When Miles was talking to Ben

[lilsev42]

When he was talking to Ben ,he told him not to treat him like one of them.He said "I know who you are and what you can do"-this makes me think about the room Sayid found.I believe Ben does have a quick way to the "real world",he has the ability to make alot of money by being ahead of the game so to speak.Anyone with any input before I go on!

[jacksnurse]

lil,.....i was just going to start a thread on this.....i think that Ben does a lot of traveling back and forth btwn the island and the "real" world...that is why i think that he has aged in comparison to the others...ob Ben is extremely powerful....miles seems to just be a conman....he would even sabotage his mission to score big...and don't u love Ben.,...so cool and collected under pressure...i love his comment about his present situation...miles is scum.....

[beachblinkette]

So, if Ben can travel back and forth to the current time ,how much into the future can he go ? Does he make investments based on the knowledge he gets and is that why he's incredibly wealthy? I thought that the writers said there wasn't any time travel going on here. Why does Jacob appear to be wearing a bucaneers outfit like he was from the past?

[jacksnurse]

i don't think he necessarily uses it to profit with investments...i think that he is the head of something big....a well funded company that can throw $$ away they have soo much

[nirvonyx]

ben must be part of some large organization in order to be able to facilitate that kind of cash. he didn't outright deny that he could do it, just that his hands were tied, so to speak. the only organizations we've been aware of at this point are dharma and the organization that sent the team to him. as this team was meant to find him and, it seems, destroy him or capture him or something, i'm leaning towards his involvement with dharma somehow.

[missjulie]

Remember the almanac in Back to the Future??

(Oh god please say you do... otherwise... wtf?)

[nirvonyx]

i totally do, missjulie, but it's been a long long time since i've seen those. i remember biff making a killing, but that's about it. i personally am not subscribing much to the time travel theories and whatnot. i really don't theorize much at all. i do like to read them, and that's what i love about this show - we're kept so much in the dark that the imaginative fan base is starting to get really far out. i just enjoy being lost :)

[missjulie]

Oh I'm so glad someone else has seen them. I posted another mid 80's reference and no one got it. I was sad. And felt old.

Anyway, the time travel theory has been tossed around so much I thought I'd drop that in there. If only the money or the suits in that secret room were "period" money and cloths of some sort, but they just looked like regular stuff. Reminds me of secret agent stuff more than Biff. :D

[Riesse]

New here too - so Ben came on the island as a kid with his dad, and it took him until adulthood to become the leader, and it was that other dude (the one that persuaded the fertility doctor on the island) that must have "mentored" him etc...so when do you think he became the "power"?

[beachblinkette]

Nature abhors a vacuum. Ben made one and then stepped into it.

[missjulie]

Right after he killed his dad.

[mirizarry716]

Does anyone belive that Miles & Ben may be working together???!! The fact that Miles asked for such an odd amount of $$. Just like Ben said...why not 3.3 or 3.4, etc. Maybe they were talking in code?? Just a thought.

[lilsev42]

I believe Ben is part of the group that is looking for him,that is how he knows who miles is talking about.He must have used thier wealth and power with his smarts,that how he got his foot in with them,he must prevail or sayd would not be killing all these peps!!

[jacksnurse]

when Ben ran into Richard as a child....Richard was shocked that Ben saw his dead mother...he realized that he was gifted...he told him that he could come over to their side but he would have to be patient....many years later....he helped with the purge and became the leader...it seems that the others have been waiting for their savior...remember when richard tells locke that they don't like the way things are going...he has decided that ben may not be the right leader and starts to see locke as another possibility since he has a deep connection to the island

[BomberDawg95]

I think one of the most interesting things, that we often seem to forget, is what happened to the rest of the "Others"? Richard, who we have seem mulitple times off of the Island, has not seemed to age at all. Now, we know there is some kind of 'time difference' between the Island and the rest of the world. Its likely that the time difference may be related to the speed with which an object is moving through the 'portal' or 'barrier' that seperates the two. It works like a massive cryogenic chamber. Those inside age significantly slower then those outside, with not concept that they are aging slower.

So how has this time difference affected Ben?

Well, he could be much older then we originally anticipate. The money he gets could be from investments that he made years, if not decades in the past, that have accrued interest over time and given him a massive source of wealth for him to draw from. This money could be what he used to bring people to the Island (such as Juliette) and pay for the modern luxuries they enjoy in their camp.

The time difference really opens up a lot of potential doors for how Ben operates and the source of his funding.

[jacksnurse]

i agree...and ben may have aged more in comparison with the others because he passes through the portal to the "other side" more often then lets say richard or ethan did....he could very well be older ....i still think that he belongs to a very powerful organization that can throw money away they have so much