Sent in by The Hatch resident theory machine KEEPING PACE!! Be warned its a BIG one!!Well, it's official... the Season 4 finale of LOST was mind-blowing!!! "There's No Place Like Home" was just what we needed to pose tantalizing new questions for us to ponder during another 8 month hiatus, but it also answered some very longstanding questions... namely the whole polar bear conundrum that's been puzzling us since the VERY FIRST EPISODE of the series!
Now some of you make think I'm daft for seeing solutions wrapped in that enigma of an episode, but certain revelatory moments got me thinking the day after, and I believe that these may be some quite deft observations. Hear me out.
After nearly a whole year's worth of setup since the Orchid video was released at Comic-Con 2007, we finally made it to DHARMA's Orchid station proper. It was confirmed once and for all that the station involved experiments in travel through space and time (so called "four dimensional space"), and after Ben blew up the Vault by sticking many forks in the metaphorical microwave he took the dharka and descended into the frozen underground of the Island. Based on our friend Dr. Halliwax's description of "negatively charged exotic matter" in the orientation, the existence of the dharka for no apparent cold climes on the Island, and a similar situation we'd seen with the Swan station (where DHARMA tapped into forces greater than their understanding), we know our favorite Initiative had gone to this seemingly secret lair and just like the electromagnetic forces beneath what we used to call the Hatch, couldn't resist tapping into this mind boggling force for the sake of scientific research. Upon biting off more than they could chew or deciding to play it safe, the Initiative built the dummy greenhouse, used the story of a "botanical research facility" in an effort to keep secrecy, and put the Orchid station well below ground, using the Vault to seal off the freezer and downgrade to smaller scale "silly experiments" involving "time traveling bunnies."
But WHAT ON EARTH does this have to do with polar bears?!? Well, think waaaaay back. Based on the cages from Kate and Sawyer's incarceration at the Hydra station (on the OTHER island), we know that DHARMA brought the bears there for some sort of experimentation. According to the blast door map in the Swan, supposedly it was to genetically tamper with them — to see if science could influence evolution so that the bears could acclimate to the drastic change in environment. But now that we think of it, wasn't that feeding system a little complex? I'd argue that they were training our non-rabbit furry white friends for something more, and as Charlie pointed out in one of his conversations with Locke, polar bears "are like the Einsteins of the bear community," (Further Instructions). What were they being trained for, then? Well, the finale showed us the subterranean ice cavern which contained what will forever be known as the "frozen donkey wheel"... the mechanism used to "move" the Island. Knowing that behind that crank was all that "exotic matter" and not wanting to put a human to the task of making that wheel of uncertain fate turn, what's the next best option to be able to see what it will do? Like sending monkeys into space, the polar bears were a natural choice as animal test subjects.
Think about it... Polar bears have natural dharkas (a.k.a. fur) that would allow them to stand the freezing cold bowels of that chamber which was not too dissimilar to the climate they live(d) in. And they're smart enough to figure out a complex feeding contraption, so they'd be able to learn how to turn a wheel. Oh, and did you see how long and hard Ben had to struggle (even with the leverage the crowbar provided) before he got that thing to move? Three words: polar bear strength. Now, for those of you who are skeptical, I'm not suggesting that the bears necessarily used the same ladders that Ben did in getting down to that chamber. I'm sure that, before the Orchid was finished and the Vault became the final seal between the station and that icebox, there was an easier, less steep way down there. Whatever the case, the higher ups of DHARMA, Halliwax included, were actually planning to use the polar bears to push that wheel of all frozen wheels below what became the Orchid from the start. And, furthermore, they succeeded.
We know at least one test subject was used... landing in the Tunisian desert just as Ben did after his spin (The Shape of Thing to Come), eventually becoming the skeleton that we saw Charlotte with in her desert digging flashback (Confirmed Dead). Along with the bear bones she found a DHARMA collar with the Hydra logo, proving that either Sawyer or Kate was kept where our time traveler had once called home. A possible explanation for why the wheel-turners keep winding up in the Tunisian desert: maybe each spoke (and the amount of turning before touching the other side) corresponds to somewhere different, and Ben chose the same as his predecessor.
That leads us to the next tantalizing deduction. If DHARMA used a polar bear to experiment with turning the FDW, and it wound up in Tunisia a la Ben, that can only mean that DHARMA previously moved the Island!!! I think they themselves were responsible for it being located in the South Pacific as it was for all of Seasons 1-4, and that when it appeared there it put the Black Rock inland where Rousseau and our Lostaways found it. It has been brought to my attention that the ship seemed to have virtually no wood rot or remains of sea life in it, and that the nature of the bodies and dynamite inside was such that the Black Rock was not an underwater wreck for a century and a half and simply lifted up by the Island. However, with the newly revealed time traveling nature of our favorite archipelago, there are still a few plausible scenarios I can think of that would accomplish getting that slaver inland. I'll lay out the two I can think of here and let you decide if it's one, the other, or some combination:
1) The Island went back in time to when the Black Rock was still sailing, and it just ran aground when the Island appeared beneath it; the only elements it's been exposed to are from the jungle clime, and it didn't rot or even go underwater in the first place. This would seem to be borne out by the blooper video we've seen from the Orchid, in which the lab assistant seems to be talking about sending the rabbit test subject into the past (saying the machine was set to "negative 20") — the only conceivable way that two bunny #15's appeared in nearly the same spot, and why Halliwax freaked about them not touching… wanting to avoid some sort of reverb from the timeline that would have disastrous effects. While this scenario is much more believable based on the recent evidence of the show, and may well be the route the writers take as an explanation, I'm hesitant of the idea of using the Island or even the Island itself traveling back in time due to how Damon and Carlton have described not wanting to deal with the whole Grandfather paradox.
They have deftly avoided such possible conflicts thus far by making Desmond and others' time travel a consciousness-only affair, and by placing time cops like Ms. Hawking (and perhaps Brother Campbell) in the timestream to talk about how the universe course corrects. (An aside: One thing that's bugged me for some time now is that many people complain that "if the universe will course correct then why does one of our characters have to act?" Nobody seems to consider that the universe is course correcting as it needs to via the thought popping into that person's head that they need to take action. Seriously, HAS NO ONE THOUGHT that in the same way the Island doesn't allow things to happen to you while you "still [have] work to do," maybe the universe ENSURES something happens in a similar way?!?!?)
The only way to wholly avoid the Grandfather paradox and other such conflicts when dealing with travel through both time and space [read: a whole person time traveling] is to make that jump only able to go forward, having the traveler miss the time it takes to get there and then appearing wherever they end up, only able to affect the future from then on just like we do in the here and now. The future becomes that person's present and they have no way of going back to the time they came from.
If DHARMA made the Island go back in time to the South Pacific and the Black Rock run aground, that would also potentially create a problem of how they were still there when our 815ers crashed… unless of course DHARMA decided to use the extra time they'd gotten to keep performing their experiments and waited it out rather than turn the wheel of fate again and take their chances…
While Ms. Hawking & co. could be evidence of traveling back to the past and have demonstrated some weight behind the course correction she points to, I think that only when we get to her time (maybe some flash forwards in Seasons 5 or perhaps a big reveal in Season 6) will anyone be able to figure out how to turn back the clock, and safely.
2) My other scenario is one that seems to fit right into what we've seen on Lost, and was inspired in part by something Toni said while we were chatting, so this next bit of madness is due in part to her. We have yet to see what happens to the people on the Island when it time warps (though hopefully we'll get their perspective sometime next season… hopefully at the beginning). Maybe the Island goes through something much like a wormhole, but somehow interacts with other things in the timestream and picks up hitchhikers along the way. Or, even more tantalizing… What if the Island time traveled during or shortly after the INCIDENT?!?
We can now basically surmise (thanks to the words of Darlton from the podcasts and Access: Granted) that the Incident occurred when DHARMA drilled down into the depths of the Island to try and tap into the electromagnetic source they detected, and that in doing so they unleashed some massive EM. EM that probably created the Island's first ever purple sky, which in turn caused them to put the Swan station on top in an effort to cork their mistake and let the thing rev up for the smaller, more harmless increment of every 108 minutes before restarting the process. If, after that initial screw up, the Island became unstuck in time just like it did when Des turned the failsafe and obliterated the Hatch, and THEN the whole Island traveled through time… well, it's conceivable that, even if it landed in the spot where it was until recently, it would be blinking in and out of existence in other times as well. Sound like any ghostship stories you know?
The Initiative messes around with both EMs — electromagnetism and exotic matter — and winds up in the South Pacific but not knowing when. *Blink* The Black Rock suddenly appears inland and runs aground… *Blink* Unstuck in time, the Island keeps jumping around and people get the Sickness from not having constants… *Blink* … until DHARMA finally puts a lid on things and our favorite geodesic dome is there to house the computer (which from then on becomes the key to keeping the Island WHEN it's supposed to be and preventing planes from falling out of the sky). 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42... EXECUTE… And we're back to DHARMA's current time. The Numbers act as a constant for the members of the Initiative, keeping everything put until the Purge wipes out all those remaining who didn't switch over to the Others. Radzinsky, last surviving member of the pre-Purge DHARMA Initiative, recruits Kelvin Inman, and he and his buddy keep pushing the buttons down in the Swan.
Flash forward. Libby mysteriously gives Desmond her husband's boat and he sails in the race Widmore has designed so that hundreds of people are sent sailing around the world in order for someone to find the Island. Not knowing the exact bearing to travel to and fro, when he is knocked out from being tossed on the waves he washes up on the Island shore dazed and confused. Kelvin trains Des to punch in the Numbers down there in the Hatch and plans to split, his faith lost in what Radzinsky taught him after his hazmat suit rips and he doesn't get the Sickness. He fails to explain the importance of the Numbers because he doesn't believe anymore, and thereby leaves the task to a man for whom they have no value or meaning except in keeping him slave to button pushing and far away from his beloved Penny for 3 some-odd years. Kelvin dons the hazmat suit and tries to depart in The Elizabeth, and Des, not believing in the importance of saving the world for the next 108 minutes anymore, follows him. The two struggle and Kelvin is accidentally killed, and in an instant Desmond suddenly worries about what else Kelvin never told him, running back to the Swan. But he's too late. It's been over 108 minutes, the timer has lapsed past zero and now reads "Underworld" in ancient Egyptian, indicating that if somebody doesn't do something we're all gonna die.
SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE SYSTEM FAILURE… The EM discharges and hits Flight 815, stressing it enough to rip into three pieces. Beneath the Swan, the huge electromagnet below recharges, pulling anything metal (including what's left of Oceanic) furiously toward it. Des enters the Numbers frantically: 4, 8, 15, 15, 23, 42… EXECUTE… and everything powers down. Flight 815, now thru the barriers of the Island and much closer to ground, decelerates and goes back into free fall. WHAM!!!
With Widmore's comments on how the Island used to be/still is his, I have a sneaking suspicion that either a) he was a joint partner with Hanso, b) was the on-Island manager of the Initiative, or some combination of the two. Either way, since the Island moved and the Purge occurred he's not been able to find it, until of course he explores the relation to the Black Rock that he somehow knows about. Widmore buys the ship's ledger at the Southfields auction that a consciousness-jarred Desmond witnesses in 1996 (The Constant), and from it he gleans enough about the location to send his motley crew and mercenaries on the Freighter… But not before having successfully planted a staged wreck of Oceanic 815 where he could claim he was searching for the Black Rock: in the Sunda Trench.
There ya have it... Polar bears and the Island's tumultuous recent past. But I'd be remiss if I said that's all I thought of TNPLH. In all honesty, I keep returning to that Frozen Donkey Wheel, and those of you who listen to the official podcasts from Darlton know why. In previous seasons Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (exec producers, writers, and the co-creator/show runner of the show, respectively) gave us the codename of the secret/momentous scene in the finales: "the Bagel" (Season 1), "the Challah" (Season 2), and "the Snake in the Mailbox" (Season 3's mindf*ck of a flash forward reveal). This year's finale, however, they practically handed the moment to us on a silver platter with "the Frozen Donkey Wheel," since that was, quite literally, what we saw used as the device to move the Island. Being the masterminds that they are, and seeing how amazingly genius it was to dare hiding that moment in plain sight, I began to re-evaluate some of the other statements that the dynamic duo have made publicly about LOST to see if anything else jumped out at me. Lo and behold, after seeing all the sci-fi that this show exudes, I have to point to what Darlton have called the series time and time again. Whenever the issue of canonicity has come up, the show itself has been referred to as the "Mothership."
Now, I know what you're all thinking: the Island being an alien spaceship was a theory debunked by Damon ages ago. Normally I would agree with you and move on, but consider for a moment that The Powers That Be initially denied Aaron being a member of the Oceanic 6, leading to wild speculation about who the final member was right up until a promotional clip from ABC revealed him to actually count. The writers and show makers wouldn't just acknowledge if someone figured out a key element of the series, plain and simple. They've said it themselves, and this has been further proven by the fan inspired theories reviewed by Darlton, where the two have picked and rated the speculation of fans not based on accuracy, but rather imagination. (Just look up "What is the Smoke Monster?" on Yahoo Answers and see who they picked out of 8,000 some-odd results, as well as their own comments on the matter… not to mention their more recent U.S. Weekly theory ratings.)
In this latest installment of the show, Locke specifically said "It isn't an Island…" to Jack. And though John may not know what it truly is (yet), or simply have called it "a place where miracles happen," I bet he's right about that first bit. Which brings us back to the Mothership. If the "Island" is really an alien spaceship which crashed on Earth in ancient, possibly even prehistoric times, that would explain quite a lot, to tell the truth. All the earthly vegetation and such could have built up on it from being derelict for so long, effectively masking the ship as the Island we've come to know and love. It would allow for various cultures [read: the Hostiles/Others] to have come across it and made it their home or some holy site, which would account for what appears to be the ancient evidence of human culture: the Ruins, the door to Ben's Smokey-Summoning Chamber, and perhaps even the Temple and Four-toed Statue). Or maybe those things are part of the initial structure and were intentionally ancient-looking.
And as it was so astutely pointed out to me, Darlton, when pressed for the location of the series ending, said "Somewhere just outside the Crab Nebula is where it will all end, geographically." (The Crab Nebula, incidentally, seems to tie into some recent themes and characters of Lost… most notably in the form of Rudolf Minkowski — nephew of the space-time theorist Hermann Minkowski who our George was a nod to — discovering the star responsible for the nebula and noting that it had an extremely unusual optical spectrum, an observation eerily reminiscent of Daniel Faraday's comment: "The light… It just doesn't scatter quite right here, does it?"). More importantly, though, a spaceship would give precedence for if not explain much of the otherworldly things like the electromagnetism and time travel-causing negatively charged exotic matter.
I dunno about the rest of you, but Ben cranking that wheel definitely sounded like it started something like turbines to me. Can you say propulsion system? And don't even try to deny that the smoke monster has been acting very similarly to the alien(s) of the "The Abyss" — (for those who don't know, in the movie there was an alien made out of what seemed to be a column of water that began to mimic human form when one of the characters touched it, which afterward projected images of humanity's barbarism to a hero in his final moments and then reanimated him for sacrificing himself to save its kind. Change the water to smoke. Sound familiar?) Jacob could even possibly be the last surviving member of the original crew suffering the time-ravaging affects of the crash, or maybe the ship's malfunctioning AI navigation; a holographic representation (in human form) that's actually the ship's systems. Comparisons with Rommie from TV's "Andromeda" come to mind, though Lexa Doig is much more fetching than our ghostly cabin misanthrope.
I concede that it's entirely possible that what I have deemed "alien" is simply from far into our own human future — so far in the future that it seems alien — in which case Ms. Hawking and the other enforcers of time would be the people responsible for the Island, explaining and giving credence to her cryptic words to Desmond: "If you don't [push that button], all of us are dead."
That's all I've got so far, as if that isn't enough… but when I think of more I'll let you all know. Take of this what you will, but rest assured that at very least the polar bears are a mystery solved, and be confident in the knowledge that DHARMA moved the Island to the Black Rock's location, which Widmore used to track it down in the South Pacific. Whether you believe the rest of this and buy into an alien/future human explanation, one thing is certain: we now know that many of the mystical and mythical elements of the show come from the bowels of the Island. The electromagnetism emanating from beneath the Swan, exotic matter far below the Orchid, and the tunnels/vents that are used to summon/release Smokey are all deep, dark secrets indicating that, if nothing else, the knowledge of what we're dealing with will only be revealed by either taking a leap of faith or digging for answers...
