The debate on "Is Ben Dead?" combined with a theory I heard on Jay & Jack has sent my mind into overdrive. What do you think about this? (The first part I heard on Jay & Jack, but I just took it a little further)
What if Sun, Frank, Locke & Co. are in an alternate version of 2007, one in which the Dharma Initiative was not purged because Ben was killed before he could lead it? That would explain the Dharma "class" photos still being on the wall and all of the Dharma Initiative signs in the version of Camp Crystal Lake that Christian seems to reside in. (As far as I know, what follows are completely my own ideas. If someone else said it first, I did not mean to take their idea) If we can take Mrs. Hawking at face value about the universe course correcting, the Dharma Initiative was always meant to be wiped out by the Hostiles sometime before 2007. By killing Ben, Sayid either just delayed the inevitable purge or he changed the identity of the person leading it. Maybe that's what Pierre Chang meant in the Comic-Con video when he said they were powerless to stop the purge: Maybe they tried going into the past and trying several different ideas to stop it, but the purge still always happens, it just occurs at a different time led by a different person.
Of course, I fully expect this theory to be totally blown apart by something that happens in this episode
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