Lost....

[Astrocreep]

what started this polar bear+wheel shit anyway? lets say for a second that they used polar bears to turn the time displacement wheel. ok why go to all the trouble of training bears to do this if its a once in a blue moon occurrence? i can maybe sort of see if they were constantly needing the wheel turned but bens use has to be the first time they turned the wheel since before orchid went online since orchid walled up the hole for the ice cold wheel room. thats quite a long time ago. any polar bears trained or otherwise hanging around for that long will have grown old and died or at the least forgotten its wheel training skills. it just doesnt make sense on any level except cold room=polar bear. which is fucking stupid.

[Ashes Emberblade]

Remember that Ben said "whoever turns the wheel can never come back to the island, this is my punishment" or whatever. So assume that any humans who could turn the wheel wouldn't, because they'd like to stay on the island.

[Astrocreep]

ok the one person who turns the wheel can never return to the island. and? the wheel has been sealed up since orchid went online so nobody has turned that wheel for a very long time and since it was sealed up dharma was hardly running tests on it with trained polar bears spinning the wheel.

[Havelock]

Originally Posted by Astrocreep

and? the wheel has been sealed up since orchid went online

We don't know that.

[Astrocreep]

how dont we? in the video and while watching ben put metal objects in the chamber the wall clearly has been sealed. before orchid, who knows how many wheel turning polar bears met their doom in tunisia, but after? i would say ben was the first.

[Havelock]

Originally Posted by Astrocreep

how dont we? in the video and while watching ben put metal objects in the chamber the wall clearly has been sealed. before orchid, who knows how many wheel turning polar bears met their doom in tunisia, but after? i would say ben was the first.

The Orchid way in is sealed, but one theme they've been increasingly explicit about on the show is that the island is riddled with tunnels. Even absent the little metal chamber, it looked to me like the tunnel from the Orchid to the wheel could probably not be negotiated by a polar bear (though I could be wrong). That little tunnel also looked too small to bring in the actual wheel.

[Astrocreep]

why wouldnt ben just use the secret tunnel (if there is one) and avoid the confrontation with the Mercs completely? could be he doesnt know about the sealed tunnel but since he knows a hell of a lot about them i would guess there is no other way in.

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Vvoid

I wasn't forgetting it, that's why I pointed out the lack of sense of actually putting a collar proclaiming who sent the polar bear that could end up at any random spot on earth and begin eating people.

And I'm pretty sure you could still train an orangutan to not panic and flee the cold better than you could train a polar bear to stand there and turn a wheel, let alone just give some guy an extra paycheck, rations and survival gear and shortwave radios (if it was before cell phones) and such and see where he pops out.

Anyway, I'm in the boat of people that think it would be retarded if polar bears turning the wheel is the answer, but we'll just have to wait and see.

It may not make sense but it happened, the bear gor teleported sorry.
Is an Orangutan strong enough to turn the wheel, can it be trained to withstand the cold? We don't know how cold it is down there.

I rekon you can get a polar bear cub down that tunnel maybe, but if there is another way down then it will likley be a looooong dangerous tunnel with no elevator to speed up the journey.

Again, this is a valid theory with multiple points to support it. Do we really need pages and pages in this thread devoted to people saying "No that is stupid you retard, my opinion > evidence".

[Tabris]

I can't wait until we find out what the smoke monster really is so that this thread can be filled with people rending their clothes and talking about how stupid it is.

[Wombat]

Originally Posted by Goofy

btw have we forgotten about the shark with the dharma logo??

Does it get teleported when the island moves?

Yes, depending on how far out it was at the time. Daniel's boat got teleported with the Island, and possibly the freighter remains too, which was what, 5 miles out at the time? It's entirely possible the sharks / Looking Glass / etc. came along with.

[Thorpe]

I'm more interested in how there is snow in a cavern deep bellow the surface of a tropical island.

Also, it seemed like the polar bear remains that Charlotte found in the desert were extremely old. Could it have been teleported through time as well?

In my opinion, I think the polar bears were on the island for tests run by Dharma and not to turn the wheel. It would make sense that if they were trying to alter the aggressive nature of certain animals, they would choose two of the most aggressive species on the planet, polar bears and sharks.

[Asmadai]

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

Again, this is a valid theory with multiple points to support it.

No.

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

No.

That's exactly the kind of convincing argument fucking up this thread, well done.

Anyway I think the cavern is cold because of some kind of a superconductor? Electromagnetism seems to be a recurring theme and superconductors tie into that.

[TheOkapi]

Originally Posted by Wombat

Yes, depending on how far out it was at the time. Daniel's boat got teleported with the Island, and possibly the freighter remains too, which was what, 5 miles out at the time? It's entirely possible the sharks / Looking Glass / etc. came along with.

shark never happened. The Dharma logo on his tail was put on by a special effects guy, and was never intended to be there by the writers/producers/directors.

[Vvoid]

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

It may not make sense but it happened, the bear gor teleported sorry.

I never claimed the bear didn't get teleported. I just put forth the suggestion that maybe it wasn't teleported via turning the wheel. So far there is no evidence pointing either way, so either solution can be valid.

Is an Orangutan strong enough to turn the wheel, can it be trained to withstand the cold? We don't know how cold it is down there.

An orangutan is stronger than Ben, and he didn't freeze in place instantly, so I'm going to go with yes on both counts. And I was just using that as a more rational alternative than polar bears, I never actually suggested they'd use an orangutan either because they seemed fairly comfortable with using actual human beings for dangerous shit, which negates this whole training an animal to do it theory anyway.

I rekon you can get a polar bear cub down that tunnel maybe, but if there is another way down then it will likley be a looooong dangerous tunnel with no elevator to speed up the journey.

This whole sentence confuses me, because I'm sure you aren't suggesting cubs were put down there and raised in place....

Again, this is a valid theory with multiple points to support it.

There are exactly two points supporting it, the fact that Ben and the polar bear remains were in the same general location, and the fact that the room is cold and polar bears can survive in cold climates. That's it. The first one is at least a reasonable point, and I will grant that it could be connected, but it could be explained away easily enough if they chose with a realistic answer (like there are multiple ways off the island, and they transport you to a select few places throughout the world no matter which method you use). The second one is pretty far-fetched no matter how you look at it. Let's not make this out to be some overwhelming preponderance of evidence that the rest of us are ignoring just because we feel like it.

Do we really need pages and pages in this thread devoted to people saying "No that is stupid you retard, my opinion > evidence".

No we don't, but we have nothing else to talk about for many months either. I don't believe I've ever said anyone here is retarded for thinking it, although I did say the concept itself would be retarded if true. And by you saying, basically, that your "evidence" > our opinions, when the evidence is sketchy and incomplete at best, you are doing the exact same thing you are railing against.

I even said we'll just have to wait and see I guess, because we'll debate it forever until they actually tell us. Just like the people that thought the attackers in the last few episodes couldn't possibly be from the freighter. They were wrong, but without looking back I wouldn't even know who it was, and I wouldn't care. It was just something to debate until they told us point blank what the answer was. Just like everything else on the show, pretty much. It keeps us thinking for the months it isn't around, no harm in that.