[Keeping Pace]

Part 2 of 7



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:

• 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.

• My other scenario is one that seems to fit right into what we’ve seen on Lost. 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. [glow=red,2,300]*Blink*[/glow] The Black Rock suddenly appears inland and runs aground… [glow=red,2,300]*Blink*[/glow] Unstuck in time, the Island keeps jumping around and people get the Sickness from not having constants… [glow=red,2,300]*Blink*[/glow] … 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, 16, 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!!!

Continued in Part 3...