Please, Skyarking! as if they've told God! Whatever! (-: tehe!



Howl's Moving Island!

Or better - Brigadoon!

> I wonder if the island is going to get moved to some place cold? Maybe that is why Ben had a Parka on when he made the jump into the desert.

I really doubt it, although it would alleviate the cast's island fever.

@bundt-
"Seem? That's exactly what he's doing. I really didn't think there was any question."

Well, perhaps I am just being dense --neither the first nor last time, fer sure-- but I still wonder about these points. For these reasons:

If moving the island is so fraught with peril then it seems uncertain to me to be as simple a matter as flipping a switch. There may be dials to turn and power settings to adjust such that one ends up in the Atlantic Ocean a few moments after the shift instead of in the Tunesian desert circa 4,000 BCE. Or in the arctic several hundred thousand years in the future. This is why I wonder if Ben is sending Locke to move the island or whether Ben still figures on being the one to do it himself, after he has dealt with Keamy & Company. So then why would Ben give Locke those instructions sending him down into the Orchid station? To keep Locke and Hurley safe and have them already where he wants them when he is ready for powering up Prof. Peabody's Wayback Machine and actually moving the island. If, indeed, Ben intends for Locke to move the island and it is just a simple matter of flipping a switch down inside the Orchid station, then why didn't Ben's instructions to Locke conclude with a phrase like "When the elevator stops, walk forward past two doorways and enter the third door you come to; you will see a big red button in the middle of the room: press it." That Ben tells Locke how to enter the station but gives him no instructions beyond this raises the doubt in my mind as to whether Ben intends Locke to actually be the one to move the island, though Ben could be reasoning sending them down in there could provide some insurance, too; back up --perhaps via Jacob telling Locke & Hurley what to do-- if he (Ben) perishes before returning.

As for the question, "Who do you think Ben was signaling with the mirror? Of course he knows. As he said to John, 'I always have a plan,'" ...that which is making wonder about this aspect is the timing and placement of people. Ben signals with the mirror when they are down far below a substantial crag. Climbing that crag (even if there is a stairway with a railing to grip all the way up to the top) would take quite awhile, especially going through jungle foliage, and especially since they can move no faster than Hurley. Some stretches are practically vertical. So, this means whomever was flashing back in acknowledgement from up above was doing so hours before Ben, Locke, and Hurley arrived huffing, puffing, sweaty, and soiled up top.

If Richard Alpert & his Ewok Army were already there at the Orchid station entrance, flashing a mirror back down to Ben, then whyever would they all leave the place unguarded when they went to intercept Keamy? If they heard (and saw? did the helicopter have any lights on when it flew over the beach?) a helicopter come in from out over the ocean and land only five kilometers from their position then it seems like they'd have established guards around the Orchid station entrance (Alpert is a traveller, like Ben, so he must know where the Time Tunnel is located). Helicopters are very noisy and the pilot, Frank Lapidus, must have had to turn on some floodlamps to find a clearing to land in. Have the Ewoks no sentries on duty? Seems unlikely. Moreover, even if General Alpert did lead his Ewok Army on a charge through the jungle to do battle with the helicopter without leaving any guards at the Orchid station entrance (and he seemed to have plenty of Ewoks to spare for leaving guards behind) then how come the jungle-crafty Ewoks did not encounter Keamy & Company en route and have their battle half-way between the Orchid station entrance and the helicopter's landing site? Ben, Locke, and Hurley arrived at the Orchid station entrance unalarmed by shots having been fired (rifle shots are audible for miles and five kilometers is not all that far). Unless Richard Alpert signaled Ben back, left some guards behind, and then his bunch completely missed Keamy & Company (who sneaked up on the guards and slit their throats or some other quite way of taking them out) then it seems unlikely Richard and that big bunch were signaling back.

Unless, of course, I've made some false assumption, such as thinking the Orchid station entrance is way up on that clifftop somewhere when it is located somewhere else entirely. If Ben was leading Locke and Hurley somewhere else then it could have been Richard up there with a mirror signaling back, with his crew headed down to the same place via a completely different route. Somehow, though, I have the impression the Orchid station entrance is located way up there behind where the mirror flash reply was coming. High ground is more defensible, maybe this is why I've assumed it is up there, plus the elevator shaft extends down from the greenhouses -somehow it is more aesthetically appealing to think of the Time Tunnel lab or whatever other source of the Casimir Effect as being grandly embedded inside this huge jutting stone mountain than for it to be ignobly buried down below some flatlands, like the Swan (Hatch). Think of the magnificent ocean views, if the elevator extends down to an embedded laboratory complex which connects to the cliff-face itself at points!