Hey Ben, why use the frozen old junk when the shiny new apparatus was right there?A lot of us are wondering why Ben had to break through the Orchid's fancy chamber vault, and use the ancient looking wheel instead, to complete his task of moving the island. Some comments of Ellen's on the TLC blog led me to a few thoughts about that: "...the fact that Ben had to blow a hole to gain entrance and then chip huge icicles off the wheel with a tire iron leads me to think that it hadn't been used since the Dharma Initiative arrived and built the Orchid Station." What she said made me think that maybe it's like the difference between the results of an atomic bomb blast, and an atomic power plant.
The FDW itself seems to be a crude but powerful apparatus that might be difficult to control for applied purposes beyond it's original intention, whatever that may be. It would make sense that the DI would have had to refine and upgrade the mechanics of the ancient machine before they could utilize it. With modern equipment to regulate the power, they could create a more manageable process, so that it could be used in various controlled and specific applications via the vault and instruments built onto it. Maybe the DI had even tried out the FDW for themselves when they found it, created an incredible result (moving in time or space), and then built equipment around it to harness the energy for practical purposes. So instead of trying to get a handle on an atomic bomb, they built a modern system onto it and learned to use it as a moderated power plant to run their futuristic equipment. Like Ben said, it was used for experiments with bunnies, so it seems as if the DI did not get very far along in their tests with wormholes, or whatever, before they got purged out.
Then when it came time for Ben to move and hide the island, the refined vault apparatus itself was probably of no use to him in doing what he had to do. He had to quickly get to the true power source, i.e. the big guns that were covered up, and turn the FDW to get the huge blast that he needed. And voila, the island "moved". Well, it's just a thought.
10 comments:
very good post, Capcom! Thanks for the mention...:)
xxoo
Excellent post, Capcom. DI either didn't know the true powers of the island right under their feet or they were trying to refine it so it wouldn't be so unpredictable and something of "last resort".
I like your thinking Capcom! The DI knew the island had "special" properties, but I don't think they were fully aware of the potency of the magnetic properties until well after they arrived.
Why do you suppose it's so cold down there though?
Love your blog!!
Thanks everyone! I would really like to BE TOLD by TPTB why that area was so cold. I hope that's not one of the many minor details that we'll never learn! :-( Speculation could go anywhere our imagination could take us and I'm afraid to even try to hard. Either the DI had to build some kind of cold-trap (like used on scientific equipment to contain gases/vapors) or a refrigeration system to keep the thing from over heating....or, it's some kind of natural phenomenon somehow....or, the original islanders built a chiller for the energy core out of bamboo and papayas. j/k Maybe it's near a nature underground freon spring!? :-D
Hey PGT, long time no see!
Capcom,
I've been here, it just that (as Frank said) "half the stuff goes over my head, the other half way way over" :)
Especially the casimir effect, worm holes and time travel.
pgt
That's OK, your comments are always good! :-)
The writer's strike cut into us getting more info about the Orchid station and the producers tried to get at least a taste of its insides as well as what it could do. To guess on why its so cold down there, I'd really like to know how far down that elevator shaft went. Could it be part of the dormant volcano? I posted over at EYE M SICK earlier; I think the bunnies were being sent "out there" and retrieved. I want to believe Ben (as evidenced by the polar bear)that if you used the donkey wheel, it was a one way trip, compared to if you used The Vault. The Orchid orientation tape is on the S3 DVD as well as YouTube now, Bunny 15 is in Haliwax's hands and then appears behind him on a shelf. So it seems that some energy was harnessed but had yet to be applied without screwups, i.e., Bunny 15 sent into the future went into the past instead, therefore within a few seconds there were TWO bunny 15s in the same frame of film. And the DI got all freaked out.
I agree Wayne! Good thoughts on this. Yes, "deep" was not a good enough answer from Ben when Locke asked how deep it went. It would be neat if it was an old volcanic lava tube, but how it got so cold I guess we'll just have to wait. :-(
Yes, the Orchid vids are our only key to understanding this so far (and so little). I'm still wondering what TPTB mean when they had the tech say that she set the "shift" for negative 20...a negative setting could imply a reverse affect. Did she wrongly set it for negative (the past) but was supposed to set it for positive (the future)? We don't know that for sure with what little we have to go on.
I just checked Lostpedia Orchid theories, and their thoughts are pretty interesting.
http://lostpedia.com/wiki/The_Orchid/Theories
Hey, Capcom. Maybe DI did move the Island at one point. I've always been baffled by the DI timeline. I at first thought the DI started in the early 70s, then the blast door map showed incidents occuring from 84 through 86. I was kind of surprised the purge occurred in 1992. Could Ben be taking credit for the DI moving this Island by mistake the first time, therefore hiding it from Wid?
Post a Comment