Dharma Station: The Tempest (for Angelo Comet)
An open letter to ANGELOCOMET.
I am a big fan of yours and am hoping you will give serious (but not serious if you get my meaning) study to the Tempest…
Here are a few thoughts to get you started:
The island is volcanic. I am told, knowing nothing on the subject myself, that when a volcano erupts molten lava flows down the sides of the mountain and cool down like fingers. The surface of the fingers cool down first as lava and gases push through like blood through vanes. Eventually these hollow out and lava tubes are formed.
On our Lost island these would become natural ducts through which electromagnetic power flows. According to the maps some of you have posted on-line, many of the stations are situated in a circle around the extinct volcano (I am way out on a limb here by the way, as I am rotten at reading maps). Some maps show the pearl in the middle of the cluster, but this could be wrong.
On Radzinski’s diagram there is a question mark right smack dab in the middle. AC, would you care to hazard a guess or do you have evidence of what this is? The volcano crater? The Tempest power station? The Orchid?
So 1970. Alvar Hanso, backed by Widmore industries, gets the DeGroots, Chang, Enzo Valenzetti and others to move in and start building. How much do you want to bet they are constructing stations in locations that have convenient sources of energy they can harness, like perhaps exit vents from the lava tubes flowing out from the crater. By 1980 (the year two of the three orientation films and videos we see are copyrighted) they have just completed the Arrow and are well into construction of the Orchid.
One station is used to harness, convert, control and regulate the awesome power of the crater. That station is THE TEMPEST. Where power can flow one way, it can be reversed and flow back. So when Charlotte and Daniel invade the station they are trying to prevent some nerve agent from being released into the lava vents and pumped into every powered living space on the island.
Here is another thought:
If you remember Shakespeare’s play of the same name (and I barely do) … The scholar-magician Prospero (read Jacob) is shipwrecked on a magical island with his young daughter (Christian – Claire? or Ben – Alex? or Charles Widmore and Penny?) where faeries and imps dance about making mischief and mayhem. Prospero harnesses the magic of the island and becomes an omnipotent semi-deity. Far below the island in a dark cavern lurks Caliban, the half man half monster (smoke monster? or Benjamin inus?) who emerges and conspires to bring down Prospero.
The play opens when another ship is wrecked onto the island and lo and behold who washes up on shore? The handsome young son of a duke who originally plotted against Prospero and brought about his banishment. Prospero’s daughter Miranda falls in love with the boy (Karl – Alex? or in a gender reversal, Jack and Kate?)… Memory fails me, but you can look it up. Deus Ex Machina and yada yada and they all live hapilly ever after except for Caliban who returns to his cave to rot.
Maybe there is something there you can start with, maybe not. As they say at this time of year in Los Angeles … For your consideration …
Well, im not the all powerful AC, but this is good thought. I have heard it discussed before, but i love the way you look at the father daughter relationships…and id say most likely des, penny, widmore
Let’s ease up on the “all powerful”, eh!? I’m just a regular guy, watching Lost and figuring it out like the rest of us!
Not that I don’t appreciate the praise – any praise! – of course.
Now then. A Tempest post, eh? To go along with all the other Dharma Station posts I did between Season 3 and 4. All those original posts need an overhaul (The Orchid one, especially) and there’s The Tempest and The Temple and that new one with a lamp symbol that’s due this season.
So probably I’ll re-visit the whole series between Season 5 and Season 6.
One thing I can answer is that the question mark at the centre of the Blast Door Map was denoting the position of what we would come to know as The Pearl Station.
My gut feeling right now, regarding The Tempest, is that it most certainly was a station capable of producing a gas that would kill every person on the Island. Like a tempest, a storm that would blast away everyone. Why have such a station? Potentially in the event of potentially creating a world-ending paradox on the Island due to time-travelling. . .? That’s my instinctive gut reaction.
It could obviously use more time, thought and information!
ac, just like to say that i say things like that out of respect, it is earned with me, not just given. Your answer is why i say things like that, the tempest..a storm…it takes knowledge or research (not just off the top of your head) to get what you say and i enjoy almost all of your stuff.
Hope I didn’t embarrass you too much AC. But your essays really are cool and fun. Keep them coming. I understand that they are a major time investment.
I really believe there is more to be said about the Arrow as well.
Pierre Chang states that the station’s ‘primary purpose is to develop defensive strategies and gather intelligence on the island’s hostile indigenous population-‘ (at which point he is interrupted).
In ‘The Other 48 Days’ Ana-Lucia describes the arrow as a ‘bunker’. Goodwin Stanhope, possibly in order to throw the tailies off the scent says: ‘looks like some sort of storage facility’ Stanhope’s reaction when he sees the radio suggests he did not know it was there. Perhaps he did not know about the arrow at all. Eko finds The bible left behind by S. Radzinski and Libby finds a glass eye. (A note about the radio. It looks like a throw back to the late 1970’s or early 80’s ? Anyone?)
I am free associating here, but when I put all these bits together (there is not much), I come up with Mikhail Bakunin.
We know Kelvin ‘Joe’ Inman is ex-CIA. We assume that Ben did not know about the Swan and the Arrow. We know (I do not remember where) that Mikhail is ex-KGB.
I start to see a recruiting pattern for the later DHARMA initiative.
Maybe their war with the hostiles is not going too well. They go from guys like Roger Linus to guys like Mikhail Bakunin.
They built the Arrow sometime in before 1980. We know this because the copyright on orientation film three (the Swan) and the orientation video for the Pearl (station five) are both for 1980. The arrow must have been built before 1980 because it is station two. It is odd that the Swan orientation film is a 16mm print where the pearl is a 3/4″ tape. It appears that the Arrow orientation video is also going to be on 3/4″ tape. Note that the Orchid video is likewise 3/4″ tape. All this may or may not help in establishing a chronology.
I will have to add another post on chronological discrepancies…
So the hostiles are being a nuissance. One of the unfinished stations seems to be undisturbed despite being ‘behind enemy lines’ as it were. Dharma is always recruiting people with military or intelligence backgrounds…
Chang: ‘Given your specific area of expertise… gather intelligence… develop defensive strategies…’
Widmore (to Desmond): ‘Ever been in the military?’
Something goes wrong. The two guys, Radzinski and Inman lose contact with the outside world while doing their shift in the Swan bunker. The hostiles know nothing about the Swan and leave them alone. Radzinski (who has lost an eye during his tour in Afghanistan) takes to going out and making the map. Perhaps Inman helps. They explore the island very cautiously and take stock of enemy positions. They use the Arrow as a far away base to spy on New Otherton and the other stations. They draw a map to help remember them. For some unknown reason Radzinski edits the orientation video. He stows the missing piece of film in a bible at the arrow. He leaves his glass eye behind as well. One day Radzinski goes out and never comes back. Perhaps he has had it with living underground with the crazy American. He kills the others that are at the Flame station and takes it over. He gives Ben an ultimatum. ‘My name is Mikhail Bakunin. (He is registered with Dharma so does not give Ben any information he can use by using an alias).I know all about your operation. Leave me in peace and I will help you. Come close and I will kill you and perhaps set off the explosives I have wired up the Flame with’.
Ben doesn’t know who this guy is or where he comes from, but accepts that which he cannot change.
When Desmond asks Inman where Radzinski is, Kelvin shows him a rust stain on the ceiling and tells him that Radzinski only left him two hours to bury him. In fact he may be lying the way he lied about the injections and infection.
One interesting tid bit about the arrow that I noticed. The quarantine warning is stenciled on the INSIDE of the outer door. As though it was a final warning to the station inhabitants to put on protective clothing before going out.
A long post but hopefully someone will find things to pick apart.
I love ‘arrow’ talk..love it. Im probably going to post my own arrow theory soon, great topic of conversation. So much going on, we forget about the ‘older’ lost secrets sometimes. Nice post. And btw AC, you scold me for refering to you as the all powereful in joking way..im posting it on a theory by someone else with YOUR NAME in it :] j/k respect where due
Andre – I think you’ve got the makings of your own theories here. . . I don’t have the exclusive rights on Dharma Station posts!
AES – I don’t think I even UNDERSTAND that last comment! The only reason I checked on the “all powerful” is because I think there’s a fair few people that perhaps take my big words and dry tone and perhaps don’t realise there’s a guy with a wry smile and a lot of enthusiasm behind them.
No harm done.
AC, i am messing around with comments like that, there is nothing to understand really. I like to see you post, even if just commenting, especially on my theories, because you approach with a subtle confidence and realistic view…now wipe that wry grin off your face and comment on my theories. :]