Kelvin Inman/Theories

Connection to the DHARMA Initiative

Kelvin Inman

• Kelvin was not in DHARMA and was still working for the DIA. He wasn't working for DHARMA or the Others or Widmore etc. He worked for the US Government. The Government has had an interest in the Island dating back to the 1950's. Kelvin came to the Island very soon after the Purge which happened in December 1992. Radzinsky presumably began living in the Swan in 1992 around the time of the Purge. None of the Others (not even Ben) had been inside the Swan and knew of what was going on inside the station. Radzinsky and the members of DHARMA who built the Swan station were the only ones who knew about its purpose or about the button. Kelvin may have come to the Island undercover to infiltrate the Others who like DHARMA before them still recruited people in the outside world. Perhaps upon being discovered he hid out in the jungle using survivor skills until he was eventually found by Radzinsky. I assume Kelvin came to the island shortly after the Purge because Radzinsky would have had trouble staying alive if he could only sleep in between intervals of 108 minutes for a prolonged period of time. I think sleep deprivation eventually caused Radzinsky to go insane and kill himself or perhaps he was killed by Kelvin in self-defense. Kelvin wasn't really DHARMA any more than Desmond was or the 815 people who took Desmond's place pressing the button. He wore the DHARMA suit because that's what they wore in the Swan station (it was probably cold in there and it was the only thing to wear with long sleeves).
• Kelvin wasn't officially DHARMA. Radzinsky manipulated Kelvin into helping him save the world AFTER the purge. Radzinsky needed help with the button. The only thing Kelvin knew about DHARMA was what the Orientation tape and Radzinsky told him. Radzinsky edited the tape to keep Kelvin from learning key facts about the Initiative.
• Kelvin was in reality one of the Others (based on theories from the JoshMeister's LOST Blog).
  • The fact that the DHARMA Initiative ended in 1988 (off-Island) and he was in the Gulf War, which ended in 1991, would theoretically eliminate the possibility of him being part of the Initiative.
    • The D.I. could have recruited right up until the Purge, 1992.:
• Perhaps Kelvin was banished to the Swan to continue protocol, much like Bonnie and Greta were banished to the Looking Glass.
  • Perhaps he was sent there to make sure the electromagnetic force would not build up, much like Mikhail was sent to the Flame to control outside communications.
    • His partner Radzinsky WAS a DHARMA member, therefore Kelvin lied to Radzinsky about his origin, just as he lied to Desmond.

• If Kelvin was simply working for DHARMA, he wouldn't have known that Desmond's boat had crashed on the island. It's unrealistic to think that Kelvin just happened to explore the beach at precisely the right moment to find Desmond still unconscious. As an Other, Kelvin may have had access to the island's surveillance system and potentially other resources, which he kept hidden from Desmond.
  • Like Juliet, Kelvin was not a "fully indoctrinated" member of The Others, hence he kept the boat secret from the rest of them in the hope that he could use it to escape from the island.
  • Kelvin taught Desmond about the fail-safe, which ultimately led to the destruction of the hatch. This long con parallels (and even coincides perfectly with) Ben conning Locke into thinking that the hatch was fake in order to trick Locke into letting the hatch destroy itself.
    • Ben was only interested in manipulating Locke to doubt himself. The hatch did not destroy itself: using the fail-safe destroyed the hatch by blowing up that part of the island that was emitting the electromagnetism. If Locke had just let it all go, it would have destroyed the entire island at least.
  • Kelvin used the same term ("hostiles") to refer to his own group as Mikhail did when speaking with Sayid and Kate.
  • Kelvin and Radzinsky seemed to have trusted each other at least somewhat. This "unattainable" information could have been gathered through teamwork. Desmond was able to maintain the Swan for a long while, and there is nothing to suggest that either of them could not have done so as well, while their partner explored. It was revealed by Kelvin that Radzinsky had/has a photographic memory, so scouting and map-making wouldn't be a problem.
• Kelvin referring to the Others as "hostiles" and actually knowing they were on the Island too could mean he encountered them in the past, like Radzinsky had.
• Kelvin was not one of The Others, and was truly a member of the DHARMA Initiative as he claimed to be.
  • Ben seemed surprised to find out that there was a sailboat, which indicates that Kelvin never said anything to him about it.
  • Kelvin referred to The Others as "hostiles," and DHARMA Initiative members used the same term to describe the Others since at least the 1970s.
• Kelvin was an Other, and not part of the DHARMA Initiative and was in charge of The Swan after the Purge in an analogous manner to Mikhail
  • He refers to himself as a "Hostile" because this is the term DHARMA used to refer to the group led by Ben Linus and Richard Alpert. Danielle Rousseau was the first to refer to that group as "Others".
  • Kelvin called them Hostiles because his partner Radzinsky was DHARMA and DHARMA folk referred to the natives as Hostiles. It may be that the term Hostiles is what the US Army called them first and that the fact that DHARMA uses that term indicates a connection between the military and DHARMA. At the very least, DHARMA's knowledge of the natives comes from information they gleaned from military sources (and is why the Lamp Post has a picture of the Island taken by the military back in 1954). Whoever in DHARMA who first began searching for the island did so armed with information from the military.
• Kelvin thought he was hired by the DHARMA Initiative, but was in reality hired by the Others to keep up appearances after the Purge (and by keeping him in the dark he would never be suspected of being a mole by Radzinsky). Thus, by maintaining a two-man crew at the Swan, the Others were able to keep the ruse that the DHARMA Initiative island facilities were not completely overrun by "the Hostiles."
• He was one of the others. IMHO, Timeline: 1)The Purge, Radzinsky survive and start making the blast door map. 2)Others kills him and taking the Swan. 3)Kelvin arrives.

True Identity/Deeds

Radzinsky

• Kelvin killed Radzinsky. (See Radzinsky/Theories for more details.)
• Kelvin taught Desmond everything he knew about the Hatch because he knew that, when he left, it was very unlikely that there would be anybody else to replace him. That is why he waited for 2-3 years until he left.
• Kelvin was expecting Desmond. He was wearing the hazard suit when he first dragged him from the beach. Kelvin of course knew the suit wasn't necessary but wanted the person he was expecting to meet to believe that it was.
  • He may have found Desmond first without the suit, then returned to the hatch to put it on for the same reason.
• At some point in time, Kelvin turned the fail-safe key, giving him the ability of premonitions. He therefore knew that Desmond would end up on the island, that he would be able to train him to take over the Swan station, and that all of his actions before the crash of Oceanic 815 were for some larger purpose.
  • If this is true, and if Kelvin is not dead, then this was all planned by Kelvin as a way to get away from the Swan. (Seems like a tedious job to do for years by oneself.)
  • Widmore seems to think that Desmond is the only one to survive the electromagnetism from the Swan. If this is true, then Widmore is unaware of Inman's activities.
    • Kelvin never survived an electromagnetic leak, which only happened on a small-scale because Desmond failed to push the button, and on a large scale when he used the fail-safe. If Kelvin had experienced what happened when he or Radzinsky failed to push the button, he would known the button actually did something and would not have thought it could be a lie.
• Kelvin must have known that Desmond was going to crash on the island because he came there almost immediately and it seemed as if he knew where he was going.
  • He said, when handing Desmond the vaccine, that he could have been out there awhile and the he hopes he isn't too late.
  • Yes, we don't know how long Desmond was out there.
• Kelvin was left unharmed in the Swan station because Ben or the Others needed him to keep pushing the button.
  • If Ben wanted the button to continue being pushed, why would he have tried to convince Locke not to push it?
• Kelvin wore a gas mask when he went in to the outside world. Was this to scare Desmond, or did it have to do with the Purge?
• He was the last living member of the DHARMA Initiative on the Island, besides Desmond who was a substitute.
  • It is later learned in "The Man Behind the Curtain" that Ben Linus is one of the last surviving members of the DHARMA Initiative proper, and it is unknown if Kelvin could be considered officially "DHARMA". (Official Lost Podcast/May 11, 2007)
• He was recruited by DHARMA to push the button in part due to his military service in following orders no matter what. After the Purge, the Swan station was left alone by the Others to carry on the work (push the button). Kelvin, accustomed to following orders continued to push the button expecting a replacement to arrive at some point, when Desmond arrives, he can finally move on.
  • There can never be only one person stationed there. The lack of sleep would kill someone or cause them to go insane (as you saw with Desmond when they first found him). It would be too dangerous to allow only one person there at a time. Kelvin came to believe it was probably worthless, and saw Desmond and his boat as a way to escape.

Kelvin's name

Kelvin & Sayid - Gulf War

• Inman is the last name of an Egyptologist Thomas Inman, who is credited with a much-cited hypothesis of the origin of the ankh symbol, which is an important symbol in LOST mythology.
• Kelvin is the SI's (International System of Units) unit of temperature, derived from work of the Irish-Scottish scientist Lord Kelvin, aka William Thompson (1824-1907), who created one of the first temperature scales, and did critical research on subjects like electromagnetism, thermodynamics, cross-continent communication, etc. In James P. Blaylock's novel "Lord Kelvin's Machine", Lord Kelvin invented an electromagnetic device which would negate the Earth's magnetic field for a brief time in order to avoid a collision with an iron-bearing comet. The hero spends the first part of the novel trying to prevent the machine from being turned on, as the result would be cataclysmic. Also of note, the book, which takes place in an alternate Victorian era, makes use of Maxwell's Equations, a series of equations that describe electricity, magnetism, and their relationships. In the real world, Maxwell only came up with 4 equations. To account for all the impossible science that exists in the alternate world, Blaylock had his Maxwell come up with an additional 12 laws, bringing the total to a Swan-friendly 16.
• Inman is the name of a major character in Charles Frazier's novel "Cold Mountain."
• Kelvin is the last name of the main character in Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film Solyaris. Similarly, both Kelvins are left alone in solitude and isolation on remote stations or outposts. Chris Kelvin tends to a damaged space station in orbit around Earth, while Kelvin Inman is forced to continue to input the numbers at The Swan by himself after Radzinsky's suicide.

Arrival on the Island

How and when did Kelvin arrive on the Island?

• Kelvin arrived on the Island prior to the Purge, as a member of the DI.
  • He was serving in the Gulf War in 1991, but he didn't necessarily serve until the end of the war. DHARMA could have recruited him out of the military.
    • He may not have been strictly military - more likely an external contractor to do some dirty work.
    • He is shown when the U.S. military got the orders to withdraw from Iraq, and not go to Baghdad as they had intended or considered. This was the beginning of the end of the war.
• Kelvin arrived after the Purge as a member of the DI, which suggests that some part of the DI remained intact.
  • This begs the question of in what form the DI survived and how it recruited Kelvin; all of its front organisations such as Mittelos Bioscience appear to have been taken over by the Others.
    • Ben could certainly have leant and leveraged the DI fronts for the Others.
• Kelvin was Ben's man in the Swan, posing as a member of the DI. Kelvin seems rather cynical about the DHARMA Initiative. Kelvin's DI jumpsuit does not show his name on the left top pocket, yet shows the Swan logo. Like the early Others using the US Army uniforms, Kelvin is just using the clothes he finds at the Swan.
  • Kelvin told Desmond he was a DI member, and there is no reason why he would lie. Desmond had no idea what the DI was, so there would be no reason for Kelvin to pretend he was a DI member.
  • It seems that Ben didn't even know that the Swan existed.
• Kelvin was Widmore's agent in the Swan.
  • This assumes that Widmore knew about the discharge, and wanted to prevent it. However, if Ben/the Hostiles didn't know about the Swan, that suggests Widmore didn't know either.

Other

• Kelvin's body was washed out to sea by a tide soon after he was accidently killed by Desmond.
  • Looking at the picture at the article for the Cove where Kelvin was "killed", it seems unlikely that the tide would get up high enough to reach him.
• This article's main page states Kelvin was a former DIA agent. If that's the case, he may have been involved with or at least familiar with intelligence on nukes and atomic weaponry. His knowledge of that area may have been the Dharma Initiative's reason for bringing him to the Island - they realized there was a hydrogen bomb buried on the Island and wanted someone familiar with the technology around to make sure it didn't detonate.

The Blast Door Map

• Kelvin was neither a pre-Purge member of DHARMA or a Hostile/Other. He came to the Island because he was directly recruited to assist Radzinsky. The Others were unaware of the Swan, or at least of its location and function, so could not have recruited him for the job. Also, given the paranoia displayed by Radzinsky, it is highly unlikely that he would have willingly cooperated with the Others for any reason. Radzinsky was alone in the Swan during/after the Purge. He used the Swan computer to contact the remains of Dharma in the outside world and told them he needed help pushing the button. As to why he did not simply use the Fail-Safe, I can only assume that he and/or Dharma had their reasons. At some point before Kelvin's arrival, Radzinsky edited the orientation film so that nobody else would know that the computer could be used to contact the outside. Either he simply didn't want anyone (including Kelvin) to know, or he learned that the Others had control of The Flame and was concerned that they were intercepting all communications. Kelvin was air-dropped (just like the supply drops) and was given the passphrase so he could gain entry. Radzinsky may have led him to believe that he was supposed to get relief at some point, but after a few years Kelvin realized the truth and/or Radzinsky became increasingly paranoid. At some point, they got into a massive fight and Inman killed Radzinsky. From then on, he had no choice but to await some relief. Radzinsky's paranoia is evident in the Blast Door Map. He made it in such a way that almost nobody would ever even know it was there except himself. Perhaps Kelvin discovered it during a drop, and that was what triggered the fight that ended in Radzinsky's death.

The Swan Station

Theory: Kelvin is in the Swan to also gather intelligence (which was his mainland job) on the more secretive aspects of the Dharma Initiative and its stations.

• The Blast Door Map had some items as facts and others as speculation. If Radzinski was writing items on the Map, his senior position and technical knowledge would have been listing the facts, not the speculations. For example, the "?" in the middle of the map has been proven to be the Pearl - which was in operation in '71 or '72. The Swan was not operational until likely '79. But the Map has no knowledge of this. Therefore it is likely that the vast majority of the map is created by Kelvin, with intelligence pieces gathered from Radzinski, possibly over a few years before his suicide.
• Ben and a handful of DI people were left after the Purge, but no one seems to have been a senior technical member. Ben was only a workman. But now he needs to take and operate the DI facilities for the Others, and there is much he didn't know. So Kelvin is recruited by Ben, post-purge. Probably in secret from the majority of Others, to build up knowledge (and power) on the DI secrets.

Kelvin's story is as explained

• In 1991, Kelvin was unhappy with his life and felt let down after the hoopla of the war. The U.S. had won the Cold War, the Iron Curtain had fallen, nobody foresaw 9/11, and there was pressure to make massive military cutbacks. He knew his advancement was limited, so he took early retirement. Via some connection, he was recruited to the DHARMA Initiative under the guise that he would actually be doing something important.
• He could not have been still working "undercover" for the U.S. military at the Island. If the U.S. military had knowledge of the electromagnetic station, the catastrophic danger it imposed, and a way to reach the Island (to send him there and keep him stocked with supplies), they would not have allowed it to be manned alone with two unstable people, isolated and with no way to contact the outside world. They would have stormed the island, especially if they knew American soldiers had been murdered there in the 1950s by hostile people still occupying it.
• Kelvin did not kill Radzinsky. Radzinsky killed himself because he caused the Incident, leading to his nightmarish, isolated life living with an arrogant jerk like Kelvin. Radzinsky suffered from horrible depression and couldn't take it anymore.
• Kelvin could not have been an Other. He would have killed Radzinsky once he learned what he needed from him, and the Others would have taken over the station, the way they took over and manned all the other stations like The Flame and The Looking Glass, with at least two people guarding it. They would not have left Desmond in there alone, and they would never have allowed the Losties to spend weeks digging it up and eventually blow it open with dynamite.