Horace's back story?

I was thinking about Horace, and particularly the scene where Ben closed his eyes after the purge.
And then I thunk back to when Horace found baby Ben and his dad and mom on the side of the road.
Now that got me thinking about Alpert and how he leaves the island to see John born.

Horace Goodspeed was a mathematician in the DHARMA Initiative. Little is known about him so far except that he was present in Oregon on the day that Benjamin Linus was born, helped Ben's father to get a job on the Island, and was killed during the Purge. However, on the DVD commentary track for "The Man Behind the Curtain" Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse describe Horace and his companion Olivia as factoring significantly in the future "game plan" for Lost.
from lostpedia


I think Horace was one of Alperts people, or maybe even a recruit like Ben. I can see Horace doing his Dharma work at the Arrow and has a run in with Alpert, similar to young Ben.
“I’m making a cabin for me and the missus”
Now here s stretch…. Horace saw his dead wife the way Ben saw his mother. He goes cookoo and tries to build a cabin in the woods to be with what he thinks is her ghost. Stay with me now….
Alpert tells Horace that he is special yada, yada, yada….and Horace becomes the leader of the Others.
I can even see how Horace was the leader before Dharma got there, goes off island and joins up with Dharma to get inside and be a spy.(even bigger stretch)

I think Horace being at Ben’s birth, and then bringing Roger and Ben to the island can’t be a coincidence.
I don’t think he went out of his way to hire a new “Work Man”, so Ben was the real reason he shipped them over.
Now after Ben’s vision of his mother, and his exchange with Alpert about wanting to leave Dharma and live with the hostiles he’s told to be patient. He’s not ready yet maybe? So now Horace tells Ben what is really going on with this island, all the secrets about the stone door and orchid station and that one day “this shall all be yours son” “What… the curtains?” "NO!, not the curtains..."

Back to the dead Horace. He’s sitting alone on the bench in a somewhat peaceful repose compared to the other dead Dharmites who are laid around the camp like they were trying to run away. Like maybe he knew the purge was coming. It might have even been his idea.
Ben comes up, closed the eyes of the man who more of a father than Roger ever was, and is now ready to take his place.

It’s a stretch, but I had some time to kill today at work

It sounds completely plausible to me. How many of these theories aren't stretches?

I can't tell you you're wrong. And possibly there was more than just chance at play when Horace and Olivia turned up for Roger and Ben.

I like the creativity in this theory. I go more simple, for now, and just think Horace was a nice guy, and was perhaps one of the very few people who treated Ben with respect, like a human being. (Note how encouraging Horace was with Ben, remarking that even though he was quiet he was sure he would speak when he had something to say.)

“I’m making a cabin for me and the missus”

that cracked me up!

good ideas latters very good

Ever since I heard this information that Horrace and Olivia would play more into the game plan, I've been thinking along the same lines. Horrace may very well be a spy who is with the natives but works for the Others. The details are a little fuzzy, but your definitely on to something here.

Originally I thought Horrace and Olivia worked for Dharma trying to biologically engineer Ben to be more special and help Dharma study those aspects of the island, that only "special" people can help with. Horrace seemed like quite the free spirited hippy type, so I think he eventually had issues doing the things that Dharma asked him to do. Jacob spoke to Horrace, and he listened for a while, helping the Others; but for some reason he was not sparred in the purge.

I was thinking along the lines like; Ben sacrificed himslef by turning the wheel(never coming back, might as well be dead), Horace sacrificed himself in the purge, Locke, so we hear, commits suicide.... Maybe even martyring themselves for the greater cause.

Very good theory. And also something that hasn't been discussed before (not that I've seen anyway).

After Locke "saw" Horace building the cabin I had thought that he must play a bigger part in this story somewhere.

Good thinking - I like it

Admittedly you are stretching like you're about to run a marathon, but I really like your ideas and can see them being very plausible - but i kind of get the idea that we're not going to find out that much about what happened on the island before the plane crashed.

I think the final two series will mainly focus on the "end game" between Widmore and Ben, much to our annoyance.

I'm excited to see where Goodspeed's storyline will go, but I must confess I am not entirely convinced that he is "one of the good guys".
And I don't think he's one of the bad guys either...he's just a guy with a vital missing piece of the puzzle.
I'm going to guess that he knows how to use the Numbers, perhaps he even cracked them. He is after all a mathematician...like Valenzetti, no?