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conflictofthemind · 23 days

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Can we Please Re-Open the Petergate?

Ever since learning about Petergate in its entirety, it has been breaking my brain. There’s obviously something incredibly important happening here, enough so that it has to be hidden until the final season of the season.

For those not in the know, Sam Owens has / had a son named Peter that was first name dropped in Season 4. For some reason, the military wants his old schoolwork as evidence in the investigation of the Chrissy murder in Hawkins.

We also pretty much know that Peter is dead. The way Owens acts around Will in Season 2 as the only scientist who is actually determined to save his life, and the implications he makes that he understands the plight of Joyce both heavily imply he has lost a child. This also adds a layer to the whole ‘taking away your son’s precious school projects’ if that son is dead and those are some of the only memories you have left.

Okay so: Sam Owens lost a child, which explains his character motivations in the show. But it’s not quite interesting just ending it there, is it? And why leave this to be seemingly be a reveal in the fifth season where we already have so much else to take care of? Would Sam Owens’ son dying really be that impactful towards the narrative? Would that warrant the copious amounts of references (at least seven just in season 4) to Peter that exist within the show and are still coming out even in recent ST5 BTS pictures?

Something about Peter Owens has to be crucial information in the fight against Vecna.

Let us also remember that those military agents took Peter Owens’ schoolwork as some kind of evidence in relation to the Henry Creel murders, and it was important enough to highlight to the audience.

Let’s go over some facts:

1) Sam Owens has a house in Ruth, Nevada where he lives with his wife. Population irl of only a few hundred people.

2) Henry Creel lived in Rachel Nevada which uh didn’t exist in the 50s during his childhood where he encountered:

3) The Nevada Experiment. Henry happens upon related equipment and is briefly transported into Dimension X before coming back with powers and an altered personality.

4) In TFS, Henry is mentioned to have put a classmate from Nevada in a wheelchair following the events of his trip to Dimension X.

5) Henry was in the care of different doctors before he met Dr. Brenner and moved to Hawkins.

We curiously get no more explanation on this matter; whatever happened in Nevada is probably some of the most crucial information and is thus saved for Season 5. We’ve already gotten most answers that are relevant to Henry’s backstory in Hawkins… but not for Nevada.

Some of the major questions for S5 include:

1) What is Dimension X?

2) What is the actual origin of the Mindflayer and is it an independent sentient being?

3) How did Henry develop powers while in Dimension X?

4) What was the Nevada Experiment and the original Project Rainbow?

Since the military took Peter Owens’ schoolwork as evidence… it means Peter is at least connected in some way to this mystery, if not directly to Henry and probably implies the two knew each-other and were even classmates who worked on projects together.

Here’s the basis of what I propose (to be expanded upon later of course):

Henry and Peter were classmates in their youth fairly likely at this point. Henry and Peter were working together on a project that had them investigating the Nevada cave system. Or perhaps something relating to Area 51 / secret US government stuff. The project has to be relevant evidence since the military took it. This is what led to Henry stumbling upon the dimensional equipment in the cave that transported him to Dimension X.

My question is - what if Peter was also involved in Henry’s disappearance? Maybe he disappeared with him, and this was covered up by the government. Or he was simply exposed to the event but didn’t get transported with Henry, just became severely ill because of this Dimension X virus, and died as a result.

Or maybe Peter was meant to disappear as part of Brenner’s Project Nevada experiment. They didn’t plan for Henry to be there as well, and sure didn’t plan for him to be taken. The whole “rogue staff member stealing the equipment and hiding it inside a cave where Henry just happens upon it I guess” has been weird for a while. Maybe Peter was actually older and involved with P. Nevada, and he was the rogue staff member who hid the equipment? But then how did Henry conveniently get there and why was the schoolwork taken.

I don’t want to make this post too long; but something about this gives me major Will and El parallels in a way I can’t really illustrate quite yet. Boy gets taken under suspicious circumstances that could imply HNL meddling, but this time the supernatural kid is able to save him and bring him back. Owens becomes interested by this and comes to study Will in S2.

Owens also mentions that he has risked his family’s lives for the sake of their research, which I feel is relevant here. He’s talking about the current day NINA Project… but it could of course be a reference to the fact that this happened before, and ended in tragedy.

So wow, that got long! I didn’t even get to mention the Fringe parallels that people have brought up. This is just going to be Part 1 into my investigation of Petergate.

There’s so much promise in this potential storyline that I think really needs to get investigated, so I hope this interested people regardless of whether or not they’ve already come across Petergate. The fact that Henry’s time in Nevada is such a major gap in his backstory really fascinates me as to what they’re hiding from us.

#henry creel #sam owens #martin brenner #petergate #stranger things #peter owens #will byers #<- by extension. I think he is involved somehow

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aemiron-main · 8 months

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Owens, Cancer, Peter, Regenerative Healing and The Cure

So, the mysterious Peter Owens has been haunting me lately. And now, I have a theory about him.

I think that Peter Owens was Owens’ son who may have had cancer, and that Owens’ involvement with HNL and Henward’s kidnapping/testing on Henward in the lab was likely connected to Owens trying to save Peter and find a cure for cancer.

Let’s get into it.

So. Why would Peter Owens have cancer and what evidence is there to support the idea of Peter having cancer?

Well, as far as how Peter Owens got cancer goes, Hopper talks about Agent Orange causing cancer in the children of Vietnam war veterans such as himself, which is what happened to Sara.

Hopper even namedrops “Uncle Sam” during that scene, versus Sam being named Sam Owens:

So, there’s a chance that Peter’s cancer was the result of Owens being involved in the Vietnam war, or Owens simply being exposed to some other chemical, or even just a genetic predisposition to cancer passed down to Peter (something we’ll come back to later in this post when I talk about Fringe.)

And regarding the other evidence to support Peter having cancer, Owens has So Much disease and cure and cancer imagery surrounding him, right down to talking about “stopping the spread” re: the gate and talking about replication all the time.

Owens’ connection to the supernatural is almost aways tied to references of “spreading” and “disease,” and he’s specifically focused on stopping things from spreading- much like cancer:

And he also talks about a "cure" in the context of a virus/disease spreading:

And Owens also has this scene where the other scientist is talking about pesticides vs Hopper talking about how Agent Orange was touted as a herbicide- which connects Owens to that Hopper cancer scene yet again:

Owens also refers to possessed Will as “son”- possessed Will, who currently has a “disease” replicating in his body and taking him over and killing him:

And that shot of Hopper in the stairwell after Sara died from cancer versus the shot of Owens in the stairwell and the two being paralleled- which makes sense of Owens, like Hopper, also lost a child to cancer:

And I also talked in this post about how Owens “gets”/understands what it’s like to lose a son. And Owens also talks AGAIN about “getting it,” and this time it’s SPECIFICALLY in the context of Will having a “disease” replicating in his body and killing him:

And the next scene RIGHT after that scene where Owens talks about “getting” what it’s like to have a son replicating with something inside of him, we get this shot of Nancy’s tape and SPECIFICALLY we get the line from Owens about stopping the spread AGAIN:

And to top all of this off, OWENS is the character who drops the word “cancer” and who compares the spread of the UD to cancer:

Owens’ son having died of cancer would also explain why he’s not willing to let Will die from the “virus”/shadow particles:

Especially with that “say that to me again” line from Owens- that’s not a rational, “here’s the scientific reason why I disagree with you,” or even “hey, killing kids is morally wrong,” instead, it’s an immediate emotional response that lacks context as he’s not even just like. being emotional and saying “hey killing kids is bad,” instead, he just gets emotional and makes a threat but doesn’t provide any specific reason for it.

That scene has always felt a bit off to me, like there’s something we’re missing, like we’re missing some reason why the other scientist should know not to say something like that to Owens Specifically. Especially since the scientists all shut up for a bit after Owens says that/there’s clearly some weight to his words/something that the audience isn’t aware of.

Which, that would make sense if those other scientists knew about what happened to Peter/him dying of cancer. After all, it would be an obvious dick move to suggest letting a young boy die of a spreading disease to a dude whose son died of cancer.

Long story short, the spread/cancer imagery is CONSTANT with Owens, and so are the references to him losing a son.

Now that we’ve established that the basis/subtext is there for Owens to have a son that died of cancer, that brings up the question of why would Henward be necessary for Owens to try and cure cancer?

Well, James and I were chatting awhile back about Henriette Lacks, after I’d mentioned that I thought there was a connection between the cancer references in ST vs Vecna’s regenerative healing, as Vecna’s regen healing seems to work a lot like cancer cells/might be what caused his strange appearance, as a lot of his skin seems to resemble tumors, with him even having what looks like random TEETH on his skin, which is something often seen in tumors.

And when we look at Henrietta Lacks, her cells, which were taken from a cervical cancer biopsy, were the first immortal human cell line that reproduced infinitely. Henrietta’s cells were used to study cancer treatments and how to stop the spread of cancer without having to test on an entire living person, and instead just being able to test on the cells themselves, as usually, human cells die pretty quickly after being separated from the person, but Henrietta’s cells did not, and instead, kept dividing. ST regen healing seems to act basically like cancer cells but with an even faster rate of growth/replication, which is exactly what Henrietta’s cells were.

So, if Henward had regen healing, and if Henward’s cells both a.) replicated like cancer cells and b.) replicated even faster the way that Henrietta’s cells did/were basically immortal even when removed from the body, then Henward would have been the perfect subject to use to research a cure for cancer.

This may also tie into Brenner’s claim that he was trying to help/cure Henward/Henward talking about how his parents wanted to cure him- if Henward’s regen healing was similar to Henrietta Lacks’ cells, it’s worth noting that the properties of Henrietta Lacks’ cancer cells were the result of being infected with HPV. So, if Henward also had some sort of disease that caused the same sort of thing & made him a sickly child & if Brenner/Owens claimed that they could cure him the same way they planned on curing cancer but needed his cells to do so/to test the cure on/ro develop the cure. Especially since Henrietta’s own cancer cells are what killed her- so there’s a chance that Henward was at risk of the same sort of thing happening/that he didn’t quite have proper regen healing before the lab but DID have those cells (and then lab experiments/gettinf yeeted to the yellow UD kickstarted in the actual regen healing we see with Vecna).

Plus, yknow. The name Henry vs Henrietta… and the fact that Henrietta Lacks’ cells were taken without her consent vs Henward being kidnapped and taken to the lab, clearly without his consent.

So, again, somebody with regen healing is basically a prime candidate for being used to try and cure cancer.

But that same person could also be a path to near immortality. Because after all, like I said, regen healing cells act like cancer cells, and cancer cells ignore the signals that tell them to self destruct/they’re basically immortal, and Henrietta Lacks’ cells even moreso, as they replicate even faster and again, ignore those destruction signals. So, they’d basically be the key to immortality if there was such a key. If an entire person could do what a single cancer/Henrietta Lacks cell did (which is likely exactly what Henward’s regen healing does, or something similar), with some tweaking, there’s a chance they could become immortal/regenerate when injured the way Vecna does etc.

If Brenner ended up using this research to give himself regenerative healing/pursuing immortality for himself, it would explain how he survived the Demogorgon attack in S1, and it would explain why Matthew Modine is convinced that Brenner STILL isn’t dead. It would also give Brenner a motive for his experiments that goes beyond mere scientific curiosity, which would explain why he was willing to go to such extreme lengths for his research.

And if Brenner wanted to experiment on Henward’s cells for the purpose of his own immortality versus Owens wanting to do it to try and find a cure for cancer, it would explain how the two of them could have such opposing morals but end up working together, because even if their goals were totally different (immortality vs cancer cure), they both needed to take the same path/experiment on Henward.

After all, whether you like/trust Owens or not, based on what we see from him in the show, he DOES seem to have moral lines that Brenner does not.

For example, during NINA, he talks about how he’s compromised his principles/morals by helping with NINA & how he sees a traumatized little girl, something he’s clearly distressed by, unlike Martin. He also says that he’s only doing this because Martin said that it was the only way:

So, how does a guy like that, who clearly has some sort of moral code/who does genuinely seem to care about peoole like El and Will in a way that Brenner does not end up working for HNL/working with Brenner/experimenting on Henward?

Well, if it was Owen’s son’s life on the line… it would make sense for that to be the one thing that could get Owens to compromise his morals and experiment on Henward- after all, in that screenshot from earlier, Owens lists his family and his principles together- two things that seem to be equally important to him. So, if one of those things (his family/his son) was in danger, would he be willing to compromise the other thing (his morals/principles) to save his family? I think he would.

And to top all of this off, it would also track perfectly with the Fringe parallels (with Fringe being a huge source of inspiration for ST/constant direct parallels).

**FRINGE SPOILERS**

In Fringe, scientist Walter Bishop’s son, Peter, is dying of a rare genetic disease. Walter is trying desperately to find the cure, but fails, and his Peter dies. However, Walter has been using a window into another timeline to watch his alternate timeline self (nicknamed Walternate) *also* work on a cure for Peter- and the alternate Peter isn’t cured yet, but is still alive when Walter’s Peter dies. And one day, when watching Walternate work on a cure, Walter notices that Walternate found the cure, but Walternate was distracted and thought that his cure/experiment had failed. So, Walter went into the other timeline and planned simply on curing alternate timeline Peter, but ended up taking him/kidnapping him back to Walter’s own timeline, and keeping him there and raising him as if he was his actual Peter.

And Owens is EXTREMELY paralleled to Walter. Like. Constantly. Costuming parallels, dialogue parallels, entire scene/shot parallels. It’s literally neverending and constant. Go watch even 5 minutes of like any Fringe scene with Walter, and you’ll notice it. Both Victor and Owens are deeply Walter paralleled to the point of almost verging on plagiarism LMAO.

So, this would track with Owens kidnapping a child (Henward) to try and save his son/trying to cure his son’s genetic disease, just like Walter did (except the child Walter kidnapped was Peter himself, although Walter did also do experiments on other children, such as Olivia), and possibly even crossing timelines to do so, which has me staring at all of the Henry vs Edward weirdness…

This is also likely why Owens’ son is named Peter- it’s meant to be a reference to Peter Bishop (which, it’s also interesting that Peter and Walter have the last name “Bishop,” as there’s the Bishop chess piece & the idea of their last name being connected to chess is referenced in Fringe, which has me staring at Henward talking about how Brenner moves people around like pieces on a chessboard to manipulate them- which would make sense if Brenner was manipulating Owens and his son & leading Owens to believe that they were pursuing a cure for cancer when in reality Brenner was pursuing his own immortality/regeneration).

So, yeah! I won’t be surprised at all if S5 reveals that Owens’ son, Peter, died from cancer.

And what El says about Brenner not letting Henry go- if Peter died, it would make sense to let Henry go/for Owens to want to let Henry go, because he doesn’t need Henry anymore because he can’t save Peter anymore.

But if Brenner wanted to continue his research/continue pursuing his own immortality, it would make sense for him to not let Henry go, and would explain why it’s Brenner Specifically who is listed as not letting Henry go.

This would also explain why Owens doesn’t seem to be present in the lab during any of El’s flashbacks, not even back in 1979/any of the NINA memories- if he stopped working on the project after Peter’s death…

It would also explain why Hopper introduces El to Owens as if they’ve never met- because El hasn’t met him:

Especially since Sullivan refers to El as “Brenner’s little pet,” and doesn’t include Owens in that regard, and Owens’ bitchy line about daddy-daughter time/Owens not approving of what Brenner did to El/his relationship with her:

However, there’s also the matter of the Peter that Brenner asks for over the intercom:

And I think there’s a few options here in the context of this post:

1.) The Peter that Brenner asks for is simply another random Peter, not Peter Owens, but is delivering subtext about Peter Owens (ie, lab Peter died, delivering the subtext that Peter Owens also died, just in a different way).

This could also be a reference to the timeline weirdness that we see with the massacre, as Peter in Fringe is basically the cause of the two timelines colliding/opening a hole between the two of them.

2.) The Peter that Brenner asks for IS Peter Owens, working as an orderly in the lab. He may have died during the 1979 massacre, and so, then while that doesn’t explain why we didn’t see Owens at all in the flashbacks pre-1979 massacre, if Peter died then, it would explain why Owens is absent from HNL in El’s post-1979 HNL memories. And also, it may actually still explain why Owens was absent during the 1979/pre massacre NINA flashbacks- if Peter’s cancer HAD been cured/treated and he was simply working there or a patient receiving treatment there or BOTH, then Owens wouldn’t necessarily need to work at the lab anymore, as his goal (saving Peter) had been accomplished, and then Peter died during the 1979 massacre.

3.) Henry or Edward was brainwashed into believing that he was Peter Owens/Owens’ son in an attempt to get him to cooperate.

Especially with what I’ve talked about before re: The Changeling and other things and the idea of Edward believing that he IS Henry. If Henry wasn’t useful for whatever reason and they needed Edward instead, and needed Edward to believe that he’s Henry, it would be helpful if the actual Henry believes that he isn’t Henry and is, in fact, Peter.

This would also explain why Henward’s fake name for casting was “Peter Ballard”.

And while option 3.) does admittedly sound far-fetched, when we look at Fringe, Olivia (who is very similar to Henward/blonde child who got experimented on against her will) is swapped with her alternate timeline counterpart/has her alternate timeline counterpart’s memories implanted into her head (staring at NINA & those bts pics that show that Young Henward has a NINA suit in his costume wardrobe and also staring at the multiple versions of the Creel murders that we see/Vecna’s memories of the murders being different from Victor’s retelling), because one Olivia has powers that the other Olivia does not have, and in order to get the Olivia with powers to cooperate willingly/use her powers, they have to convince her that she truly is the other Olivia.

Which, that would also track with that line about 001 struggling with his powers at first until suddenly he came in one day and everything changed- especially since that dialogue is in the context of memories, specifically, sad/angry memories- so, if Edward had some of Henry’s memories of the Creel murders implanted into him and believed that they were his own memories/believed that he was Henry… and then Henry possibly being led to believe that he was Peter in some way/Henry even simply becoming a proxy for Peter in the sense of them experimenting on Henry instead of Peter (to test cures in case something goes wrong so that they don’t risk Peter’s life) even if he doesn’t truly believe that he’s Peter. Which, that means that they would have to give Henry cancer- or, mess with his regen healing to have the same effect, OR infect him with shadow particles which have been very cancer-paralleled, as we’ve seen with Will in S2.

Anyway! Much to think about. Admittedly that last bit is a fair bit of fun speculation, but overall, I really do think there’s some solid connections here regarding Owens, Peter, Henward, Fringe, and cancer. Also, I won’t be surprised if we get a father-son vibe between Henward and Owens in the lab, which may explain part of why Owens has so many constant Victor parallels, with Victor being Henward’s actual father vs Owens possibly being a father figure, especially if Henward was ever brainwashed to believe that he was Peter.

#stranger things #sam owens #petergate #henry creel #edward creel #st regen healing #st vs fringe

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