Ok.. here's what I am thinking about so far...

first ~ the island IS a living entity, or thing, and does not have the limitations of mere mortals like us.. E.G. Time, science... it's more of a magical and acient alien like monster in itself...

second ~ dharma is not in complete control of what is going on.. that is why they seem to be running under the gun... here are some ideas... Dharma brought the people here because they needed test subjects, or people who have no idea about what dharma is trying to do. Dharma needs these people to try and manipulate and control the island.. but the island has a will of it's own as well... and maybe has it's own intentions of stopping dharma, by using the survivors. what I mean is ... dharma uses the island to bring people to the island... and the island uses Dharma to do the same.

thirdly ~ The island is manipulating survivors and pushing them in directions to stop dharma... l.E. John Locke... the hatch... the monster... ETC.

fourth ~ The other others are the descendants of the black rock... they are more intuned with the ISLAND. I think when we saw people and children with a teddy bear walking through the jungle that was them... oh... and they are all infected... with this discease... but they have lived with it for so long... the discease my really be something of a curse... brought on by the life blood of the island... which leads to my next set of theories...

fifthly ~ Henry Gale is "he" and he is has taken it upon himself to finish the job that ethan was supposed to accomplish... and he is kind of a Kaiser Soze because he does put a little truth..

sixthly ~ Dharma is Extracting Non-metallic material for their own means and design... Henry was talking about owning a non-metallic mineral company or something to that fact.. and I think that the black swan bunker has to with that.. and that the numbers have to do with Atomic Numbers of the elements... and they are extracting those elements from the island... I don't know if this makes sense to many...

seven ~ The minerals being extracted from the island are the life blood of the island entity.

that's all I got so far... I just believe it's more than one thing... but simpler than what I think is going on... their are two systems of power here...

science vs. the occult.

Not so sure about any of that. I think you deserve extra credit for bringing Kaiser Soze into this. There was a picture of a balloon on the wall of the interigation room. Hey, maybe Verbal Kent is behind all of this. Why not.

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Have you seen "Maternity Leave" yet? It blows #4 to heck.

Otherwise, very good ideas, I am looking forward to you expanding it!

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oh yes.. I have seen it all... but what I mean is... there is still no evidence in Maternity leave to say that there are NOT two different sets of others...

Dharma being one set of others... black rock descendants being the other...
I still don't think that when jin and and eko were in the jungle and we saw the low shots of people apparently primitive "barefoot" walking.. that that was NOT the Dharma others... I think there are more than just the one large faction of people on the island.. there could be more than two... (and there is something about needing to have children.. my guess with that would be because they can manipulate the island) hmmm...

all that maternity leave shows us is that the "dharma others" present themselves to the survivors as people who are "ALSO TRAPPED" on this island. for what reason? I guess we will have to wait another long time to see.

Ahh, I see what you are getting at.

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I've thought for a while that there is another group of Others too. I attribute them to the mysterious whispers. I like the idea of them being from the Black Rock, I never thought of it that way, and maybe Ecko has a connection to the ship since he's from Africa and it was an African slave ship.

I also wonder if there is not more than one set of Others. I rewatched the episode in which Jin and Eko are hinding in the ground cover and the Others are walking back and forth. The teddy bear being dragged by the string is not the same one that Emma had. (that may be a production goof) Also, all those legs appeared to be from grown ups so the kids weren't with them.
So my question is where do you think the whispers come from?
Are they generated by the Hatch others mechanically? Are they the jungle
others and they are whispering from somewhere close by - hidden
from the survivors - Rousseau has been hearing them for years.

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