LOST EXPLAINED PART 14 - THE DHARMA INITIATIVE

[Music] dharma stands for department of heuristics and research on material applications the initiative was a scientific research project founded by a wealthy entrepreneur named alvar hanso and run by karen and gerald degroot out of the university of michigan in ann arbor the show implies that dharma's existence may have been funded specifically to seek out and colonise the island in order to harness its fabled powers whoever alvar hanso really was he appeared to possess knowledge of the island's existence all we know for sure is that his connection to the island stretches all the way back to the black rock a ship that was captained by his ancestor magnus hanso the first wave of dharma personnel constructed the lamp post station in los angeles in order to find the island using geographical hot spots of electromagnetism as the guide the lamp post harnessed the pocket of energy beneath the church itself to help trace its connection back to the source remember all of these pockets around the world are connected this is how dharma found where the island was going to be they maintained a large presence on the island in the 1970s right through to the 1980s the initiative's purpose was one of scientific discovery a way to make the world a better place external sources from the show such as the lost experience suggest that their mission was to change the outcome of the valencia equation i.e the numbers which was a sequence allegedly predicting the end of humanity but it is clear from the way the group functions within the show that the goals were far more varied and complex than this in reality dharma was an uneasy mix of scientists doctors teachers security forces workmen and families that formed something akin to a hippie commune each department had its own hierarchy and specific function departments included meteorology psychology parapsychology zoology electromagnetism and the utopian social project which were the aim of seeking peace and prosperity for the whole world it is worth noting that dharma was most likely established sometime during the late 1960s at the height of the counterculture movement and the cold war it was a time when everyone feared nuclear annihilation the barracks video states that the mission of the initiative on the island was to study its unique properties for the betterment of mankind and advancement of world peace the degrees no doubt made the decisions on who got to go to the island but on the island itself the man in charge was horus goodspeed the leader of the utopian social project in which establishing and managing a colony of families and creating a harmonious commune was the primary objective if they could create a peaceful utopia on the island perhaps they could replicate the formula elsewhere in the world but we know how that turned out dharma wasn't alone on the island as previously established richard's group aka the others aka the hostiles had been occupying this land for a very long time and they did not take kindly to intruders perhaps this was an understandable reaction considering the prior experiency with the united states military in the 1950s the others objected to dharma's plundering of the land in the name of science while dahmer objected to the native sense of proprietary ownership over this unclaimed territory to dharma the properties of the island should benefit all of mankind not just a select few it is implied that the higher ranks of dharma looked upon the natives as not much more than a backwards cult worshiping some imaginary island deity they saw them as savages regardless of their conflicts of interest an uneasy truce is broken between the two factions this appears to be led by richard alpert presumably under the instructions of jacob the truce came down to simple playground rules you stay on your side and we will stay on our side dharma can have its commune and certain sectors of the island to inhabit just as long as they don't cross the line into the hostile sacred places such as the temple nor should they interfere with the electromagnetic hotspots and rivers that connect to the hostile sacred spring waters however we know that dharma did have plans to take over the temple and build a new station there or at least investigate further possibly to extract samples from the spring waters for experimental purposes dharma's intention to do this is clearly evidenced on ben's map the word temple has been scrawled on the paper above a dharma logo this plan might have been the final straw that triggered the purge but we will get to that towards the end of this video sometime around the brokering of the truce dharma erects a giant sonar fence around their residential barracks presumably to secure their location from both the others and encounters with the smoke monster of which there must have been fatalities over the years one of the houses in the barracks is constructed adjacent to an old ruined from the egyptian period most likely to further study its origins and purpose although it is made clear that dharma are not aware of the more complex network of tunnels beneath their feet constructed during the same egyptian period slowly but surely over time dharma begins to expand its reach beyond the compound fence they build research stations for various purposes the stations are as follows the hydra a zoological research station located several miles off the coast on a smaller island it includes an underwater aquarium section presumably where the shark from season two episode adrift was branded plus a number of animal cages above ground where several polar bears were kept the polar bears were being trained in how to retrieve fish biscuits through a complicated reward system we can assume that this was related to their potential use down in the frozen donkey wheel chamber more on this later hydra also hid a special room on site that was used to interrogate hostiles then wipe the short-term memories using mk-ultra-style brainwashing techniques and drugs it is possible that characters we know who have memory discrepancy issues in the show such as danielle russo or even claire littleton were taken to this place although claire's amnesia in season one was more likely a result of all the drugs ethan had been lacing her drinking water with what that's really sour is it i hadn't noticed the tempest this was a station designed to study deadly gases and other chemicals possibly to see how the island might affect controlled chemical reactions the station could produce store and distribute toxic gas and it is this gas that was used against dharma in the purge we can assume the others took control of the facility with help from inside man ben and opened the gas lines into the barracks the arrow station was largely empty by the time we see it in season two according to pierre chang's introduction to the station the recording of which is interrupted in season five's opening scene the arrow's primary purpose was the development of defensive strategies against the hostiles by the time the tail section survivors find it it has been cleared out we can assume it was home to a large armory of weapons and intelligence on the locations of the hostiles one of the remaining boxes found inside contained a glass eye this is no doubt mikhail's glass eye which helps to prove that he was indeed telling the truth about being initially recruited by dharma no doubt he was brought to the island to be part of this security force waging war against the natives only to switch sides several years into his term the flame was a communications station perhaps an upgraded version of the old radio tower which was no doubt one of darma's first structures on the island the flame was a central hub for surveillance intelligence gathering and task dispensing across the island it was initially run by stuart radzinski a paranoid but driven science officer then later occupied by mikhail the staff was a medical station which no doubt functioned as an emergency medical facility for initiative personnel that were injured outside the barracks and could not reach the other side of the island this became a key outpost for the others who would use the staff as a primary operating room for expectant mothers in their quest to solve the pregnancy crisis the looking glass was eventually established as an underwater station used as a beacon to help guide in submarines and vessels approaching the island this station was needed because only a very specific corridor through the electromagnetic bubble around the island could be used in order to reach its shore safely ben later used the station to jam transmissions off of the island in 2004. a question that is often asked about this station is in regards to the cable saeed found on the beach allegedly the power cable to the looking glass people asked why the losties didn't simply cut that wire firstly the cable would have been designed to withstand blunt force and wear and tear secondly and more importantly the looking glass no doubt had a backup generator just like other stations cutting the wire would guarantee nothing the orchid station is a greenhouse on the surface most likely designed to fool the hostiles into thinking that it was simply an innocuous facility interested in botanical research only however the greenhouse disguised an underground station beneath this laboratory was built adjacent to a pocket of electromagnetic energy the aim of the orchid was to study this exotic matter and experiment in manipulating time accessing and studying the light beneath the island was dharma's primary objective mother's warning about human beings always wanting more of the light still rings true centuries later the orchid was established on this site as a result of dahmer investigating what lied beneath the well a well that had only been dug as a result of time travelling sawyer bringing the rope with him through a time jump flash which he only could have done thanks to the orchid station's existence in the future we know that dharma was aware of the donkey wheel chamber as seen in season 5 episode because you left while dr pierre chang insists they do not dig any further from this side they clearly have plans to someday access the wheel once their experiments in the orchid reached a plateau we can deduce this because of the polar bears which were being trained in how to operate complex mechanisms and systems it also tracks that the bears would be able to withstand the freezing cold temperatures of the wheel chamber too the first test in preparation for doing this came when chang's team placed a bear inside the exotic mata chamber this is why we see a polar bear in the tunisian desert in 2004 and it is found by none other than former dharma child charlotte lewis who has been actively seeking out her birthplace further proof that all of these events were all by design part of a tapestry of time threaded by the source with help from jacob across decades even centuries the swan this is the dharma station we are all the most familiar with and it requires the deepest dive it was originally intended as a laboratory where scientists could work to understand the unique electromagnetic fluctuations beneath that sector however stuart razenski's drilling unleashed the energy causing the incident that almost destroyed the world thanks to jack and juliet carrying out daniel faraday's plan the hydrogen bomb jughead was detonated causing an implosion that temporarily plugged the leak long enough for the area to be filled in with concrete and the swan hatch to be built however the energy continued to build up beneath the site which is what prompted the need to discharge the build-up every 108 minutes the swan site went from being a research station to something more akin to an electromagnetic reactor every time the energy builds it is channeled through something installed behind that concrete wall something that is able to discharge the build-up at the push of a button the lost video game via domus showed us what could possibly have been on the other side of the concrete with this picture this section of the swan was indicated on the blast door map but was not seen in the show itself so therefore it is not entirely canon however the principle remains the same it is a giant reactor that absorbs the buildup for as long as it can until the button diffuses the charge a fail safe switch was installed beneath the swan which was a turnkey that essentially detonates the reactor and blows up the energy pocket however the fail-safe worked only in theory no one knew what turning the key would do to the station nor to the person who turned the key when desmond goes down into the crawl space to activate it at the end of season 2 he does so knowing full well that this could be a suicide mission and this is why the key was not turned by anyone else beforehand another common question asked by audiences in regards to the button is why were people needed for it at all why couldn't the process be automated the answer is that human error can be monitored double checked and corrected because there is always supposed to be a two-man team entering the numbers at all times this system proved reliable and effective however automated error aka letting the computer automatically enter the numbers by its very definition would not necessitate the need for constant human supervision all it would take is the computer software to blip momentarily or lose power and the world would end if the hatch were built today it would probably use an automated system as well as human supervision to make sure the time horizons were met and any blips could be quickly identified and corrected but back in the late 1970s and early 1980s computers were not as reliable as they are today and dharma was wiped out before the system could be upgraded in the 1990s former soldier kelvin inman was one of the last official occupants of the hatch having worked directly with its architect stuart razenski for some years kelvin was in iraq during 1991 as we see him supervising saeed with interrogations which means he must have come to the island just after the war possibly in 1992 now the specific date of the dharma purge has frequently been contested amongst fans either it happened in the late 1980s or the early 1990s either way it calls into question who exactly recruited kelvin if he was recruited by the dharma initiative it would need to have been before the purge and therefore mean the purge definitely didn't take place until 1992. however it is possible that he was recruited by the others who were simply posing as dharma in which case he could have been hired at any point during the mid to late 1990s all we know for sure is that he was partnered with stuart razenski which means either dharma was still functioning on the island in some form by 1992 or at least the others allowed razinsky to continue his work in pushing the button because they understood that it was a necessary task kelvin is fully aware of the existence of the others aka the hostiles which helps to support this theory that the team in the swan was exempt from the purge we can assume that razenski felt a large degree of guilt for his actions in 1977 hence why he stationed himself in the hat permanently to continue discharging the build-up as it was his responsibility above anyone else this became like a self-imposed punishment and exile in his cabin fever-like boredom he would paint his dharma map on the glass door wall for entertainment and make edits to orientation films to take out the instructions that he didn't agree with such as not using the hatch computer for anything other than pushing the button but imagine being stuck down in the hatch for months or years at a time using the computer to talk to other stations would be one of your only sources of communication with other people razenski no doubt used the computer to talk to other people in spite of dr chang's rule after all what more could someone do down there beyond eat drink talk and paint when michael uses the computer in season two to talk to his son he is really talking to another station the likely culprit at the other end of this intranet conversation is mikhail at the flame his job is to lure michael to the other side of the island on ben's instruction to help the others in their assessment of walt although this is not the only reason to detain michael he is also to be used as bait to fellow survivors jack kate and sawyer when the timing is right however ben is unintentionally caught by danielle russo during this attempted ruse so the others are forced in tasking michael with getting their leader back first the others are ironically given an opportunity to snatch all three of these key names when michael first runs off into the jungle they have jack kate and sawyer all in one place surrounded and now gunned so why don't they take them let's think about the logistics of ben's plan at this point he is still observing and learning about jack trying to ascertain how best to manipulate the doctor into performing the surgery and it isn't until this very moment when it becomes clear what jack truly cares about he gives up his guns to save kate and walks away from michael meanwhile kate's emotional connection to sawyer would have already been demonstrated in the hatch and captured on the cameras so it is after this confrontation that ben realises how to put the squeeze on jack perhaps another reason they are not taken during the events of the hunting party is because john locke is with them and as we learn later ben doesn't want the fabled john locke anywhere near his people this all brings us nicely to our final dharma station the pearl this station was specifically intended to be a confined space where psychologists could observe dharma personnel and how they react to performing menial ultimately meaning less tasks it was a psychological experiment the occupants of the pearl think they are watching people in the swan carrying out a fake task and make notes accordingly but these notes follow a pneumatic tube to nowhere out of all the stations it is the most innocuous of all however it becomes a key location in the future for various reasons the nexus point on the island for activity seems to be happening above it mr eko's plane charlie's hero and stash boons accident and death following a response from the tales section discovering the pearl yemi's body echo's death locks compass the man in black's loophole but it also becomes a very useful live video feed for the others after the purge it would have been possible to monitor kelvin and razenski in the hatch to make sure things were ticking over with the button perhaps the others had their own plans to seize control of the hatch if anything went wrong down there the cigarettes stubbed out on the table indicate that someone had been watching the surveillance feed over time maybe this was tom friendly or danny pickett we later see ben and juliet using the monitors to observe jack shepard in the hatch it is implied that ben came back to study these feeds many times and this is how he gets caught in one of russo's traps because he was on his way back from the pearl now let's complete the timeline of dharma's history on the island following the incident of 1977 dharma tries to limit the damage of the incident and its fallout by quarantining parts of the island any location in close proximity to one of these pockets is turned into a so-called hot zone this is why quarantine signs are stenciled on doors inside some of the stations they are to designate certain sectors as high risk for electromagnetic activity and possible contamination for personnel operating within these hot zones they are required to wear hazmat suits and take regular shots of the vaccine every nine days to counter any effects from radiation leakage this vaccine might have been an upgraded version of the inoculation jab that new recruits to the island were given upon their arrival as discussed previously this medicine in its various forms was developed to counter any side effects of being in close proximity to high levels of electromagnetic radiation this proves to be only a precautionary measure since as it turns out the ultimate ramifications from electromagnetic fallout are mostly limited to pregnant women although such ramifications are certainly grave enough the utopian social project quickly crumbles as a result with many of the families being moved off island the swan is built over the concrete-filled dig site and becomes operational jughead's detonation merely put the apocalypse on pause it is unclear how long passes between the incident and the installation of the button but judging from the build of the computer we can estimate the early 1980s stuart razenski exiles himself into the hatch to monitor the computer and continue studying the properties of the island he is the original button pusher and this is the place where he eventually commits suicide after losing his arm dr pierre chang continues his experiments with time manipulation emboldened by his meeting with time travellers he never sees his son again neither as a child nor as an adult horus goodspeed builds a cabin to get away from the pressures of his job only to never quite make it to retirement the cabin itself appears to be incomplete bereft of creature comforts and the truce that have been brokered with the hostiles comes to a bitter end following dahmer's continued encroachment into hostile territory thus renewing the aggressive kill will be killed conflict from the early days long gone is the diplomacy of eloise hawking's reign the others now reside under charles widmore's wrathful leadership and the inevitability of the purge finally arrives charles widmore uses benjamin linus as a mole to execute his plan by infiltrating the tempest station and gassing the compound while shooting any stragglers as evidenced by gunshot wounds in some of the bodies in the pit however ben is not the only dharma member to trade sides other dharma defectors include ethan goodspeed who would later change his name to ethan wrong a potential sign of the disdain he had for his own heritage and people there may have been other young dharma members who were taken in by the others as well another defector was mikhail bakunen who continued to wear his dharma jumpsuit long after the purge was over like kelvin inman mikhail was a military man consider his lethal combat training and his field surgery experience furthermore his ability to translate various languages could have included latin the coded language of the others now factor in his connection to the arrow station with the glass eye and we can deduce that he was recruited to help defend the initiative against incursions by the hostiles so the story he told syed and kate in season 3 episode enter 77 was partially true another person who could have been a dharma defector is tom friendly he tells sawyer that it only took the bears two hours to figure out the contraption in the cage this indicates that tong worked on hydra island back when the bears were being used in experiments there it would also help to explain his fierce loyalty to benjamin linus therefore we can assume it was ben who recruited people like mikhail tom and ethan along with various other members of the dharma community maybe these people showed a spiritual affinity for the island or sympathy for the natives and together they all defected ben alludes to the idea of multiple defectors when talking to locke these are my people the dharma initiative they came here seeking harmony but they couldn't even coexist with the island's original inhabitants and when it became clear that one side had to go one side had to be purged i did what i had to do i was one of the people that was smart enough to make sure that i didn't end up in that ditch this further helps to explain how ben slowly turned the others against charles widmore since he had brought a new group of people with him into the ranks of the others all of whom would be more loyal to ben than to widmore this is why he could move the natives into the dharma barracks after usurping the former leader we know that a more mystical group remained stationed at the temple led by dogen which could have been on jacob's orders much speculation amongst fans has pointed to the likelihood that the island was moved during the height of the dharma war some think the island was moved several months after the incident so that dharma mainlanders could not find it again we can speculate that if the wheel was indeed turned by someone it would have been by eloise hawking this is how she left her role as leader and escaped to the real world to give birth to daniel faraday pushing the wheel could even be the reason for her alleged gift of precognition only eloise would have had both motive and opportunity to do this while the orchid was still under construction she would have been able to use the connecting underground tunnel that we see ben traverse in order to reach the chamber there is some evidence to support this ben had to attain his knowledge on how to move the island from somewhere we know he visited the exit point in tunisia because he had a hotel room reserved for whenever he might return which means ben definitely used the exotic mata chamber in the orchid to travel off the island in a speedy manner but the specifics of how to turn the wheel must have been communicated to him by someone who did it before of course dahmer would have been able to relocate the island eventually because they have the lamp post and this is what triggers the need for a trusted member of the inner circle to take over the church and its hidden facility below we know that eloise will later take control of the lamp post presumably during the 1990s which makes finding the island an eye on impossible task for any unauthorized party and she does not return to help out in the war against the man in black because unlike ben she accepts that turning the wheel means you can never go home again as for the dharma initiative it is unclear what became of its off island remnants such as the degrees and alvar hanso we can assume that the purge may have extended to them as well wiping out anyone with a knowledge of the island with the exception of the lamp post the only other mainland dharma facility still functioning since the purge is seen in series epilogue the new man in charge in which two unassuming warehouse workers have been loading pallets onto drones with pre-programmed coordinates and sending them out to the island on automated runs these pallets contain shipments of the dharma vaccine and general food supplies all of which would come in handy for the two-man team in the swan a routine that the others were more than willing to allow continue and this is the last we ever see of the dharma initiative as ben comes to roll up the last outpost and shutter the doors closed on their operation once and for all their dream of world peace long since faded into history and dust thank you for watching the next chapter will finally explore the nature of the flash sideways in detail until then stay lost

Channel: LOST EXPLAINED

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Keywords: Lost explained, lost mysteries explained, lost mythology explained, lost answers, lost tv show explained, explain lost, lost, lost tv show, lost ending, lost ending explained, what did the ending of lost mean, lost smoke monster, lost smoke monster explained, damon lindelof, carlton cuse, darlton, lost tv show theory, Lost mysteries answered, the dharma initiative, dharma, lost dharma, the purge dharma lost, the hatch lost, the swan lost, dharma stations, dharma explained

Id: Kvq_6z6GcwE

Length: 26min 37sec (1597 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021