The Origins & Current Condition of the Wheel/Chamber
Observations/Questions/Thoughts to spark the debate:
Michael prolonged the detonation of the C4 on the freighter by freezing it.
Is someone/thing freezing the wheel/chamber?
What happens when the wheel isn’t frozen?
Haliwax revealed that the energy below the Orchid could be used to manipulate time.
We know this is true because the wheel being off kilter caused the time flashes.
We also know that Haliwax eventually explored the chamber – as evidenced by his parka.
Was it already frozen?
Who or what turned the wheel for the first time after Dharma’s discovery of it?
Maybe the wheel – in its original design – is meant to always be turning.
Maybe when Dharma first discovered it – it was functioning normally.
Maybe the only way to manipulate the control, ie. stopping it from turning, was to freeze it.
When the liquid nitrogen ran out – the C4 exploded.
WTF happens when the wheel unfreezes?
Why was the chamber less frozen when Locke turned the wheel?
Why was the floor of the chamber covered in rabbit poop when Ben turned the wheel – when we didn’t see a live rabbit or even the bones of a rabbit?
The result of manually turning the wheel is that you end up in Tunisia in the future.
The polar bear in Tunisia certainly suggests that it might have been involved in turning the wheel, but we’ve seen no evidence of an entrance to the chamber that is big enough for a full grown polar bear to fit through.
What is on the other side of the wheel wall?
How does the Orchid energy relate/compare to the Swan energy?
Was pushing the button accomplishing the same thing as freezing the wheel? (Delaying an eventual explosion of energy?) Did the wheel used to have to be turned every 108 minutes until somebody froze it? Ha.
Discuss.
Scroll Locke, I don’t think the FDW and Protocol of entering the numbers in the Swan are related. However, I think electromagnetic energy explains the existence of each individually.
I was under the impression that the reason the FDW was frozen, was because in part, it was underground. I realize that this may only be part of the reason why. I also noted as you did, that when Locke turns the FDW it didn’t appear to be as frozen.
Perhaps, they weren’t counting on some of us paying as close attention to the details you’ve mentioned, or there is a logical explanation we will receive.
we know that the Orchid station is quite a way below the surface and the further down you dig, the closer to the earth’s mantle you get and the temperature genarally rises. in the Orchid station it obviously isn’t cold because when they Dharma are initially digging, they look pretty hot and sweaty. And for this reason, it is very strange (i think) that the FDW chamber is frozen when infact it should be quite warm.
dabiatchishere:
The part about the turning the wheel every 108 minutes was a joke. I wasn’t suggesting I believed anything I mentioned – I was just bringing up points to spark conversation.
We have seen plenty of other places, ie. hatches and under the temple, that are not frozen, not even a little bit. What about the Swan? It’s underground and near an energy source – but wasn’t frozen either.
If the freezing of the chamber/wheel happened naturally – how? If the freezing of the chamber/wheel was manmade – how?
Michael froze the C4 in the same episode where we saw the frozen wheel for the first time. Correlation?
actually, as you go deeper into the crust it gets much colder before getting warmer. However since there is a volcano nearby it might be still warm.
however the fact that workers are sweating means nothing. Hmmm construction work on a TROPICAL ISLAND without air conditioning/fans. sounds like a sweaty job to me.
food for thought, I hadn’t made the Michael connection before. It being in the same episode seems like they’re making some connection. It doesn’t seem far enough below ground to be that cold, so the question very much is why, I don’t think that it was just a random production design choice. It was purposely made frozen and I think there is something going on and quite plausible that it originally used like the button, being turned regularly to regulate the energy.
eko: The effect of getting colder before warmer is very minor and couldn’t explain a temperature below freezing on a tropical island. 🙂
ScrollLocke: I think the room def. was frozen when Locke turned the wheel, and that was in the same ancient time period when the well (and DI) didn’t exist and the statue was intact.
Ahem, your rabbit poop comment gave me a double take! You totally might be right and I totally missed that. Nice! Hehe.
I’ve always taken the frozen nature of the room to be a storytelling device to tell us, “This place is extremely bizarre.” It did the trick for me!
Condition of wheel/chamber for JOHN LOCKE:
http://happy-endings.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=10305&fullsize=1
Condition of wheel/chamber for BEN LINUS:
http://richardalpert.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=34898
It looks “more frozen” when Ben is there, doesn’t it? Look at the ice buildup on the floor in both pictures. Also – note the rabbit poop in the Ben one. WEIRD.
I certainly never doubted you ScrollLocke, as that was my recollection as well. Btw, please call me dabs.
The one thing which tells us that it is colder is, that Ben was wearing a heavy parka. Presumably he knew he was headed for the exit point in Tunisia, so it must have been cold down there.
Locke, on the other hand was only wearing a T-shirt.
Dabs: Good call on the Locke/T-shirt Ben/Parka.
Did the chamber/wheel exist BEFORE the well (we could assume this because John was chatin’ it up with Christian in the chamber while Sawyer was holding the rope and the flashing crew saw the statue)?
But how is that possible? That an underground chamber could exist before groundbreaking? Maybe a better answer is that the well was filled in during the time of the statue. Who filled it in?
Anyway. Establishing that John was in the chamber “before” Ben – that means the freezing of the chamber/wheel is a process.
Do you suppose that at one point the chamber wasn’t underground? How else could the wheel have been installed with the known access points being smaller than the wheel?
Hi ScrollLocke, that is a very interesting question. We know that the FDW has been there a very long time, but don’t know who placed it there initially, or whether it was discovered by the ancients or somebody else.
I am fairly certain the wheel itself is man made. But when this occurred is still up for grabs. I believe personally that it is ancient.
It is possible that it may not always have been located as far underground as it is presently. Given its proximity to the Temple which is now underground may tell us something. Normally, ancient civilizations were not known for building their temples underground. Temples were the centre of all activity in ancient civilizations.
The well gives us some idea of how far underground it is. It is possible that over time, much like the tombs in Egypt, the land mass changed. This would account for the Temple currently being underground and the FDW.
That’s the best I can think of.
You present some interesting questions that really make you think. Once again, this was a great topic.
It’s certainly going to be awesome to see the island when all the ancient structures are at their prime – and even more awesome if we get to see the volcano eruption that might have covered it all up.
Why though – since the wheel is obviously extremely important – wouldn’t The Temple be built around it? Does that suggest that there is an even greater power source that the Temple is built on/around?
ScrollLocke, I know that there are so many great things ahead, but seeing the temple is high on my list!
Seeing the volcano erupting would be cool and in Lost style.
Like you, I think there just may be more importance to the FDW than we initially thought. You make a good point regarding it being on the exterior of the temple, as opposed to the inside of it.
I’m not sure what that might indicate.
The colds probable cause is exotic matter that is most likely the source of energy for not only the wheel, but the entire island…
Yes, I am aware that the tempurature would kill someone, but the wheel is not located directly in the source of the energy, but as close as possible without death.
I wrote a theory a very long time ago, in a land far far away, that I rewrote to the best of my memory entitled, “What I think is going on…”. It can be found in the early theories on this site.
It is a connection, and explanation of what I think the heart of the island truly is, and a theory I will be expanding on HOPEFULLY before the new season begins…although I am not sure how relevant it is at this point in the actual storyline.
I also wrote a theory called, “A Subtle connection of BlackRock to the current situation”, in which I explain that I think that it is possible that the wheel that is used for the frozen Donkey wheel is the very same that is used to steer the BlackRock ship.
I include a link to a picture of a model of Steering devices for mid 1800 trade ships, and the resemblence, even if it turns out to be coincidental…is undeniable.
I am aware of the wheel seeming ancient, and if the mid 1800s isnt ancient enough to buy the thought (not even for me)…lets not forget that we are dealing with an island that is capable of traveling through time.
Great conversation topic, and I have much more to say on the subject, including connecting the ideas presented above.
Good to see you loophople…
A friend of mine is a caver (please do not call the spelunkers, they hate that). One fact I remember him impressing on me was that the temperature of a (natural) cave stays at or close to the average temperature outside the cave.
So if the the temperature outside the cave goes from -30 degrees Celcius in winter (say from november to march (sorry, I do not know what that is in Farenheit, I am Canadian) to 30 degrees C. in summer, you just average it out and the cave remains at a constant (say 5 degrees Celcius) all year long.
With that in mind, the frozen nature of that cave can not be a natural phenomenon in a tropical climate.
BTW I followed the link and looked at the photo. The “rabbit droppings” could just be gravel couldn’t it?
Funny how you made no mention of the teleportation chamber they built as an adjunct to the Donkey Wheel chamber. Energy has obviously been siphoned off for use in time-space experiments. Aside from Rabbits, what or who else has gone through that chamber?
I for one feel the Swan and Orchid are related somehow. In “The Incident” (?) Chang is clearly told by Farraday that they are related in terms of similar types of energy. The Orchid was clearly built first and the tunnels below it dug out intentionally by Chang’s team. How Chang knew to dig there (he clearly knew what type of energy he was dealing with at a glance) is anyone’s guess.
Swan seems closer to the “source” of the island’s energy. Closer to the “temple”?
The “gravel/bunny poop” is not present when Locke is in the chamber.
I’m more inclined to think of it as bunny poop – especially since Chang was experimenting on bunnies in the Orchid – which is on top of the chamber.
Maybe some sort of doubling is happening due to the experiments like in the movie “The Prestige”.
I always wondered though, if it is bunny poop, where are the bunnies or at least the bones of the bunnies? The best I could come up with would be that the polar bear (however they squeezed it down there) – ate the bunnies, bones and all – or, in order to exit to Tunisia, you only have to be in the chamber when the wheel is turned – and that if Charlotte kept digging around the desert she would have found quite a few bunny skeletons.
I’m drunk, forgive me if none of this makes sense.
ScrolleLocke: Makes perfect sense to me, but I am drunk too. 🙂
Sorry. Did I kill this thread? I keep coming back to it to see what else will be added because I love it. I think it will play a major role in the last season in order to answer questions.
What happened to Annie? Was she one of the first test subjects for the teleportation chamber in the Orchid? Now she has the head of a fly and buzzes around calling Hurley’s name?
🙂
You didn’t kill the thread – I just think we’re running out of ideas without new information.
Let’s think about magnetic based refrigeration, which is already used to achieve cryogenic temperatures in the laboratory setting (below 10K) (WIKIPEDIA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_refrigeration).
Maybe the freezing of the chamber/wheel was unintentional and also impossible to prevent due to its proximity to an energy source presumed to be magnetic.
Could an unintentional freeze be the direct result of the two rabbits coming into proximity to each other (per the Marvin Candle training video)?
I followed the link but had trouble understanding the particulars of the article. The gist of it is that
a) magnetic based refrigeration was a theory dating back to 1880 and has steadily advanced to the practical and proving stages through the 20s 30s and to today.
b) you need a magnetic source and a refrigerable (?) subject, usually of some metal that has thermal conductivity
c) If you want to retain the cold in an enclosed environment you have to isolate it and remove anything that can act as a heat sink.
Is that about it?
The Donkey Wheel is made of wood but is contained in an isolated chamber. When Chang’s men break into the chamber bad things happen. It can be assumed that they blocked up the holes they had started to drill. So how do they drain energy from the chamber to power the teleportation lab? and how do they send energy down the pipe to keep the Wheel frozen, especially in the absence of anything metallic to conduct thermally?
P.S. I love where this is going…
This is sounding way too scientific for television…. but just for fun…
We’ve only seen one side of the wheel mechanism….who’s to say the other side isn’t the inside of a spaceship from the future that crashes into the past…surely made of metal…and aide to the magnetic freezing process.
I had this theory a long long time ago that a spaceship from the future (with time travel capability) crashed into the past into the ocean in the same spot that the main island exists as we know it but it hadn’t formed yet. The crash caused the very first time “flash” and flashed the ship into a future time when the island was formed via volcano. The spaceship and the island were merged together and since the spaceship had time travel capability – the merge left the island itself with time travel capability.
The wheel looks like it came from a pirate ship because the original steering device was damaged in the crash and the wheel we’ve seen actually did come from The Black Rock in a repair attempt by the futurities who piloted the ship.
All these different forms of transportation keep crashing on the island: the black rock, the balloon, yemi’s plane, a sailboat, 815, so wouldn’t it be fitting that the guts of the island, the “specialness” of the island, also comes from a crash of some sort?
The wheel does look like it came from a sailing vessel (capstan?)
from Wikipedia:
“In its earliest form, the capstan consisted of a timber mounted vertically through a vessel’s structure which was free to rotate. Levers, known as bars, were inserted through holes at the top of the timber and used to turn the capstan. A rope wrapped several turns around the drum was thus hauled upon. A rudimentary ratchet was provided to hold the tension. The ropes were always wound in a clockwise direction (seen from above)…
Capstans evolved to consist of a wooden drum or barrel mounted on an iron axle. Two barrels on a common axle were used frequently to allow men on two decks to apply force to the bars. Later capstans were made entirely of iron, with gearing in the head providing a mechanical advantage when the bars were pushed counterclockwise. One form of capstan was connected by a shaft and gears to an anchor windlass on the deck below….”
Here is an interesting link:
àhttp://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://manthecapstan.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/capstan.gif&imgrefurl=http://manthecapstan.wordpress.com/about/&h=297&w=324&sz=20&tbnid=HILPYBCqzaUP7M:&tbnh=108&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3DCapstan&usg=__f6JkxkKjbNTW4KlAojR3cnFDYsk=&ei=NxUfS_WnB86GlAfwqcGJDA&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=5&ct=image&ved=0CBwQ9QEwBA
Obviously if you think of the island as an anchored ship, by turning the capstan, Ben has ‘hauled up the anchor’ at least partially and dislodged it in time.
However we see the capstan has fallen off its axle before it completes its job and the ‘anchor’ is dragging on the ‘sea bottom’ for awhile, hitting the bottom and then get dragged loose by the force of the ocean current.
Quite possible that the nautical metaphore was deliberate on the part of Darlton.
maybe its frozen because,
The wheel represents and controls time on the island, dharma anted to control time so after years they finally learned ho manipulated time travel. By freezing the wheel so time is stopped. They may have frozen the heel back in 1977 – 1980 which is why when they turned the wheel the losties on the island were sent back to the last place time was correct. which was 1977.
It would also explain why time is “off” so to speak on the island.
it would also explain why the wheel is frozen because for some reason every time someone time travels the time the were in “freezes”. So when they come back they feel like they have been gone for hours or even days when it was only a few seconds you were “out of it” to everyone else.
Like desmond in the constant episode.
The wheel has always been there. But the only ay to time travel is to stop time in one area and start it in another. that area was the the cavern with the FDW. The wheel should always move but since its still frozen time hasn’t caught up on the island. Or maybe someone is still time traveling.
sorry for my spelling my W key is acting funny. so words ith Ws may be mis-spellied.
We all know the island moves at its own pace and nobody is forcing this to happen it just does. (at least for now thats what they are implying.)
Maybe when you turn the wheel your not moving the island.
But your simply speeding that time up so the island does move. Or maybe your moving the island and the people on it to a time where the island as in a other spot.