Talk:The Incident (event)

Didn't the Orientation film imply that the incident was caused by a human error? --skks 08:21, 28 March 2006 (PST)

Reading through the transcript again, I don't see that it specifically says it is human error that caused the incident. It could have been an environmental or technological problem.    Jabberwock    talk    contribs    email   08:40, 28 March 2006 (PST)

How did you come to the conclusion that these two are involved?

AH/MDG

The first thing that came to my mind was something about "DeGroot". But none of our DeGroots got a first name starting with M. The only Dharma person I know of whose name starts with an M is Marvin. --Jambalaya 09:41, 30 March 2006 (PST)

It could be a reference to the type of incident - MDG being Magnetic D.... Generator? --Ronaldb 09:45, 30 March 2006 (PST)

I was thinking: Alvar Hanso / m.. De Groot --Loebas667 19:34, 3 November 2006 (PST)

Or their offspring? Mr. ? --Kilgore Trout 16:03, 13 February 2007 (PST)

We now know for sure from the jigsaw puzzles that AH stands for Alvar Hanso but what is MDG? 28 February 2007

Mama DeGroot; Dr. DeGroots brilliant, but evil, mother? -BearDog 16:38, 28 February 2007 (PST)

The theory about the eye

Could someone elaborate on the theory of how the glass eye relates to the incident? Deleted for now.

The Crisis

How does DC's story about parallel universes apply to the Lost universe? The writer of this idea says The Incident may be the same, but draws no comparisons to the events of Lost. What's your backup? --Carl

• Just a theory Carl, Ive been looking into Walts comic, featuring Green Lantern and it seems that he has ties with the Linear Men, and the incident I refer to predates the story in Faster Friends, just as the incident in the hatch predates our current Lost storyline. Like I say its just an idea, I need to delve deeper, but it does support my theory that the numbers are six dimensional coordinates, which would lead to a parrallel universe. - Morrison

It just seemed out of place without an explanation in the article or without links and I wasn't familiar with that line of thinking. --Carl

The Dark Tower

(spoilers for Stephen King's Dark Tower)

This is something I wanted to comment (ramble) on but I wasn't really sure where to put it.

One thing which struck me when I initially saw the map was how it reminded me of the Dark Tower. The Tower in King's Novels is a structure that holds all of time and reality together. It's supported by six "beams" which run through the tower itself (i.e. one beam runs 0-180 degrees with the tower in the middle, the next is 30-210 degrees etc...)

At each end of the beam, there's a portal guarded by a particular totem creature (twelve portals/creatures in all, two per beam). The creatures are generally cyborgs of a particular animal (the one we meet in the novel is Shardik, The Bear).In the story the beams are being broken, threatening the Tower. If the Tower falls, so does everything in the universe.

While obviously the island is different, I do wonder if the Dark Tower is an influence here. You have several Dharma stations surrounding a central mystery with several lines running through it connecting them to each other. And the Swan looks like it's certainly preventing something bad from happening.

Just some thoughts I needed to get out. Feel free to move/delete this if you feel it's bloatish. :)

--Jmast7 12:42, 4 April 2006 (EST)

• There are other similarities to the world of the Dark Tower. Just as 4,8,15,16,23,42 repeat in Lost, the numbers 19 and 99 are very important throughout the Dark Tower books. The Life Extension project is reminiscent of the fact that the Gunslingers live for so long. The Hanso Foundation is very similar to the Sombra Corporation, in that they both formed in the last decades of the 20th century, and monopolised all sorts of new technologies. The Sombra corporation was associated with various compnies like North Central Positronics and Lamerk Industries, just as The Hanso Foundation is asscoiated with Widmore Labs and Paik Heavy Industries. North Central Positronics also resembles Widmore Labs in many ways. They both produce a very large variety of technology. NCP produces the guardians of the beams (like the Cerberus in Lost may be produced by Widmore), and the Doguns, which bear a remarkable similarity to the Hatches. The one main character child on the island (Walt) has similar supernatural abilities to the one main character child in the Books (Jake). The Others try to steal Claire's apparntly very important baby. The Taheen steal Susannah's very important baby. Claire has Charlie (an ex-heroin addict) in love with her, and trying to pretect her. Susannah has Eddie (an ex-heroin addict) in love with her and trying to protect her. Charlie and Eddie both have similar experiences smuggline drugs on planes, and ending up hiding in the toilet. The brand Nozz-a-la, seen on Henry Gale's baloon, is a brand of coke from the Dark Tower books. Perhaps Stephan King has some creative control in Lost, and the Island is another Keystone World. Perhaps the Hanso Foundation are the ones who cause the Supervirus that destroys the world. Perhaps Alvar Hanso becomes the Crimson King. Unlikely I know, but it would be cool nonetheless. ;)
  • Or it could just be the fact that Damon Lindelof is a huge fan of Stephen King and has stated that Dark Tower is his favorite series of books. --Isotope23 11:15, 30 May 2006 (PDT)

Red Herring?

I don't know if the "Cheers" dialogue is really necessary to illustrate a red herring, it seems to just clutter things up when we could just link to wiki's red herring page. Also, do we really need to point out that something might be a red herring - couldn't everything be a red herring? Doubtful that the writers would just never explain this - it could be a red herring from DHARMA, but doubtful from the writers. Anyone? --Bremerton 10:26, 26 April 2006 (PDT)

Well, the "Cheers" Dialogue is a perfect example of a red herring, and it mentions a supposed incident that went unexplained. I am not saying it might be a veiled reference to Cheers. Besides, it's funny. †††GodEmperorOfHell††† --10:52, 26 April 2006 (PDT)

I'm in agreement with Bremerton. The "Cheers" dialogue is pretty irrelevant and has nothing to do with Lost. The only connection to the page at all is that incident is quoted. Ya, it's funny, but not entirely appropriate to the topic. --Sid67 12:24, 26 April 2006 (PDT)

I'm only bothered by how it's quoted in the article - i.e. how I'd have to widen my browser window a lot to see it all. The article would work with the explanation alone. --skks 12:36, 26 April 2006 (PDT)

I'm also struggling to see the relevancy here. I guess it's OK to add the red herring-theory, but three quotes from an unrelated show is a bit too much. --Jambalaya 03:33, 27 April 2006 (PDT)

I personally doubt it's a red herring, and while I feel it's an OK thing to point out that something on the show might be a red herring in the Theories section ("The incident could be a red herring to distract us from xxx"), I don't think we need to have an in-depth explanation and example of a red herring on this page - as I mentioned earlier, I think we should just link to wiki's red herring; the less bloat here the better.

More appropriate than "red herring" term is the MacGuffin. A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or Maguffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters and advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story itself. On the actual topic of using the MacGuffin, J.J. Abrams is no stranger to using one. Taken from Wikipedia:

• Alias : Practically every episode of Alias is centered around a MacGuffin which the CIA and/or SD-6 is after. (Sydney Bristow: "What is that--perfume?" Michael Vaughn: "Whatever this is, we have it now, and they don't. Because of *you*." -- Season 1, Episode 13, "The Box (Part 2)")

PanSavant 18:06, 8 May 2006 (PDT)

regarding abrams, the first section of mission impossible:3 also revolves around the pursuit of an item named the "rabbit's foot", which is essentially interchangeable, and there as a device to advance plot, and nothing more. --kaini 19:51, 8 May 2006 (PDT)

Do We Need Theories Anymore

We know what the incident was, do we really need theories. Just a thought--CaptainInsano

The great thing about Lost, is that even after we find out what something is, there's still a hell of a lot of questions to be answered. I reckon there's still plenty of room for speculation regarding the incident. --Donelle 14:49, 17 August 2006 (PDT)

We do not know what the first incident was. As the first incident led to the numbers having to be pushed in the first place, so the first one was not by not pushing the button. --lewisg 15:44, 17 December 2006 (PST)

Real Event?

Does anyone know if the incident may be something that happened in the real world, caused by the lost world? Like the crash of flight 815 was a result of the numbers being pushed, so whos to say that Chernobyl or something else was a result of the same thing?

Nah, Chernobyl happened in 1986. The Incident would've happened in 1980, or slightly before. (And the crash of Flight 815 was most likely a result of the numbers *not* being pushed in time.) :) That said, maybe there /is/ a corresponsing real-world event, but I really can't think of one off the top of my head. And we haven't yet been presented with any flashback evidence of such a thing, to my knowledge. --Shodan1138 21:05, 5 June 2006 (PDT)

I think I figured it out

I think I know what the incident was. This might sound crazy, but give it a chance:

Dr. Waxman was in the hatch initially (maybe with radzinsky, maybe earlier). There was a system failure of some sort, causing a large electromagnetic pull as seen in the season 2 finale. The pull started ripping knives, forks, stoves, and what-not across the room. Waxman couldn't escape and a stove or something very sharp/heavy came and chopped off his arm. This incident led to the Station 3 Protocol with mandates the input of the code every 108 minutes. --User:Degroot of all Evil

If the orientation video is to be believed, then "the incident" occured before 1980. I doubt that Radzinsky was in there for more than 10 years, so it'd have to have been way before he got there. --Doc 12:21, 7 July 2006 (PDT)

There might have been more than one "Incident" - the one referred to in the 1980 Orientation film, and another one in 1985. I kinda like Degroot of all Evil's theory, though. It makes some kinda sense. --Shodan1138 12:28, 7 July 2006 (PDT)

Natural Magnetism

Ok so if the island is really on Earth, then the island would always have produced this level of magnetism. I don't think it is a "natural" process that caused the incident or the need for the button to be pushed. DHARMA probably made some kind of machine to increase the power, but they messed up and there was the incident. Instead of remaking the machine they decided that they would just use a temporary fix, pushing the button. They could continue with their tests, without having to build a whole new station.

---

We should rename this one

I think that we should rename this article: we know that the incidents were 2, one before 1980 (the copyright on Swan's film is 1980), caused, as Dr. Candle said in Swan Orientation Film, "...attempting to use the computer in this manner [communications with outside world] will compromise the integrity of the project and worse, could lead to another incident. I repeat, do not use the computer for anything other than entering the code". The other incident is the one written on the Blast Door Map, named "AH/MDG", that took place in 1985.

But we should also think about these points: 1. Did the first incident happened because the computer was used to communicate to the outside world (but: outside the Swan station or outside the island?)? What were the consequences? Preventing communications with outside world could be because of the secrecy of Dharma, or, if referred to the other stations (and, maybe, an utopistic village) the thing was to compromise not the psychological experiment (I think that Swan, with the "Push or not push?" question, was also useful for psychological experiments). The second incident, in my opinion, was something like a dispute between Hanso and the De Groot (AH/MDG), maybe about ethical points of view. 2. The one who cut Swan Orientation Film was trying to hide THE INCIDENT and not the possibility to communicate with THE OUTSIDE WORLD. A consequence could be the fact that there are no references about 1980's incident on Blast Door Map.

So, I would like to know your points of view, and I think we should rename the article, because it's a fact that we know about two incident, and, now, talking about one only incident it's a theory. --andreapasotti