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Reason for Being on the Mission

• Daniel is "special." He is associated with Abaddon, who found Locke and may be tasked with finding special people. When Abaddon defended his choices of Lapidus, Miles, Charlotte and Daniel to Naomi, he was insistent that these people be part of the mission. Like Locke, these people may have premonitions of their future. Daniel may have had a premonition of the crash of Flight 815 and this is why news of the flight makes him weep without him knowing why (i.e. something sad is associated with the crash of flight 815 in his subconscious. Their premonitions may have made finding the Island possible, and this was the reason Abaddon chose them.
• Was selected for the mission to discover information about the Island's electromagnetic properties.
• The science team members all brought along gas masks in case the task of neutralizing the tempest failed.
• Faraday is the last surviving original DHARMA Initiative member. He is chosen because he knows the most about the Island and the future due to his time traveling and trusted notebook. If the voice of the cameraman in the Comic Con 08 video of Chang (AKA Wickman, Candle, Halliwax) from 30 years ago is Faraday, his still-youthful appearance could be explained by a previous tenure on the Island as a DHARMA member.

Crying

• The Constant references Slaughterhouse-Five. Daniel's crying at the news is reminiscent of the book's protagonist Billy (who is defined specifically as "unstuck in time") crying on hearing the barbershop quartet. Billy's reason is shown to be because they reminded him of the guards who told the PoWs of the bombing in the past; Daniel's may be because he'll meet the survivors in the future. This and the "Desmond" page of his diary suggest that he is, or may become, "unstuck".
• Daniel has the same problem that Desmond did. He's become unstuck in time at the point of the crash. He doesnt know why he's crying because he suffered the same amnesia Desmond did. When Daniel gets to the Island he finds his constant and temporarily becomes stuck back in time again. This also explains why he often pauses and takes time to answer questions that should be easily known. He's traveling between consciousnesses therefore causing the pause we see.
  • This is very possible, given how cyclical the storytelling of Lost can be. In the linear timeline that is the real world, we see Daniel crying over the discovery of Flight 815. He claims to not know why, but he may simply not want to explain it. Regardless, he knows he wants to be a part of this team. He ends up joining the team and traveling to the Island. On his way to the Island from the freighter, he has his very own Desmond-esque trip. Suddenly, he is shot back through time to some point near to where we see him crying. At that point, his memory of everything forward from that point would be reset (not to say it's not ingrained in his subconscious somehow). With that said, any time he shoots forward through time and rejoins the Island, he has no real knowledge of how he got there or where he is; he remembers nothing that happened after the point in time that he was originally sent back to.
    • This does not make sense though, because he knew Jack's name
      • When Faraday says "Are you Jack?" after landing on the Island, it's because Naomi mentioned a Jack.
  • Conversely, the only things he knows about the "future" are those he learns when he is present to witness them. Naturally, he would figure out where he was and who the people with him were and, subsequently, why he was there in the first place. He would obviously retain this information on his next trip back. Therefore, it is very possible that he either knew, or was subconsciously aware of, the truth about news report, and that Flight 815 indeed had survivors. He may struggle with this initially, as Desmond did, but he would quickly understand and attempt to remedy it, prompting him to write in his notebook that "Desmond Hume is my constant.". He knew that, when he was shot back in time, he would have this notebook with him, helping himself to stabilize and stop his "yo-yo ride" through time.
  • That could explain why Daniel was so spooked on the helicopter, like Desmond was, only he was less afraid because he was aware of these possible "side effects", having actually met Desmond several years earlier.
  • He was exposed to massive amounts of radiation, just as Desmond was exposed to massive amounts of electromagnetism. When Desmond was on the SAT phone in the sick bay, Daniel had asked if he was exposed to massive amounts of either of those forces.
  • Alternatively, Daniel may have memory problems because Desmond is actively changing his past, and certain events in his past are changing/not defined yet. He will have these problems until he makes Desmond his constant or until Desmond finds his constant. This may explain why Daniel's memory is making progress on the Island (once he has met Desmond) but is still shaky (since Desmond has not found his constant).
• He is a psychic with empathic abilities just like all the members of his team and Walt have some psychic abilities yet to be explored.
• He is one of Libby's ex-husbands and knew she was on the plane.
• Daniel really doesn't know why he is weeping, but this is a premonition and deja vu in one; Daniel's soul is stuck in, what for him, is a tragic timeloop wherein he dies as an innocent. The airing of 815's finding is the first link in the chain of events that eventually leads to his death on the Island.
• The reason he was crying was because he knew Libby and that she was on the plane. He has been described as 'mental' also the producers said they will explore Libby through other characters' flashbacks.
  • Will be shown in a flashback with Libby at the mental institution, possibly having met Hurley previously - they haven't yet met on the Island.
• Was crying because he feels guilty about already taking part in an Oceanic 815 cover up or simply being involved.
• He's crying because he believes that everyone on the flight is dead, but he knows that's not how it's "supposed" to happen, so he's crying out of frustration.
• He's crying because when Desmond came to see him in "The Constant" he told him about the plane crash or at least what he had gathered about it from the survivors. He also told him about DHARMA and the Island and thus his (Daniel's) importance on the Island. You notice in "the constant" that Daniel is a respected member of the Oxford staff. After his meeting with Desmond it seems like he tried to warn people but just like Hurley, he was labeled crazy. So now getting back to the point of him crying. He knew that this was going to happen and I have a feeling that he warned people about this and therefore he is crying because he was right, and what Desmond told him was right. Thus proving that he wasn't, and crazy. I believe the statement that he "doesn't know" why he is crying is irrelevant. This is based on the idea that time is relative in the past so even after Desmond is stabilized in the future it can be assumed (which I understand is a dangerous thing) that he and Daniel stayed in touch. And thus creating a new past, which is partly explained with the "Desmond Hume is your constant" that is written in Daniel's journal at the end of the episode.

Relation to DHARMA

• If Widmore is affiliated with DHARMA (as his owning and sending the second DHARMA protocol with the Kahana crew seems to suggest), then Faraday was sent because of Widmore's knowledge of the strange magnetic properties of the Island - something DHARMA was obviously familiar with (i.e. the stations' capacity to discharge electromagnetic energy).
• Daniel Faraday was responsible for recording Pierre Chang's pinhole video, 30 years in the past. The voice offscreen sounds very much like Faraday's.
  • If this is so, Daniel may be one of the Island's "non-agers," similar to Richard Alpert. He was on the Island at least 30 years ago, and possibly longer than that. He was either on the Island because of DHARMA or was on the Island before DHARMA arrived. He had to leave the Island for some reason (maybe he moved it?) and has been trying to forget about it ever since. That's why he doesn't use head protection from his radiation in the laboratory... he's frying his memories.
    • Faraday's timeline is out of whack -- he's "unstuck in time". He has no memory of being on the island in 1978 because it hasn't happened to him in his personal timeline yet. However he knows he was there already because of all the things he wrote in his journal. It also explains why he needs a constant, and why he is experiencing memory loss. Not sure how he got off the island before the purge happened, but perhaps it was through the pinhole before it closed...

Faraday's Time Machine

• According to the information available as of The Constant, Faraday's machine and its proper configuration do not exist in a single timeline without paradox. When was the time machine invented/made operational if Desmond gives Faraday the vital figures through contact with the "future"?
  • Since Faraday was the one that provided Desmond with the correct settings, it would mean that the proper configuration does exist in a single timeline, only the settings originally weren't figured out until later - after the time of Desmond's visit but before Faraday got to the Island.
  • If Faraday has sporadic moments of total amnesia, he could have forgotten the information Desmond provided in 1996 and continued his experiments until he perfected the machine again.
  • Faraday's machine may "peel back" the shroud of ignorance that obscures human minds from observing the universe without a limited, singular time-frame. In some interpretations of Taoist thought and quantum physics, the unidirectional notion of time is a method of ordering data and not an actual description of the universe. In tis interpretation, the events that make up the universe happen "all at once" and are ordered by human or human-like consciousnesses into the familiar pattern. If time is illusory, cause and affect may be as well--ideas that David Hume speculated upon. If this is the case, then determinism may be the ultimate shape of events in the universe.
    • Determinism explains a great deal of the coincidences seen in the show, and provides an excellent mechanism for Desmond's flashes of insight.
• Eloise provided the first proof in the external world that a living being's conscious can travel forward in time. Eloise became unstuck and traveled forward to a point, possibly measured in minutes, in which she had already successfully run the maze. She then returned to her present and ran the maze while Daniel and Desmond watched. She did not need to be tought how to do it. Daniel might have been her constant, except that a lab rat does not have the mental capacity to appreciate the concept. Desmond became unstuck again, traveling to 2004, then back to 1996. During his "journey," Eloise died.
• There is no evidence that Daniel has any relation to DHARMA however, he will find the orchid station on the Island and discover inside the station similar equipment to his experiments back in 1996 and probably know what they were trying to do on the Island, and rectify any problems.

Significance of "Faraday"

• Daniel notices that "light scatters different here"... this is due to the "Faraday Effect", in which a magnetic field will rotate a polarized light source. The strong magnetic field in the Island has this effect on the light. This could explain why the Island is "invisible" to outsiders...light scattered through the earth's atmosphere is (partially) polarized...if the light being reflected by the Island is rotated by the magnetic field, then its possible that the Island is difficult to view until you are within the range of the magnetic field. This is also why the sky turned "purple" during the discharge event (due to light scattering effects). Also, a strong magnetic field can rotate radio waves as well. This effect is how the Looking Glass station "jammed" radio signals off the Island.
  • Seems likely, considering many names on the show are chosen for a reason, and Daniel's last name is of course Faraday. Faraday - Faraday Effect.
  • Unfortunately, light travelling through the atmosphere is minimally polarized. Photographers and videographers use polarizing filters on their lenses to they can control how the light "scatters."
• Living relative of Michael Faraday, the English physicist and chemist.

Current Status

For theories/theorizing on Daniel Faraday's current status, see:

There's_No_Place_Like_Home,_Parts_2_&_3/Theories#Zodiac_Passengers

The Necktie

TPTB said we will learn in Season 5 why Daniel is wearing a necktie on the Island. Daniel first appeared to us in 1996. The last time I can remember wearing a necktie like his was in the 1960s. This tells us....

Miscellaneous

• The game he was playing with Charlotte was not a memory game, but a test of psychic abilities. Charlotte didn't show him the cards before she turned them over, and Daniel had to guess the cards with psychic powers.
  • Daniel in the past figured out more about the time sickness and found some way to harness it without bleeding out/having an aneurysm. He has the ability now to jump back and forth to some extent, and possibly at will, but there are obviously consequences in his confusion, memory loss (if it is that), lack of social skills, etc. He still thinks he needs a constant now, because he either just doesn't remember his harnessing of the sickness from before, or when he wrote that, his consciousness was in between visits to the storyline's present.
  • Charlotte did specifically say "Let's see what you can remember"
  • "Let's see what you can remember" could also be interpreted as him traveling a short time into the future where he saw the cards and is "remembering" them from what he saw there.
  • Is the statement that Charlotte had not shown the cards to Daniel an observation or an assumption?
  • There's quite a few things that can cause autism-spectrum behaviour, and still leave the person social. Some sort of PDD-NOS can't be ruled out.
    • While Daniel is certainly friendly, he is also extremely awkward and tends to be confusing in his behavior, so he is certainly not sociable in the same way as someone like Jack is.
  • The "savant"-aspect is also supported by the fact that he immediately recognized Jack, standing a couple of feet away from him in the dark. But it should be noted that every one on that team seems to have memorized all passenger from flight 815 and expected Jack to be there because he was one of the few the freighter crew had talked to.
• Daniel's sporadic memory loss may be a result of not using head protection during his many experiments involving radiation at Queen's College, which was noted by Desmond during his visit. ("The Constant")
  • Depending on your interpretation of timeline(s), Faraday's memory loss may coincidentally also be a temporal "course correction", that is, the time machine itself is already determined and Faraday's memory loss is an essential quality of it. When speculating on a fluid, but singular (or finite and unbounded, to borrow terms from discussions of the shape of the universe) time-space, causality is an illusion created by consciousnesses that exist in only one timeline and only move linearly. Under this interpretation, coincidental occurrences may in fact be instrumental for something to be properly defined dimensionally.
• Daniel developed a memory problem after 1996. This is the universe's way of "course-correcting" to ensure that Daniel does not recognize Desmond when they meet in 2004. The memory problem has served its purpose and is no longer necessary. Charlotte is correct and Daniel is in fact making progress. The healing properties of the Island are the reason for this.
• Is the LOST equivalent of DR. MANHATTAN from the WATCHMEN comic series. The producers have cited WATCHMEN as a huge influence on the series, and Faraday shares many similarities with the DR. MANHATTAN character; Manhattan was a shy and awkward scientist who conducted experiments with electromagnetism/time and through an accident was transformed into an omnipotent being capable of experiencing time in a non-linear fashion. Note the vague allusion to the Empire State Building (NY, Manhattan?) in the TV image seen in Faraday's crying scene.
• Daniel, like Richard Alpert, has been on the Island before so he doesn't age. That's why in the flashback is hair is longer, but he doesn't look younger, and in his crying scene the same applies.
  • If a dramatic event happens in your life, you would age slightly (hence the "turned your hair grey" rule people say when they are under stress). But nothing like that has happened to him, and as everyone already knows, he obviously has been under loads of stress just on the Island.
  • Except that Aaron clearly has aged. If he does not age, it is not simply because he has been on the Island before.
• Daniel is the person behind the Camera shooting the video of Dr. Pierre Chang shown at Comic con 2008.