A trade off for WALT possibly?
and yes, SAWYER'S father did kill himself, it was shown in a Sawyer flashback, back in season 1.
After watching this episode, here is my theory...more in depth.
DHARMA is a very powerful secret organization, much like the ones in the DaVinci Code. These people have placed themselves on an island, there they do all their experiements and research. They biggest experiement is what we see before us.
DHARMA brought the plane down on purpose, they have powerful people in high places (Hanso). Everything on the island is an experiment designed by DHARMA to test humans in extreme circumstances.
The survivors past all interconnect because of DHARMA. Everything that happened in their past that led up to them being on the plane was planned by DHARMA. DHARMA has to specifically pick the people they would be experiementing on, such as a doctor, a cop, a con artist, a musician, a solider, etc. They followed them and gave them little pushes here and there to go them to where they are now. Everyone in their past, works for DHARMA, (Locke's father, Sawyer's Mysterious Partners, Nadia, Jack's Wife, Claire's psychic). One of DHARMA previous experiements dealt with the ability of people to walk or not. The whole her being not able to walk was staged and her marriage was fake. DHARMA has the power to give the people the ability to walk or not, they gave this abililty to LOCKE when he arrived on the island.and gave them little pushes that eventually made them end up on the plane.
The experiement, like I said, is to test humans in extreme circumstances. Hence the plane crash. If they drugged them and took them in their sleep then the believability factor of the whole experiement goes out the window. How did they bring down the plane?
Two possibilities: Some people on the plane work for DHARMA (Read characters)
or
This powerful pyschic has the ability to bring the plane down, in two halves, seperating the survivors, to see which base camp would perform better under different circumstances. This would explain why no one was severly injured during the crash, the pyschic could have put some sercurity blanket around the survivors, so that there would only be a few casualties.
In the first season, DHARMA tested how the survivors would cope with living on the island. How they would operate after the crash, who would take the leader role, who would do what, how relationships will break or stengthen.
Mid First, Second Season - Introduce all the mysterious elements of the island. Inside of HATCH, the BLACK SMOKE, the OTHERS, the TAPE, the BUTTON.
CHARACTERS:
EVERYONE, with the exception of the survivors, works for DHARMA. Gale, Desmond, ZEKE, Others, Danielle, Cindy, Pilot.
DANIELLE: Everything she has said is a lie. There is no team, she has no daughter and she has not been there for 16 years. She works for DHARMA, her whole story is a fabrication. Why, again, to test the survivors, experiement on them, is she an enemy or allie? Will they help her get her daughter back? How well can you trust strangers?
CINDY: Where did she go? She disappeared, underground, went to a nearby hatch maybe? Why, not clear yet, possible future conflict. To show that they are not safe anywhere maybe?
LIBBY (50/50): Libby, I'm 50/50 on. She could be working for DHARMA, working as one of the people who follow the survivors before the crash. (Her subject was Hurley). Or she could very well be an innocent survivor of the crash.
OTHERS: The work for DHARMA, different sections, different organizations, different job titles, whatever it is you want to think. But they all work for DHARMA. Their whole stranded on island routine is staged (Proven).
DESMOND: He also works for DHARMA. He's probably sipping lemonaid as we speak in another hatch. He has a script as well and reads it. He's here to "push" the survivors into pushing the button every 108 minutes. What he has in store for us in the future is unknown...by the way, he was reasponsible for following Jack. (Stadium)
Rose/Bernard 50/50: Until we see a flashback at least.
But the pilot is dead you ask? Well, if you ever read a comic book, or watcha horror movie, you'll know that if you never see the death on screen, there is a chance that the person who is supposidly dead is still alive. The pilot's death was staged by DHARMA. All we see is that he is taken from the cockpit. Throw a little fake blood on the window and a fake dead body up in a tree, then presto. I doubt they ever got him down from there. These people who work for DHARMA every now and again interact with the survivors, they do things to see how they would react. Such as kidnapping WALT, CLAIRE, MICHEAL.
Everything is staged. The balloon and the real henry gale was staged and the fake henry gale is a mole. This was to see how far they would go to get the information they wanted. Why would the fake henry gale do this mission knowing that it could cost his life, because HIM, (HANSO) is a ruthless cold blooded powerful man. HE will do far worse things to the fake GALE, then the survivors could ever do.
Every so often the DHARMA employees will subtly send clues to the survivors. I believe the fake GALE is responsible for the black light. He turned it on to show LOCKE, then turned it off as well as the countdown. Now DHARMA will watch the survivors as they react to this new information. The new mystery of the island.
The tape: Another staged experiement to further "explain" why the button should be pushed.
Map on BLAST DOOR: More msyterious elements to test the survivors.
Food Drop: To keep the survivors alive.
Polar Bears: Early experiements on survivors, furthers the "story" behind the tape.
Black Rock: Placed there, with the dynamite so that the survivors could open the hatch. They would let the mystery of it being inland confuse the survivors.
Black Smoke: Another experiement, the pyschic some how manged to harness his pyschich abilities into this cloud of black smoke (Which is why it can read ECKO's past)
This is an organization so powerful, they do not care how many lives are lost. STEVE/SCOTT, BOONE, SHANNON, ETHAN. They have enough money to cover it all up. I'm not denying any magical/mystical elements of the island. The island is a big part of DHARMA.
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