"The iterations. It's a distress call. A plea for help. A mayday. If the count is right… It's been playing over… and over… for sixteen years." -- Sayid
"That's probably because I've been dead for 12 years." -- Horace Goodspeed
Ever since we learned the date of the Purge, something just hasn't added up. Rousseau claimed she had never seen anyone else on the island besides her team. However, if the distress call's iterations were correct, Rousseau was on a DHARMA-populated island for 4 years... How did she manage to avoid them all? Why did DHARMA leave Rousseau's message playing over the course of those 4 years? Surely they must have heard it and known about her. If Ben wasn't lying, then DHARMA must have found Rousseau no later than a few days after she changed the radio tower's message. The 16-year-old Danielle is proof enough of that.
"I stole her as a baby from an insane woman." -- Ben
Sixteen years ago, Ben was still with DHARMA.
The biggest question here is still "Why didn't DHARMA change the message back?" We can answer that fairly easily if we want to: they wanted Rousseau's message to keep playing. Okay, then why did they want the message to keep playing?
"They are dead. They are all dead. It killed them. It killed them all." -- Rousseau's distress call
We learned from Rousseau that the "it" that killed them was her... or rather her because of a "sickness". This sickness was ultimately what resulted in the deaths of her science team. Perhaps DHARMA wanted people listening to the message to think there was a deadly disease on the island. Who would be listening to such a message?
"It says quarantine on the inside of the hatch to keep you down here. To keep you scared. But you know what? We've been up there for over 40 days and no one's gotten sick." -- Jack
Jack knew the sickness was a hoax. Radzinsky and Kelvin eventually found out for themselves. Desmond even figured it out eventually. However, DHARMA led on that there was definitely a deadly sickness out there to keep the people of the Swan Station from leaving. DHARMA knew that pushing the button in the Swan Station was of the utmost importance, and they thought that only by scaring the occupants of the station could they ensure that it would keep being pressed.
In fact, now that we know that DHARMA knew of the Purge to come, and that they would not always be around to enforce the pushing of the button, it only makes sense that this is the reason that the Swan Orientation film was refilmed. Even though it was film #3, we know it was filmed AFTER films 5 and 6 because of Pierre Cheng's arm. Regardless of how he lost it, it makes the most sense that after the incident, Cheng and the rest of DHARMA realized that pushing the button in the Swan Station was going to be a permanent job. And with the coming Purge, DHARMA knew they couldn't remain around forever to tell the new Swan recruits what to do or why they were doing what they were doing, so they rerecorded the Orientation film with a more generalized background on the DHARMA Initiative, and then sought to isolate the Swan Station by keeping the occupants there for no fewer than 540 day shifts as well as spreading the rumor of the sickness to keep the Swan occupants from leaving the ! station for any extended amount of time.
Now if the sickness is fake, then why did Rousseau kill off all of her team members? On top of that, how lucky is it that a science crew would end up on an island where science projects were taking place, and one member of the crew would invent a story extreme enough for DHARMA to capitalize on it to scare the participants of one project into continually pressing a button? And on top of all of that, how coincidental is it that one of Rousseau's crew members just happened to lose his arm when we know that a prominent DHARMA member also ended up losing his arm before the Purge?
Yes, I'm proposing that DHARMA brought Rousseau to the island. There's no telling how many people in the science team were members of DHARMA, but I'd say it's more than likely that Robert, Rousseau's lover/partner/husband was not one of them. Regardless, DHARMA needed a story to keep the people of the Swan Station from leaving their post. By bringing in a stranger from the outside world and having her tell the horror story that awaits anyone stupid enough to venture out onto the island, DHARMA was practically ensured that their plan would go as they desired. However, it seems that Rousseau was never quite told that she wasn't really stranded on a deserted island. The members of DHARMA that were among Danielle's team would have made sure that the group never ventured near any of DHARMA's facilities, and would have kept her safe from the Hostiles, as well as lead her to believe that there was a sickness (and take her baby from her when she went insane; if you need proof that s! he was insane, just listen to a certain portion of her distress signal that was never translated on screen:
"It is outside. It is outside and Brennan took the keys. Please help us. They are dead. They are all dead. Help us. They are dead." -- Rousseau's distress call
How could they all be dead when someone named Brennan took the keys? If Brennan had taken the keys and then died, how is it that Rousseau didn't get them back from him? Regardless, Rousseau clearly wasn't in her right mind, especially if she thought the only way to keep a sickness from spreading was to kill the people who had it.)
However, not everything went the way DHARMA had hoped. Montand aka Pierre Cheng lost his arm, and Rousseau may have even killed some of the DHARMA members (obviously if this theory is true, Cheng wasn't killed by Rousseau before refilming the Swan Orientation film, if at all).
Perhaps DHARMA chose Danielle because she was a pregnant scientist, and pregnant women had begun to die on the island, so in addition to being the way to keep the Swan Station occupants scared, she could have been meant as something of a test subject, but that ultimately failed. Whatever plans DHARMA did have for Rousseau, they obviously only panned out in part for what DHARMA had intended.
Theory by V_s
"That's probably because I've been dead for 12 years." -- Horace Goodspeed
Ever since we learned the date of the Purge, something just hasn't added up. Rousseau claimed she had never seen anyone else on the island besides her team. However, if the distress call's iterations were correct, Rousseau was on a DHARMA-populated island for 4 years... How did she manage to avoid them all? Why did DHARMA leave Rousseau's message playing over the course of those 4 years? Surely they must have heard it and known about her. If Ben wasn't lying, then DHARMA must have found Rousseau no later than a few days after she changed the radio tower's message. The 16-year-old Danielle is proof enough of that.
"I stole her as a baby from an insane woman." -- Ben
Sixteen years ago, Ben was still with DHARMA.
The biggest question here is still "Why didn't DHARMA change the message back?" We can answer that fairly easily if we want to: they wanted Rousseau's message to keep playing. Okay, then why did they want the message to keep playing?
"They are dead. They are all dead. It killed them. It killed them all." -- Rousseau's distress call
We learned from Rousseau that the "it" that killed them was her... or rather her because of a "sickness". This sickness was ultimately what resulted in the deaths of her science team. Perhaps DHARMA wanted people listening to the message to think there was a deadly disease on the island. Who would be listening to such a message?
"It says quarantine on the inside of the hatch to keep you down here. To keep you scared. But you know what? We've been up there for over 40 days and no one's gotten sick." -- Jack
Jack knew the sickness was a hoax. Radzinsky and Kelvin eventually found out for themselves. Desmond even figured it out eventually. However, DHARMA led on that there was definitely a deadly sickness out there to keep the people of the Swan Station from leaving. DHARMA knew that pushing the button in the Swan Station was of the utmost importance, and they thought that only by scaring the occupants of the station could they ensure that it would keep being pressed.
In fact, now that we know that DHARMA knew of the Purge to come, and that they would not always be around to enforce the pushing of the button, it only makes sense that this is the reason that the Swan Orientation film was refilmed. Even though it was film #3, we know it was filmed AFTER films 5 and 6 because of Pierre Cheng's arm. Regardless of how he lost it, it makes the most sense that after the incident, Cheng and the rest of DHARMA realized that pushing the button in the Swan Station was going to be a permanent job. And with the coming Purge, DHARMA knew they couldn't remain around forever to tell the new Swan recruits what to do or why they were doing what they were doing, so they rerecorded the Orientation film with a more generalized background on the DHARMA Initiative, and then sought to isolate the Swan Station by keeping the occupants there for no fewer than 540 day shifts as well as spreading the rumor of the sickness to keep the Swan occupants from leaving the ! station for any extended amount of time.
Now if the sickness is fake, then why did Rousseau kill off all of her team members? On top of that, how lucky is it that a science crew would end up on an island where science projects were taking place, and one member of the crew would invent a story extreme enough for DHARMA to capitalize on it to scare the participants of one project into continually pressing a button? And on top of all of that, how coincidental is it that one of Rousseau's crew members just happened to lose his arm when we know that a prominent DHARMA member also ended up losing his arm before the Purge?
Yes, I'm proposing that DHARMA brought Rousseau to the island. There's no telling how many people in the science team were members of DHARMA, but I'd say it's more than likely that Robert, Rousseau's lover/partner/husband was not one of them. Regardless, DHARMA needed a story to keep the people of the Swan Station from leaving their post. By bringing in a stranger from the outside world and having her tell the horror story that awaits anyone stupid enough to venture out onto the island, DHARMA was practically ensured that their plan would go as they desired. However, it seems that Rousseau was never quite told that she wasn't really stranded on a deserted island. The members of DHARMA that were among Danielle's team would have made sure that the group never ventured near any of DHARMA's facilities, and would have kept her safe from the Hostiles, as well as lead her to believe that there was a sickness (and take her baby from her when she went insane; if you need proof that s! he was insane, just listen to a certain portion of her distress signal that was never translated on screen:
"It is outside. It is outside and Brennan took the keys. Please help us. They are dead. They are all dead. Help us. They are dead." -- Rousseau's distress call
How could they all be dead when someone named Brennan took the keys? If Brennan had taken the keys and then died, how is it that Rousseau didn't get them back from him? Regardless, Rousseau clearly wasn't in her right mind, especially if she thought the only way to keep a sickness from spreading was to kill the people who had it.)
However, not everything went the way DHARMA had hoped. Montand aka Pierre Cheng lost his arm, and Rousseau may have even killed some of the DHARMA members (obviously if this theory is true, Cheng wasn't killed by Rousseau before refilming the Swan Orientation film, if at all).
Perhaps DHARMA chose Danielle because she was a pregnant scientist, and pregnant women had begun to die on the island, so in addition to being the way to keep the Swan Station occupants scared, she could have been meant as something of a test subject, but that ultimately failed. Whatever plans DHARMA did have for Rousseau, they obviously only panned out in part for what DHARMA had intended.
Theory by V_s
