Harper Stanhope and the HANSO Foundation

[truffula]

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/Image/LOST/lostegg-harperdiploma.jpg

That's the "Certificate of Recognition" that appears on Harper's wall as she is in session with Juliet. And yes, that is the HANSO FOUNDATION logo there in the bottom left. :D

Now, what does this mean?

Winston Smith posted in the "Goodwin's Wife and the Whipsers" thread in GD:
So it is either 1) Harper got the Certificate from Hanso and came to the island before the purge. When the purge happened she weighed in on Ben's side and was spared. Or 2) she got the certificate after the purge and was then sent to the island after Ben took control.

If #1, no big deal. We know Hanso was funding the island, why not fund the poeple you send there. If it's #2....woah, momma....that means Hanso is still funding the island after the purge and may be where Ben gets his money.

Are we now heading toward the Hanso vs. Widmore battle. That would be sweet.
Hanso is still funding the Island.
Remember one very important fact - The Hanso Foundation is STILL making supply drops to the Island. The products that Ben and the Others use bear the DHARMA logo, despite the fact of the Purge.

And we can't forget Tom quoting old man Alvar in "The Hunting Party" either. ;)

So lets say Harper was NOT part of DHARMA. Lets say she came in "post-purge". This means that despite the fact that DHARMA is over, Hanso still maintains a presence on the Island - at least with a "recognized" individual in Harper.

The most telling fact comes from Richard's interview with Juliet in "Not In Portland", when Richard says "We're privately funded".
We know now that it aint Widmore money that is financing Mittelos.
HANSO is the "secret private financer" of Mittelos.
And that means Ben.

I have sat here for 15 minutes thinkin how I wanna continue, but I fear I will ramble on and on, so I'll submit the thread for discussion. :)

And we'll go from there.....

[LostEmissary]

Ooooooooooh, very interesting! I'm hoping it's not just an easter egg, and that it actually means something.

I've felt that Alvar Hanso (the man) and Widmore are/were fighting to get to the island, perhaps for different reasons.

Even though it's not canon, if we go by the information in TLE, Mittelwerk was the "bad guy" running the Hanso Foundation, and would therefore be funding/supporting Mittelos. At the same time, Alvar was pushed aside.

If we don't take TLE info as canon, it could be that Alvar is still around, and is also trying to protect/find the island. Heck, he could even BE on the island for all we know.

I do hope we see more on the show about the Hanso Foundation and DHARMA. The history surrounding the discovery of the island and the projects that DHARMA conducted are still a fairly big mystery.

[truffula]

I hate Ben. His lies make it so hard to theorize on anything he says. :p

If we are to take him at his "word", then Charles Widmore is indeed his enemy. And that finally gives us the sides - WIDMORE vs BEN/The Island - but I think that "Team Ben" is bigger than him. And bigger than Jacob too.

I know this is wandering off topic, but I don't care. :nanabobo:

Hanso Family Tree (speculation)

Magnus Hanso - Captain of the Black Rock, disappeared in 1845, or 1881 depending on which source you use
JACOB (or other alias) Hanso - Son of Magnus, Father of Alvar. Magnus' experiment in time travel, now Island prophet.
Alvar Hanso - Son of Jacob, Father of Tovard. Funded DHARMA. Possibly deceased. Possibly "HIM".
Tovard Hanso - Son of Alvar. Idiot. This is the moron who was swayed by the Dark Side of Widmore and he betrayed his father and sold the Black Rock journal carrying the approximate location of the Island.

[Dew]

Jacob Hanso?? Jacob??? This is the same Jacob in the Cabin? The one Ben cannot hear????

[truffula]

Jacob Hanso?? Jacob??? This is the same Jacob in the Cabin? The one Ben cannot hear????
Hehehe....again, thats merely SPECULATION.
It may or may not be "Jacob Hanso". ;)
It would sure kick ass if it was. :D

And yes, I am referring to THE "Jacob", the man in the cabin. :p

[Winston Smith]

Even though it's not canon, if we go by the information in TLE, Mittelwerk was the "bad guy" running the Hanso Foundation, and would therefore be funding/supporting Mittelos. At the same time, Alvar was pushed aside.

Holy crap!!!! I never put those two together at all!! That alone is enough proof for me that Hanso is still funding the island, not to mention what Truff mentioned above.

I know TPTB have said that TLE is not cannon, but doesn't it seem like it should be. I mean come on, the stuff we were given in TLE and FIND815 was all relevent to the show, but you didn't need to know it to enjoy the show. I think that's what TPTB must have meant by saying it wasn't cannon. I remember we were all wondering what the relevence of the first TLE was. When it was over, most thought it was a waste of time. I'm wondering now if maybe we won't undersatand the signifigance of it until after the show is done.

Not sure I agree with your Jacob theory Truff. Were there clues that led you there or is it just a guess? I mean it's possible, but given the names of the other Hanso's it just doesn't fit for me. I mean Magnus, Alvar, Tovard, and Jacob? It just doesn't sound right. However, it would be pretty cool if it were true.

Poor Tovard sold out the family name back 1996 and set up for all of this to happen now. Pretty cool. Without him selling the Black Rock ledger, widmore may have never known about the island and then we wouldn't have any freighter folk at all. And then Desmond would not have gone back in time, maybe he would have never been on island at all! Ok, I have to stop thinking about it, my head is going to explode:D

[snakey]

I have to watch this ep again, I sure missed a lot! Alvar did say in that original video that drops would be made in perpetuity so if any of TLE 1 had any connection to the show (tptb bounced all over this) that is true. I also think that TPTB passed over a great opportunity by not keeping the 'evil' corporations tied together (Paik, Widmore, Mittelos) and all leading back to the Hanso doorstep. It would have made the continuity, mythos, every damn thing smoother.
If Jacob isnt Magnus, he's the first mate who wrote the book Widmore bid on IMHO. Tovar would be Alvar's dad, if it's a son than they really have been rewriting everything they put forth in the first TLE, and denying the heroics of our fair heroine, Rachel. We all know with this show theories go out the window faster than a parakeet finding the cage door open so waiting and watching is all we can do.

[Swami]

I know TPTB have said that TLE is not cannon, but doesn't it seem like it should be. I mean come on, the stuff we were given in TLE and FIND815 was all relevent to the show, but you didn't need to know it to enjoy the show. I think that's what TPTB must have meant by saying it wasn't cannon. I remember we were all wondering what the relevence of the first TLE was. When it was over, most thought it was a waste of time. I'm wondering now if maybe we won't undersatand the signifigance of it until after the show is done.D

Here are Cuse and Lidelhof on TLE and canon from Lostpedia:

Carlton Cuse: I think that for us, yeah, I mean, all of Alvar Hanso and his relationship with funding the DHARMA Initiative is part of the mythology. The details of the Hanso Foundation’s demise…it’s tangential to the show but it’s not unrelated to the show. We sort of felt like the Internet Experience was a way for us to get out mythologies that we would never get to in the show. I mean, because this is mythology that doesn’t have an effect on the character’s lives or existence on the island. We created it for purposes of understanding the world of the show but it was something that was always going to be sort of below the water, sort of the iceberg metaphor, and the Internet Experience sort of gave us a chance to reveal it.

Damon Lindelof: I would say in terms of all the… background that we did, in terms of the Valenzetti equation and explaining the formation of the Hanso Foundation and doing the other films…we’d consider that stuff canon to the show. Where there’d have to be wiggle room is the Rachel Blake story where she’s in the real world, in the outside world as we define it, the show Lost might be defined in an entirely different outside world so we can’t vouch for the overall fit ability and veracity of everything that Rachel was doing. But we can say that all the factoids that she was uncovering were vetted, in fact many of them were written by us personally so they are canon.

Also, from Thomas Mittlewerk's bio from the same site:

Main References
May 2nd/3rd

On the Hanso phone line, Mittelwerk's directory contained the following audio message:

(Austrian male voice) You've reached the office of Dr. Thomas Werner Mittelwerk, Senior Vice President, CEO and Chief Technologist of the Hanso Foundation.

I will be unreachable for the next three weeks. However, for those employees of Paik Heavy Industries and Widmore Corporation engaged in active projects, I will be continuously updating the confidential information line.
Please refer to your project manual for hotline access instructions.
Thank you, and, namaste.

I don't remember the time frame for TLE (was it occuring in present time?), but this would indicate at some point that Hanso, Paik and Widmore have joined forces.

[LostEmissary]

I don't remember the time frame for TLE (was it occuring in present time?), but this would indicate at some point that Hanso, Paik and Widmore have joined forces.Yeah, it would have to take place in our present day, becuase that's the essense of an ARG. It sets up a world that exists within our own, at a parallel time. Everything we experienced (live DJ Dan podcast, "updates" from Rachel, etc) were in real time.

This would mean that all the stuff with Mittelwerk took place in LOST's future. We know that it's still 2004 on LOST, so it won't be another two years until the events of TLE unfold in the world of LOST.

Additionally, however, TLE often times tried to imply that LOST was just a TV show that actually did exist within its universe. TLE, as it unfolded, mentioned the TV show LOST at one point, and the statements implied that to them, LOST was a ficitional account of some events in the history of the Hanso Foundation, Widmore, Paik, etc. It was like a "based on a true story" kind of thing.

So that leaves lots of questions as to what you could consider a canon element of TLE, and what they consider non-canon. And that very well could have changed since TLE, or could change in the future. We have to assume that anything from TLE isn't canon, until it appears in some manner on the show.

[ISIS]

I've been hoping this thread existed somewhere. I thought Dharma was supposed to be history according to Ben. I think I saw a sailboat somewhere in that room too.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x60/ISIS_058/plaques.jpg

^This^ plaque looks like a Dharma Seal.

[snakey]

OOOOH Isis, thanks for all 3 of them but are they posted anywhere blown up real good? Lostem, I always do forget that TLE 1 was in our present time, so it could be that one of the Oceanic 6 wrote the tv show. In my world everything has to have a flow (like beer into my frosted mug), so this would be perfect. I think I might post this to Darlton at Lage, ya know I just want to help out.

[Brian]

I took an HD cap when the epi aired for truff because it showed the Hanso image well. The others don't look as clear though.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v698/Leuthen2/Screencaps/S4E6HarpersCertificates.jpg

[Iggy the Lizard]

this is a hole new ballgame.



the pics under the deplomas

[truffula]

I checked the pics below the certificates against the images we were shown in the DHARMA Psychological Testing video from TLE, and nothing matched unfortunately.

I really want to see those "certificates" up close.

Doubt we ever will, but I think we got what we were supposed to get from it - the HANSO connection.
They're hinting at it more and more these days.

I was just going to mention something else, but I think it deserves its own thread, cause if it is true, then it is AWESOME!! :D

*new thread coming very soon in this forum*

[snakey]

At least we know that Hanso was still in the mix after the 'purge', I'll take any bones they toss us.