Kahana/Theories

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Theories about Kahana

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Stated as questions or possibilities (avoid question marks, "Maybe", "I think", etc). More appropriate for another article. Illogical or previously disproven. Proven by canon source, and moved to main article. Speculative and lacking any evidence to support arguments. Responding to another theory (use discussion page instead). This does not include responses that can stand alone as its own theory. Usage of an indented bullet does not imply the statement is a response. See the Lostpedia theory policy for more details.

Freighter ship

• The name Kahana was specifically chosen for its' metaphorical value: the appearance of the freighter to the Island signifies a major turning point, or kahana, in the story.
• It will be destroyed by the Tsunami (early in Season 4).
  • The Losties will then have to find another way of getting off the Island, possibly with equipment from the Orchid or from the Temple.
• The freighter/Naomi are related to DHARMA; or perhaps Penny is, via Widmore.
  • • Bulding on this theory, it could be that after Charlie speaks to Penny from the looking glass , she traces his location and then uses Widmore to fund a search party. Hanso/Dharma hear about it through their links with Widmore and get involved, seemingly to help Penny but in actual fact when they get to the island they will attempt to retake it.
• The freighter belongs to the same organization (possibly DHARMA) as the ship which Danielle came from. The freighter does not land on the Island in fear of a repeat of the sickness which affected Danielle's team 16 years ago.
  • or simply fear of being drawn in and crashing as Danielle's boat was.
• The freighter sent the supply drop in Dave, making the crew either DHARMA or Hanso.
  • The crew of the freighter did not seem aware of the island's location until they received the call from Jack, making it unlikely that they've been dropping supplies there.
  • In The Economist when Desmond asks Frank Lapidus about Penny, both Frank and Faraday recognise the name "Widmore".
• I can't help but notice that no one from the freighter has SPECIFICALLY SAID that their mission was to find/extract/kill/whatever Ben, besides Miles. Naomi nor Abbadon said anything about Ben in their meeting. We obviously didn't hear the entire conversation, but not one word was mentioned on Ben. Abbadon stated that each person in the group was chosen for a specific reason. It would seem that if the only objective were capturing one man, that Abbadon and the company he worked for would've sent in a military squad or something along those lines, instead of "a head case, a ghostbuster, an anthropologist and a drunk." Each of the 4 were chosen to work on a specific task, not seemingly just to capture Ben. Miles seems like the headstrong type that isn't afraid of confrontation, besides Naomi, so maybe they just told HIM to capture Ben, while they assigned Charlotte, Daniel and Frank separate tasks. This also goes along with what we have learned about this team, that they don't really know a lot about each other, i.e. Frank's comment about not hanging with Naomi because she was upper management, and therefore something else is going on with this mission that not even the Freighter people are aware of.
  • Miles' part of the mission is related to Ben, but Ben is not his real target. His real intentions are to communicate with Jacob (Miles is the spiritualist).
• The Ship's Name Appears as "Kahala" in the enhanced replay of "The Constant"

The Man on the Boat

Identity

Michael

• It seems more and more likely that Michael will end up being Ben's man on the boat. Looking at the trailer after The Other Woman the voice-over says, "...someone you never thought you'd see again." when referring to this mysterious friend.
• The man on the boat is Michael. The boat Ben gave him and Walt wouldn't have had enough gas to reach some sort of main land, so they needed a stopoff. The coordinates that Ben gave him was to the freighter that Ben already knew was out there (he has access to all kinds of information, so the idea that he'd know of a freighter not far off the coast of the Island isn't far-fetched). Micheal has been working on the ship this whole time feeding information back to Ben as a last condition of their agreement. The producers have already said that Michael will be returning this season, so what would be more shocking than for him to come back to the show as a freighter person?
  • Additionally, Ben's words to Sayid at the end of the episode foreshadow how Ben recruited Michael to help him - telling him it is how he could "save his friends". Michael feels guilty and needs to redeem himself for betraying them.
  • Michael also knew the correct bearing to escape the island "snow globe." When Frank is leaving, Dan cautions him to use the exact bearing in order to get off. The freighter people could know the bearing because Michael told it to them.
  • Michael did a deal with Ben, alluded to in "The Deal" in order to get Walt off the island. In return, Michael agreed to work for Ben on the Freighter.
  • Ben required this as part of their agreement to let them off the island.
• Michael was sent to the freighter unwittingly by following Ben's specific heading. This was Ben's plan all along, as evidenced by the fact that a tugboat cannot navigate deep seas.
• Charlotte knows who Michael is and when Ben says this, she is not surprised.
• Michael is Ben's "man" because Minkowski commented "looks like you guys have a friend on this boat."
  • How does that phrase support the theory that it is Michael?
    • How doesn't it?
  • Michael also destroyed the equipment room. He is still working for Ben, but he still is "loyal" to his friends from 815.
    • • Michael should be the man on the boat. This explains why Ben tells Locke that he "might want to sit down". Any other person would not be a big surprise to Locke and Harold Perrineau's name appears on the credits as regular since episode one.--netslaveone 14:33, 7 March 2008 (PST)

Paulo

• Ben's man on the boat is Paulo. Paulo had a walkie-talkie, so he could have been in communication with the Others, who would then monitor him and know that he was buried alive.
  • Miles asked for $3.2 million, knowing that Ben has the diamonds from Paulo.
    • It would be impossible for Ben to give the diamonds to Miles. Sawyer put them in Nikki and Paulo's grave.
  • The episode "Expose" seemed pointless, however we know that nothing in Lost is pointless. This would be a connection to make that episode very relevant.
  • This would truly be "someone you never thought you'd see again."
    • Paulo is dead. How can a dead man be working on the boat, for a man who he never met?
• If Paulo is Ben's man on the boat, Nikki is in fact Regina because she was boring in her hole??!!
  • Regina has an accent which has clearly been heard on the calls from to the freighter.

Charlotte

• The "man" on the boat is Charlotte.
  • Charlotte looks extremely peeved when Ben relates all of her information, showing that he does in fact know who they are and why they're there.

Sayid

• The man on the boat is Sayid. Ben was planning ahead all along.
  • Except he has already been in contact with them, as Sayid has no knowledge of Charlotte's history.
  • If it is true that time moves slower on the island than off, i presume Sayid is Ben's inside man. He is heading to the freighter and as we saw in the end of 'The Economist', he is working for Ben.
• He is Sayid, traveling backward in time. He was able to fix the radio because he's the one that broke it in the first place.
  • Only one's consciousness can travel through time. Sayid cannot be in the room and unlock it at the same time.
    • But, perhaps, Ben is aware of the Orchard Orientation video (experiment) and has told Sayid that he can't be next to his other self. Therefore, he opens the door but moves on.
      • It creates a paradox to have two of Sayid in the same place at the same time. Also, the time traveling Desmond and Minkowski have experienced is only through their consciousness and not their actual bodies so with that model Sayid would have to send his consciousness to his body which was locked in that room.
      • The freighties would be a lot more worried about Sayid coming to the boat if he was already there.
  • It's unlikely that this person is someone travelling in time, for this is something set by Ben, and time-travelling doesn't seem to be something that the victim can "control." Ben would want to have a lot more control over the situation.
  • Plus, if the only evidence for this theory of a time traveling Sayid is his ability to fix the radio (that he broke?), one must only point to his vast history of being able to fix many things quickly for a simpler explanation.
• Sayid is "Ben's man" and he has been working for Ben all along, even before the plane crash to kill the crew of the freighter. He was recruited by Kelvin, who he met during the first Gulf War. Ben has seen the future and knows that the freighter will be arriving in the future. He needs someone to go undercover in the freighter, and he needed this person to be one of the survivors. This is because he foresees that the people in the freighter are going to be distrustful of anyone on the island because they believe they are working for Ben. So the people in the freighter would only let a castaway board their ship. Sayid's cover as a castaway provides him this opportunity to get on the freighter so that he can kill its crew and "save the island" for Ben. This could explain his thoughtfulness while studying Naomi's dead body and then eventually closing her eye lids - he is like a warrior with some sort of ethical code: he is an assassin and kills people, but this is "work" and not "personal", and therefore, he feels he ought to pay some respect to the defeated enemy. It seems in the future that he continues this role but to "protect his friends", which indicates that though he came to the island as a hired killer for Ben, he left it someone reformed from his old ways and is now the very reluctant assassin.
  • Nice theory, but what about Henry Gale? Was Sayid just playing along when he tortured Ben? Was he really getting into playing along when the two of them were alone in a room with no one watching and he still hurt Ben? Haven't we seen Ben in the future talking to Sayid about helping his "friends"? Why would Ben need to blackmail Sayid into helping anyone if he's been his man all along?
  • Sayid's reverence to Naomi's body have to do with his Muslim beliefs, that demand a person's body is buried and shown respect. He is shown praying and reacts the same way in former situations, like Esam's suicide. These might shown even more that he is not working for Ben already in a time-travel situation for in the Economist he kills without caring about the body's desecreation. He also is only killing to keep his friends, those who have not made it off the island safe from Ben. He has no loyalty to the man, and wants desperately to get off the off the island, therefore why would he destroy the communications with the outside world.
  • The plane crash was caused by Desmond not entering the numbers in time, causing electromagnetic energy to be released, interfering with Oceanic 815's instruments. It would be very difficult for Ben to plan everything that would be required to get the plane Sayid was on to crash on the island, not to mention not killing him in the process

Richard Alpert

• The man on the boat is Richard Alpert, as he seems to travel easily through time and space.

Unknown Male

• Due to Ben's unusually precise verbiage in previous situations, the Man on the Boat is indeed male.
• He is still on the boat, and therefore, is not any of the three freighties still on the island. [evidence: opened sickbay door on freighter - assuming the "man on the boat" is the friend that opens the door.]
• It's a male from Locke's past, e.g. Eddie.

Walt

• Walt is Ben's man on the boat. Walt was brainwashed in Room 23 and became one of the Others. He was sent with Michael as a sleeper agent. When Michael and Walt were picked up by the freighter, Walt immediately contacted Ben. This explains why the mission Walt gave to Locke (stop Naomi's people) is the same as Ben's mission.
• According to Beatrice Klugh's questioning of Michael, it would seem as though Walt is able to communicate via astral projection. This could be how he communicated with Ben. For that matter, a projection through time could be how "Taller Ghost Walt" appeared to Locke.

George Minkowski

• Minkowski is Ben's man on the boat. He was not there when Miles called him, because he was informing Ben on the members of the team.
  • Ben had already talked with his man, in order to know those minute details, and Ben was tied up with Locke's group at that time. Therefore, whatever Minkowski was doing it wasn't talking to Ben.
• Minkowski is the spy and lied about the ferris wheel but is rather sneaking around the boat just seconds before his real-time concious
  • Refer the the above comment on Sayid being in two places at once. Minkowski can't be strapped to the bed and sneaking around on the boat at the same time.
  • If Minkowski was able to sneak around, he would also be able to find a constant soon enough.

Frank Lapidus

• Ben's "man on the boat" is Frank. Recognizing the dead pilot on tv as not being the real pilot is ludicrous. The real reason he knows that it's not really the pilot is that he knows (through Ben) that 815 crashed on the island, and that there are in fact survivors.
  • Ben would want the world to believe the fake crash was real. If Frank was working for Ben at that point he'd not raise questions.

Unknown Female

• The "man" on the boat is actually female.
  • It's Regina.
    • It's a female from Locke's past, e.g. Helen.

No One

• Ben is lying; he doesn't have anyone on the boat, and there is another explanation for how he knows so many details about the freighter team.
  • Ben is lying to simply place doubt in the "rescue team" as far as trusting each other. Trust and secrecy is certainly a huge part of this mission as it was alluded to during the meeting between Naomi and Abaddon as well as several other occasions so far when Miles has withheld information, etc. Ben said what he said in front of Charlotte because he knows that the other survivors will find her and she will tell them about the "man on the boat" which could lead to the doubt between the "rescue team."

Brandon

• Ben's man on the boat was and is Brandon, he wanted to 'see' the island. We know that people like Christian Shepard are dead off the island, maybe when the medical room door opened and no one saw, it was because the person who opened it wasn't really there. Just as they don't know who destroyed the control room.

The Doctor

• He is the 'doc' on the boat because Ben has access to a veterinary hospital at the end of The Economist.

Charles Widmore

• He is Mr. Widmore. Earlier in episode 5, Mr. Widmore bought the log of the Black Rock. The log contained coordinates which allowed Mr. Widmore to locate the island. Penelope doesn't know about the boat because Mr. Widmore didn't tell her about it. Mr. Widmore doesn't want Penelope to talk to Desmond, so he doesn't allow her calls to be put through.
  • Widmore wouldn't be spying on his own boat.

Kelvin

• The man on the boat could be Kelvin. He could have survived his fight with Desmond and still be working with the others. It makes sense if you think that the first two people to meet him will be the people who would recognize him(Desmond from the hatch and Sayid from Iraq)
  • Locke wouldn't know Kelvin and Ben suggested Locke sit down most likely because it is someone he knows.
    • Ben will explain exactly who Kelvin is, and afterwards Locke will be surprised.

Actions

• Ben's "man on the boat" is responsible for: unlocking the sickbay door to allow Sayid, Desmond and George to leave, and sabotaging the radio equipment so that the freighter cannot communicate with Penny or the outside world.
  • These actions appear to be contradictory and may not have been performed by the same person.
    • They're not necessarily contradictory, because "Ben's man on the boat" is ALSO a true friend of the survivors. Say the man on the boat is Michael: being Ben's spy on the boat, he is working for Ben under his orders. Since Ben is desperately trying to stop these freighter people, he could tell Michael to sabotage the communications equipment so the freighter could not make contact with land, and therefore warn anyone in case the boat is taken hostage or that they came across the island. That happened 2 days before the helicopter came back with Desmond and Sayid. Michael could have seen them being taken to the sick bay and being locked in, so he opened the door to give them a chance to escape. He didn't know what they were planning to do, all he knew was that those are his friends and he's trying to help them out (reference the comment above that while he is working for ben, he still has loyalty to the losties.)
      • This makes sense to the extent that Michael would not have known about Desmond's problem, nor his need to find a constant, nor his need to use the communication room to contact said constant.
  • Frank opened the door for Desmond, Sayid, and Minkowski (Minknowski said "you must have a friend on the boat" and that friend is Frank).
    • This is also supported by the fact that Frank says to Sayid "You gotta trust me when I tell you this, I am trying to help you" when they landed on the freighter
  • Ben's man on the boat destroyed the equipment in the communications room.
    • Assuming this boat is searching for the island as part of a Widmore-funded mission (Widmore now has the Black Rock journal, with assumed coordinates from its journey; Naomi has the picture of Desmond and Penny; Penny says on the phone she knows about the island, has been researching...) - Ben's man on the boat destroyed the equipment to prevent the boat from contacting Widmore now that they have made contact with the island.

Crew

• The Freighter people are actually part of DHARMA Initiative. When the Purge started, the Hostiles took over all the stations, including the Looking Glass, where they started jamming all the transmissions and connections that helped the outside world DHARMA workers to see where the Island is. DHARMA workers killed, stations taken over, outside world's DHARMA Initiative lost the Island and have been trying to find it again since then. When the Hatch imploded, the electromagnetic pulse shot out and revealed the Island for a minute and was found by an unknown DHARMA station (seen in "Live Together, Die Alone" end). Through some miracle, Naomi made her way to the Island and as soon as Jack called the Freighter, they managed to locate the Island's coordinates and with this help, they managed to make their way back on the Island. Now, DHARMA's rules are higher than ever and they need to continue what they started on the Island and they need to get to the Island at all cost, even if it means killing every single person on the Island (like Ben referred). They are there to take back what's theirs.
  • It's interesting to note that the Freighters haven't found out yet that Desmond was working for DHARMA in The Swan. What will their response be when they do find out?

The Helgus Antonius, upon which are lots of freight crates

• Michael will be on the freighter. We know he returns in season 4 and 80 nautical miles (the distance offshore the freighter is from the island) is about the range of the boat Michael and Walt left in (nowhere near enough to get them to land, but Ben said they would find rescue).
• The people arriving at the island are a group of hired hands. Just look at how Daniel Faraday is dressed, it doesn't seem like a mercenaries outfit. The real threat will still be on the freighter itself, in the form of some sort of military group.
• The Freighties work for DHARMA (though some of them may ignore this). They seek to take back the Island from the Others.
• The entire island was sent to the past by Benjamin Linus (like the bunnies of the orchid-video). The freighties are all ex-Dharma, delivered to the future due an Desmond´s style accident, and now they came back to the island (returning to the past) to catch Ben.
• They are part of different scientific departments.
• Minkowsky told Ray that they must not try to get to the Island again. He may have been talking about when he and Brandon attempted to go in their boat, or he may have been refering to the Dharma Initiative's time on the Island.