The Orchid

First we hear the all too familiar whispers, then: "Welcome to Station 6 of the Dharma Initiative. Station 6 or The Orchid is not a botanical research unit." That's how it starts, just another orientation film, except instead of Dr. Marvin Candle or Mark Wickmund, we get Edgar Halliwax. But wait there's more.
"The field you have elected to study is highly volatile and potentially dangerous." Really, something on LOST island could be dangerous? Huh!
If you haven't seen this video, you need to, it's a real clue into: Dharma, Experiments, Time Travel, Twins and of course white bunnies. Not that they need any help to multiply. Here's the link: http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Orchid














We see as Halliwax as he is speaking to the camera, a glass beaker falls off a ledge behind him and another bunny suddenly appears on the shelf where the glass beaker sat.

Here is a snippet of the conversation between Halliwax and his off screen assistant.
Halliwax - what the hell? OH GOD!
Asst - it's 15
Halliwax - Don't let them near each other!
Halliwax - When did you set the shift?
Asst - negative 20
Halliwax - How Long?
Asst - 9 minutes, but we're still learning.

Learning about what I'd like to know. "Set the shift" implies a device or a machine with some measure of controls. It also implies a time or space shift. Since the bunny appeared unexpectedly and in an unusual place, I'll wager that the second bunny 15 came from either 9 minutes in the future or 9 minutes in the past. That is why Halliwax was so freaked out over the two bunnies not getting too close to each other or coming into contact.

He also mentions the "Casimir Effect". Another interesting bit of physics. Instead of my trying to explain it, since I barely understand the concept, I'm going to crib the info from Wikipedia, (don't give any grief here, It's a blog, not a doctoral thesis, I can plagerize if I want to).

Casimir effect and wormholes

The Casimir effect is an outcome of quantum field theory, which states that all of the various fundamental fields, such as the electromagnetic field, must be quantized at each and every point in space.
Exotic matter with negative energy density is required to stabilize a wormhole. Morris, Thorne and Yurtsever pointed out that the quantum mechanics of the Casimir effect can be used to produce a locally mass-negative region of space-time, and suggested that negative effect could be used to stabilize a wormhole to allow faster than light travel.

Now where on the island is there a source of electromagnetism? Hmmmm...












What's in a Name?

The Station is named as The Orchid by Edgar Halliwax, yet he is wearing a lab coat with The Swan station logo. Is this a clue? I did a little research...
It seems that the man known as the Father of Orchid Classification, John Lindley, who lived and worked in the early 1800's, discovered and named many of the Orchid variations. Wouldn't you know that one of them was named the 'Swan Orchid', Cycnoches Lindl. Probably just a coincidence, Huh? I gotta give it to these writers, they do read a lot.

Here are some quick snippits of images seen in the video:









Gerald De Groot












Man on bicycle riding around barracks.

Dharma Headquarters?





My Theory:

I think the Orchid was attached to the Swan station, as evidenced by the blast door map. There is a section that clearly was attached to the Swan and is shown as cut off with a big X through it.

The incident probably occured here. I think Dr. Candle was caught in one of his experiments or used himself as a test subject and out of the box popped Mark Wickmund, maybe on a second try out popped Edgar Halliwax. Maybe Wickmund tried to touch Candle and lost his arm and killed Candle in the process.

Clearly they were experimenting with trying to stabilize a wormhole. Something went horribly wrong and they had to put a cap on the magnet. maybe the wormhole opens every 108 minutes unless it is discharged somehow, thus the computer in the swan. When Desmond turned the key he closed the wormhole but got sucked inside first and sent back to 1986 for a brief time.

Jacob plays into this somehow, maybe a product of a bad experiment, maybe he is still in the wormhole and can only phase in occasionally, maybe this is where the voices (whispers) are coming from.

I can't wait to read your theories on this.

Namaste
hatchling23