Friday, December 02, 2005

Sloane Clone Set Up

This article is PACKED with theory people! Enough to last the weekend! Enjoy! Remember- ALIAS will be airing on Wednesday next week, December 7th,
at 10pm PST on ABC, after Lost.

Aside from watching the pilot, I am still in the midst of season 4. I watched episode 4.15 “Pandora” and 4.16 “Another Mr. Sloane” last night. I had always had a hard time understanding the purpose of the Sloane Clone and the point of convincing Vaughn that his father is alive. Before, I used my good old suspension of disbelief, letting that specific storyline, seemingly filled with holes, just entertain me. But, last night, re-watching those episodes, I had what Oprah calls an “Ah HA!” moment.

First, I finally pieced together the idea that Elena needed Vaughn to enter the security pass codes on the armored truck that was carrying the Rambaldi text. Hence, she sent Roberts in with dummy journals, doctored photos and false information about Bill Vaughn in order to keep Vaughn in her pocket. I know this because Vaughn actually says that to Roberts right before they high-jack the truck. So, I’m good on that one. NOW, I was able to piece together some key ideas from these two episodes that may shed some light on Sloane’s master plan.

The Sloane Clone was created in order for Elena to get her hands on Sloane’s knowledge without his knowledge, so I thought. She needed Sloane’s expertise and his name to obtain materials and artifacts needed for her endgame. Then it hit me! Hit me like a swift Sydney kick to the temple! The real Sloane, in cahoots with Elena, produced the Sloane Clone in order to carry on his study and obsession with Rambaldi. Conveniently this Clone would render the real Sloane innocent in the eyes of Sydney and the APO team. It was the Clone that put the hit on Sydney’s life, framing Irina. It was the Clone that set up Vaughn in order to retrieve the coil and the Rambaldi book. Now I am going to take it a step further. The real Sloane claims he couldn’t possibly be obsessed with Rambaldi again because he has Nadia, a daughter who he loves very much and made a promise to. He promised Nadia no more Rambaldi. But, we see the real Sloane beat the daylights out of Carter, the Clone’s right hand man, with a sledge hammer in some fit of Rambaldi-induced rage.

Follow me on this train of thought- Suppose the real Sloane knows that Nadia is not his daughter. Suppose he has been using her as an excuse, a scapegoat, in order to throw Sydney and APO off his trail. Suppose he needed Nadia as a way to convince everyone he’s changed. Suppose he planned to turn on Elena, to not only support his claim of innocence, but to get rid of her, to get her out of his way, as he did with the Alliance. Maybe that was Sloane’s motivation for killing Gordon Dean, aside from being black mailed to, to get rid of Dean, get him out of his way.

Back to Nadia not being Sloane’s- We’ve always had an inkling, the sly, ambiguous comments and sideways glances that would suggest that Nadia wasn’t Sloane’s. The only proof we have that Nadia might be Sloane’s is Sloane’s word. He told Jack and Sydney when they went looking for the Passenger, that Sloane tested the DNA of the Passenger in the Rambaldi text to his DNA and it was a match. So, we have the word of a sociopath. That’s it. And then you ask, but it was said that only the Passenger’s father would be able to find her. Well, maybe that was a load of bologna too! Sloane apparently was told he had a child the night Conrad the monk gave him that slip of Rambaldi paper. Maybe the paper said that the Passenger was Sydney’s sister and Sloane was able to use his old affair with Irina as evidence that Nadia was his.

The straw that breaks the camel's back is the fact that Sloane has done this before. He convinced Jack and everyone at SD-6 that he was being blackmailed about Emily’s death. He and Emily set a whole concocted plan into motion that placed blame on Ariana Kane and ultimately brought down the Alliance, again, rendering Sloane innocent. Now, this season, he’s removed Dean and now is in contact with his old employers, Prophet 5! YES, I said it, PROPHET 5!! In episode 4.16, the Sloane Clone says to kidnapped Dr. St. Claire, that he was once a part of the Army Corp of engineers. He was recruited to decode text written by Rambaldi, the very same group Bill Vaughn and James Murdoch were recruited into. Isn’t it interesting that everyone in that group was killed, except for Sloane?

Though I feel I have rather extensively supported by theory, I am having trouble fitting Jack into this equation. It has been obvious since early on in season 4 that Sloane and Jack have been up to something. If Sloane has been fooling us, does that mean he is fooling Jack? I can’t image Jack would have killed who he thought was Irina if he was in on the plan to frame Irina in the first place. Maybe he has been helping Sloane, but is in the dark when it comes to Nadia’s maternity and Sloane’s clone creation. I suppose Jack wouldn’t have held a gun to Sloane’s head in the men’s room if he was in on it. So, for now, I suspect that Jack is NOT privy to Sloane’s endgame.

Do you think I am on to something? Or am I way off? Do you have any evidence to confirm or deny my claim?

14 comments:

Girlscout said...

Could very well be. Maybe APO is SD-6, maybe APO is one of the branches of government that P5 has infiltrated. Remember, Dean was able to get into the office. Full circle is such a good idea!! Hehehe!

Tammy said...

Oh - I just LOVE the theory that Sloane was actually behind his clone! I had never thought of that possiblity, but it makes so much sense based on Sloane's past escapades... I'm still processing the rest - great ideas!!

Girlscout said...

Thanks Tammy. It is still taking me some time to process too!

uncle111 said...

Yes, as I've said for months. Why would Sloane let McCullough download his brain and then let him escape SD-6's fall? What was the favor he owed him? The favor was the creation of the Cloane so he could look reformed, but still be working on Rambaldi. And the only reason Sloane ever wanted Nadia was because she could get him closer to Rambaldi and he believes she still can.
Sloane is evil and always will be. All of his actions must be seen in this light- it makes everything make more sense.

Jess said...

I LOVE this theory!!! This definatly would explain a lot. The fact that Sloane had a Clone always seemed like an unfinished storyline to me. Correct me if I am wrong but it is most likely that Sloane clone was released after he was "de-brainwashed." It wasn't long after the Clone was captured that Sloane disappeared in the 4th season. This makes it seem like there is a definite connection. Was the Sloane Clone truly de-brainwashed or was that just an act? Maybe the Clone is still out there working on behalf of Sloane.

It breaks my heart to think of Sloane using Nadia the way he seems to have been, simply because Nadia wants SOOOO badly to believe in the good in her father (assuming he truly is her father) But it makes more sense given all we know about Sloane that he is taking advantage of the whole situation.

uncle111 said...

Jess,
I don't think the clone was released. My guess is that he is too mentally impaired to function on his own.
His non-Sloane memories have him as a corporal in the US Army. Judging by his age and his statements about interrogating POW's he was probably a US POW from the Korean war era, which means he was held in North Korea or China for who knows how long.
N Korea is where DiSantis was taken when he escaped. So, the clone was probably a victim of Prophet 5 experiments as well. This pulls the Rambaldi/Prophet5 loop back in Sloane's direction, if the clone actually belonged to Sloane.

SKlaft said...

GS,
I'm not sure about some of the details, but I definately like the overall theory that Sloane has been a part of P-5 all along. It would be especially inetresting to think that Sloane might have been P-5's double agent on the inside of the Alliance.
One thing that supports your theory was back in the first season when Sloane had been "betrayed" by Russick, killed him, and then by Anini Hassan. Sloane was talking to Jack about how he saw the "darkness coming." Something in that monologue has been stuck in my mind. Sloane said that he saw this darkness coming "before [he] was betrayed by the CIA." We are never told how he percived the CIA to have betrayed him. The fact that 12 of the major Intelligence Agencies in the world seem to be in charge of Prophet 5 may explain this. Maybe Sloane had been "forced" by a similar form of blackmail to join the Alliance and continue to investigate Rambaldi materials for P-5. Sloane then proceeds to extract himself from both agencies by bringing down the Alliance of 12. On his own now, he has his obsession driving him until he looses his wife and learns of a "daughter."
Whether Nadia really is his daughter or not, I am not certain, but I do believe that Sloane believes she is his. He has taken too many risks on her behalf without enough benefit or gain to be had. The fact that he believes this is why P-5 calling the shots (again?) is so excruciatingly aggrivating to him.
As I said, overall, I like your theory and for the time being, I think I am going to go with it.
-R.

SKlaft said...

With further thought on this...

In "Only in Dreams" the whole idea of Nadia extracting him from his euphoria when revisiting his past would not make much sense. Sloane was not entirely in control of his emotional faculties and it took Nadia's empassioned pleas and calling him "Dad" to bring him back to reality. He definately believes she belongs to him.
-R

uncle111 said...

robetron-
What Sloane believes about having a daughter is difficult to decipher. We get indications from season one that he may think Syd is his- when he told Syd he was away when she was growing up, but checked in on her as often as he could - the tone with which he told Jack it had been his pleasure to stand in for him in watching out for Syd when Jack was indisposed - when he told Dr. Barnett that Syd might be his daughter- when he told Irina on the plane that he always treated Syd as if she were his own daughter - and even after Nadia was in the picture, the creepy way he looked at Syd when they were at the Cloane's warehouse and he was remarking about how this was the first time they had actually been on a mission together and then his expression when Syd asked him who Jacq.was, as if he were saying you are her.
The fact that he was willing to use, almost kill even, Nadia whenever it fit his persuit of Rambaldi makes me doubt his real commitment or belief that Nadia is his.

I think Sloane is so corrupted by his passion for Rambaldi that he is willing to say and do whatever he thinks will get him closer to the endgame. I also think his will power is so strong that he could fake whatever he needed to during the J dream segment. I think it's possible he got caught up in it in a dangerous way, but Nadia bringing him out of it by calling him dad could have been becuase that kicked his mind back into the role he had been playing in order to pursue Rambaldi.

My Theory About Arvin Sloane and Prophet 5

I think Sloane became obsessed with Rambaldi early on. As of the 4th season the Sloane Clone stated he (meaning Sloane since he had Sloane's memories) had been collecting Rambaldi artifacts for over 35 years. The faulty timeline inherent to the show messes it up a little, but factoring in Syd's 2 missing years timeline glitch, that would mean Sloane began collecting in 1968 or 1972. I think it was earlier rather than later. If he became obsessed before joining CIA then I say he joined CIA in order to use government resources in his Rambaldi search. Even if he started after coming to CIA the rest still works. I think what got Sloane obsessed was getting access to certain Rambaldi documents that made him think he was part of the prophecies. I think Irina was identified somehow in what Sloane saw and because of that he worked with KGB to recruit Irina. He may also have seen other things that related to Irina's child that gave him a vision for getting Irina here to marry Jack.

Jack joined CIA in 1970 and even though he didn't meet Sloane until 1971 I think Sloane knew of Jack and his work on Project Christmas. He used this as bait to get the Russians to recruit Irina and assign her to get close to Jack.

In 1971 Jack and Sloane meet at CIA and become friends.

In 1972 the Prophet 5 project began when a private company (I believe controlled or manipulated by Sloane) hired "the best and the brightest" to decode a book written (by Rambaldi or an associate) in the 15th century. The project took at least 2 years.

Somewhere between this time and 1974 Jack and Irina married, but early into the marriage, or before, Sloane pulled Irina into his obsession with Rambaldi. There was some question years later as to whether Syd was Jack's or Sloane's. Sloane was either trying to get more control over Irina, was trying to fulfill a prophecy in some way, or Irina was trying to, and they had an affair. Syd was born in 1975.

I think Jack believed, based on something he saw or something Sloane said to him, that his child was going to be in danger, maybe a victim of Sloane's or other Rambaldians' obsessions at some point in the future. Right after Syd was born Jack started a project, the subject of which was Syd. Whether S.A.B.47 Project was related to Project Christmas or not is unclear, but by age 6 Jack put Syd through Project Christmas, making her spy capable.

In 1981 Sloane and Irina had at least one more affair which we are told produced Nadia. Soon after discovering that she was pregnant Irina faked her death and escaped back to the Soviet Union, where she had Nadia in 1982. At around age 6 Nadia was given the green Rambaldi fluid by people in a facility in Russia. Before she could complete writing the Rambaldi message for the people there she was kidnapped and taken to South America for safe keeping. (I think Sloane was behind the people who were giving her the fluid because years later, after the facility is long abandoned, that's where Sloane went to get the fluid he used on Nadia.)

Prophet 5 project with Bill Vaughn began in 1972. It lasted for "years." We don't know how many years. Within days of it being finished BV went underground. MV was 18 months old.
If it was 2 years that makes it 1974. He was supposedly killed in 1979, but if he rescued Nadia from the green fluid incident in Russia he would have to have still been alive in about 1988. Which makes me think- was 1988 the last entry date in the journal Elena feed to Vaughn to make him think his father was still alive? If so, then the journal was probably genuine and his father did run off and leave him and his mother to believe he was dead. It seemed to me like Vaughn artificially dropped the whole thing by saying he didn't think his father did that because he couldn't have done it. I think BV did it, faking his own death, because it was the only way his family would be safe- to make the people who wanted to kill him think he was already dead. Isn't that a little like what Jack is doing with and for Vaughn?

If BV rescued Nadia while they were using the green fluid on her, and if she was about 6 at that time, which is what she looked like on the video, then Irina didn't kill him in 1976. The question then is did she kill him at all? Remember, all they had to identify him by was his dental records, just like how they identified Syd by DNA in her teeth after Covenant made it look like she was dead. Did Irina help BV disappear again in 1976, maybe after Prophet 5 people were on to him, by making it look like she killed him. And did he, a dead man, rescue Nadia when others might not have been able to? If so, then she would have continued the charade that she had killed him in order to continue protecting him, which would explain some of the strangeness about the way she relates to MV and his belief she murdered his father.

In 1991 when CIA is no longer useful enough to him Sloane left CIA and started SD-6. Jack followed him, I believe to keep an eye on him to protect Syd, and be a CIA double. But, I believe that before Sloane left CIA he helped establish DSR for investigating Rambaldi.

While at SD-6, Sloane used the Alliance the way he used the CIA to feed his appetite for Rambaldi. When the Alliance became inconvenient for him he set up a plan to bring it down and loot their Rambaldi collection. His plan included Mekinnis (sp?) Cole and either setting up or manipulating the Covenant at some point.

As a reformed person, and head of Omnifam, Sloane continued to manipulate people and organizations to further his obsession with Rambaldi, to be the one to bring in his endgame. His involvement with the Covenant became overt when he became a double agent in Covenant for CIA.

Once the Covenant outlived it's usefulness to him he abandoned it to CIA, or at least offered them a straw man, as Elena called it, to bring down. He worked his way back into CIA where he used it again to further his goals. The Sloane Clone was something he engineered with McCullough as a way of being able to get around his agreement with the CIA and continue his Rambaldi work. (Sloane may have been working with Elena at this point too, but he was at least near the end of S4 when he worked to shut her down, which he did because Elena didn't have the endgame right.) Sloane has used, manipulated, built up and brought down whatever people or organizations he needed to in his search for Rambaldi. It is all he cares about and he will do anything he thinks has to be done to reach the goal.
---------------------------------
Now. if you want a really wild theory:
What do we know about Sloane? If we accept what Sloane says to be true our knowledge of him begins when he meets Conrad while Sloane is with the Corps of Engineers. We know nothing prior to that and we are trusting that even that is true.
Our earliest scenes of him are of him in Italy with Emily (the J memory), where they return after he brings down the Alliance. He knows a lot about various scientific fields. He knows more about Rambaldi than anyone else. He has worked harder than anyone else pursuing Rambaldi. And, on top of his efforts, things about Rambaldi have fallen into his lap.

What if when they killed Rambaldi, his followers used the healing formula or some other invention of his to bring him back and then whatever he used on the clockmaker to keep him alive for centuries. But, what if in the process, say the manner in which they killed him, or the length of time before they could revive him, Rambaldi lost his memory and prophetic ability. What if in the 20th century he was drawn to Rambaldi artifacts, maybe after meeting Conrad. What if Rambaldi knew this is what would happen and he arranged for certain clues and knowledge to be kept safe so that when he had gone through certain events he would be prepared to remember, or at least accept, who he was and begin to bring about his endgame.

What if Arvin Sloane is Rambaldi?

Syd had her memory wiped after leaving the Covenant and she was kidnapped by Kendall and he filled her in on what she had gone through the previous 2 years? She had her memory erased so she would not remember where she hid Rambaldi's DNA. But Kendall pointed out that once she was back at CIA she went straight for the thing she hid and risked everything to forget. She was drawn to it subconsciously.


What if that is why Sloane is so drawn to Rambaldi? What if there is a deep subconscious pull toward recovering his works and hence his memory?

Girlscout said...

Robertron!! Where have you been all my life? I haven't seen you in here in forever!! Thanks for your thoughts!! I think this theory is most viable! Let's wait and see!

SRM said...

wow, so many theories, very impressive everyone! It never ocurred to me that Sloane would be behind the Cloane, he seemed so pissed off about someone impersonating him. Am I the only one that for some reason wants to believe Sloane has indeed reformed? I don't know why, but I so want to believe his love for Nadia and loyalty to APO. He seems to be going through so much agony trying to heal Nadia and feeling so much guilt for being responsible for her condition. If in the end we find out it was all just an "act" I probably will be disappointed in some respect. Ah well, time will tell...

Girlscout said...

I am choking on all this Sloane is Rambaldi talk. That is stretched even for Alias! But I suppose some of my theories have been rather...interesting. I just can't stomach Sloane as Rambaldi. It's so sci-fi, it's too X-files. I can buy clones and doubles and zombies and floating red balls, but I just can't buy that Sloane is a 500 year old fortune teller.

SRM said...

yeah I also can't buy Sloane as Rambaldi, or as Syd's father. If they make him her father I will be PISSED, majorly. A lot of what keeps that show going on the emotional level is the relationship of Syd and Jack, I'd be really upset if they took that away after 5 years.

uncle111 said...

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Sloane is Rambaldi either, or Syd's father. The thought just occurred to me as a really wild one that doesn't have much storyline that would stand in the way.
I do know this- Sloane is thoroughly evil, and they just haven't tied up the Rambaldi story.