This wasn't the first time Ben said he was born on the island. Unless he's aging faster than real-time, Ben is in his late 40s or early 50s (Emerson is 53).

Now, the DeGroot experiments look like they took place in the late 60s or early 70s, AFTER Ben was already on the island.

Who in the heck was there before this all happened and had Ben there? Hanso? "The Great Man" that Ben (and Mikhail?) talked about?

This is all wild speculation at this point.... but who the heck could it be?

The cave skeletons perhaps???

bens age, if known could help explain if he was born before dharma started

There's a good chance any "natives" such as Ben could be descendants of the Black Rock survivors

The cave skeletons perhaps???

i like that theory. i was just thinking about them today.
he said that was born on the island, not that he was born 'unto' the others...

maybe anthony cooper is also ben's father making ben and locke brothers, and the place where cooper fled to was really the island where he knew ben was. he was going to con ben but ben caught on and captured him instead, just a thought

Vincent...:) hehe

I think Vincent should be the standard funny answer when we dont know something..what do you guys think?

Anyway..I believe Adam and Eve are most likely his parents...if not..maybe Jacob......or Claire. That would pretty cool if Aaron was Ben..although very creepy.

Vincent...:) hehe

I think Vincent should be the standard funny answer when we dont know something..what do you guys think?

Anyway..I believe Adam and Eve are most likely his parents...if not..maybe Jacob......or Claire. That would pretty cool if Aaron was Ben..although very creepy.

never thought of that, wow that would be creepy

The cave skeletons perhaps???

Hmmm . . . that would be interesting, but you'd think he'd have given them a better burial. Then again, Ben might have been a little Damien when he was young. ;)

I think Ben was conceived via the test tube route and raised by Others. He's just too creepy to have had a normal childhood.

Thomas (Ben=Aaron and that is why he says he has lived there his entire life, because Claire gave birth to him while she was on the Island.) ..lol..jk...kind of. I think that would be cool but I don't know how I would explain it.

But yeah, there have been people on the Island for a long time so you never know. Maybe when we find out about the "other" others (if there is another group) we might know more..but I wouldn't know where to begin with that question..lol

I'm almost positive that Ben's father has to be Jacob. I can remember when the name Jacob was first used that someone asked TPTB who it was (possibly in a podcast, but I can't remember for sure), and they said to reference the bible. In the bible, Benjamin is the twelfth son of Jacob, so it must be his father. Also an interesting side note, in the last podcast Damon and Carlton pretty much confirmed that Jacob is the "Him" that has been referred to.

...or Claire. That would pretty cool if Aaron was Ben..although very creepy.

I was just going to post that. :cool:

So, does this mean Jack is Ben's father?

It appears Ben's got daddy issues, as well, after posing that question to Locke regarding his father at the end of the episode. It seemed he was truly interested in gauging John's answer and subsequent reaction to Cooper's reveal. Since John and Ben are yin and yang (a modern day Odd Couple if you ask me), judging Locke's actions would give Ben insight on how to deal with "the man who would be daddy." I guess it's not surprising even he's impervious to all the patriarchal issues surrounding the characters.

Ben claims to have lived on the island since birth; yet, he doesn't claim to have been "in power," so to speak, for very long. Perhaps when Desmond forgot to push the button and supposedly caused 815 to crash on the island, an island that they were apparently being delivered to anyway, the whole "time loop" thing occurred (and this is where the holes in my theory can be found since I'm not completely sure how it would work, so please post...) and Jac(k) aka Jacob (or Jakob) from the "future" was not there to lead the Others. Ben, noticing the power vacuum and sensing a morale dip in his associates assumed leadership and has since manipulated everything he could to hold his position atop the totem pole.

Ben manipulating John to detonate the sub, IN HIS MIND, is the final task that needed to be done. What needed to be done, you ask? Ben felt that he needed to make sure Jack stayed on the island (b/c he's convinced that Jack would never be able to find his way back to the isle, but maybe in the previous timeline, he was) so that he could be conceived!

And, more than any other character introduced thus far in the show, wouldn't Ben be the one who would experience the most joy in undermining his father and keeping him under his heel? The bratty son of Jacob who's now the head honcho and is going to prove to everyone that his way is better than "His" way?

Where have we seen that kind of behavior before? Hmmm...Alex is supposed to be Ben's daughter. At least he's raised her, we know that much. Alex gets away with trapsing around the island causing trouble here and there and nobody can do anything about it because she's the big man's daughter. What if Ben's relationship is/was the same with his father?

For instance, you see how Ben interacts with Jack, and you see how he interacts with John. There's always a coldness, a contriteness when dealing with Jack. With John, however, even though there's a lot of chiding and verbal jabs, he genuinely seems intrigued and bemused (even moreso now that he acknowledges Locke's "connection" with the isle) with Jack.

Could all this be why Ben did that elaborate meal on the beach with Kate after her, Sawyer and Jack were taken to Hydra Island in "A Tale of Two Cities?" Maybe we didn't get all of their dialogue in that scene (in a later flashback perhaps)? Could all this be why Tom aka Mr. Friendly said, "I didn't expect to see you so soon, Kate," when she was in the game room tonight? He's always acted strangely (in a non-threatening way) towards Kate, as if he knows something, and we all see how he gets along with Jack. Kate Ben's mommy?!

Jack being Him was something I touched on in a previous post of mine, where I explained Cindy's reaction to him when he was being held in the cage. Tonight's episode made me lean that much further towards Jack being the focal point of the series. Before, I was convinced that Ben could be the Aaron that we know now (per the time loop theory once again), and Uncle Jackie fixed him up, but now every episode I've seen this season with Jack in it has given me more tidbits of information that Jack could definitely be Ben's dad, Him, Jacob, etc. but he's unable to reach his destiny b/c of all the external factors.

I know it's way out there, but I think it's kinda fun to think of it this way after having attempted to put together all the pieces of the puzzle that we've been given thus far.

degroots son=ben

degroots son=ben

Oh wow, not the son of one of the Dharma people (because Ben is too young to be that), but the DeGroots son. I can see how that would be possible. You have to figure that the DeGroots had to find that island before all the Dharma stations were built and the work they were doing was started. Ben would be about the right age for that.

Hey ,we dont know what Dharma has to do with Ben yet,as we dont know how old s Ben supposed to be.not the actor,but the character Ben.considering that Mikhail Bakunin was supposedly in his late thirties and the actor who portrayed him ,Andrew Divoff is mid 50s ,Ben could be 30 or 40 for all we know.maybe a teenage kid with premature ageing:rolleyes: