- Walter tells us that Dr. Jacoby of Washington State invented the blue-and-red glasses, and that they let the wearer detect hypnotic influence on a subject's aura.
- In Twin Peaks, Jacoby wears the glasses several times, including once while being interrogated by Agent Cooper.
- Agent Cooper has been contacted in his dreams by the Black Lodge, and it is later revealed, given post-hypnotic triggers and suggestions.
- Despite not being the killer, Dr. Jacoby evades and dodges Cooper's questions, essentially being as unhelpful as possible.
- Ergo, Jacoby could see that Cooper was hypnotically compromised, and refused to give him any potentially sensitive information that might harm his own investigation, suspecting Cooper was a Manchurian Agent.
- And "Einstein," the extradimensional baldie in a nice suit, is an Observer!
- Further evidence: Farscape established that wormholes really, really can mess with the universe, and wormhole travel can lead to new "unrealized realities," parallel worlds spawned from imagination; this is rather like the degradation of the laws of physics (and resultant odd phenomena) that is occurring in both universes due to travel between them.
- Walter Bishop —> Eddie Jessop
- Nina Sharp —> Emily Bishop
- William Bell —> Arthur Rosenberg
However, through the Literary Agent Hypothesis, the characters of Nina Sharp and Elizabeth, Walter's wife, were merged into a composite character, transfering her affections from William Bell/Arthur Rosenberg to Walter Bishop/Eddie Jessop. Bishop/Jessop harvested cortexiphan from his own spinal fluid after his encounter with the primordial consciousness in the movie. Arthur/Bell went on to found Massive Dynamic with Emily/Nina, but Bishop/Jessop was made permanently insane by the experiment and was confined to St. Claire's.
- BUT THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE. They acknowledge the existence of the Star Trek tv show. Therefore, the only excuse for them being in the same universe would be Time Travel.
- The Eugenics Wars took place in the mid-to-late 90s in the Trek 'verse.
- Fringe takes place in Abrams's Star Trek franchise.
- And as far as Abrams is concerned, all his works are in the same universe. Note the recurring Slusho.
- And a reference to the doomed Oceanic Flight 815 in the pilot episode.
- SO is Fringe before or after Cloverfield?
- Fringe takes place in Abrams's Star Trek franchise.
- In the latest episode, they beamed someone from Germany to Baltimore.
- One of their sources in 1x19 (played by Clint Howard) is a demented Trekkie. That would seem to Joss it, but maybe he just knows more than he should.
- William Bell is played by Leonard Nimoy. Maybe that could answer this question.
- Fringe takes place in a parallel universe to Star Trek. Walter's research in that universe led to the Eugenics Wars.
- But he established that the hand was not a friend's, so that must mean... no. We have enough Masters already.
- Actually his response when asked if the hand was a friend's he said, "I certainly hope not."
- Walter hid some of his old classified stuff at "Harkness" Library...
- This is true of almost every science fiction universe. But the laws of physics in the Fringe Verse are more different than many; a fetus can grow to adulthood without any mass to feed on, and a hallucinogen can cause death wounds.
- It has recently been established that there is an alternate universe in conflict with the main one. There Can Be Only One.
- It's possible that the reason the Fringe universe allows such bizarre science is because its physical laws have been altered by contact with matter from the other universe, where those laws are clearly different, given their advanced use of impossible technologies. This is the basic premise of Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves, and Fringe has already referenced classic sci-fi on several occasions.
- That aspect has been confirmed. The Pattern is the laws of physics "breaking down" to do humanity's actions to the universe.
- And Phillip Broyles = Matthew Abaddon?
- Walter Bishop was a member of the DHARMA Initiative, which would explain a lot.
- And as far as Abrams is concerned, all his works are in the same universe. Note the recurring Slusho.
- Well, the First Phillip J. Fry's nephew and namesake was probably born around 2009. That Phillip J. Fry will become the First Man on Mars and eventually marry Astrid's unborn daughter. One of their children will choose to go by Astrid's maiden name rather than Phillip's and be the direct ancestor of Hubert Farnsworth.
- Confirmed (sort of) in the season 2 premiere; there's reference to the "X-designation," which used to handle this sort of work before the Fringe division was formed.
- Then again, it's also somewhat Jossed in that same episode, since the X-Files is shown on a television in the opening scene, proving that it's a work of fiction in the Fringe-verse, unless of course this is some kind of odd case of in-universe Truth in Television.
- In the first episode, we see Broyles meeting with Nina and others, and Nina mentions how the "previous team" was a disappointment. I can see Mulder and Scully being seen as a "disappointment" for some, if they failed to accomplish what this group wanted them to.
- I know this isn't the place for Fan Fic Recs, but since this fic was clearly written by someone who read the above WMG, I felt it was appropriate to put here.
- Jumping off of that, in the League's universe, the Fringe Science division was created in the wake of Mulder and Scully's quasi-departure from the F.B.I. between The Truth and I Want to Believe. When they were active agents, Mulder and Scully used as reference materials a large case file of past strange and unusual cases (marked, of course, with an X) compiled in the 1950s by a television producer with an interest in the bizarre world around him, and who had the file sent to the Bureau upon his death. That producer's name...was Rod Serling. DooDOODoodoo DooDOODoodoo...
- Both of them cause people to go sorta-crazy—or more accurately, to act as though under someone else's instructions—while somehow remaining in posession of their mental faculties. And the fact the virus was cured by ash can't be coincidence.
- The biggest disconnect between reality and the backstory of Star Trek humans is that they were capable of advanced genetic engineering in the 1970's in order to have Khan running around in the 1990s. Obviously, they were decades more advanced than we are- say 30 years. Then, it has been established that the West was experiencing widespread chaos throughout the first half of the 21st Century due to the Eugenics Wars and other conflicts- conflicts such as a plague or revolt forcing half of a major city to be quarantined. Had the Observer not disrupted the timeline, then the universe would have continued as normal. Why is Peter so important? Well, he grows up normally- he gets married, and has a daughter. Later on, this daughter gets married herself and gives birth to his first grandchild. A boy named Zefram Cochrane.
- And William Bell is the ancestor of Amanda Grayson, and therefore of Mr. Spock.
- If the Alternative Universe is the Star Trek timeline then would that make the main (Blue) verse the Mirror Universe timeline?
- In the Bad Future of The Day We Died there is mention of a giant wormhole leading several milion years in the past. The dino-wormholes in Primeval are the result of the two (or more) universes coming into conflict. The Primeval team is Britain's version of the Fringe division.
- Further evidence? In the Season Four episode "Nothing As It Seems", the creatures seen on the boat are remarkably similar to the creatures seen in "Primeval", esp. the crawly millipede thingy. Yikes.
- Nobody's put this up before? I'm amazed. Anyway, they're a family that somehow manages to "break through" later in life than other Sparks of comparable strength (which causes their first creations to be much less dangerous than other Sparks'). Walter's "breakthrough" was his first success in fringe science, or maybe cortexiphan, and Peter's has yet to appear.
- Alternatively, Unicron is actually an alternate-universe Walter. I could see Walternate becoming a planet for the "greater good" and then going mad with power and entering into Omnicidal Maniac mode.
- It can be speculated that Cortexiphan may have a link to Project Valhalla. Nicole, seeing the possibility to make a significant fortune for Aesir Corporation, continued her research into Valkyr. Max Payne's ability to see reality moving more slowly may have come from one of these two enhancers; this ability peaked in Max Payne 2, allowing him to exceed the laws of the universe tremendously. Also, note that during Max's 2nd involuntary Valkyr trip in the first game, Max was still able to escape a burning mansion, as if he warped into a pocket universe with aspects of his sub conscious dictating the environment.
It can be neither confirmed or denied, but William Bell may have been a top figure of the Inner Circle, using Nichole Horne to cover up his presence in Aesir. After Max Payne assassinated Nichole and other damaging info was made public, Aesir was sold off by William so that he could cut and run and work on other projects, such as the successor to Valhalla.
Presumably, Cortexiphan may have had ties to projects such as Yuri and his clones and the Yuriko Omega project by the Empire of the Rising Sun.
- Well, her actress, Jasika Nicole, is in fact lesbian...
- She either told Walter or he picked up on it on his own and then incorporated it into his story in "Brown Betty." See the Les Yay entry on the main page.
- Season 4 will be all about SS Wastrid.
- Jossed in the season 1 finale.
- Jossed. It just really messed up his face and forced him to wear bandages to cover his decaying flesh.
- They were meant to spell...
- "You been on a fringe". Which is... y'know.. true. She's in pretty much all the episodes.
- However she since become the mask, as it had been a long time and she still hadn't killed him. And she seems to be more friendly towards him. Atrid while she fist got the job, Walter and the others, even the odd life had since grown on her. And she since left her original plane.
- If not full on convert him, at least manipulate him into helping without him realizing it.
- well the increased militarization could just be the result of the fabric of reality breaking down for the last 2 decades.
- According to this ESPN Magazine article written by Jeff Pinker, George W. Bush was baseball commissioner in the alt-verse, and Al Gore won the presidency in 2000. The article is probably at best semi-canon, but it's still an interesting read.
- Or alternatively... she will be the victim of one of Walternate's experiments.
- Sadly, we never saw who Alt!Nina was before she was recruited by Jones or William Bell.
- This is a pretty good guess, based on the episode "The Transformation."
The main-verse seems like the "normal" world, but the residents are more vulnerable to infiltration by impostors. Peter has tried to rationalize it away, but he certainly held on tight to the Idiot Ball with Fauxlivia. Shapeshifter infiltration is even worse: not only do they need to keep up a perfect con, sometimes for years, sometimes embedded in a human family, their physiology is so non-human that it should give them away far more frequently. At the very least, all that mercury should make them weigh nearly twice what their unfortunate target did. People in the main-verse, however, are simply less able to pick up on things being "off" with someone, and so the alt-verse has gotten away with replacing an unknown number of people with spies.
Thus, when Folivia arrived at the scene, Peter was already perfectly conditioned by a lifetime of training to ignore any weirdness, discrepancies from what he remembered, odd ticks or slight changes. He still spotted them to some degree - we've heard him confirm that - but he wasn't moved to react or really do anything. He instead trusted the assurances of Fauxlivia that she was moved to change by the other world, when it should have been blisteringly obvious that something wasn't right.
Prediction: sometime in the future Peter will be taken in by a shapeshifter(or some other doppelganger) despite there being clear signs that something isn't right. Alternatively, him spotting a shapeshifter without any foreknowledge, clues or help will mark a major character development moment for him.
- The yet unnamed recent arrival... Baby Bishop. During "Bloodline," Fauxlivia was given an orange coloured drug. Cortexiphan is orange. Walternate and Alternate Brandon were having another pretty heated argument about using cortexiphan on children. Walternate put Alternate Brandon in charge of saving/kidnapping Fauxlivia. Do the math.
- ... will not be the one to kill Olivia. He'll be the one who kills her alternate.
- Or alternatively... he will be the one to kill Olivia and her death will shove Peter into Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds territory. Fauxlivia will talk him out of it by telling him about his son.
- For those dreading a Downer Ending... Olivia will somehow come Back from the Dead because of the Soul Magnets.
- Or alternatively... he will be the one to kill Olivia and her death will shove Peter into Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds territory. Fauxlivia will talk him out of it by telling him about his son.
- That's why he was in our Olivia's head.
- Cortexiphan brought out his talent for bringing people Back from the Dead as a child. He almost exclusively wears black/white/grey (the exceptions are all undercover-type situations), and tries his very hardest to be inconspicuous. His greatest fear is becoming an experiment if found out— but what if there's a grain of a memory in there? The supernaturally delicious pies may or may not be related.
- He's somehow related to Nick Lane and they went to kindergarten together.
- Her birth father. The episode gave us more information on him than any other episode to date, and The Law of Conservation of Detail says that's important.
- Another cortexiphan kid. One of the ones whose records were expunged. He's got Xavier-ish psychic powers, or he can enter dreams, or has some ability that allows him to remotely access Olivia's mind the way that Peter and Walter did in that episode. That's how he can be in her mind without Olivia ever having met him before.
- Someone from the Alternate Universe. She accidentaly jumped at some point between the events of "Subject 13" and "Pilot", encountered this man and then repressed the memories as she's done for so many other Fringe-related things from her early life.
- Will have 11 (or 12) fingers. Many of the glyphs from the eyecatches have turned up in the series (frogs and razor butterflies in "The Dreamscape", the leaf is Massive Dynamic's hand scanner, the seahorse in "The Bishop Revival" etc). I'm not sure if the hand glyphs are the same image reversed or two separate hands. It seems the man in "LSD" has 5 fingers on his right hand (holding the gun) but maybe he will appear differently in reality.
- The audience never got to see the original timeline. In that timeline, Peter stepped into the machine on Liberty Island, and used it to start tearing holes in the alternate universe, trying to destroy it before Walternate could use the alternate universe's machine to destroy the prime universe.
- From there, events unfolded just as they were described/portrayed in "The Day We Died". Knowing he was beaten, Walternate came over to the prime universe on a mission of mercy. The alternate universe was destroyed. Without it's yang, the prime universe began to break down. Walter was jailed and then released. Olivia was murdered by Walternate. Walter and Peter agreed on the plan of trying to change the past by having Peter go back and not decide to destroy the alternate universe.
- Using the machine and probably his research from pre-St. Claire's, Walter figured out how to send Peter's consciousness back in time. It anchored onto the point in time when his mind was completely calm and blank: during his coma after touching the machine's force field. The two consciousnesses were scrambled together, similar to how Olivia and Bell's were, but because they're both from the same person in two different points of his personal timestream, the conflict was less noticeable. That's why he was confused ("where/when am I?") and why he instinctually went to Liberty Island (he remembered going there 15 years earlier).
- It was only when Peter actually stepped into the machine, like he'd already done 15 years earlier, that he remembered everything about the Bad Future he'd lived through. Knowing what would happen if he just did the same thing again, he instead chose to merge the two Liberty Islands and bring the conflict to a peaceful resolution.
- I took it to meant that Peter was channelling both versions of himself. He went to a numanist (dead!Peter collected coins) but he believed Walternate was his father (technically true for alive!Peter). IMHO, this foreshadowed his joining the two universes at the end of "The Day We Died".
The second reason for it is that, well, Fringe villains tend to fit an "Evil!Dad" type, sacrificing their children, manipulating them, creating them wholesale. With Walternate dead, Widmark's by-the-book assholishness could be the final counterpoint to the Bishop family's Jerk with a Heart of Gold methods.
In the original-original timeline, the one that the Observers first came from (ie: their past didn't have Observers in it), Blue-Peter died, but Red-Peter was saved by Walternate's cure. This means that Walter never had to cross dimensions, and thus no conflict between the two began. Whether Red-Peter got together with Red-Olivia is irrelevant; what matters is that the two universes never had any cross-talk outside of Walter's viewing window.
By interfering in this event, September created the Blue/Red timeline. However, we know how that timeline ends: with the destruction of both universes. So that means the Observers won't exist. Therefore, because of the magnitude of his interference, the Observers allow him to make various changes to ensure that their future continues to exist as normal.
The most important of these being the rescue of Peter and Walter from the lake. However, that's not enough; Walter already doomed both universes by breaking through at all. Therefore, the Observers have to make various changes that allow the Machine to come into being, thus creating a stable time loop that allows their future to exist.
However, there isn't supposed to be a Peter Bishop in the Blue universe. So the Observers simply erase him from existence after creating the machine that stabilizes the universes. The machine is really all the Observers need.
But September needs Peter for his plan. And he needs Peter in the Blue universe, since that's the universe that the Observers are interested in (their interest in Walternate finding the cure is purely in that the event means that Walter won't break the universe to save Red-Peter). The only way to get Peter in the Blue universe was to interfere in that one event, thus creating conflict and cross-talk between the two universes.
In a way, September is a lot like Walter; he was willing to destroy two universes to save his son. Though to be fair, September was also saving the world from his future people too.
- Leading to the world's most epic, "Hey, where ya been?"
- Given that Peter needs to have a baby with Blue Olivia, this looks increasingly likely.
- Jossed. The Amber timeline is the final timeline of the series.
- Likely in the series finale, one of them will make a Heroic Sacrifice to block the eventual destruction of one of the worlds.
- ...and September is Henry Bishop.
- Jossed
- So far the only powers she ever manifests are Telekinesis, pyrokinesis and greater control over universe crossing.
- Furthermore, Walter repeatedly mistakes things about himself (things that happened in childhood, his favorite things, etc) for things about his son.
- Coffee Yogurt anyone?
- Or Walter is a timetraveler and he semi-consciously knows stuff about Peter. Furthermore his time-space destination is the fateful day/night when the laboratory is burned, but thanks to his intervention the fire is started and secondly the Walter from the future was imprisoned to the penitentiary, the old Walter is somehow dead...
- Combination: Walter is a time traveling version of Peter. Or Peter is a version of Walter from the alternate world.
- Something: Walter is a Time Lord and Peter is a future regeneration. Or the other way around.
- Aware of his imminent commitment, he arranged for his research to fall into outside hands. Why? Because they'd need to get him out of the asylum to deal with any resulting situations. Not the most grandiose of devious plots, but hey, he's insane.
- Interestingly enough we have just found out that Walter wrote the manifesto that the "bad guys" (they haven't given them an official name yet)follow was written by Bishop, though he doesn't seem to remember doing it.
- He also preformed the experiments on Olivia when she was a child, and he also built the teleporter among other things. He also knows that he wrote the manifesto and ran the experiments and hasn't told anyone about it.
- Additionally, Water could have realized that The World Is Not Ready for his technology, and started the fire in his lab on purpose in an attempt to kill William Bell, followed by him pleading insanity, leading to his institutionalization. However, since Bell survived the fire, he was able to form Massive Dynamics and fund ZFT, leading to the Pattern.
- An Agent of The Pattern
- He rescued the Bishops because he knew that Walter's experiments would be put to use in The Pattern. Now he's watching the results of Pattern experiments to see how they go.
- An Opponent of The Pattern
- He works for a rival group who wants to stop whatever The Pattern is planning. His role is to gather information about the experiments and report them to his superiors so that they can figure out how to thwart what's happening.
- Another G-Man
- They show up at odd events and don't really fit in, yet they go unnoticed by ordinary people until they make themselves known. Their vocal inflections show that they are not normal. Neither can get hurt (yet), and they can move easily through time and space.
- While rewatching the first season in preparation for the second, This Troper had an idea at the end of "Inner Child": What if The Observer is the future of that kid, who traveled back in time for some reason? At the end of the episode, they share a strange moment...
- What if the Observers are the surviours of what killed off the First People? Who now hang around to make sure that history doesn't repeat itself.
- Jossed, the Observer is a part of a science expedition from the future
- Well, that seems to be how Walter explained it in a scenario of whether you choose to go to work or stay home.
- Additionally, William Bell explain that the other universe is the way it is due to people making different choices.
- Confirmed, of all things, in S03E14 "6B". At least, this happens some of the time; the plot of the episode hinges on a coin toss that went differently in the two universes, but not all differences can be so easily explained.
- But it still works with choices! they picked different coin faces in different universes, but the actual flip was exactly the same!
- Jossed in Over There: Part 1. Though alt-Olivia does have red hair, so there might be some genetic differences..unless one or both of them dye their hair.
- Jossed: In S02-E16, we see Walter retrieve Peter from the other universe; Bell does not cross over at that time.
- Sadly, sadly Jossed. We see Astrid's father later on in the series.
- It's the date that part II of the Season Finale will air, so...
- Possibly Jossed, as that episode has come and gone, and no total intersection.
- It'd be pretty simple to do, really. Reveal that Alt!Charlie is plagued by the death of his wife (maybe he somehow spread the arachnids to her or something and she didn't make it). He learns that his wife is still alive in the other universe, and incidentally has tragically lost her husband in a bridge-related accident. He decides that he's willing to leave his own universe to be with his wife again, and Walter (who, in the other universe, was too busy with his Son-powered Universe-murdering machine to cure Charlie) fixes up his nasty case of arachnids with about as much effort as it takes to eat a licorice twist.
- Made pretty clear in Season 3, Episode 2. It is mentioned that the technology thats part of the Superweapon is quite ancient. The appearance of the devices themselves have a Sufficiently Advanced Alien look to them, their segmented appearance and odd, bronze tinted coloration resembling nothing we saw in either universe. To top it off, they have odd runes on them that just scream alien. Further supported by Walter's speculation that the Cortexiphan-fuelled abilities were common throughout humanity until their disappearance. At the point, it simply came off like Walter's usual crazed speculations but what if it was foreshadowing?
- Not to mention an alien entity did appear in Earthling.
- Jossed it was really built by Walter in the future, and sent back millions of years into the past by the collapse of the universe.
- It also explains why Arvin Sloane planted a spy within Fringe division (Gene the Cow.)
- The reason Walters single crossing did more damage then all of the alternate 'verse's crossing is because of the way they cross, Walter's device basically ripped a giant hole in the fabric of both universes, and while their world is having the worst effects, it's already confirmed that ours was also somewhat effected. After that a way was discovered to cross that didn't further damage the realities, but it's extremely dangerous, and has massive, cumulative side effects. which is why they developed the shapeshifters, cause they can use that means without the risks. remember, the first time Walter crossed he went there and back with no personal side effects, but when Walternate came over using the newer version he needed to be put in a hyberbaric chamber and load with medicine to recover.
- Actually, it ends up being September's fault. He distracted Walter during a critical moment in time causing Peter's cure to be destroyed and forcing Walter to cross over to save Alt!Peter. Peter was supposed to go on to father Henry and most of what happened is a result of September trying to fix his pass mistake.
- The reason Walters single crossing did more damage then all of the alternate 'verse's crossing is because of the way they cross, Walter's device basically ripped a giant hole in the fabric of both universes, and while their world is having the worst effects, it's already confirmed that ours was also somewhat effected. After that a way was discovered to cross that didn't further damage the realities, but it's extremely dangerous, and has massive, cumulative side effects. which is why they developed the shapeshifters, cause they can use that means without the risks. remember, the first time Walter crossed he went there and back with no personal side effects, but when Walternate came over using the newer version he needed to be put in a hyberbaric chamber and load with medicine to recover.
- It just makes sense, it would explain why they are not "quite" human, there greater knowledge, advanced tech, etc...
- Or they're like the Overlords.
- Or they're G-men.
- Doesn't he look and dress exactly like a black Observer? We haven't seen him eat much, either.
- Sam Weiss is all natural. He was born, he's lived for ages and ages and is pretty normal by the standards of humans and First People. Somehow, he survived whatever happened to them.
- The Observers are the surviving consciousnesses of First People who didn't necessarily physically survive whatever happened to them. They can't reproduce and they don't live forever, so they keep cloning their bodies and transferring their consciousness from one body to the next (ala the soul magnets). After however many years, the cloning process is becoming unreliable and the bodies aren't coming out completely right: the lack of body hair and similar facial features indicate that the bodies are losing their individuality, and the things they eat indicate that their senses are being dulled as well (in the first Observer-heavy episode, September orders raw meat and jalapenos and covers them with Tabasco sauce, and later refuses Walter's root beer float because he wouldn't be able to taste it).
- August's badassery — catching a bullet and starting a car by simply pressing his finger to the ignition — indicates that he (and therefore the other Observers) have bodies that are artificial in some way. Compare them to the Shapeshifters, artificial beings made from organic technologies.
- It's possible that in a roundabout way, the Shapeshifters are based on whatever technologies are used to build the Observer bodies. Sam Weiss knew William Bell. If Weiss is one of the First People, he probably has a very good understanding of the science used to create the Observers. Bell may have learned this science from Weiss and used it to create the Shapeshifters.
- Walter did experiments with LSD that resulted in a woman basically revealing the existence of shape-shifters. Broyles' trippy little "death followed me" speech was actually Foreshadowing and "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide" will become the epitome of Harsher in Hindsight.
- Well, he's not dead yet.
- ...will be at Harvard just like in the alternate universe. And Astrid will be caught in the amber. Why? Because she's a much loved character with little impact on the plot, she means a lot to the Protagonist and the creators seem to really hate them at this point and because apparently the season final is pulling a Tonight, Someone Dies.
- Jossed, thankfully.
Walter, realizing he has to give up his son to save both worlds, decides to go back in time (into his past body) and finally accept Peter's death. He never goes into the alternate universe and destroys the technology, but the memories and horrors of a time-line that never existed will haunt him for the rest of his life. His universe is saved.
Because Walternate's Peter wasn't taken, he later died... and Walternate thus does the same thing that Walter once did, and opens a portal to an alternate universe (not Walter's, since Peter has already died there, but a third one not seen in the series). And thus, though some of the characters may be somewhat different, it all begins again.
- Olivia has already shared consciousness/been possessed three times in the series so far: John Scott (season 1), empathic cortexiphan subject Nick Lane ("Bad Dreams"), and William Bell (season 3). At the end of season 3 Peter never existed anymore, but Olivia may be able to bring him back through this talent.
- Okay, that's not how Peter returns, but the possibility of this power still remains. Olivia's time spent brainwashed as Altlivia is also similar, and the presence of the Mysterious Man In Olivia's Mind ("LSD") suggests that she is rarely alone in her own mind.
- Walter never talked him into "making the girl significant", so he never died. And because he didn't sacrifice himself, she died. And somehow, he's the one that brings Peter back.
- Peter is back without Observer interference. The rest of the WMG still applies, though.
- I don't know. Since they are unaffected by the timeline change, August's death probably still holds.
- August is spoken of in the past-tense by December in the finale, so he's clearly still dead.
- Now that he's fully present in the altered timeline, they'll either see things resetting on their own and just fix everything at once before something causes a paradox somehow, or they'll try to [[redo the Ret-Gone]] but fail due to internal opposition and/or Peter being somehow resistant to whatever they did to him now.
- The full episode reveals they are human shapeshifters created by David Robert Jones.
- Alternatively, she's trying to recover the soul magnets from the original timeline.
- What?
- Fairly simple to understand. One of the verses experienced The Singularity. The Observers are beings that came into existence in that universe's timeline after said singularity, or in other words the future. They're present in the, well, present so they can make sure the singularity takes place, creating a Stable Time Loop (they go back in time to make sure they come into existence). We can't really understand what they're up to because we haven't had a singularity ourselves, while they have, hence they're not as human as us. Or something.
- Concise Troper is concise, and thank heavens for that.
- Fairly simple to understand. One of the verses experienced The Singularity. The Observers are beings that came into existence in that universe's timeline after said singularity, or in other words the future. They're present in the, well, present so they can make sure the singularity takes place, creating a Stable Time Loop (they go back in time to make sure they come into existence). We can't really understand what they're up to because we haven't had a singularity ourselves, while they have, hence they're not as human as us. Or something.
- Partially Jossed in that they were explained, partially confirmed in that they are humans from one of many possible futures. Didn't say anything about the Singularity, though, just that they had the tech for travel through and outside of time, and that they liked observing important events.
- Pretty sure they would have changed the actor or the suit, but not both.
- Does he know about the Observers? IIRC, Amber!Jones is pursuing the same thing as Blue!Jones in the first season, who was activating all the other Cortexiphan kids he could track down. However, I am intrigued at the idea that Olivia could be a precursor of the people who eventually become the Observers.
- David Robert Jones will incapacitate Peter Bishop and destroy the bridge so that the two universes can't communicate with each other any more. In the trailer, we see shapeshifter!Broyles walking up to the machine and in 4x17 Fauxlivia mentions that the alternate universe is getting better because of the truce. Jones is trying to destroy the alternate universe to heal our world but he doesn't know that destroying one universe will destroy the other. Meana was helping Jones so that she'd end up on the side that survives.
- Also, since Fauxlivia is spending the episode on the other side, she'll get stuck. Bonding with the other team will follow.
- Broyles: What did you do in the future... to give yourself such a crap detail?Windmark: *smile* I like animals.
- The Bishops will remove the device and there will be Angst.
- Mean Walter knows something horrible happened to September. Being mind raped into hurting your friends fits the bill.Walter: What happened to him was... unexpected.
- There's also Windmark's human like tendencies and his obsession with the Fringe team.
- Never been so happy to be wrong in my life.
- There's also how Windmark looks and smiles when he sees Peter using his Observer powers.
- The Observers managed to avoid becoming Sense Freak's like the rest of their society as shown in Letters of Transit and have used that to allow themselves to be able to travel back in time to observe events related to the pattern which could give them technology and knowledge of how the world was wrecked and how to fix it, provided that they don't interfere and change the future.
- Mostly Jossed. The original 10 surviving Observers (not counting August and September) are more or less outcasts. But because they have emotional awareness, due to their prolonged contact with normal humanity.
- "Letters of Transit" is the future of the original, Blue/Red Timeline, not the Amber Timeline:
- Evidence: The existence of Henrietta "Etta" Bishop (Blue Olivia and Red Peter's child?)
- Peter and Fauxlivia's child was a boy named Henry.
- Jossed, as Walter in Season 5 is later given memories of the Blue/Red timeline. Obviously, he wouldn't have to be given memories that he already had.
- Evidence: The existence of Henrietta "Etta" Bishop (Blue Olivia and Red Peter's child?)
- "Letters of Transit" depicted another the future of the Amber Timeline:
- Evidence: If we consider Amber Olivia as essentially Blue Olivia now that Blue Olivia's memories have dominated her; also the survival of William Bell in amber begs the question of which timeline leads to "Letters of Transit."
- Further Evidence: Etta can prevent herself from being "read" by the Observers (if the timeline wasn't reset, then maybe she has this ability because her father was Redverse Peter who appeared in the Amber Timeline, a man from "outside time" somewhat like the Observers themselves.)
- If in the Amber Timeline the Observers can read Peter, the above presumption would be Jossed, but "Letters" could still have shown the Amber Timeline's future.
- Etta's ability might come from Olivia recently being injected with Cortexiphan.
- Confirmed.
- "Letters of Transit" depicts a possible future of a completely different timeline we haven't seen yet:
- Evidence: William Bell is still alive and preserved in Amber.
- Jossed.
- That's not William Bell at all:
- The ambered William Bell could be one of the Human-Shapeshifters.
- Amber-Timeline William Bell traveled forward through time to the year 2015, where he got ambered with the rest of the original Fringe Team:
- This might mean we are dealing with the future of the Amber Timeline, as William Bell's death (unexplained in that timeline) could have been just a disappearance due to Time Travel.
- The original Observers like August, September, etc. were of a different, more benevolent (or at least, less aggressive) caste of future Post-Humans than the "neo-Observers" who were depicted as ruling a post-apocalyptic Earth in "Letters of Transit"
- Evidence: In "The End of All Things," September told Peter that he was a member of a scientific observation team, and that September was a code name. Captain Windmark (Wenmoc?) and the other Observers in the year 2036 do not behave like detached scientists on a research mission. They take a much more active role by subjugating the human "natives." They also appear to enjoy parties and loose women. They also lack the distinctive odd cadence to their speech that the previous Observers displayed (though maybe this comes from living alongside modern-day humans for 20 years). Walter himself even says "They're not all bad. One of them, called September, tried to help us." Perhaps the "Scientific Team" represents a different political or cultural faction of future posthumans than the Observers who took over the world in 2015?
- More or less Jossed. They're the same people; they only appeared benevelent because they were told to only observe, and they weren't told why they were observing.
- Resetting the Timeline from Blue to Amber resulted in the future shown in "Letters of Transit."
- Resetting the Timeline from Amber to Blue resulted in the future shown in "Letters of Transit."
- Resetting the Timeline from Amber to something else entirely (not Blue) resulted in the future shown in "Letters of Transit."
- If the future shown in "Letters of Transit" is explored further in Season 5, the show will focus on the similarities between that future and the present of the Redverse:
- Rationing. Environmental degradation. Coffee unavailable except as some kind of chewable substitute. A war with an extradimensional foe. Also, now that a particular piece of Walter's brain has been restored, I would not be surprised if 2036-Walter shows more and more signs of becoming like Walternate. The Fringe Division certainly seemed to see Walter as a new hope for the human race, possibly even a potential leader, like his Redverse counterpart, the Secretary of Defense and leader of Redverse Fringe Division.
- Partially confirmed. Walter's fears of being more like Walternate (or rather, more like his old self) is a large theme of the season. But there isn't specific emphasis of the 2036 world being like Redverse.
- It's been pretty firmly established that "Letters of Transit" and all of Season 5 so far takes place in the future of the Amber Timeline.
- He's older and taller than he appears, and their names are similar.
- Not just similar, Seamus Wiles is an anagram of Samuel Weiss.
- Confirmed and Jossed. The current Sam Weiss is not the only Sam Weiss; that was one of his ancestors.
- Replacing Olivia with Fauxlivia, then using her to set both Peter and Walter on constructing the machine.
- Brainwashing Olivia and then using her as research into crossing over safely.
- Confirmed as part of his plan at the very least.
- He only needs to steal parts of it. He needs other parts to remain on our side, but also to be assembled by our side.
- Confirmed as part of his plan at the very least.
- In the intro with all the terms flying around, "psychokinesis" shows up twice. So does "dark matter." Maybe they'll both play a significant role, or maybe the creators couldn't think of any more fringe sciences.
- It should be noted that Olivia has just demonstrated psychokinesis. And alternate realities could be the cause of dark matter phenomena.
- Mostly Jossed, but Olivia's telekinesis does come in handy. And not just for catching falling boxes.
- Which could mean that Olivia's universe is the other universe referred to by the manuscript...
- Confirmed in Over There: Part 1.
- Sort of. It's a book called ZFT, but it's not the same book as ZFT in the main Fringe-verse. Recall that ZFT-Prime describes the conflict between parallel universes in the multiverse. However, Alter-Olivia was familiar with Alter-ZFT, but knew nothing of a parallel universe. Instead she thought that the pattern (described in both books) was the natural decay of the universe, a series of "environmental catastrophes" that Alternate Fringe Division was assigned to investigate and fight. So they're definitely not the same book.
- Walternate reveals that he wrote the book partly as a coverup for man-made events on the other side.
- Confirmed in Over There: Part 1.
At the same time this exchange of information made the Observer question his mission and he goes rogue. He's now trying to keep his own people from invading, sending the probes back before they can call 'home' and watching what is going on.
His people know he's gone rouge, and have recruited others to help with preparing the invasion, including David Robert Jones.
The child Observer is from Walter's world, and proof of the worlds getting closer.
- Every detail of this besides the title is Jossed.
- I thought this was Jossed is Seasons 2 and 3, but now, with the latest Season 4 episode, "Letters of Transit," this theory might actually still be valid, at least in that timeline, if not others. So the Observers are actually from one (or more?) possible futures, just not an evolutionarily accelerated parallel world (though that's basically a minor point). But they are planning to invade, or at some point decide to stop observing and take over because their own Future Earth can no longer support life. It's still possible that the mysterious Child from Season 1 and others like him are the Observers' direct ancestors.
- The writers have said that Season 3 is going to be half 'This Side' and half 'The Other Side', meaning HALF of Season 3 is going to be with the alternate, military Fringe Division.
- One, because having the power to destroy universes can never end well. Even if the crisis is averted, those in power are hardly going to let the bringer of the Apocalypse go off on his merry way. Two, because the Universe(s) hate Olivia Dunham. As much as I like him, I think the poor guy is doomed...
- He survives, but he is erased from history. That doesn't stop him from existing though.
- Sort of right. There is a reboot, but not because of that choice; it's rebooted because Peter is erased from existence.
- Err... no they don't. There are people who exist in one universe who don't exist in the other. Case in point, "6B". The old woman was childless in our universe but apparently had kids in the other one. The chances of Peter and Olivia producing a child genetically identical to Bolivia's are... pretty much non existent. She could be pregnant but that would just push Fringe into soap opera levels.
- You would think that the chances of both couplings producing a genetically-identical child would be negligable, but it obviously does happen. We still don't know the point of divergance for the two universes, but it clearly predates the births of most of the regular cast meaning that their parents had genetically-identical children at about the same time in both universes.
- Yeah, but these people are probably born at exactly the same time. Bolivia is six weeks pregnant by the time Peter and Olivia get... friendly.
- Peter does get Olivia pregnant, but not for the reasons given. Nor were the children "genetically-identical" in any way.
- This is the ultimate goal of William Bell and David Robert Jones.
- He's been manipulating Walter, Olivia, Peter, ZFT, the Shapeshifters and everything else to gain control over the Doomsday machine.
- He knew about the device and tonnes of other things from Sam Weiss (see all of his WMGs).
- The Soul Magnets not only allow Bell to survive his own death, but to inhabit the body of someone else.
- The rapid ageing, originally cropping up in the Pattern (in episode 2 of the first season), allowed for Peter and Fauxlivia's child to come to term and be born safely within a very short space of time. It's likely the rapid ageing will continue.
- Because the child has Peter's DNA, it can operate the machine.
- If the child can somehow be dosed with Soul Magnets, Bell can inhabit his body and use the machine.
- Furthermore, there's a lot of evidence that Bell is playing both sides against the middle. He took pieces of Walter's brain to keep him from remembering how to build the doorway between universes, and was apparently the only person who knew about it: if that's the case, how did Newton know where to find them? Why help Walter to prepare the cortexiphan kids, only to go to the other side and help Walternate create the Shapeshifters, only to then warn Olivia about their mission? His actions aren't merely neutral: he's actively fanning the flames of conflict between the universes. That suggests he's trying to accomplish some goal that's only possible when the universes are at war.
- He also lied about how the Soul Magnets got in Olivia's system. Yes, when she came to his office on the other side, he gave her a cup of tea, but (and when I rewatched the episode, I double-checked) Olivia didn't drink it. Which presents several possibilities as to how he's possessing Olivia:
- Bell dosed her with Soul Magnets himself at some earlier point in time, e.g. during the Jacksonville experiments.
- Bell dosed her with Soul Magnets at some later point in time, while Olivia was in the alternate universe but before his death. This troper believes it's the most likely scenario: Bell may have developed the Magnets some time ago, and when he learned the circumstances of how the Fringe team crossed over and realised that his own sacrifice was the best/easiest way for them to get back, he dosed Olivia before sacrificing himself.
- Bell has an agent who dosed Olivia at some point. This implies that Bell not only has an agenda, but people who agree with it and are willing to follow Bell's instructions after his death/disappearance. The most likely culprit is someone in ZFT, but that organisation may be all but gone after the death of David Robert Jones.
- Olivia was never dosed with Soul Magnets. Bell's ability to possess her is due to something unique about her biology, or related to the cortexiphan trials. This raises further questions about who else he can possess, and whether or not he can possess Peter and Fauxlivia's baby.
- I... think you called it.
- In "Momentum Deferred" Olivia says she doesn't want any tea, then there's a timeslip with a quick shot of her raising the cup to her mouth. She presumably drank the tea, and the soul magnets, during that timeslip.
- Only the big bad of season 4, though.
- Having access to The First People document shouldn't give him so much information on the nature of the conflict between universes, or teach him how to build a window to the alternate universe. It's possible that he learned all this extra stuff from William Bell, but This troper still holds to the theory that Sam is one of the First People. Either way, he's lying when he claims that all he knows is what's in the First People book and a few missing pages.
- I will agree and add that Sam seems much more knowledged and focused on his own then when he is with Olivia. On his own, he was condcting tests, taking notes and observing things. With Olivia, he is just running on "I don't know. I just read the manuscripts". With a bit of Fridge Brilliance, you could make the claim that Weiss was frustrated in this weeks episode not because he has no idea like he claims but that he can't find a way to shake Olivia off and go back to working on his own.
- He's not "lying", but what he says isn't correct. He's simply misinformed, since there are no "First People".
- Walter is a shut-in in his lab.
- Olivia is as uptight and professional as she was in Season 1, if not more so.
- Olivia killed her stepfather.
- Fauxlivia's twin switch with Olivia was completely changed; Olivia was only imprisoned rather than brainwashed to believe that she was Fauxlivia
- There was no Cortexiphan Brigade of Peter-rescuers because not only did Peter not exist as an adult, None of the Cortexiphan children were discovered by Fringe team.
- Alt-Broyles is still alive because of this.
- Or not. The shapeshifters are back.
- Similarly, Fauxlivia never seduced Peter and thus never got pregnant by him, and thus her relationship with Frank is still around.
- Peter died when the ice cracked after Walter brought him back to our universe.
- Bridge between universes was created when Walternate turned on the machine, rather than because of Peter's choice.
- None of the Cortexiphan cases happened, as evidenced in "Subject 9" when the titular character asks about others and is told that he's the first one Fringe Team has found.
- Olivia has known Nina Sharp since childhood now.
- Olivia's cortexiphan abilities have been reset; she hasn't been activated. Based on that Olivia is back to wearing color- Olivia would wear navy suits and light blue or rust red shirts in Season 1 before being activated.
- Confirmed: None of the cortexiphan children were activated, as Olivia ran away during the events of "Subject 13" because Peter wasn't there to get her to confide in Walter, and because of her escape the trials were simply ended inconclusively.
- Actually, the trials ended years after Olivia left, perhaps due to the fact that Walter had lost both Peters. It's not explicitly stated that the trials ended because she ran away.
- Confirmed: None of the cortexiphan children were activated, as Olivia ran away during the events of "Subject 13" because Peter wasn't there to get her to confide in Walter, and because of her escape the trials were simply ended inconclusively.
- The other cortexiphan kids have their "side effect" powers (since everyone else was said to have side effects), but they have no control and are also much weaker, hence not being involved in any Fringe events.
- Now that the Alternate Universe isn't the Big Bad anymore, the only major element of the Myth Arc that can take centre stage is the Observers, so it makes sense that they'd become the new Big Bad. It'd also create a good opportunity to explore just what the Observers are.
- Letters of Transit pretty much proves this, although not for those reasons.
- They go to war with the people of Fringe division, but they actually have the division itself working for them.
- The experiments that allowed Rebecca Kibner to recognize people from the alternate universe predated Walter's trip there to save//kidnap Peter. The episode implies Rebecca had seen shapeshifters in the 70's. We also have hints that Bell had already traveled to the alternate universe, and according to Walter, the shapeshifters were designed by Bell as part of his work for Walternate and the AU Department of Defense. We don't know which side crossed first, but the flashback in "Peter" definitely wasn't the first crossing, though our Walter believes it was.
- Given how the FBI acts in this 'verse, it's not that far-fetched.
- Surprisingly confirmed (though they still do some pretty messed up stuff).
- confirmed by Word of God
- Confirmed as of S02-E16: She loses her arm in the gate that Walter used to steal Peter.
- The Walter we saw when he went back to the asylum was Other!Walter, who had been terrorizing him during the entirety of his previous stay there.
- Other!Walter could also have started the fire in the lab, killing the young lab assistant.
- Proven absolutely, positively correct.
- For a certain definition of Big Bad, this is true.
- Called it! He's shaved and infested with spiders, but he's back!
- Seems pretty much confirmed; we now know that Walternate is the Big Bad, and the other universe didn't seem to have any dimension-hopping technology until Walter stole Walternate's son, so at this point it'd be more surprising if this isn't the case.
- Confirmed later in S3. After the Olivias return to their respective universes, Walternate synthesizes cortexiphan from our-Olivia's blood. He tests it on adults, but because of losing Peter, he refuses to test it on kids.
- Well, there's a reason why the show's tagline is beyond the impossible.
- Called it.
- Or else he was simply musing about Walter's choice, and the thing that 'unites' is not their baby but rather something caused by shooting his gun-thing at Peter. How else do you explain Olivia's lack of tattoo and the backwards landscape?
- Original WMG was confirmed by S03E13 "Immortality."
- She has a glove thingy...
- Well... eventually.
- You called it.