Rachel Blake

Season: The LOST Experience, Faction: DHARMA Initiative

Overview

Rachel Blake is the protagonist in the storyline of the Lost alternate reality game The Lost Experience. She is a 25 year old woman investigating The Hanso Foundation, effectively leading players through the game as the main driver of the plot.

From a tender age, it became clear that Rachel Blake was a gifted young woman, and it was little surprise that she managed to secure a prestigious job working for the Widmore Corporation when barely out of her teen years. However, after her mother’s death, Rachel wondered how a single parent could have afforded her daughter’s first-class education, and began to look at her finances. She discovered that her education had been paid for by a mysterious trust fund, the money for which had been donated by the Hanso Foundation, a Danish based scientific research company. Intrigued by this, Blake quit her job (receiving a healthy severance pay) and began to investigate the corporation, consequently realizing that they were involved in corruption of the worst kind. With new resolve, Rachel decided to continue her investigation of the company by travelling to their headquarters in Copenhagen, at the same time exposing them for what they truly are to the world.

Under the guise of the hacker “Persephone“, Rachel sabotaged the Hanso Foundation website through flash hacks, exposing truths about their dealings. She then moved on to publish blogs and videos on her investigations, culminating in her publishing a video which would “tear the Foundation apart”.

In her final video, it was confirmed that Rachel is the daughter of Alvar Hanso, explaining why his company financed her education. It was also revealed in the aftermath of the Experience that Rachel’s mother once worked for the Hanso Foundation.

Underworld

Fertility (Earth)

Fertility (Vegetation)

Fertility (Water)

Story Outline

The Lost Experience

Arriving in Copenhagen, under the pretense of traveling, Rachel began to further her Hanso investigations. After making a number of hacks on the Hanso Foundation website about her discoveries into the disappearance of Alvar Hanso and other Foundation executives, she began to publish her blogs and video clips about her findings. During this time, Rachel learned that Hanso executive Thomas Mittelwerk was researching islands for some purpose, as well as a specially designed ship. To gain this information, Rachel had to take a number of risks, including directly confronting Mittelwerk himself, and narrowly escaping a run-in with one of Mittelwerk’s cronies.

Her research took her to Iceland, where Mittelwerk had headed following a fire at the Hanso funded “Vik Institute”. Here, Rachel learned about the Valenzetti Equation, which was being secretly analyzed in the institute by mathematicians and savants. Rachel came to the conclusion that Enzo Valenzetti, the creator of the equation, could have faked his own death in a plane accident, and may be alive and well in hiding. On a tip-off from one of her contacts, “GidgetGirl”, Rachel moved on to Italy, finding once again the presence of Hanso executives. Along with seeing a strange boat called the “Helgus Antonius” loading Hanso Foundation cargo at a nearby harbor, Rachel received a mysterious phone call from “GidgetGirl”, instructing Miss Blake to go to Paris, France immediately.

When she arrived in Paris, Rachel went to the meeting place, but GidgetGirl never appeared. Rachel later learned that GidgetGirl was actually Darla Taft, the mistress of Hanso executive Hugh McIntyre, and that both had died in a suspicious car accident. Whilst still reeling from this development, Rachel was attacked in her hotel room, with gunfire shooting from outside. She was rescued by an unlikely ally, the subordinate of Thomas Mittelwerk known as Malik who Rachel had previously encountered in Copenhagen. Taking her to safety, he tells her of a flat in St Germain de Pres that was owned by Hugh and Darla, and gives her a key. When she got there, Rachel found a video of Darla’s last words, telling her about a package. Inside this, Rachel found folders on the “SPIDER PROTOCOL”, as well as discovering designs for the “Helgus Antonius” ship which outlined a hospital boat with “quarantined” wards. Finally, Rachel found a fake ID and a plane ticket to Sri Lanka, and she hastily booked her flight.

In an appearance that blurred the fourth wall of the series, she appeared at the LOST panel at 2006 Comic Con in San Diego and slammed writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for allowing The Hanso Foundation “to prove themselves as this great philanthropic organization” by buying their way into the show’s plot with advertising dollars. Near the end of her irate speech, she instructs all who want the truth to go to http://www.hansoexposed.com. This panel was later also rebroadcast as part of the Official Lost Podcast on July 31, 2006.

HansoExposed.com then became the latest part of the adventure, with individual fragments of a video of Rachel’s time in Sri Lanka locked, needing clues that are themselves hidden all over the Internet. Rachel’s justification for this is that the video is so explosive it “will tear The Hanso Foundation apart…”. The video (dubbed the Sri Lanka Video) showed Alvar Hanso, discussing the Valenzetti Equation and the numbers. Mittelwerk could then be seen lecturing Hanso Foundation workers, whilst Rachel secretly filmed in the background. It seems that the Hanso Foundation is desperately trying to solve Valenzetti’s equation, but all they end with after running it is six numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42). Mittelwerk himself says that they have been plagued by these numbers, and so radical action must be taken. He tells his team about villages in Sri Lanka, where they have seemingly introduced a genetically targeted retro-virus. For some reason, they are attempting to achieve a 30% mortality rate in the victims, and require the bodies of the dead for examination. In the final moments of the video, Rachel is spotted by Mittelwerk and attempts to escape. Although we did not know how at first, Rachel managed to escape Sri Lanka and most likely returned to the United States, as she appeared at Comic Con.

Next, Rachel set up whereisalvar.com, where those who find Apollo bars can upload their pictures. This is done to show the Hanso Foundation “the army that’s united to oppose their crimes”. Rachel has promised that when enough of her followers have uploaded their faces, she will reveal further instructions. She ends her message on the site with “you won’t want to miss what I have to show you”.

After the completion of the Sri Lanka Video, Rachel contacted Malik through the blogs of Speaker, Lost Ninja and Other Girl, in response to his encrypted message during the August 11 DJ Dan Podcast. She explained to Malik how de Zylva, a mutual friend, had rescued her from Mittelwerk’s clutches when she was attacked after filming her video. He helped her escape to India, though never came when Rachel waited for him. It is presumed the Hanso Foundation found him first. Malik and Rachel then set up a meeting in New York. However, she quickly left the country after her location was compromised.

When whereisalvar.com showed 100% of bars being found, Rachel issued a message stating that we will learn “the whole truth. About them.

About me.” She then called for all to tune into the DJ Dan podcast…so we can once and for all “shut it all down!” Appearing on the podcast, Rachel commented how she had been on the run, traveling through eight countries in twelve days trying to escape the Foundation.

In her final video on abc.com, it was confirmed by Alvar Hanso himself that he is her father. He explained about Rachel’s interest in the group after she realised that they had funded her tuition, and how she eventually discovered what they were involved in, and decided to stand against them.

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Decoded Family Members

Alvar Hanso (Father)

Magnus Hanso (Great-Great-Grandfather)

Decoded LOST Experience Characters

Thomas Mittelwerk

Wiki Info

In Greek mythology, Persephone (also called Kore) was the Queen of the Underworld, the korē (or young maiden), and a daughter of Demeter and Zeus. In the Olympian version, she also becomes the consort of Hades when he becomes the deity that governs the underworld.

The figure of Persephone is very well-known today. Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden, a mother’s grief over her abduction, and great joy after her daughter is returned. It is also cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons.

In Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed. She may be carrying a sheaf of grain and smiling demurely with the “Archaic smile” of the Kore of Antenor.

Greek Mythology

Her abduction is first mentioned in Hesiod’s, Theogony. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter a great chasm opened up and Hades abducted her daughter. Demeter caused a terrible drought that forced Zeus to bring Persephone back, but she was obliged to spend one third of the year in the underworld. Demeter was also united with the hero Iasion in Crete and she bore Ploutos (πλούτος,plutos:wealth) who represents the wealth of the corn that was stored in underground silos or ceramic jars (pithoi). Similar subterranean pithoi were used in ancient times for burials and Ploutos is fused with Hades, the King of the realm of the dead. During summer months, the Greek Corn-Maiden (Kore) is lying in the corn of the underground silos, in the realm of Hades and she is fused with Persephone, the Queen of the underworld. At the beginning of the autumn, when the seeds of the old crop are laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter, for at that time the old crop and the new meet each other. For the initiated this union was the symbol of the eternity of human life that flows from the generations which spring from each other.

Hesiod refers to the island of the “happy dead” and it is the Elysion which seems to be counterpart with Eleusis, the city of the Eleusinian mysteries. The Greeks believed that only the beloved of the gods could exist there. In Odyssey Homer carries the old belief to the ideal island for mortals Scheria, the imaginary perfect world that was offered to the future emigrants. This island became the lost dream of the Greek world.

The primitive myths of isolated Arcadia seem to be related with the first Greek-speaking people who came from the north during the bronze age. Despoina (Persephone) is the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon Hippios (horse), who represents the river spirit of the underworld that appears as a horse as often happens in northern-European folklore. He pursues the mare-Demeter and from the union she bears the horse Arion and a daughter who originally had the form or the shape of a mare. The two goddesses were not clearly separated and they were closely connected with the springs and the animals. They were related with the god of rivers and springs; Poseidon and especially with Artemis, the Mistress of the Animals who was the first nymph. According to the Greek tradition a hunt-goddess preceded the harvest goddess.

Queen of the Underworld

There is an archaic role for Persephone as the dread queen of the Underworld, whose very name it was forbidden to speak. In the Odyssey, commonly dated circa 800 to 600 BC, when Odysseus goes to the Underworld, he refers to her as the Iron Queen. Her central myth, for all its emotional familiarity, was also the tacit context of the secret initiatory mystery rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to their awe-struck participants—an immortality in her world beneath the soil, feasting with the heroes who dined beneath her dread gaze.

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