[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
We learned that they have communication links to the outside world, by how they got information. That’s pretty significant - they’re not just a long forgotten isolated group. Although I suppose the supply drops contradicted that to an extent too, but with the worry of infection and such, it was unclear if there was still communication with the outside world.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, we don’t know this for certain. It’s possible there’s one-way contact only, or at least a version of it.
Was it Juliet who said that line about “who we were then may not be connected to who we are now”? I’d have to look at it again to get the wording exactly right, but I was struck by that line as being a nearly on-the-nose expression of one of the show’s central themes. There was a scene early in season one between Jack and Kate on the beach wherein they suggested they may have an opportunity to leave behind their old identities and make themselves anew. Every character reflects this idea to some extent: Locke, whose paralysis is apparently but not definitely healed; Charlie, who wants to stop thinking of himself as a heroin addict; Eko, whose past almost literally dropped out of the sky in the form of his dead brother; Hurley and the numbers; and so on, and so on.
Since this is such an important concept, why wouldn’t it be true for the Others as well?
Based on what we saw in this episode, and some of the little clues in the dialogue and scenario, I have a new operating theory. Goes like this: The Hanso Foundation set up this isolated island to perform their offbeat experiments in life extension and remote viewing and all that stuff. They established the super-magnetic-whoozywhatsis to protect themselves from outside detection and interference. The mainland Hanso organization knows they aren’t likely to hear from the island team, regularly or at all, because of this protective field, so arrangements are made for regular shipments of food, supplies, and maintenance type stuff. These supply drops are set to continue until the company is ordered to stop or change things.
Except that the Hanso research group, once they’re installed on the island, finds that they’ve done the job too well, and have accidentally isolated themselves, without means of communicating or escaping. They have some version of the Internet, whereby they can research things and get information, but they cannot contact their compatriots back home.
Perhaps only the leader (Ben/Henry) truly realizes this. Perhaps he’s been stringing his people along this whole time, keeping them involved in research, telling them how important their role is, maintaining order via recruitment into some brand of scientific zealotry. That’s why, when the plane showed up, he ordered everybody to go into detached-experimenter mode, and they responded.
This would explain why Desmond’s girlfriend, who is associated with the Hanso group, has been trying to find the island; friends and family members set off on this grand experiment and then apparently vanished without a trace. It would explain why the animal enclosures have been apparently abandoned. It explains the need for the security system. It explains the 70’s-vintage books and music the Others have (though not that fancy new washing machine ;)). It explains the food shipments.
However: It doesn’t explain where the Black Rock came from. It doesn’t explain the Others’ fascination with children, unless Ben is feeding his people some version of “and a child shall lead us” re getting themselves off the island, and that they therefore obsessively pursue every young person they come across in hopes that this one is the one. It doesn’t explain how or why everybody seems to be connected to everybody else (Locke working at Hurley’s box company, for example). It doesn’t explain Walt’s apparent precognition.
Nevertheless, it fits the available information better than any other scenario I’ve heard up to this point, so I’m going to use it as a conceptual model and see how new information fits in as we continue.
Thoughts?
