FATE ACCOMPLICES:
NOSEBLEEDS, FAITH HEALINGS, CANCER,
AND THE DR. MANHATTAN PROJECT
Fate Foes And Fate Accomplices-
Grab the kleenex and cotton balls.... Unless and until the Oceanic 6 return to the island to help establish the mutual spacetime retuning process, don't be surprised to see even more of those who are caught in the island 'record skipping' develop nosebleeds, as each new episode (until the return of the Oceanic 6) pushes the limits, reaching greater and greater heights of spacetime skipping. Charlotte, now Miles and Juliet.... Who will be next?
How interesting to ponder that question within the broader context of island effects, to date.... From Locke's legs to Rose's remission, we've witnessed the 'magical' power of the island to accelerate and amplify healing processes (please see my 'Wounds & Wombs' piece, in this regard.) Framed within this earlier discussion was a debate regarding why Ben developed cancer, when the island has such profound healing effects.
While I still believe in the fundamental integrity of my proposition that time spent on the island can help to establish and deepen a mutual spacetime tuning process-- as island and visitor align within the unique vibrational signature produced in localized superstrung spacetime by the island's energy properties (electromagnetism, Casimir Effect, negatively-charged exotic matter, etc.)-- in retrospect I suspect that I may have underestimated the power and influence of the island's own survival instinct in producing positive and negative effects along the spacetimeline.
In my earlier pieces this year, I proposed that in addition to time spent on the island, another factor influencing spacetime effects is the extent to which the island likes you and wants you to be on the island. I would now amend and strengthen that claim in a way that helps to explain a range of different positive and negative spacetime effects, observed to date on the show. In short, I strongly believe that these effects have a common source, namely the island's own survival instinct... its drive to survive.
Who knows how this drive first arose.... Perhaps when the Atlanteans first set foot on the island, when the island/human mutual spacetime tuning process first began, and over time the island became so attached and attuned to these humans that its 'mind/sentience' began to absorb some of our traits, our wants, and our desires, both good and bad.... And chief among these is the drive to survive.1
So how might this help to explain the myriad positive and negative spacetime effects we have observed on the island? Simply put, the good and bad effects we have witnessed to date are tied together through the common underlying thread of serving the island's best interest: ensuring its continued survival. And per one of the trademark storytelling approaches on the show-- peeling back the veritable 'layers of the onion' in a slow and savoring manner-- for some of these effects we do not yet know how they may serve the island's survival, and for others, we may never know. To be sure, the Lost creative team will undoubtedly keep some of the central questions unanswered and some of the key issues unresolved at series' end, a time-tested technique for ensuring continued relevance and debate among fans and scholars alike, ala The Prisoner....
The short form of the answer is that in general terms, those whose motives and actions are serving the best interests of the island's continued survival (Fate Accomplices) will experience positive spacetime effects, and those whose intentions and behavior pose threats to the island's survival (Fate Foes) will experience negative effects. Of course, like Ben, at times it is in the best self-interest of the island to dish some hurt to a Fate Accomplice (sometimes we need the pain to gain....) But when all is said and done, it all goes back to serving the island's drive to survive.
Nosebleeds And Faith Healings And Cancer, Oh My!: The Island That Giveth And Taketh Away-
Examples of self-serving island spacetime effects on Fate Accomplices and Fate Foes include:
1. Locke's Leg(s)- Having witnessed the important role Locke has played as a champion of the island's continued survival and protection, this is Exhibit A.... The island that giveth and taketh away.... Through a series of unfortunate events-- or were they fated/intended?-- Oceanic Flight 815 breaks apart and falls to the island. Amazingly, the island retunes Locke's matter/energy profile and reestablishes his ability to walk. The island knows this is the first step in the developmental process of helping Locke to ultimately ascend to his fated role on the island. Along the way, we've seen Locke lose and regain the use of his legs, and the nontrivial role of faith (belief/thought/heuristics) in effecting material applications through the fundamental interconnectedness of energy and matter, manifest in Locke's ability to walk upright on two legs, a defining feature of the species. And we've seen this faith strengthened through accelerated healing of his leg wound, whilst reclining on the beach 'hot spot' with remissive Rose....
2. Rose's Remission- A second example of effects serving the island's self-interested survival. Rose is another Fate Accomplice in at least two distinct ways: (1) her miraculous healing manifests the power of the island and helps to further cement the importance and mutually beneficial results of the ongoing symbiotic relationship of tuning among island and inhabitants; and (2) Rose is a strong and staunch advocate for not leaving the island. With regard to the latter, recall her emotional and persistent efforts to champion the benefits of staying on the island, all while working to thwart the attempts by Bernard and others to establish a connection with the 'outside world'. In these ways, Rose has been helping to save the island from the threat of someone disclosing the island's location, exposing it to all sorts of potentially dire consequences (this theme will crop up again, helping to explain what happened to Minkowski...)
3. Ben's Cancer- How interesting to consider, within the context of effects serving the island's self-interested survival, that Ben's cancer may have served dual purposes aligned with ensuring the island's continued existence.... Like Ben using the blood test to manipulate Kate into going back to the island, I suspect that the island may have been equally manipulative in 'causing' Ben's cancer, to provide a critical lever moving Ben and the others from persecuting, to working with, the Flight 815 survivors. The island wanted the Flight 815 survivors there, but while Ben (being Ben!) may have initially had the island's best interests at heart (protect it from the threat of outsiders), he let his lust for power and control blind him to seeing why the survivors were really there, and that the island wanted them there for some good reasons (Locke's fated ascension to leadership, etc.) So the island pulled a 'dual purpose' act by 'causing' Ben's cancer, perhaps even simply by allowing it to occur through withholding its healing powers and letting a cancer that would have developed on the mainland anyway, run its course and develop in Ben. Or perhaps it had a more active hand through focusing its energy on Ben's back ('Bad Vibrations'.) However it happened, the result was the twin effect of: (1) punishing Ben for abusing his power and authority on the island, as he had turned away from the primary goal of ensuring the island's survival to pursuing his own personal agenda; and (2) establishing a bridge to better relations among others and Flight 815 survivors.... the doctor you need to save your life is among those survivors, Ben....
And, of course, while Ben is further punished through physical abuse, humiliation, and having to hand his crown over to Locke, Ben gets to have his own measure of redemption by turning the wheel, moving the island in spacetime, and thus helping to ensure the long-term survival of the island. As a reward, Ben gets to lead the elite mainland team (including Sayid) as they do their best to safeguard the island's integrity, working with Fionnula and other members of the group charged, over the millennia, with off-island tasks to help keep the island's location a secret and its existence and continued operation safe. How long Ben must stay in the 'penalty box' after moving the island, in his 'detuned' punishment, remains to be seen, but I suspect the island will again forgive him and allow him to return, riding the coat tails of yet another act of redemption, namely the return of the Oceanic 6 to the island....
4. Oh, Those Nasty Nosebleeds, Part 1- It's a sign of the times... dissociative spacetime fugues....? Per my prior writings, I concur with Faraday's comment that length of stay (duration on the island) has profound and material effects on a person's mind/matter energy pattern, including the extent of mutual spacetime tuning.... And what we saw in The Little Prince is consistent with my prior conjecture that the island was moved in spacetime by Ben (likely to another node on the 'vile vortices' energy grid), AND at the same time, those like Locke were NOT moved with the island but instead were caught up in the spacetime vibrational 'wake' of the island's movement.
In short, they are 'record skipping' back and forth along the island's spacetimeline, doomed for now to 'replay' moments from the island's past, present, and future spacetime(song)line.... And per my prior surmises, I strongly suspect that unless and until the Oceanic 6 are returned to the island, Locke and the others will remain on that 'record skipping', capillary- and neuron-rending adventure.... lost in spacetime.
So yes, I concur with Faraday's diagnosis that duration of exposure to the island is a likely suspect in determining not only who will experience the nosebleeds and eventual neural mental fugue, but also the order in which they will succumb to the early warning signs of this fatal form of spacetime sickness.... Per my prior postings, I suspect that the more pronounced spacetime tuning/alignment among island and person/symbiote, resulting from length of stay on the island, accentuates the effects of the dissociative spacetime sickness experienced by Charlotte, Miles, and now, Juliet.
How does this work? The abrupt move of the island by Ben caused all but the most fully spacetune aligned inhabitants (Richard Alpert and the ancient Atlantean others) to be left behind in the wake of the move, to be 'lost' in and across spacetime, doomed to 'record skip' up and down the island's spacetimeline, moving both across time and space, replaying and retracing the island's past, present, and future spacetime paths/tracks. The effects of the spacetime separation on inhabitants/symbiotes is directly proportional to their length of stay (tuning) on the island, and it is a form of spacetime sickness resulting from a 'cutting of the spacetime chord', i.e., the spacetime equivalent of a 'dropped call', with the degree and timing of the effects in exact order, as a function of how long someone has spent on the island. The longer the time spent, the sooner your nose bleeds....
But, is it really as simple as that? Is anything ever as simple as that, on Lost? In accordance with the hallowed traditions of our cherished Lost creative team, I suspect that things will not be as simple as mere time spent on the island.... Consistent with the theme and thrust of this current posting, I would not be surprised to learn that in addition to time spent on the island, the desire of the island to survive may also prove to be a significant factor in whose noses bleed, and how fast the neural short-circuiting proceeds.... (Just to prime this pump.... One testable hypothesis is that length of stay is NOT the only factor determining whose nose bleeds, in what order, but in addition to that factor, whether or not you are friend or foe to the island does matter.... If Sawyer's nose bleeds before Locke's, this will provide some proof for my surmises in this posting, today....)
But before I resume this discussion, permit me a bit of relevant digression that ultimately will help to clarify matters.... First and foremost, let's acknowledge that Desmond's spacetime 'consciousness' switching on the freighter during The Constant appeared to have less dire consequences than Minkowski's actualbacks. Second, Desmond's flashbacks in earlier episodes appeared to have less dire effects than his spacetime 'consciousness' switching in The Constant. Indeed, it makes eminent sense that there is a sliding scale of impacts on our minds/bodies as a function of the precise nature of the spacetime effects that we have experienced:
4.a. At one end of the scale is a weak form of spacetime 'detuning', involving short bursts of spacetime dissociation, viz., flashbacks and forwards, ala Desmond. Flashes backward and forward produce noticeable but temporary effects such as fatigue and disorientation.
4.b. A more intense spacetime 'detuning' occurs with 'consciousness switching' such as that which Desmond experienced on the freighter, after having passed through the island 'event horizon' of negatively-charged exotic matter. This results in a more pronounced and lasting set of effects due to the greater length and intensity of the spacetime phenomenon (when compared with brief and fleeting flashes backward and forward.) This is where the nosebleeds and early signs of neural short-circuiting may begin to appear, when 'consciousness switching' has occurred with sufficient frequency and/or duration.
4.c. The most intense spacetime 'detuning' observed to date involves the jarring effects of actually moving backward and forward across spacetime. We witnessed one variation on this theme with Minkowski, and we are seeing another variation play out through the trials and tribulations experienced by Charlotte, Miles, Juliet and the others, caught in the 'record skipping' spacetime wake of the island being moved by Ben. Without proper protection (more on this, below), nosebleeds and neural short-circuiting are perhaps inevitable, leading to a lethal cortical 'danse macabre' as the electrochemical fugue plays out its fatal and fateful tune...
Back to those nasty nosebleeds..... How interesting it is to consider that Minkowski's actual spatiotemporal travels and travails presaged the Season 5 'record skipping' actualbacks, instead of Desmond's flashbacks.... A stroke of genius, indeed! And how interesting that while Minkowski fugued and short-circuited, his prediction that it would happen to other crew members did not pan out....2 Why was Minkowski singled out to receive such a jarringly negative spacetime fate? It's simple.... In his role as the ship's communications specialist, Minkowski was the single most threatening element, to the island's continued integrity and existence, at that time on the freighter. This is why he had to go, and why he was the focus of island-induced spacetime 'detuning' (profoundly and exsanguinatingly unstuck in spacetime), leading to bleeding and culminating in a lethal dose of neural short-circuiting....
5. Enter Michael, With Guns A'Jamming!- And how interesting to consider that, in addition to taking out the freighter's communications specialist, to help ensure its continued survival, the island 'tuned' mainland spacetime to cause the gun to jam while Michael was in the alley. Moreover, it subsequently 'tuned' freighter spacetime to cause another gun-jamming incident, all of this in the service of keeping Michael alive so that he could accomplish his appointed tasks-- taking out the freighter's communications equipment and sabotaging the ship's engine-- thereby thwarting the ability of those on the freighter to harm the island through disclosing its position to the outside world.
6. Oh, Those Nasty Nosebleeds, Part 2- Back to those nasty nosebleeds... Why have some of those caught in the island's post-move 'record skipping' spacetime wake-- Charlotte, now Miles and Juliet-- developed nosebleeds, while others (esp. Faraday) have not? Per my above remarks, in addition to Faraday's diagnosis that length of stay on the island is related to who gets nosebleeds, in what order, I strongly suspect that the second factor-- who is friend or foe, in relation to the island's survival?-- will be shown to play a role as the remainder of the series plays out in its trademark mixture of thrilling, engaging, and surprising storytelling....
So what about those nosebleeds, part deux....? Here I would again go back to the Minkowski incident and point to this as a prior example in which some experience bad spacetime effects, while others do not. And per my discussion above, I strongly suspect that just as the island can giveth (through accelerated and amplified healing effects, so too can it taketh away (through withholding its healing and protective powers, and perhaps even through abilities to focus negative energy/matter effects on others- 'Bad Vibrations.)
Why are Charlotte, Miles, and Juliet experiencing the nosebleeds, and not the other persons caught in the 'record skipping' spacetime wake (Faraday, Locke, etc.)? In addition to length of stay on the island, the other key part of the equation is that they, like Minkowski, are perceived by the island as threats to its continued survival.... Per my prior postings, I suspect that we will learn that Widmore's team was charged with a range of tasks aimed in no small part at exploring and uncovering ways to further exploit the island's unique energy properties in the service of Widmore's selfish interests, including his desire to ascend to the throne as the King of Fate, using the island's tuning abilities to plot and pave a spacetime street suiting his own purposes....
Thus we can see that as a specialist in dead languages and anthropology, Charlotte poses a threat to the island insofar as she possesses the requisite skillset for deciphering spoken and written messages expressed in ancient tongues, messages regarding where all of the ancient devices are located on the island, and how to use these devices to unlock and leverage the island's unique and seemingly magical energy properties.... They say that knowledge is power, and so too it is that holding the key to unlock that knowledge is power.... And this is exactly what Charlotte possesses, and is why she was chosen by Widmore to be on the team, and why she is so threatening to the island's desire to remain unshackled from Widmore's (and others') control and to ensure its own continued survival.... (Juliet to Sawyer: "Give her some space..." Yes, space away from the island would indeed help!)
Accordingly, we can see that Miles poses a similar threat to the island through his psychic abilities and through his demonstrated use of technological devices to communicate with entities on a higher plane of existence (other dimensions in the superstrung universe) and exploit information gained from this communication to self-interested ends (psychic dust/ghostbusting to find the stash of bills....) Per my 1/31/09 posting, in a future episode we may observe Miles's psychic and psi-tech skills put to good (bad?) use in a 'record skipping' actualback or actualforward involving ancient tech (or perhaps even an ancient/modern hybrid device), to engage in Temporal Remote Viewing (TRV) and other forms of tapping/hacking into previously written spacetimelines (Fatelines), with the goal of learning how specific acts/choices will alter the Fateline, backward, outward, and forward... Thus we can see how Miles poses a threat to the island's integrity as a spacetime tuner and its continued survival in the face of those who would exploit its abilities for their own selfish gain....
Juliet poses an even more intriguing case for us to consider, within the context of the island's drive to survive.... Why might Juliet pose a threat to the island's continued existence? Here the answer goes all the way back to the reason why she was brought to the island in the first place.... to learn why the mothers were dying and to find a way to stop these deaths from occurring. Given this charge/mission, there are at least two distinct yet related reasons that the island perceives Juliet as a risk to its security and survival. First, in the course of her research she certainly may have learned more than we have been told about the island's unique energy properties, how the island functions, and the full range of its effects on energy, mind, and matter. This knowledge could have devastating effects on the island, were it to fall into the wrong hands....
Second, the island may know that Juliet has (or will have) succeeded in learning how to conquer/counter the spacetime tuning sickness producing the mothers' deaths.... Babies conceived on the island are the result of combining sperm and eggs which have been exposed for a period of time to the island's unique energy properties and its unique localized vibrational signature in superstrung space. Over time, the sperm and eggs carried by island inhabitants becomes 'tuned' to this signature. Fully 'tuned' sperm and eggs, when combined, produce life which from its very inception has a closely symbiotic relationship with the island.... I strongly suspect that this is the reason that the mothers died.... They died from a form of spacetime sickness caused by the jarring, disjunctive discrepancy between their own partially 'tuned' bodies, and the more powerfully and fully 'tuned' lives they were carrying, and the profound result as we have seen is their deaths.
Indeed, this may be how the island wants it.... Babies conceived on the island will cause the premature deaths of their mothers, if the mothers stay on the island during the pregnancy. If, as in the case of Sun, they leave the island, the growing fetus will gradually 'detune' from island spacetime as a function of how far the mother/fetus has moved from the island in spacetime. thereby successively decreasing the degree of spacetime sickness between mother and child-to-be.
In accordance with the island's drive to survive, one intriguing reason that the island may be allowing the mothers' deaths to occur (by withholding its healing powers) is that it may be in the island's best self-preservational interests for it to want island-conceived babies dead. Imagine the power of someone, fully 'tuned' from birth as a product of 'tuned' sperm and egg, to exploit and leverage the island's unique energy properties.... Might not such a person pose a real and credible threat to the island's continued existence....? Would such a person be partially, perhaps even fully, immune from spacetime sickness?
Back to the matter of the nosebleeds.... Is the island 'causing' the nosebleeds with the threat of final removal from the Fateline through the spacetime fugue of neural short-circuiting ala Minkowski? Or is it simply choosing to allow the 'natural' effects of actualbacks and actualforwards to run their natural course for some of those caught in the wake of Ben moving the island (Charlotte, Miles, and Juliet), while for others it is employing its healing effects to cloak or shield them from the deleterious effects, as the island wants these persons (Locke, Faraday, and?) to remain unharmed, as their lives do not threaten the island's survival and, indeed, their existence and actions may in fact help the island, in the long run....
Will this second factor prove to be important in predicting who will get a nosebleed, in what order? (Space)Time will tell, and if Locke (as a central Fate Accomplice) is one of the last to get a nosebleed, or fails to succumb at all, then we will have some proof that the second factor is in play....
Hmmmm.... Does this not suggest that the island itself has some 'Dr. Manhattan-like' abilities, especially that of experiencing all time (backward, outward, and forward) at once?
Be Here Now: The Real Manhattan Project-
I'm not sure if I'm the first one to suggest this, but here goes.... Among the myriad of meanings and conjectures surrounding the H-bomb element in Jughead, there is that ever-so-slight but perceptible wink and nod to... the Manhattan Project. Now unless you've been living under a rock (Uluru/Ayers?) or have been listening to Mama Cass records in some hatch on some remote island, you know the profound importance of that clue for Lost aficionados..... The justly famous and revered Watchmen graphic novel, with Dr. Manhattan at front and center, providing an effective and entertaining constant within that storytelling universe, a Baba Ram Dass3 'Be Here Now' riff opening our minds to the profound implications of experiencing all of spacetime at once... past, present, and future....
While others have most certainly explored the ways in which Desmond, Faraday, and other characters in the series have manifest the abilities and temperament of Dr. Manhattan, let me suggest that these abilities may in no small part be linked through a common source or origin, namely the island itself, with its unique energy properties and the resultant effects of these properties, be they naturally occurring or channeled through a range of ancient and modern devices implanted on the island....
Where is all of this headed? I strongly suspect that over time, we will learn more about the ultimate aims of Widmore spanning the decades from his first appearance on the island to the present time. And that his funding of Faraday's research in no small part was an attempt to replicate the naturally-occurring 'pink glow' spacetime dissociative phenomenon he witnessed (or heard about) on the island. Indeed, perhaps we will learn that Faraday himself witnessed this effect as a naturally- occurring phenomenon on the island, or perhaps even as an effect channeled through some ancient tech device implanted by the Atlanteans.... Maybe this is one of the wondrous things that Faraday observed during his previous visits to the island, conducted under the auspices of, and in communication with, his patron in spacetime research, Charles Widmore.
So thus we may see that the real (Dr.) Manhattan Project in Lost involves the concerted and continued efforts by Widmore, to unlock and exploit the Dr. Manhattan- like powers of the island for his own selfish gain. And, of course, this Dr. Manhattan project is HEMAtic, enlisting the use of mind/thought as a crucial component, not surprisingly entailing casualties along the way, in the form of the dead, the dying and the dissociative human lab rats....
Hmmmm..... The island of(is) Manhattan.... And does Widmore aspire to ascend the island throne as King of Fate... and thus becoming Dr. Manhattan?
Dr. Todd J. Hostager
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ENDNOTES:
1. And yes, the island may have also 'absorbed' from us an understanding of our desire to help others survive through unselfish, altruistic acts of self-sacrifice. To wit, allowing the Jughead H-bomb to arrive on its shores. I'm sure others have noted the distinct possibility for self-sacrifice this affords, in case the island decides that circumstances warrant a suicidal 'poison pill'. What might those circumstances be? One possibility is that the island may be placed in a situation in which Widmore or someone else with nefarious aims is poised to take control of the island and leverage its spacetime tuning abilities to control/rewrite Fate, to the detriment of the planet (or perhaps even the brane/universe as we know it.... a Brane New World....?!)
2. Of course, Desmond is a special case here, as his neural wiring/spacetime tuning was uniquely rewritten/retuned as a result of the Swan hatch explosion. Even Faraday acknowledged how special Des was/is/will be... the One.... Recall that Desmond was experiencing a different spacetime effect than Minkowski, and this difference in effect was caused by a combination of: (1) his movement across the spacetime 'event horizon' surrounding the island, and (2) his unique 'flashing/unstuckness' abilities, enabled by and through the Swan hatch blast effects on Desmond's matter/mind/energy profile, including his unique vibrational signature in the superstrung universe.
3. See the life and works of Ram Dass (a.k.a. Richard Alpert) for some insights into links between aspects of Dr. Manhattan's powers and implications of Ram Dass' beliefs and teachings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass.
Curiously, however, while Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) does display an anti-aging ability that might be associated with someone able to experience all spacetime at once, so far he does not appear to have full awareness of all spacetime at once. To wit, his (apparent) inability to know/trust Locke during Locke's actualback. Despite handing Alpert the compass and mentioning Jacob, Alpert is unconvinced, implying that despite his undeniably youthful appearance, he lacks one of the key defining characteristics of Dr. Manhattan. Or, perhaps we'll learn that he is able to 'Be Here Now' and experience all of spacetime at once. Hmmmm.... was that pause by Faraday at the Swan hatch, prior to his knocking on the door and instructing Desmond to go to Oxford, an instance in which Faraday was displaying 'Manhattan-like' powers to access 'Be Here Now' spacetime experience to check whether or not he should knock on the hatch door (or, more correctly, whether or not he will knock, is knocking, and did knock....)