Fringe (TV series): Difference between revisions

At one point [[fringe:Timeline#1980s|in the early 1980s]], Walter assisted [[fringe:William Bell|William Bell]]'s experiments on children using the drug "[[fringe:Cortexiphan|Cortexiphan]]". The test subjects included both [[fringe:Olivia Dunham|Olivia Dunham]] and [[fringe:Nick Lane|Nick Lane]]. (Season 1 Episode 17 "[[fringe:Bad Dreams|Bad Dreams]]"). When Olivia finds out about this, she confronts Walter about his past morally dubious scientific experiments, for which he shows great remorse (Season 1 Episode 19 "[[fringe:The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken]]").

An accident in 1991 resulted in the death of at least one of his assistants, [[fringe:Carla Warren|Carla Warren]] (Season 1 Episode 12 "[[fringe:The No-Brainer|The No-Brainer]]"), beginning many accusations of Walter using humans as guinea pigs for his experiments.

The scientist with whom Walter is speaking is [[fringe:Alistair Peck|Alistair Peck]]. He had been studying time travel in order to try to prevent the death of his fiance [[fringe:Arlette Turling|Arlette Turling]] in a car collision. However Alistair's attempts at time travel required a large amount of energy, and Walter tries to convince him to avoid risking possibly killing hundreds of people in the area where he would appear upon his arrival back in time. Walter continues to try to discourage Alistair from making the attempt by explaining his own case of coming to believe in a higher power, hoping for a sign of forgiveness in the form of a white tulip for his actions in stealing Peter from the parallel universe. With God's forgiveness, Walter believes it will be possible for Peter to forgive him once he learns the truth of who he is.

Alistair considers this, but with Walter's time up, the armed forces start to move in. Alistair jumps back in time again by only a few hours to complete the modified power calculations based on Walter's comments, and to prepare a pre-addressed letter he brings with him. As his location is discovered and armed forces barge in, Alistair re-engages his time machine. Alistair's modifications have worked, as he finds himself in the field, minutes before his fiance's death. Alistair is able to make it to his fiance in time, reuniting just long enough to say "I love you" before they are both killed by the collision.

In the present, the events of the episode never occurred, and Walter, having time to contemplate the letter to Peter instead of being called to the case, tosses it into the fireplace. Later, he receives an envelope in the mail—the one Alistair had prepared and instructed to be delivered to Walter on this specific date. Inside, Walter finds a hand-drawn image of a white tulip.

In [[fringe:Brave_New_World:_Part_2|Brave New World: Part 2]] (Season 4 Episode 22), Walter and Olivia learn that Bell is seeking a power source to collapse the two universes. Nina realizes that Olivia is Bell's power source; Jones' activities with the nanites and the sun-beam have been to invigorate Olivia's Cortexiphan powers and use them to start the collapse of the two universes. Olivia is emitting extreme electromagnetic energy, which Nina is able to use to locate Bell's ship. The Fringe team sets off for Bell's ship on helicopters as initial signs of the final collapse begin to occur around the world. Meanwhile, aboard his ship, Bell has shown Walter his vision for the new universe, using the creatures stowed aboard it to populate his ideal world. Bell reveals that he was set on to this path by Walter in the past after Walter lost both Peters and had desired to play God himself, describing an idea to collapse both universes and create a new one. Walter later rejected the idea and asked Bell to remove pieces of his brain to quell the idea, but Bell continued to follow on Walter's vision, culminating in the current events.

== Creation, life and death ==