1987 Hanso Group cuts funding for Dharma Initiative
1988 Radio tower is abandoned, French team arrives, Sickness, Alex abducted, Danielle changes Numbers transmission to call for help
1991 Kelvin Inman joins Dharma Initiative, mans The Swan, he later maintains that his partner has been Stuart Radzinsky
1992 the infamous Purge kills most of the people in Dharmaville
1992-2001 at some point Radzinsky kills himself (or so claims Inman) and Inman completes map
2001 Desmond arrives, joins Inman in The Swan


Wow, pretty impressive! I have a couple questions, though...
Do we know what "AH/MDG" means yet? (besides speculting that AH is Alvar Hanso). What makes you think the Lamp Post was built in the 60's? Just a wise guess? "H.G. Delegation Inspection" is from the blast door? What's "H.G."?
Sorry so many Q's... I'm not up on my Lostology. Thanks a bunch!

Oh, I'll bet your right. I forgot about the ol' Tempest. That makes much more sense. The Temple thing had me second-guessing everything I thought I knew about the DI.


I hate to be disagreeing with you folks, but it clearly says "Temple Ruins" for one location, and Tempest Station as another location. Both are listed.

I wish I could do multiple screencaps off my HD DVR, but I can't. So I went frame-by-frame and wrote down each security location listed on Radz security screen. Here they are (the numbers are mine):

1. Infirmary
2. Exam Room
3. Waiting Room
4. Motor Pool
5. Playground
6. Dock
7. North Valley
8. Quarry
9, Flame Station
10. Processing Station
11. Processing Center
12. Innoculation Area
13. Cadecus Area
14. Cafeteria
15. Guard Area
16. Temple Ruins
17. Main Compound
18. Staff Station
19. Arrow Station
20. Hydra Station
21. Looking Glass Station
22. Tempest Station
23. Lamp Post Station
24. Grid Loc ______
25. Grid Loc ____
26. Section 41 ______
27. Subterranian Passage
28. ________
29. ________

This to me is very interesting. One...how did Danielle have Alex? Did she do it alone (nearly impossible)?

(snip)

So how does a pregnant woman (or even a woman who gave birth recently) climb a mountain, fight off any threats in the way (smoke monster, hostiles or Dharma) and change the message?

Clare (for all practical purposes) had Aaron alone; Kate was there saying "Attagurl," but Clare did the actual work. There was no way Kate was going to do any obstetrical manipulations if the baby had gotten stuck, or if there had been a genuine emergency. So there's a kind of parallelism set up there, between Danielle having Alex on the Island, and Clare having Aaron.

Not only is it very possible for a woman to have an uncomplicated pregnancy alone (in general), it's also very possible that The Island's healing powers have extended to birth (and the subsequent recovery) as well.

It's also very possible that the smoke monster left Danielle alone, or perhaps even helped her. Locke, after all, looked at it and deemed it "beautiful."

If people are asking Lindelof and Cuse about Charlotte's wacky birthdate, can we also ask them about Ghost Horace telling Locke the Purge was 12 years ago? If this is a production mistake, I'd love to know. Because if they really mean the Purge was 12 years ago, then there are some wacky things going on with DHARMA and this Island.

That timeline above is a great example. I have never figured out how Danielle could change the radio tower message in 1988 while DHARMA was still there. And even if they didn't control the tower anymore, they heard her distress call and didn't help her? Or, were they so paranoid by then that they assumed it was a trap by the Hostiles?

And then Alex is taken by The Others/Hostiles when she is a week old. But Danielle claims to never have seen anyone else on the Island. (Even though it seems like she recognized Ben.) But, Ben was still with DHARMA in 1988. So, Alex couldn't have been with him for at least 4 years.

And then the Blast Door Map seems to indicate stations being shut down and collapsed tunnels, and such. Not to mention various accidents and Incidents. But, on the day of the Purge everything looks fine.

This is all really hard to understand. Making it worse is that we are being given information by a ghost, a crazy Danielle, and a paranoid- potentially crazy -Radzinsky on a map. At this point even Ben would seem a more credible source of information.

Totally agree with that data point. I'm just not sure exactly how anchored in time an apparition has to be.

How about this:
Apparition Horace gets the bloody nose, which we know is a symptom of bad time skipping.
And in the vision, he appears to be stuck in some kind of loop, cutting down the same tree over & over. So using the record analogy, you know how you can get a tiny scratch or even a piece of dust on the record, which is just enough to keep shoving the needle back to the groove one rotation back. So, the Horace apparition said he died 12 years earlier, but I'm not so sure that necessarily means 12 years before "current island time". Could apparition Horace somehow be stuck in a different time loop?


I thought Ghost Horace had a bloody nose because he had one when he died from getting gassed. I'm inclined to think that any ghost activitity is independent of time traveling.

If people are asking Lindelof and Cuse about Charlotte's wacky birthdate, can we also ask them about Ghost Horace telling Locke the Purge was 12 years ago? If this is a production mistake, I'd love to know. Because if they really mean the Purge was 12 years ago, then there are some wacky things going on with DHARMA and this Island.

That timeline above is a great example. I have never figured out how Danielle could change the radio tower message in 1988 while DHARMA was still there. And even if they didn't control the tower anymore, they heard her distress call and didn't help her? Or, were they so paranoid by then that they assumed it was a trap by the Hostiles?

And then Alex is taken by The Others/Hostiles when she is a week old. But Danielle claims to never have seen anyone else on the Island. (Even though it seems like she recognized Ben.) But, Ben was still with DHARMA in 1988. So, Alex couldn't have been with him for at least 4 years.

And then the Blast Door Map seems to indicate stations being shut down and collapsed tunnels, and such. Not to mention various accidents and Incidents. But, on the day of the Purge everything looks fine.

This is all really hard to understand. Making it worse is that we are being given information by a ghost, a crazy Danielle, and a paranoid- potentially crazy -Radzinsky on a map. At this point even Ben would seem a more credible source of information.


Like other posters and i have said in various threads, there have been inconsistencies in continuity throughout Lost and the island is littered with plotholes.
The recent time travel storylines are interesting and allow TPTB to go back and fill in some of these holes. Trouble is, they just create more.
Bit like trying to plug a dam as it's about to burst.

No way can they tie everything together, progress the storylines and have everything wrapped up in just over one season.

There are going to be many unanswered questions.

Over here (http://forum.thefuselage.com/showthread.php?p=2142094) is a discussion of the stations. And I had a thought. Maybe after the Incident, DHARMA downsizes and is only using six of the stations. Hence the "X of 6" at the beginning of some of the films. It could also explain some things on the map. Sure, Dharmaville looks fine in TMBTC when Ben's a kid, but do we see anything beyond the village once Ben is an adult?

Well, we don't see any part of DHARMA other than the Barracks when Ben is adult. But, we do see Ben and his father loading up to deliver supplies to another station. The Pearl, I think.

Wow, pretty impressive! I have a couple questions, though...
Do we know what "AH/MDG" means yet? (besides speculting that AH is Alvar Hanso). What makes you think the Lamp Post was built in the 60's? Just a wise guess? "H.G. Delegation Inspection" is from the blast door? What's "H.G."?
Sorry so many Q's... I'm not up on my Lostology. Thanks a bunch!

The "AH/MDG" is from the Blast Door map. Exact notation is: "Caduceus Station believed to have been abandoned due to AH/ADG Incident of 1985 or possible catastrophic malfunction of Cerberus system". We do not know, what AH/MDG means. But we're always welcome to make clever guesses. :biggrin: Seems like mine weren't too clever anyways, since mrain's list mentions "The Staff" and a "Caduceus area" separately. I thought they were the same.

The (late) 1960s for Lamp Post is from Lostpedia. Quote: "Its function of finding the location of the Island suggests it may have been the first such station to have been built. Indeed, this station is how the DHARMA Initiative originally found the Island back in the 1960s or 1970s."

Yes, the Delegation Inspection is again from the Blast Door map. What "H.G." is, is a very good question - since it's repeated several times all over the Blast Door Map in the form of D.I.H.G. Maybe it stands for "Dharma Initiative Hanso Group", though that doesn't make much sense to me, because Hanso Group was financing Dharma from the beginning. Why should they later insist on having their name included?
100%


That timeline above is a great example. I have never figured out how Danielle could change the radio tower message in 1988 while DHARMA was still there. And even if they didn't control the tower anymore, they heard her distress call and didn't help her? Or, were they so paranoid by then that they assumed it was a trap by the Hostiles?

And then Alex is taken by The Others/Hostiles when she is a week old. But Danielle claims to never have seen anyone else on the Island. (Even though it seems like she recognized Ben.) But, Ben was still with DHARMA in 1988. So, Alex couldn't have been with him for at least 4 years.

And then the Blast Door Map seems to indicate stations being shut down and collapsed tunnels, and such. Not to mention various accidents and Incidents. But, on the day of the Purge everything looks fine.



Ah, thank you, SongBird, that's exactly what bothers me, too. Nicely outlined in three short paragraphs.

I sure hope we do get some explanations, I'm confident we will see Alex' abduction, so that should at least connect some dots. And maybe when we learn of the exact nature of the Incident, and its ramifications, that should clear up things, too. I'm pretty optimistic, I've been one of the suffering X-files mythology fans, and Lost has been doing a much, much better job with its "mythology" so far, imo.

Well, we don't see any part of DHARMA other than the Barracks when Ben is adult. But, we do see Ben and his father loading up to deliver supplies to another station. The Pearl, I think.
Right, and the Pearl is "5 of 6" on its orientation video. So it's one of the ones I'm suggesting were still active in DHARMA after 1980.

Right, and the Pearl is "5 of 6" on its orientation video. So it's one of the ones I'm suggesting were still active in DHARMA after 1980.

The Pearl is also interesting as it pertains to this discussion because of all the empty tubes that the Losties found.

How long was the station manned before the people left? We didn't see any bodies, so I assume they left and weren't "purged".

Hopefully we'll know the answers to these questions by the end of the season.

ETI: We also know that there were still people in The Pearl when Radzinsky was in The Swan because of the notations "0400 SR moves ping-pong table again"... and the fact that they even knew his name may be proof that they were members of the Initiative.
Curiouser and curiouser.

The Pearl is also interesting as it pertains to this discussion because of all the empty tubes that the Losties found.

How long was the station manned before the people left? We didn't see any bodies, so I assume they left and weren't "purged".

Hopefully we'll know the answers to these questions by the end of the season.

ETI: We also know that there were still people in The Pearl when Radzinsky was in The Swan because of the notations "0400 SR moves ping-pong table again"... and the fact that they even knew his name may be proof that they were members of the Initiative.
Curiouser and curiouser.
There might not be any bodies in or around the Pearl because they could be in the pit with the many other DI bodies.

There might not be any bodies in or around the Pearl because they could be in the pit with the many other DI bodies.

Valid point, but it doesn't lessen my curiosity surrounding the station in general.

At some time during this timeline, the FDW was turned at least once, by the polar bear. Widmore said that Ben tricked him off the island (or something like that) but we don't know that he specifically turned the wheel. Either way it was turned at least once during the time line, with or without the time skipping. So the island may have changed time periods.

There might not be any bodies in or around the Pearl because they could be in the pit with the many other DI bodies.
There was also a DI body which had a Pearl logo on it in the polar bear cave that Locke went into in season 3, FI.