316/Theories

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Theories about 316

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Stated as questions or possibilities (avoid question marks, "Maybe", "I think", etc). More appropriate for another article. Illogical or previously disproven. Proven by canon source, and moved to main article. Speculative and lacking any evidence to support arguments. Responding to another theory (use discussion page instead). This does not include responses that can stand alone as its own theory. Usage of an indented bullet does not imply the statement is a response. See the Lostpedia theory policy for more details.

The Lamp Post

Significance to Narnia

• The lamp post in Narnia was used as a marker to the location of the "real world" for the characters in the books. The Lamp Post station was used to find the location of the Island.
• C.S. Lewis became an atheist at the age of 15 and later in life "re-converted" back to Christianity. This mirrors Jack's conversion from a "Man of Science" to a "Man of Faith" when he begins to believe in Locke.
  • C.S. was called "Jack" by his close friends and relations; he disliked his given name.b
  • Similarly, Charlotte Staples Lewis was on the Island as a child before leaving and finally returning back later in life.b
  • Rather coincidentally, C.S. are the initials of Jack's father.

Identity of the "clever fellow"

First, we need to think about whether the identity of the "clever fellow" is even important in the continuation of the plot or simply a "throw-away" is Ms. Hawking's briefing. Assuming that the identity is important, we have candidates:

Pierre Chang with the time travelling bunny

• Pierre Chang, Scientist, Theoretical Astrophysicist. Has math skills. Has appeared under the names Marvin Candle, Mark Wickmund, and Edgar Halliwax in the DHARMA Initiative orientation films, all names relating to candles which may relate to the name of the Lamp Post station.
• Daniel Faraday, Scientist, Physicist. Studied time travel and its application. Has math skills. However he would need to travel to time outside the island for doing it.
  • He did travel outside the Island, for most of the three years that Sawyer's group were in the Dharma Initiative. Considering he has experience with the time flashes and the Island, and was off the Island doing research, and on top of all that was linked in with the Dharma Initiative, this strengthens the case of Daniel having created The Lamp Post. It might have explained why Eloise, Daniel's mother, did not refer to "the clever fellow" by name, rather than wasting time explaining complications involving her son.

Horace Goodspeed

• Horace Goodspeed, mathematician. He was the leader of DHARMA Initiative on the Island. His jumpsuit is from an "intelligence gathering" station (The Arrow). Built or at least started building what is now known as Jacob's cabin.

• And considering that it required complex mathematical computations at the Lamp Post to find the island, him being a mathematician makes it very likely he is the "clever fellow". We also know now that he isn't just a prominent member of the DHARMA Initiative on the Island, he is the leader. And given that he makes another appearance just two episodes later and supposedly has a more significant role in the show in upcoming episodes, this also adds to the likelihood of him being the "clever fellow".

• Gerald DeGroot, Scientist, unknown expertise. Alleged "brain" behind the DHARMA Initiative creation.
• Enzo Valenzetti, Notorious mathematician.
• Charles Widmore, A wealthy businessman, formerly a member of The Others.
• Alvar Hanso, An industrialist, the financier of the DHARMA Initiative.
• The "economist" (Elsa's boss). It is possible that he is one of the people listed above.

Finding the Island

The Lamp Post Dharma Logo

• The Listening post is Widmore's, and developed another station to mimic the functionality of the Lamp Post. The lack of Foucault pendulum probably is explained by the advances in technology and suggests that Widmore's station is developed more recently.
• Every now and then a group of people happens upon the Island without looking for it. Say, the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, for example, or the US Army in 1954 while conducting their nuclear weapons tests.
• DHARMA either used the Lamp Post or another unknown way to find the Island to provide the food drops, like in "Lockdown".

The Island and its Movements

Ms Hawking in the Lamp Post Station

• From Ms. Hawking:
  • "Well, this fellow presumed, and correctly, as it turned out, that the Island was always moving."
  • "Why do you think you were never rescued?"
• The "always moving" statement could describe two situations
  • The Island is "under way," somehow. If the Island moves all the time, the survivors, even without being astronomers, would have noticed that the stars were different and that the angle of the sun was different from day to day.
  • The Island moves frequently but discretely, it "always" has and "always" will. After each move, it remains at its new location for some period of time, which may vary from move to move but is always long enough for both Charles Widmore and Penelope Widmore to take the trouble to mount expeditions to the Island.
• The second option is more likely than the first. When Ms. Hawking is briefing Jack and company, she is a mathematician speaking to lay persons. She is speaking in a conversational tone and mode, not providing the precis of a scientific paper. Moving in a series of regularly (irregularly?) timed jumps fits into the definition of "always moving" and also allows for the fact that the implosion of the Swan allowed time to mount expeditions by Charles Widmore by Penelope Widmore. If either had discovered the location of a continuously moving Island on day X, the discovery would be of no value on X + 1.
• The Island moves spatially. We know this because in the known history, the Island has been close enough to Africa for the Beechcraft to reach it and has been somewhere along the (not necessarily scheduled) flight path of Flight 815. The place where the Black Rock became stranded is almost certainly a third location the we have not yet seen.
• The Island's natural movements are of a relatively short distance. To move the Island a longer distance, the wheel must be turned. When this is necessary, Jacob descends into the wheel chamber to perform his task. However, Jacob has been imprisoned in his cabin by the boundary formed by the gray, gritty material that was one of the six items and which Locke discovered on his way to his meeting with Jacob.
  • No, Ash keeps out the Man in Black, not Jacob, as shown when Bram makes an ash circle around himself to protect himself from the Monster, and the Monster having to hit Bram with a rock to get him out of the circle. As shown by the ash circle around the Temple, preventing the Monster's entry, and as shown by the fact that the ash circle is broken around Jacob's cabin, and the MiB subsequently inhabits it.

The Island travelling through time

• The Island has always moved in short, periodic hops.
  • Pushing the button allowed the island to remain stationary for the DHARMA people, possibly by discharging the electromagnetic energy in the wheel chamber safely.
  • After the hatch imploded, time on the island began to 'skew' from that of the real world; the Island moving in space affects its place in time as well.

• The whole concept is problematic. Many viewers in the past have pointed out that night seems to give way to day and day to night in unusual ways. Also it has been noted that the overly sporadic weather systems (heavy and sudden rains followed by euphoric sunlight) are unusual. These two exhibits of evidence confirm the concept that the Island moves through space and therefore encounters various storm systems and various positions in reference to the sun (night/day). However, this is massively problematic as evidence. With so many intelligent people including doctors and scientists experiencing these movements, surely they would have noticed within 100 days that something was terribly unusual: if not the position of the stars in the sky, then most certainly the survivors would notice and comment that some days the sunlight hours would only be about 3 hours and others about 12 hours with night time hours also varying between, say, 5 hours and 10 hours. The whole concept of the Island constantly moving in space from the survivors' perspective is seriously problematic.
  • It's probably a blooper/continuity error; you're right, someone would've noticed if the Island was constantly moving, but I believe it is a mandate of the storyline that the Island does move.
  • That being said, it is possible that the Island moves periodically, and gradually. As in, it doesn't just hop from the North Pole to the South Pole, but it hops gradually around the Globe in a non-random path. It does this in such a way, accounting for timezones, that on-island time is consistent. For instance, if it were to move from near England to near France, the one hour difference would not be added on or subtracted from the day.

Bearings

• The Island's movement could very easily explain the differences in bearings that Ben gave Michael and Faraday told everyone to use. At the time Michael left the Island, the bearing needed was 325. Over the course of time, etc. when the freighter folk dropped onto the Island, Faraday (being a scientist and all) reconfigured that the new bearing needed would be 305. Consequently, now that the island has been off-axis, time-warping, etc. there will be a new bearing if anyone tries to come to/tries to leave the Island.

• The bearing needs to be recalculated whenever one wishes to enter or leave the Island due to its movement (assuming the Island has moved since the bearing was last calculated).
• The DHARMA Initiative Initiative somehow caused the Island to remain relatively 'stable' for a short while.

• These two ideas point to the idea that the Numbers, in addition to being key in the Valenzetti Equation, are used to calculate either the position of the island, the bearing required to approach it, or both. Hence, the radio tower broadcasting the Numbers.

The other passengers of Flight 316

Flight 316 Survivors

The other passengers of Ajira Flight 316 not related to the O6 are the people who came to shore on the canoes that the survivors find during one of the flashes while making their way to the Orchid. They too, are the ones that open fire on the survivors in the canoe from the other canoe. These people are actually employees of Charles Widmore. Widmore likely got wind of the Oceanic 6's imminent return to the Island and knew that the best way to get more of his people back on the Island was to have them ride along with the Oceanic 6 back to the Island. As for how he knew the Oceanic 6 was returning, that could be one of two possible reasons: 1. Judging by the fact that Widmore had Eloise Hawking's address in his little black book, that indicates that the two have or have had some type of relationship now or in the past. If the character "Ellie" from the 1954 time period on the Island is actually a young Eloise, then the two would have known each as far back as then. Currently, she may be working for/with Widmore and merely using Ben as a pawn to get the O6 back together to go back to the Island. 2. When Desmond came and asked for Daniel Faraday's mother's address this likely set off an alarm in Widmore's head that something was up on the Island for Desmond to some reason suddenly want to know where Daniel Faraday's mother lived, considering he knew Daniel was on the Island somewhere, and that his mother knew how to find the Island. Knowing this, he likely just sent spies to follow the O6 around and see what they were doing. When they saw them buying plane tickets, they knew what was up, and quickly bought plane tickets of their own.

• This is why Caesar is the only other one in 1st class (besides Sayid's escort) and why he looks so tense the whole time - he knows where he's going and, like Jack, he can't just sit back and read a book while waiting for it to happen.
• Going by what we know about Ben wanting to kill Penny for revenge against Widmore, the fact once he sees Desmond in town, that probably indicates to him Penny is too, and then his line about "tying up some loose ends", it would seem more likely that Desmond beat him up for killing or attempting to kill Penny. However, this may not be the case afterall. More than likely, Ben would have been prepared for Desmond to retaliate and planned (he always has a plan) a way to either avoid him or subdue him first. But if one of Widmore's spies had been following him, he probably wouldn't have been expecting that and been caught off guard by the spy. When he spoke to Jack on the phone, his voice seemed to indicate he was shocked by what happened. In fact, since Widmore knew Desmond would be heading to Los Angeles with Penny, he may have even had an operative there keeping an eye on Desmond and Penny's boat in the dock just to make sure Ben didn't show up and cause any trouble.

Possible cultural influences

Stephen King

• The Langoliers: In the Stephen King novel, an airplane takes off from Los Angeles and while in midair in travels through a time warp, leaving only a handful of survivors while the rest of the people on board disappear. For the survivors to travel back through the warp (or window) to their own time, they must recreate several key conditions of their original pass through said window. (Literary works)
• Song of Susannah: is the sixth book in Stephen King's Dark Tower Series. In this book, some of the characters are randomly sent to 1977 to meet Stephen King, the writer that created their quest in the first place and started them on their journey. This is similar to how the survivors find themselves in 1977 to witness and play a role in the Incident that brought them to the island originally. (Literary works)

Other

• Lost Highway: After hearing a noise in his apartment, Jack Shephard walks back to his bedroom. This is an allusion to Lost Highway, which features a similar shot by shot walk into a bedroom by the protagonist. (Movies and TV)