WOW!!! Frozen wheels and the Black Rock...how they tie together - Winner June 2008

I write "wow" becasue my slow brain has been looking for a way to tie the Black Rock into the current Lost Mythology and I think this might do it.

I noticed in the season finale that in the little frozen cavern that contained the wooden wheel there seemed to be a mixing of "technologies" (for lack of a better word)

First of all, the cavern itself seemed to be, a least partially, a natural formation. A lot of the stone work in the cavern, however, seemed to be manmade. rocks stacked to form a wall and so forth

There was also a pillar with an oil lamp on it that had hieroglyphic-like inscriptions carved into it. This pillar and it's markings points to, or at least hints at the fact, that it was the work of an ancient culture on the order of thousands of years old. This is in keeping with the ruins of the giant 4-toed foot sculpture seen on the shore of the island.

The apparently stacked stones and blocks could have dated back anywhere from 10 years ago to 10,000 years ago.

But what caught my eye were the wooden objects in the cave. The ladder and the wheel specifically did not and probably could not have been as old as the hieroglyphic pillar. If you look at the wheel, it appeared to be hand-carved from a single piece of wood with squared edges and rounded handles. The wheel's arms were also banded with metal straps which were held in place by a large pin or bolt. This does not look like ancient work but instead it looks like something from the mid 18th to late 19th centuries. I specifically refer to the types of wheels and mechanisms found on sailing ships, The ladder also fits into this scheme because of the tongue and groove construction of the wrungs.

And most importantly, the oil lamp which Ben lit appeared to also be of the late 19th century design. I can't imagine this being something left by the Dharma people. Even if they didn't want to string electric lighting up in the cavern, an antique oil lamp wouldn't be something they would hang up in their hi-tech environment. In addition, Dharma would have used something more durable for the ladder and wheel like steel or aluminum. I think we can rule out the Dhara initiative as the source of the wheeel.

Also, the ladder breaks when Ben puts his weight on it. Why? because the ice build-up in the cave shows that it is a pretty humid place. Wood dating back to the time when the hieroglyphics were carved on the stone pillar would have simply rotted away in a lot less than a thousand years or so.

This leads me to believe that the island-moving power that the wheel controls has existed on the island for a very long time and was controlled by the ancient inhabitants of the island, the ones who built giant, 4-toed statues.

But it also tells me that the cavern was found by someone or some group from a time closer to our own but before the Dharma people came to the island. I think the best candidates for that would be Magnus Hanso and his crew on the sailing ship the Black Rock which was shipwrecked on the island in the late 1800's.

I think that after he and/or his crew were shipwrecked on the island, they found the cavern and either learned from the the inscriptions there (or perhaps even from inhabitants of the island at the time) what the power in the cavern could do and how to control it. This is how Magnus Hanso got off the island and how the island became imeshed in the Hanso family history.

This is the information contained in the Log from the Black Rock that Widmore bought at auction. Once he realized the true power of the island (not just the inklings of understanding discovered by the Dharma Initiatives "silly little experiments") he began his serious quest to find the island and control this power for his own purposes.

The Dharma people found the cavern and learned that it had properties which involved tranportation through time and space, but they had no idea of the staggering scope and breadth of the island's true power. Once Widmore (who I am certain had been involved previously with the Dharma Initiative) found out what the island could really do, that is when the real hunt began. He wants the power of the island for himself since the ability to move something as large as an island the size of Hilo Hawaii instantly at will through time and space makes all the wealth and power in the world utterly insignificant by comparison.

This kind of power is God-like when compared to any other power obtainable by a mortal man, the kind of absolute power that corrupts absolutely...a power which seems to have corrupted Charles Widmore absolutely simply through the act of trying to obtain it.

P.S.
THERE IS A DEBATE CHALLENGE GOING ON IN THE DEBATE SECTION OF THE SITE SO BE SURE TO READ, QUESTION AND VOTE.

This is a good a place as any to post this...
We know the Blackrock is in the center of the island maybe it got there when the island moved previously. It could have been in open water one minute and then on land the next.

One other cave thought no one else has brought up yet. The freezing of the battery to stop the C4 from exploding is directly related to the freezing of the wheel to keep the “spark” from being set off to move the island.

MSHL I agree with what you are saying as far as the technology goes in the cave it is not from the DI. Also with travel in time and space you can become both powerful and rich beyond belief you will know what will make money in the future already.

ooh really good

*applause*

One of the best-presented, most coherently-written and damn fine logically sound pieces I've read in ages. I agree 100%.

Really good theory. I always had a hunch that Widmore himself may have actually been on the Black Rock, though...maybe he turned the wheel at one time...maybe before he changed his name to Charles Widmore from...Admiral McCutcheon???

AngeloComet wrote:*applause*

One of the best-presented, most coherently-written and damn fine logically sound pieces I've read in ages. I agree 100%.

Agreed.

Excellent post MSHL. I follow you every step of the way, and agree 100%.

i too agree. This was a good read, and good catch on the technology in the cave. I still think that Widmore funded the DI to find the big secret that the people from the Black Rock discovered. I think that he was buying that journal for clues that would lead to the wheel. I say this because of the conversation that Ben and Widmore have. You know the one!!!!

Thank you all very much. This theory would have been even better if I hadn't downed a fifth of scotch before writing it. (McCutchins scotch, of course)

Great theory!

kristenislost wrote:I always had a hunch that Widmore himself may have actually been on the Black Rock, though...maybe he turned the wheel at one time...maybe before he changed his name to Charles Widmore from...Admiral McCutcheon???

I don't know that there's any evidence for this... but somehow I agree with your "hunch". Maybe the only evidence is in Widmore's well-rehearsed MacCutcheon speach to Desmond. Then again I've been conviced for 3 years that Alvar Hanso and Magnus Hanso are in fact the same person. So in that regard, it makes perfect sence.

I don't know if ther ages would match up with Alvar being Magnus. But at least I wouldn't be surprised since we are talking about Lost after all.

Perhaps Magnus, using time traveling frozen wheels, at least met and interacted with Alvar and set him on the path to fund the DI

MyStarbuckHatesLost wrote:I don't know if ther ages would match up with Alvar being Magnus. But at least I wouldn't be surprised since we are talking about Lost after all.

Perhaps Magnus, using time traveling frozen wheels, at least met and interacted with Alvar and set him on the path to fund the DI

Equally possible. One or the other pretty much must be. Hanso needed knowledge of the island... his great-grandfather / earlier self had to give it to him.

I would love the see the Hanso family mystery solved on the show. Or after the show, or on a hiatus for us fans. That would uber fun. It would also answer a lot of questions.

I love how reading these posts, my brain starts working in new ways. LOL!! I never even thought that Alvar and Magnus could be the same or have commuincated in some way, but the idea is fun.

It would be hard for me to believe that they wouldn't give us more on the Hansos and Degrutes (spelling?) in the next two seasons.

I know they're gonna give us more on the DI so I would hope that those characters are covered more as well.

MSHL bravo mon capitan!

I have always been wondering whether Magnus got off the Island, and the 'Final resting place of Magnus Hanso' on the blast door map always threw me into thinking he never got off the Island.

Your post has provided a mechanism by which he could have plausibly left, so do you think he did get back to the island (bearing in mind what we assume at the moment, that once you leave you can't return), and would you say he is buried on the Island?

very good post MSHL.

Thank you Solar
Good questions.

I would guess he didn't which may have been why Alvar Hanso funded the efforts to find and study the island.. It could have been a kind of family quest passed down throughout the successive Hanso generations.

If he did get back to the island, perhaps at a later time-shifted date, maybe he is the Adam of the Adam and Eve found in the caves.

Or perhaps Magnus Hanso is actually Alvar Hanso as some members here have suggested.. I think that unlikely simply because Alvar Hanso as seen in one of the Dharma films seems too young to have had the time to lead the sailing expedition to the island and to have had the time to become a hyper-wealthy arms manufacturer.

It takes time to build a fortune and sailing expeditions took months if not years in the era of the Black Rock. Add to that the time he spent on the island...you see where I'm going with this one.

A problem with transporting polar bears via the Orchid station

metal tags on bear collars...
just thought I'd throw this one in

Would aluminum make a difference?

Maybe it's painted ceramic.

MSHL:

It takes time to build a fortune and sailing expeditions took months if not years in the era of the Black Rock. Add to that the time he spent on the island...you see where I'm going with this one.

yes I do, good point.

Latters:

Would aluminum make a difference?

Good question....it is a metal, but it is non-magnetic so I am stumped there.

Cf:

Maybe it's painted ceramic.

Good call, rescues us from this quandry perhaps!

good theory lateralus,
what if...the black rock shipwrecked on the island and magnus and his crew got welcome by the ¨hostiles¨ and then they become friends and the smoke monster hide the black rock on the middle of the island.

Very good theory.I agree with the whole thing !!

I don't know, I think that Richard Alpert may be an answer so to speak. There are obviously people who don't age on the island, so could that end up explaining Magnus or Alvar Hanso. Could Richard be a plan that the writers have put in the show? Don't know.

I just don't see Ben being the leader if there is some one older and wiser to lead the others. Like why can't Richard be the leader? He knows more. Or atleast I think that he should. I know Jacob supposedly is sorta incharge, but it seems as though Ben has some sorta free will so to speak about what he does with the island. Like bringing Juliet to the island about the fertility issues.