Series 9 Rumours & Speculation

[arwyn]

Hello, first post here, lovely forum you've got!

I've read all your posts, or most of them. I agree with many theories here. May I join in the speculation? It helps pass the days till we find out what the writers actually wrote.

Anyway... this is what I recently posted in another Spooks/RA forum.

Remember the photos in the suitcase? They were exactly what we saw, John and Vaughn, the casino garden, everything. OK, yes, in real life they where taken when those flashback episodes where filmed, simple thing but...

...but what if those photos just triggered the sleeper John personality, opened up his implanted memories? First it was Vaughn and his fake stroke, then the photos. Could they have been coated with some chemical too, some hallucinating drug? That means that Maya is on to the game too, keeping John's illusion in place.

I still think that Lucas was brainwashed. He *IS* Lucas North, that casino picture has been tampered with. Perhaps there was a John Bateman, the other man, Lucas met him, but maybe he tried to stop him, failed and it always weight heavy on his conscience. He went back to MI5 and hid what he knew, because he wanted to atone for that huge failure. In Russia during his prison years, he told them about Dakar and the Russians and Chinese found the perfect man to make a sleeper out of. They played with his mind, his memories, his guilt, and developed the John inside him, or made him think he was John. Vaughn triggered the sleeper and slowly John ate way at Lucas, with Lucas finally consumed.

Let me recap:
- Lucas North is our Lucas. He did go to Dakar.

- There he met John Bateman. He figured out he was evil, but could not stop him.

- Vaughn and John saw the young idealistic Lucas, used him a bit.

- Lucas saw the bombing in Dakar, felt incredibly guilty, but had no evidence against Vaughn or John.

- He went back to the UK and became a MI5 officer.

- He gets caught in Russia, put in prison. Under interrogation, he tells them about Dakar. Russians and Chinese like that and through extreme brainwashing procedures, they plant in his mind the thought that *HE* was John, and develop in him a sleeper personality.

- At the right time, now, Vaughn appears and triggers the sleeper John free. His pre-conditioned words, "you are not Lucas North", the photos in the suitcase, all his words, they are the hypnotists orders for the sleeper to awake. And he does. Lucas North gets consumed by John.

- Maya... I think she's in on it. Maybe brainwashed too. Maybe she was Lucas' girlfriend and they brainwashed her too. I watched some scenes again and I noticed this: every time John speaks to or does something for Vaughn, he then immediately goes to Maya. It's like... like a dog doing what his master told him and then wanting his treat. He doesn't reason with it, just goes for it. And then the master threatens to take the treat away. Like a man with an addiction, John no longer questions, just does everything to have his fix afterward.

Fifteen years is a long time to have a fix. I think that Maya is part of the trick. She was used as a reward system and then the sleeper John took full control.

Also... the painting that was not the Albany file. It showed a British ship exploding. Could it have been another trigger? The trigger of the fake Dakar memories?

Is Lucas/John really Albany? Was this whole trip his journey to fully succumb to the John/Albany personality? Maybe. And Harry knows this. He knows and he's trying to find out the big bad wolves behind this. He's both using and trying to protect Lucas, because he knows he's been brainwashed.

Which reminds me of a "Babylon 5" episode, a twist in a character. Talia Winters was implanted with a sleeper personality, one that was a mole. Talia never knew/realized what she was doing. Then she was given the right trigger, a message, and that was it, the sleeper personality took completely over, no more Talia. Could the same have been done to Lucas?

Yeah... straws... let's clutch them for a while, eh?