Episode 4: Season 5 -- Constants

This week’s episode finally started to bring into focus certain key underlying science fiction that lays at the heart of LOST. I am going to start once again with the hard facts and move on to explain how those new facts help explain previous open issues and mysteries.

Hard Facts

1. Daniel Faraday has previously extensively experimented with electro-magnetic settings which can allow animal consciousness to travel through time.

2. Time consciousness traveling is extremely dangerous and without a "constant" can result in death.

3. Time consciousness traveling is not the same thing as time travel as it is understood in classic science fiction literature. The body does not travel; only the mind.

4. Contact with portions of the Island’s electro-magnetic field, particularly the buffer around the Island, can result in this time consciousness traveling.

5. Desmond experiences time consciousness traveling.

6. The present Desmond (circa 2004) leaps into the past to make contact with Daniel Faraday in the past (1996) and influences experiments concerning time consciousness traveling.

7. Penny Widmore is Desmond’s constant.

8. Desmond fulfills his 1996 statement to call Penny Widmore on Christmas Eve 2004.

9. Desmond is Daniel Faraday’s constant.

10. Daniel Faraday, at some point in the past (and certainly in 1996) was a Professor at Oxford.

11. Notwithstanding his position on Oxford’s faculty, Faraday does nothing to protect his cranium (i.e., head) from radiation exposure.

12. The Barge’s communication equipment has been sabatoged.

13. Penny Widmore routinely attempted to contact the Barge.

14. George Minkowski encounters the electro-magnetic force of the Island and become mentally disabled by time travel and eventually succumbs by dying.

15. The perception of time is different on the Island.

16. The Island is buffered in places by an electro-magnetic field.

17. In 1996, Charles Widmore paid a high price for a copy of the diary kept by an officer on Black Rock.

18. Black Rock disappeared in 1845.

19. The Black Rock diary is said to have turned up 7 years later (i.e., 1852) in Madagascar which is basically half way around the world from the Island.

20. The setting Desmond relays to Faraday is 2342 at 11 megahertz for the test on Elouise to cause time consciousness travel for a rat.

Special Facts Available on the Internet
A video is available on YouTube concerning a secret DHARMA station on the Island known as the Orchid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bTvAUVPyLI&eurl=http://blog.zap2it.com/ithappenedlastnight/2008/02/lost-doing-the.html
The video reflects experiments on different numbered white rabbits. The unique properties of the Island are said to have created a Casimir effect. The field being studied is "highly volatile and extremely dangerous." [NOTE: I believe that Since LOST is science fiction, the precise qualities of what constitutes a Casimir effect and what its real world implications are, quite frankly, not that relevant here.]
Of particular interest in the video is that a Dr. Halowax, who claims to be a scientist, holds a white rabbit conspicuously marked as 15. In the middle of his presentation another rabbit marked as 15 suddenly appears on a shelf behind Halowax. A technician rushes in and an effort is made to prevent the two number 15 rabbits from seeing each other.
Also of interest is that during the video there are short cutouts which are out of place. One shows a bearded man in a suit walking in a location off the Island. Another shows an office building in a location of the Island. Another frame states "God loves you as he loved Jacob." Another frame seems to show a shot from the Barracks but it could be a shot from anywhere.

Attempting to Synthesize the New LOST Facts

1. The Island’s electro-magnetic characteristics allows for time consciousness travel. This is now quite obvious given what we have now been shown about Desmond. In fact, his prior "visions" may have been nothing other than relatively minor or moderate experiences of time consciousness travel.

2. The Island’s electro-magnetic characteristics can be utilized to physically transport physical objects including people to different places in the world. We have been shown that people can travel off the Island without the benefit of the submarine which Locke destroyed. Given that the Others do not appear to have any airplanes or other boats suitable to long distance travel, the fair inference is that something about the Island allows the Others (i.e., people in the know) to be transported to other places on Earth. A further supporting fact can be found in the Black Rock diary making it to Madagascar. No pirate could have carried it there because Black Rock is stranded in the middle of the Island and was not lost at sea either in a pirate battle or otherwise as seems to be the general belief based on the auction house statements concerning its voyage. No one on Black Rock made it off th Island in a normal fashion.

3. DHARMA worked to somehow unite these aspects of time consciousness travel with physical travel. The Orchid station video hints at this with the double Rabbit 15. The DHARMA polar bear found in a Tunisian excavation by Charlotte also reflects an animal physically transported back in time. Charlotte knew it was there because she was sent to check and see whether the experiment had been successful.

4. The numbers now appear to be some wavelength setting. The numbers (4-8-15-16-23-42) are likely settings to be employed much like the 11 megahertz 2342 setting Faraday used in his Oxford lab. If this is correct, it would undercut my previously expressed theory on the numbers being elements of Flight 815. However, the numbers could still have multiple meanings.

5. Penny Widmore actually is affiliated with the Barge. Otherwise, there is no plausible explanation why she is constantly calling the Barge. How would she know where the Barge is or how to reach the Barge if it was not affiliated with Widmore. This would make her comment to Charlie wrong or the result of confusion.

6. The Barge operatives are holding photos of Desmond because he is their constant. We have already been told that Faraday is using Desmond as his constant and we saw Faraday carrying a photo of Desmond. Since the Barge is affiliated with Widmore it was not hard for him to get a photo of Desmond with Penny. Ditto for Naomi.

7. Rousseau’s party probably did not come to the Island by accident. It was quite possible that Rousseau’s party of French scientists were agents of DHARMA or some other organization seeking to get to the Island for a specific purpose. Rousseau may not have known this or she may have known and is not telling. The Barge is keeping it’s distance from the Island because of it knows of the electro-magnetic field and its deleterious consequences.

8. The electro-magnetic buffer is limited in scope. The electro-magnetic effects are limited or do not exist at certain higher altitudes or under the sea. Otherwise, it would seem that DHARMA would be unable to make their food drops by air as we have previously witnessed and the submarine would be of no use in approaching the Island.

9. Jacob arrived on the Island in Black Rock. This would provide a ready explanation for his disdain of technology. I also suspect that he reason Jacob is a "great man" is because he unlocked the secrets of the Island as it relates to consciousness travel and location travel. Jacob needs help as he told Locke. The logical assumption is that he needs such help because of the approaching Barge but it could also be that he is somehow a victim of or trapped in a certain undesirable state on the Island.

10. DHARMA. DHARMA is the result of the collaboration of entities with different interests. They may not always work together. It is possible that elements of DHARMA were comfortable with, or at least reconciled to, the purge. It is also possible that some of its elements or corporate backers are involved with the Barge while others are not involved.

11. It is not yet clear how the Oceanic Six make it back to civilization. As I have said before, it appears that the Barge is that vehicle. However, anything can happen on LOST and Sayyid is already off to a rocky relationship with the Barge. That there is an Oceanic Six does not mean that other people from the plane including possibly Christian Shepard making it back to civilization some other way through the Island’s powers.