THE NEW WIDMORE

Charles Widmore was a wealthy businessman obsessed with one thing: returning to take control of the island (and its energy source).  In an alternative setting, sans island, Widmore's motivation would remain the same: finding and controlling life itself.

As a wealthy industrialist, Widmore Industries would take a different tact than Dharma's academic-grant roots to find the source of the life force.  He would throw money and resources to push results.

We could imagine Widmore's main scientific team being Dr. Chang, his son Daniel and even Keamy since one needs someone to get their hands dirty in order to get the job done. Widmore could pay for brilliant, outside the box thinkers, like Minkowski who would go mad in their quest to find the source. Widmore's iron fist would keep the team in line. He would crush the non-believers.

In the Widmore circle, Daniel would be the lynch pin. Daniel would be the theorist who has a difficult time shifting between reality and theory. When he injures his assistant in a mind experiment in space-time, he becomes a shell of himself, drawn away from his parents. But it his mother, Eloise, who gives him new hope to find "a cure" by joining his father in the quest for the scientific Holy Grail, the life source energy spring.  Daniel takes up the research to help amend for his past, but quickly becomes enamored with another research assistant, Charlotte, who is highly motivated to find the energy source. Widmore's sees quickly that he can use Daniel's affection toward Charlotte to keep Daniel in his game.

Because of Widmore's large donations to hospitals and charities, he gains access to a necessary component of his research projects: human test subjects from mental and hospital facilities. Here is where he gets transfers to his "research hospital" who have little life to go back to in the real world: Hurley, who speaks to the dead and has imaginary friends; Miles, who also speaks to the dead; Charlie, the drug addict on his last legs after being abandoned by his brother. These subjects have very little to live for - - - so they are used to search for the root of the human soul, which Widmore believes contains individual life force energy. If he can tap into a person's life force, he can trace it back to the source.

Dr. Chang has to balance Widmore's plan and keeping the subjects alive long enough to harness the life force profile, and globally trace it to its source. Dr. Chang has reservations about this plan, deeming it science fiction. In order to keep Dr. Chang from sabotaging his vision, Widmore brings in Miles, Chang's son, as a test case since his soul seems "multi-dimensional" if he can communicate with the departed. So Chang needs to push forward with dangerous research without harming his own son in the process.

As with the Dharma structure, this friction between Dr. Chang and Widmore can cause the conflict and mixed loyalties within the research facility. As things do not go forward as planned, Chang grips on to his science principles while Widmore searches for a short cut - - - through the religious beliefs of his wife, Eloise, and Brother Campbell. It is through Brother Campbell's monastery that Widmore takes a dysfunctional monk, Desmond, into the test subject department as control subject in his soul experiments. But while on the grounds, Desmond becomes infatuated with Widmore's daughter, Penny, and begins to ruin the context of his role in the experiments by running away from his religious principles for primal emotions. Widmore was going to get rid of this problem, but Penny quickly becomes attached to Desmond's quirky behavior. So Widmore secrets Desmond from being a test object into a corporate spy - - - giving him one opportunity to prove himself by infiltrating Dharma and collecting their key research data.

Whether Ben's spies know of this deception will have to play out over time. But Desmond as a clumsy spy could be the detonator for Jack's coup against Ben. But Ben and Widmore do not know that Desmond's loyalties lie elsewhere, with the third player in this quest to find the light source: Jacob's religious order.