The button?
- Thread starter Crewman47
- Start date
They drilled too close to the source, thus causing electromagnetism or whatever to start escaping, which is bad I guess.. The button was there to relieve pressure so the thing wouldn't blow. ETA: now that I think of it, the whole show was a prescient Oil Rig disaster analogy! Black smoke as the source of all evil? Got it loud and clear, tree huggers!
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The drilling in "The Incident" poked a hole in the Source releasing catastrophic energy that would destroy the world unless it's routinely bled off. And the reason it's not automated by computers is because you can't trust the technology to work on its own sitting up against the E-M source.
As others have pointed out, it was the "the incident" which caused the button to be pushed every 108 minutes. When the Dharma Initiative drilled too deep and hit the pocket of intense electromagnetic energy, they realized that the power of that energy could wreak havoc if they didn't find a way to control it. The damage was done, and they decided to modify their original plans for the Swan (aka the hatch) to include a computer that would help release small bits of energy every 108 minutes to prevent the electromagnetism from getting out of control.
My question is this... what exactly happened when Desmond used the failsafe? Why didn't they need to push the button any more after that? And so why didn't Dharma just use the fail safe in the first place?
Or did they want it to be a part of their experiments? To see if someone would really sit inside a hatch for years at a time and push a button?
My question is this... what exactly happened when Desmond used the failsafe? Why didn't they need to push the button any more after that? And so why didn't Dharma just use the fail safe in the first place?
Or did they want it to be a part of their experiments? To see if someone would really sit inside a hatch for years at a time and push a button?
^^^Quite correct of course. The whole notion of leaving just one person behind is insane too. Illness will strike sooner or later. Given years of waking every 108 minutes, mental illness might strike fairly quickly.
Plus the implicit notion that electromagnetic energy can be dammed up and then penned, rather like water, is just embarrassing.
Plus the implicit notion that electromagnetic energy can be dammed up and then penned, rather like water, is just embarrassing.
As Hurley said in season five being a mouthpiece for the writers about pushing the button--"I was never really clear about that"
The only way I can rationalize it is that they didn't know how to keep the electromagnetism in check, and built the cumbersome button/fail-safe key system because they couldn't figure out anything better. To bother with the button at all and not just use the key must have meant that they realized the key would kill whoever turned it through exposure and it was just Desmond's good luck that he was a rare person who was immune.
I figure the "electromagnetism" was actually the light in the center of the island and therefore the rules governing it are unpredictable. Maybe Dharma tried automating the process and it kept failing because the Magic Light doesn't like being disrespected like that - it wants the attention of a human being? Maybe the failsafe key is what caused the Magic Rock Plug to fall into the hole and plug up the light enough that the button pushing was no longer needed.
I figure the "electromagnetism" was actually the light in the center of the island and therefore the rules governing it are unpredictable. Maybe Dharma tried automating the process and it kept failing because the Magic Light doesn't like being disrespected like that - it wants the attention of a human being?
Maybe the failsafe key is what caused the Magic Rock Plug to fall into the hole and plug up the light enough that the button pushing was no longer needed.We know there are numerous pockets of energy buried all across the Island. I believe the one under the Swan was just one of them. Not the "heart of the Island".
I believe Dharma used the button system initially (and not the fail safe) so they could keep studying the strange energy there. Using the fail safe destroyed the energy pocket, so it was always intended to be a last resort.
After Desmond used the fail safe the energy pocket disappeared (along with the entire Swan station) so it couldn't have been the "heart of the Island", also we know where the heart of the Island was, it was not at the Swan station location.
I believe Dharma used the button system initially (and not the fail safe) so they could keep studying the strange energy there. Using the fail safe destroyed the energy pocket, so it was always intended to be a last resort.
After Desmond used the fail safe the energy pocket disappeared (along with the entire Swan station) so it couldn't have been the "heart of the Island", also we know where the heart of the Island was, it was not at the Swan station location.
One of the explanations I've read - written by someone who was evidently an intern on the show a few years ago and privy to the writers' discussions - is that Desmond's immunity built up over the years that he was pushing the button. The island, fate, Jacob or whoever/whatever guided events to put Desmond in a situation where he gained the abilities that would later be so important.
I don't remember the "immunity" explanation making its way into the show, though. They need to tell us about things that are intended to be part of the story, not get the scoop from an intern.
Since the Magic Light is presumably important enough that its influence extends beyond the island, it stands to reason that all the pockets of energy are linked to it, and emanate from it.
Or that the pockets of energy are/were created by the close proximity of the "heart of the island". Or are just smaller versions of the "heart".
Why? Well we know that the one beneath the Swan was destroyed by using the fail safe device.
So either it was an independent pocket of energy, or is was an off shoot of the "heart" that could be closed off/destroyed with out destroying the "heart".
What I gathered is that the explosion sealed it up. This was a fails safe cause after its use you wouldn't be able to study the energy anymore, so it was a last resort. The DI wanted to study the energy remember, and use it, so they devised a way they could have their cake and eat it too after The Incident. The fail safe was just in case it got out of hand, then they could seal it up and not have access to it anymore and fix the problem permanently.
I think Dharma easily could have just prevented the need to press the button if they had wanted to. If all that was keeping this energy suppressed was just some rock, then they probably knew how to fill it. Instead, they probably wanted to closely study the energy that was under there, and they always had. They might have wanted to study the effects it had on people, so that's part of why they didn't automate it.
It's also possible that the Pearl really did originally intend to have observers of the Swan, even though some of their information was erroneous. Obviously pushing the button did have an effect, and it may be hard to explain the pneumatic tubes going nowhere, but it's also hard to believe that Dharma would care about running a psychological experiment such as this. It's easier to believe that they really did want to see the effects of people at the Swan and wanted non-biased recordings of that.
It's also possible that the Pearl really did originally intend to have observers of the Swan, even though some of their information was erroneous. Obviously pushing the button did have an effect, and it may be hard to explain the pneumatic tubes going nowhere, but it's also hard to believe that Dharma would care about running a psychological experiment such as this. It's easier to believe that they really did want to see the effects of people at the Swan and wanted non-biased recordings of that.
