There is a novel by a Russian SF writer Sergey Lukyanenko “Labyrinth of Reflections” that helps to explain almost all what is going on in Lost. Here is what Wikipedia writes about the background of the novel:
“In the late 90s, Dmitry Dibenko, a Russian programmer known for dabbling in mysticism and mind-altering substances, created with a program playing a short movie that would allow him to achieve a new level of awareness during meditations. He dubbed the program Deep, placed it on a webserver and forgot about it. The revolution happened when a simple Ukrainian chap, stayed in office after the work to play his beloved Doom. He watched Dibenko's program, shrugged and launched the game — and fell into it. It seemed to him that it was he running along the corridors, ducking the fiery balls and snarling monsters' mugs. Although he was aware that what he was experiencing could not possible be true, he was unable to break the illusion. Left with no choice but to play the game, he completed all levels. When he finished in morning, the illusion ended and he found himself back in the real world, badly covered with bruises.
Realizing that the program effectively fooled its users into thinking that whatever virtual environment they were viewing was as real as the world around them. Furthermore, the environment did not have to be particularly elaborate. Even if the graphics were crude, human subconscious would fill in details and sensations that would enhance the realism. However, they were drawbacks. Because the illusion was so convincing, people who used the Deep program were unable to leave it. Just as that guy needed to finish the game in order to break the illusion, the Deep users needed specially designed exit points that would provided subconscious triggers that facilitated the exit.”
Now imagine the Island (Eyeland) is just a game server that provides players with means to play all kind of games, among them “Survivors”, “Black Rock”, “Dharma Initiative” or “Jughead” or whatever game the Island game masters could invent. Later as the game becomes more and more popular its developers decided to enhance it – to build a much bigger and powerful server to imitate real world outside the Island. That would give players an opportunity to add more life to their avatars, e.g. one can choose to be a famous surgeon who performs miraculous operations. This way the game “Survivors” can be made much more interesting. But then an accident happens – players who first tried the new way of gaming totally lost connections with reality. They start believing that they are what their avatars are and that the background stories they invented for the game are actually their real lives. Their consciousness refused to leave that new “Real World” game server. They are lost. How to save them? The only way out is to make them play the game (in that case “Plane Crush Survivors”) up to the end. Only when they reach the final goal of the game the Island would let them go. The problem is that they forgot everything about the game and about its rules or goals. They truly believe that they are living their ordinary lives and would take for a madman anyone who tells them the truth. Is it possible to manipulate them in such a way that they (not knowing it) will follow the game line and finally win? Who could make the rescue team? Who are manipulators?
Here’s the possible solution from Sergey Lukyanenko:
“Around this time, the first Divers emerged, people able to break illusion of the Deep program. This allowed them to help those who were trapped in Deeptown, since they could exit the Deeptown instantly and call for help. This ability also freed them from physical constraints other users were bound by, allowing to perform seemingly impossible feats, survive otherwise crippling injuries and change avatars within seconds. In addition to that, Divers were able to see flaws in Deeptown's programming codes (usually in the form of holes). Thanks to those abilities, Divers found employment as in-house rescuers, corporate saboteurs and security consultants, among others.
As their numbers grew, Divers began to organize. They created a Code of Divers, which established a set of principles that guided their behavior. Along with other things, it held up the right to privacy as a fundamental right of all Divers. Another important principle was the prohibition against using their abilities to harm their fellow Divers. If a Diver violated any aspect of the Code, he had to submit to a hearing conducted by the rest of the Diver community and abide by whatever penalty they would decide on. Further violations would incur progressively harsher penalties.”
Are Deeptown’s Divers = Island’s Others? They form a rescue team and start the difficult task of bringing all Losties on board Oceanic 815 and start the game – crush the plane on the Island. The game starts and unsuspected “gamers” are carefully lead toward their designated goal. But saving Losties is only one problem. The other problem is that by absorbing consciousness of Losties the game server became overloaded and soon will collapse leaving all trapped players in coma for the rest of their lives. Thus the task of the rescue team is not just saving Losties but also saving the Island.
But saving the Island brings yet another problem. The government banned the dangerous game. As long as there dozens of unconscious players living in vegetative state their health sustained on artificial feeding the island is safe. Shutting down the computer will not make them living. But the moment their consciousnesses are brought back to the physical world the game server will be immediately shut down. This would upset dozens of die-hard gamers (including many Others) who see no sense in life without the Island. They form another group who want to keep the game server running but at the same time don’t want it to collapse (Losties have to saved for that purpose). The Island is only a program on the server – the rest is the “real world”. For experienced hackers it is possible to “hide” the island and/or encrypt access to it. This helps for the moment but anyway when the server is shut down the Island program is shut down too. One way is to keep on the Island just a few people thus substantially decreasing the overload on the system.
I think this theory explains pretty much everything in a simple and easy to grasp way. It gives answers to all the Lost mysteries, namely:
1. Whispers – voices of “dead” players who watch the game on their monitors.
2. Moving the island – hiding and encrypting the program on the server. Moving was done in a haste when computer was already overloaded. As a result it started acting erratically: it load old saved copies of different games and moves players’ avatars between different game environments, duplicates players’ accounts, etc.
If order is not brought back in 70 hours the computer will definitely collapse.
3. One cannot change the past or the future – because one cannot change the main story line of the game. Like in Lost Via Domus game a player could kill himself by moving through the sonar gates but he cannot shoot himself. That is also why characters sometimes remember and sometimes not meeting Losties in the past.
4. We have to go back to the island – we have to play the game up to the end before it is too late.
5. Ageless Richard Alpert is probably a game master.
6. Smoke monster – can be anything, it’s just another program.
7. I think there are a lot of NPCs out there (non-playing characters) that are non-human programs themselves. Mikhail Bakunin could be one of them – he’s disposal.
8. Desmond is unique because somehow he can access game files or saved games thus he can see the past and the future.
9. Nosebleeds – guys who have too many saved games on the server (they played too much and forgot to clean up files). The computer right now cannot process so much information about them – its memory is limited.
I think the show will have too finals. The first one is the final of the game whatever it is. In the second final it will be revealed that all Losties are actually teenagers – we have seen some of them already among them young Widmore. Theory by Konstantin
“In the late 90s, Dmitry Dibenko, a Russian programmer known for dabbling in mysticism and mind-altering substances, created with a program playing a short movie that would allow him to achieve a new level of awareness during meditations. He dubbed the program Deep, placed it on a webserver and forgot about it. The revolution happened when a simple Ukrainian chap, stayed in office after the work to play his beloved Doom. He watched Dibenko's program, shrugged and launched the game — and fell into it. It seemed to him that it was he running along the corridors, ducking the fiery balls and snarling monsters' mugs. Although he was aware that what he was experiencing could not possible be true, he was unable to break the illusion. Left with no choice but to play the game, he completed all levels. When he finished in morning, the illusion ended and he found himself back in the real world, badly covered with bruises.
Realizing that the program effectively fooled its users into thinking that whatever virtual environment they were viewing was as real as the world around them. Furthermore, the environment did not have to be particularly elaborate. Even if the graphics were crude, human subconscious would fill in details and sensations that would enhance the realism. However, they were drawbacks. Because the illusion was so convincing, people who used the Deep program were unable to leave it. Just as that guy needed to finish the game in order to break the illusion, the Deep users needed specially designed exit points that would provided subconscious triggers that facilitated the exit.”
Now imagine the Island (Eyeland) is just a game server that provides players with means to play all kind of games, among them “Survivors”, “Black Rock”, “Dharma Initiative” or “Jughead” or whatever game the Island game masters could invent. Later as the game becomes more and more popular its developers decided to enhance it – to build a much bigger and powerful server to imitate real world outside the Island. That would give players an opportunity to add more life to their avatars, e.g. one can choose to be a famous surgeon who performs miraculous operations. This way the game “Survivors” can be made much more interesting. But then an accident happens – players who first tried the new way of gaming totally lost connections with reality. They start believing that they are what their avatars are and that the background stories they invented for the game are actually their real lives. Their consciousness refused to leave that new “Real World” game server. They are lost. How to save them? The only way out is to make them play the game (in that case “Plane Crush Survivors”) up to the end. Only when they reach the final goal of the game the Island would let them go. The problem is that they forgot everything about the game and about its rules or goals. They truly believe that they are living their ordinary lives and would take for a madman anyone who tells them the truth. Is it possible to manipulate them in such a way that they (not knowing it) will follow the game line and finally win? Who could make the rescue team? Who are manipulators?
Here’s the possible solution from Sergey Lukyanenko:
“Around this time, the first Divers emerged, people able to break illusion of the Deep program. This allowed them to help those who were trapped in Deeptown, since they could exit the Deeptown instantly and call for help. This ability also freed them from physical constraints other users were bound by, allowing to perform seemingly impossible feats, survive otherwise crippling injuries and change avatars within seconds. In addition to that, Divers were able to see flaws in Deeptown's programming codes (usually in the form of holes). Thanks to those abilities, Divers found employment as in-house rescuers, corporate saboteurs and security consultants, among others.
As their numbers grew, Divers began to organize. They created a Code of Divers, which established a set of principles that guided their behavior. Along with other things, it held up the right to privacy as a fundamental right of all Divers. Another important principle was the prohibition against using their abilities to harm their fellow Divers. If a Diver violated any aspect of the Code, he had to submit to a hearing conducted by the rest of the Diver community and abide by whatever penalty they would decide on. Further violations would incur progressively harsher penalties.”
Are Deeptown’s Divers = Island’s Others? They form a rescue team and start the difficult task of bringing all Losties on board Oceanic 815 and start the game – crush the plane on the Island. The game starts and unsuspected “gamers” are carefully lead toward their designated goal. But saving Losties is only one problem. The other problem is that by absorbing consciousness of Losties the game server became overloaded and soon will collapse leaving all trapped players in coma for the rest of their lives. Thus the task of the rescue team is not just saving Losties but also saving the Island.
But saving the Island brings yet another problem. The government banned the dangerous game. As long as there dozens of unconscious players living in vegetative state their health sustained on artificial feeding the island is safe. Shutting down the computer will not make them living. But the moment their consciousnesses are brought back to the physical world the game server will be immediately shut down. This would upset dozens of die-hard gamers (including many Others) who see no sense in life without the Island. They form another group who want to keep the game server running but at the same time don’t want it to collapse (Losties have to saved for that purpose). The Island is only a program on the server – the rest is the “real world”. For experienced hackers it is possible to “hide” the island and/or encrypt access to it. This helps for the moment but anyway when the server is shut down the Island program is shut down too. One way is to keep on the Island just a few people thus substantially decreasing the overload on the system.
I think this theory explains pretty much everything in a simple and easy to grasp way. It gives answers to all the Lost mysteries, namely:
1. Whispers – voices of “dead” players who watch the game on their monitors.
2. Moving the island – hiding and encrypting the program on the server. Moving was done in a haste when computer was already overloaded. As a result it started acting erratically: it load old saved copies of different games and moves players’ avatars between different game environments, duplicates players’ accounts, etc.
If order is not brought back in 70 hours the computer will definitely collapse.
3. One cannot change the past or the future – because one cannot change the main story line of the game. Like in Lost Via Domus game a player could kill himself by moving through the sonar gates but he cannot shoot himself. That is also why characters sometimes remember and sometimes not meeting Losties in the past.
4. We have to go back to the island – we have to play the game up to the end before it is too late.
5. Ageless Richard Alpert is probably a game master.
6. Smoke monster – can be anything, it’s just another program.
7. I think there are a lot of NPCs out there (non-playing characters) that are non-human programs themselves. Mikhail Bakunin could be one of them – he’s disposal.
8. Desmond is unique because somehow he can access game files or saved games thus he can see the past and the future.
9. Nosebleeds – guys who have too many saved games on the server (they played too much and forgot to clean up files). The computer right now cannot process so much information about them – its memory is limited.
I think the show will have too finals. The first one is the final of the game whatever it is. In the second final it will be revealed that all Losties are actually teenagers – we have seen some of them already among them young Widmore. Theory by Konstantin
