1/27/09- THE ISLAND SPACETIME TUNER
I'm DFB, Dynomite? No, a Little DAB'll Do Ya....
Last year, I predicted that we might see a new twist on the flashback/flashforward plot device, namely a DFB or a Deep Flash Back. Here is where I provided the example of Hurley clothed in ancient sackcloth garb, speaking in an ancient tongue, handing out rations (again!), but this time to workers installing the ancient tech devices placed throughout the island. This was one example of how the Lost producers/writers might take the next logical step in revealing more about the backstory (and futurestory) of a central character on the show.... the ISLAND itself....
Kudos to the Lost crew for devising an inventive riff on that basic idea... In Season Five we will be seeing ACTUAL (not flash) movements backward and forward, across time, not a DFB, but a DAB (Deep Actual Back). And, of course, we will also be seeing actual movements forward, deep and otherwise.
This new plot device catalyzes all sorts of intriguing plot twists, scientific debates, and existential questions.... For example, I would not be surprised to see the Hurley scenario played out per above, but this time with the DAB twist of 'modern' Hurley observing 'ancient' Hurley, as 'modern' Hurley is hurled back in time, actually not flashily, as one of those consequences Ben spoke about when the island is moved (and the spacetime vibrations constituting our superstrung universe are weirdly thrown out of tune, producing a spacetime 'hiccupping', record-skipping effect.... (Please see my 1/26/09 posting, in this regard.)
Hmmm.... Now, what would happen if the 'modern' Hurley tried to sneak behind the motley ancient crew of workers, to steal some food, only to be caught by 'ancient' Hurley, and slapped on the back of his hand? Like me, you too are probably thinking back to the Orchid hatch orientation tape, and the double-bunnies.... KABOOM? Or?
If not Hurley, it will be someone else. Maybe they'll have 'modern' Locke DAB and see himself leading an ancient cult, captivated by and controlled through 'ancient' Locke's ability to leverage the island's unique power, through ancient tech and through mind/psychic powers.... Would you save the world, if you knew you would have to die yet again, a second time, by literally embracing your ancient counterpart, to help save the harmonic integrity of the superstrung universe (see the 1/26/09 posting in this regard.) And yes, this would be the second death of Locke, as perhaps we all expect to see him emerge in Christlike manner, from the cave in which they place his coffin, after the return of the Oceanic 6, beating the 70 hour deadline....
Time Travel? Or, Space-Time Travel?
Most of us are now wrestling with the intricacies opened up by the shift to actual movements backward and forward in time, instead of flashes.... It would be easy to construe the present and future proceedings on the show as involving straightforward time travel, with BOTH the island and the occupants (native and visitors alike) moving together, backward and forward in time, due to the 'record-skipping' effect unleashed through Ben's moving the island. So one facile interpretation is that both island and occupants are now skipping up and down the timeline, 'bungie-cording' forward and backward across time, together.
However, at least three pieces of evidence provided to us last Wednesday appear to refute that simplistic interpretation:
1. Ben was thrown clear of the island, landing far away in time, ACROSS SPACE, providing evidence for the existence of spatial effects in which the island and its occupants may not be so tightly coupled as to be moving through spacetime together....
2. Richard Alpert and crew were nowhere to be seen by Locke, after the island was moved.
3. Island occupants retained their sentience (thoughts, memories) which they held at the precise moment the island was moved, after the island was moved.
These observations strongly suggest that the Season Five plot device is not simply time travel, but instead involves SPACETIME travel. What's the difference? The short story is that we cannot and should not assume that BOTH the island and its occupants are moving together in a tightly coupled manner, across time and space....
Indeed, Richard Alpert and the other native inhabitants may in fact be functioning as the island's own CONSTANT, not unlike the anchoring devices ZATHRAS attached to John Sheridan and other Babylong 5 crew members, as they used the White Star to help stave off the threat of the Shadows, in and across time....
So one distinct possibility is that when Ben moved the island, the island really did move in time AND across space, jumping to another node in the Earth's energy grid (i.e., another vortex in the set of 12 'vile vortices' spanning the Earth.) Is the island NOW located in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Bermuda Triangle area, or is it located at some other node/vortex on the Earth's energy grid. (Here I'm construing NOW as the time immediately after the move, defined in terms of when and where the Oceanic 6 are located, right after the island was moved.)
At the same time, while Ben was moved away from the island spatially due to his proximity to the device/effect, and while Richard Alpert and the other native inhabitants remained anchored as 'constants' on the spatially-shifted island, the rest of island's occupants (Flight 815 passengers and Widmore's team) were caught in the Casimir-enabled, exotically-charged, rippling wave of spacetime vibrational distortions, i.e., they were thrown/moved into an ongoing and escalating temporal anomaly (record-skipping), forced to skip backward and forward across time, effectively retracing portions of the past, present, and future spacetime path traversed by the island....
I know this sounds a bit convoluted, but it's actually quite simple.... If you are the one who throws the switch to move the island (Ben, in this case), you are thrown out of the island's spacetime songline, to another place/space on the Earth's energy grid. If you are one of the island's native inhabitants (Richard Alpert, etc.), since your body has been 'tuned' to the island for so long, you are spatiotemporally anchored to the island and follow it across space and time, whenever it shifts as a result of someone turning the wheel of the device. If, however, you are a recent visitor to the island, your body is not yet 'tuned' to the island, so you are not tightly coupled or 'anchored' as a constant, to the island, and accordingly you skip forward and backward along the island's songline, across time and space (more on the latter, below....)
Think of the island's path through its existence in spacetime on Earth as a series or sequence of vibrations, or 'notes' which, when viewed from a broader scale, constitute the ongoing 'song' of life/existence which the island has and is writing in and across spacetime (songs in the key of a superstrung universe). As relatively new and 'untuned' visitors to the island, Locke and the other Flight 815 survivors, as well as the members of Widmore's team, are caught in the 'loop' of the spacetime record-skipping of this song, as per the opening scene for Season 5....
So yes, they really are there, on the island, existing actually backward and forward in time, not in flashes backward or forward. And they just might encounter their own selves, or even past and future versions of themselves, while this record-skipping phenomenon occurs. I strongly suspect that not only will the island's songline keep on skipping, but that the skipping will only escalate unless and until the Oceanic 6 are returned to the island, helping to restore the harmonic integrity of the island's ongoing spacetime 'song', retuning and restoring 'Good Vibrations' to our superstrung universe.
One interesting plot implication is that in addition to recent island visitors moving forward and backward across island time, by virtue of this movement they may in fact be retracing the island's SPACETIME path across the Earth. So don't be surprised to find that the movements backward or forward across time ALSO involve retracing movements by the island across SPACE, and as a result, the occupants not only find themselves in a different time, but they also find that the island is located in a different space/place on the Earth's energy grid....
Bermuda Triangle, anyone?!?! How intriguing it would be, to see a future Lost episode in which Locke looked up in the sky and saw that fateful Lost Flight 19 Squadron fall from the sky, onto the island at some yet-to-be revealed location, since moving backward and forward along the island's 'songline' of prior, present, and future spacetime coordinates not only moves occupants across time, but makes them retrace the island's movements across SPACE, from past, present, to future.... In short, what I'm proposing is that when the recent island visitors 'record-skip' along the island's timeline, they are simultaneously retracing the island's spaceline. So if Locke happens to 'skip' back to December 5th, 1945, don't be surprised to see him look up and witness the Flight 19 planes flying overhead, the squadron that was lost over the Bermuda Triangle, as this is WHERE (on the energy grid) the island may have been located in space, during that time period....
In brief, I'm proposing that what we are observing involves the recent island visitors being caught 'in the wake' of the vibrational/waveform distortions in the island's spacetime path/street/string (pick your metaphor) arising from the act of Ben moving the island, and one result is that these people are record-skipping backward and forward along this 'songline', moving backward and forward not only in a temporal sense, but also in a spatial sense, retracing BOTH the temporal and spatial path the island has traveled in the past, is traveling in the present, and will travel in the future.
Everyone on the island, that is, except for Richard Alpert and crew, who as natives are the island's constant/anchor, and poor old Ben, who was kicked off the island's songline.... Now the challenge for Ben and Fionulla is to chart when and where the island will be (its exact SPACETIME coordinates) when they attempt to meet up with the island and return the Oceanic 6.
This is why the Black Rock ledger is so important, as it contains a record of a portion of the island's prior spacetime movements, and Charles Widmore certainly was keen on acquiring that document at the auction. Moverover, this is why it was so important for Fionnula to use the pendulum and carefully calculate when the Oceanic 6 needed to be returned to the island (the deadline, that is....) In addition to this being a critically important temporal window for restoring the Oceanic 6 and harmonic resonance to the island's songline ('Good Vibrations'), I suspect there is an undisclosed and equally important spatial aspect to this window, namely predicting with precision and accuracy not only WHEN to be there, but WHERE to be, on the energy grid, in order to deliver the Oceanic 6 back to the island....
The Island Spacetime Tuner-
Building on my 1/26/09 posting, and consistent with a range of my prior postings on this site, I propose that the island has existed for millennia as a source of unique electromagnetic properties, including the Casimir Effect and negatively-charged exotic matter. Arising in no small part from the strength and influence of these unique physical/energetic properties on the Earth's energy grid and localized superstring vibrations, one core function of the island is to serve as a natural 'tuner' to help keep the superstrung vibrations of our existence 'in tune' ('Good Vibrations').
The threat of 'Bad Vibrations' first arose when ancient tech devices were installed to leverage the island's unique properties. Although the use and channeling of these properties through the devices produced undeniably impressive effects, these effects were achieved at the cost of some nontrivial consequences to our existence in space and time, such as that which we are currently witnessing as a result of Ben moving the island.
Indeed, perhaps the Fall of Atlantis is a direct result of the Atlanteans installing and using their ancient tech devices on the island, and when it moved, poof! just like the island in Lost, Atlantis was gone.... And I would not be surprised to learn that the island is the Lost City of Atlantis, covered by millennia of vegetation and sedimentation, with some of the camouflage potentially devised by Richard Alpert and the rest of the island's native (Atlantean?) inhabitants....
Hmm.... Atlantis and Lemuria may actually be the same place, namely an island with the ability to be moved.... Did the Atlanteans turn the wheel on their device and move the island to another place, another node on the energy grid, this time ending up in the Pacific Ocean (Atlantis now becomes Lemuria....}
Back to the original (natural) function of the island... keeping our spacetime superstrung existence 'in tune'.... Along come the Atlanteans, and they install and use their ancient tech device, and poof(!) they move the island from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.... Just like Ben moving the island, they disrupt the natural 'tuning' function of the island's unique properties, with strong, weirdly resonating vibrations propagating backward and forward across time, perturbing the vibrational/harmonic integrity of the island, hampering its ability to keep our superstrung existence 'in tune', and potentially threatening life as we know it....
Through analyzing and resolving the 'Bad Vibrational' perturbations, restoring harmonic integrity to the island and its ability to keep existence in tune, the Atlanteans devise a means for restoring 'Good Vibrations' involving, in part ,the pendular device we saw Fionnula Flanagan using, and the other related calculative procedures she was following.... These secrets were carefully guarded and handed down through the ages by a secret 'society' not unlike the 'Millennium Group' in the Fox TV show, Millennium....
Fionnula, Ben, Richard Alpert, and others are members of that group, charged with ensuring that the island's function as a spacetime tuner is not disrupted to the point of threatening our existence in a superstrung universe, as we know it.... That's why, Hurley, Ben did not move the island earlier... Given its profound effects in disturbing the natural tuning effects of the island, moving the island is only used as a last resort to help insure the island does not fall into bad hands, hands looking to exploit the island's unique properties to such an extent that they would inadvertently (or, advertently?) unleash an irrevocably destructive disharmonic waveform, damaging beyond repair, the harmonic integrity of our superstrung existence....
And yes, Locke is well-suited to take up the mantle of protecting the natural integrity of the island's existence as a necessary component in the ongoing health of Mother Earth, to insure our existence in the superstrung universe remains 'in tune'.
Good Vibrations indeed, Charlie!
Dr. Todd J. Hostager