The Orchid/Theories

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Theories about The Orchid

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Theories may be removed if ...

Stated as questions or possibilities (avoid question marks, "Maybe", "I think", etc). More appropriate for another article. Illogical or previously disproven. Proven by canon source, and moved to main article. Speculative and lacking any evidence to support arguments. Responding to another theory (use discussion page instead). This does not include responses that can stand alone as its own theory. Usage of an indented bullet does not imply the statement is a response. See the Lostpedia theory policy for more details.

Contents 1 True purpose 2 Connection to The Swan 3 Candle, Wickmund, Halliwax 4 Misc. 5 Ben using The Orchid. 6 The big picture

True purpose

• The Orchid is a station experimenting in time travel, the orientation video shows 2 rabbits with the same number, these are exactly the same rabbit, the one which appeared seemingly out of nowhere travelled through time and space, and it can't go near the other rabbit due to it possibly causing the universe to collapse on to its self, the effects are unknown but something bad will happen.
• The Orchid is the temple that the others are hiding at.
  • The Temple was some sort of sacred ground to the Hostiles/Others that had unique (time travel/Casimir effect related) properties; when DHARMA arrived on the island, they built the Orchid there to study/experiment with these properties. This could explain why they became so "hostile" to the DHARMA initiative in the first place, if their "temple" was taken/built over. See The Temple/Theories. Deeperwell42 02:48, 31 March 2008 (PDT)
    • It is likely that The Temple and The Orchid are separate Dharma stations of locations, as The Temple has it's own Dharma logo like the other stations, and they are named seperately in the manner of the other stations (ie., The Staff, The Arrow, The Pearl...)
• The Orchid is a biological weapons station. The rabbit on the shelf was infected with something dangerous and had escaped from its cage.
  • If it is a biological weapon station then rabbits would be kept in germetical containers, not cages.
    • And they wouldn't have been so freaked out that "it's 15!" and that it just appeared out of nowhere on a shelf.
• The study being conducted was about time travel. Candle was about to give a demonstration, sending the rabbit a few minutes into the future or the past. The rabbit that appeared was the result of a miscalculation of that future experiment. One researcher claims that the "shift" was "negative 20" which could mean that they sent the rabbit back in time 20 minutes. That's why it's so important to Candle that the two rabbits do not come close to each other, they are actually the same rabbit from different time periods.
  • this is why the rabbits cannot touch each other, being the same rabbit from different time periods this would create a space time paradox, NOT GOOD.Locke 'n Load 02:54, 11 March 2008 (PDT)

• The February 28, 2008 podcast confirms a connection between the Orchid station and time travel.
• Candle asked when the shift was set -- negative 20 being 20 minutes ago, and the duration of the shift is 9 minutes.
• The problem with sending something back in time, is that you see the results before you do it. If that is the case, then you can imagine something will happen. For instance, if I can send something back in time, then I can think right now that I want a chocolate bar sitting in front of me, and it should appear, as long as sometime in the future I actually send back a bar of chocolate to the exact time and space that I thought of it. With that in mind, whoever decided that sending the rabbit back in time 20 minutes for a duration of 9 minutes, would be discovered 11 minutes in the future from when the disturbance took place.
• Lending credence to this theory, if you listen closely on the Comic-Con and S3 DVD versions of the video (not the ABC.com video, for some reason), just after Dr. Halliwax says "The field you have been selected to study is highly volatile and potentially dangerous," there is a brief unusual sound effect that might actually be the sound of the rabbit suddenly appearing on the shelf through time travel.
  • If the rabbit appears on the shelf [and I'm not disputing that] then what is the object that falls theough the frame to the doctor's right at 1:24? It seems to be an actual object as opposed to an aritfact on the film, note that the rabbit appears to react to it.
    • I believe that it's merely an object that the rabbit knocked off of the shelf.
      • At the beginning of the film, there are two flasks on the top shelf behind the doctor. When the rabbit "pops" into existence there, it displaces the flasks, causing one to fall off the side of the shelving unit and the other to protrude slightly over the lip of the shelf.
• Note that not only does Dr. Halliwax prevent the rabbits from touching, he's preventing what appears to be the earlier rabbit (the one in his hands) from the later rabbit (the one that appears.) All this is consistent with an attempt to prevent a causality loop. If the early rabbit never knows (sees, touches in this case) the later rabbit, they haven't interacted.
• Candle may have expected the second rabbit to appear in the cage after he says, "... highly volatile and potentially dangerous." He pauses and glances suspiciously at the cage.

• It's the Parapsychology station.
  • When the two number 15 rabbits are in the same room, this is what Bea Klugh was referring to when she asked Michael "has Walt ever appeared where he wasn't supposed to?"
  • Walt himself is going through something similar to what the rabbits encountered in the Orchid Orientation film. He has found some way to subconsciously control it, most likely unaware. His post-exodus manifestations are, however, the Black Smoke.
• In season one, Hurley says that you can get only some channels on the radio that they have, but the music is always old-fashioned. He then says "Where ever we are--or when ever we are". This suggests that the island might be in the past due to experiements with time.
• The Orchid study Number's properties. Scientists numerated rabbits with The Numbers and watched them. We saw two rabbits out of six: #8("Every Man for Himself") and #15 (The Orchid video).
  • If #8 ("Every Man for Himself") is one of the rabbits from the Orchid, the station is either still functioning or the rabbit is part of the Life Extension Program
  • The producers in the Commentary of "The Man Behind the Curtain" state that it's Ben who later has the obsession with numbering rabbits. This station is operated in the orientation film by the Others - as are all the other stations.
• The station is performing matter/antimatter experiments. One #15 is made of matter and the other of antimatter. Matter and antimatter cannot meet because each entity would be annihilated, explaining why the rabbits must be kept away from each other.
  • Not likely. Antimatter can not be in contact with ANY matter, not only similar matter. If one of the rabbits were antimatter, the hole building would have exploded. The problem must the one mentioned before, time interference.
• The orchid is the Alice in Wonderland hole that creates the island. The study there is used to analyze the results of the other station (such as the pearl's notebooks to discovery any improvements needed. When they think they have made a better version of the island (and or world) they reset it here and "jump into it" creating a new rabbit for that world. The rabbit is a quicker way to see their results in action, with the ultimate goal of making the right adjustments to get a better result in the The Valenzetti Equation.
  • This theory would require the the belief that the wick/candle/wax clones actually go back in time to remake its creator's video each time.
• The island seems to have problems with pregnancy. Rabbits tend to reproduce very fast and on the island maybe they can reproduce while others can't or maybe it's that they can't and the Orchid is trying to solve this issue. If the Rabbits were to get to close they could have sex and possible impregnate the female, thus destroy the research they put into the rabbits. So in all the Orchid is a facility trying to solve the birth issue on the island.
  • Evidence of this is the name itself, Orchid, and the fact that experiments are done on Rabbits. See main article and discussion of sexual implications of both of these. This would imply a connection between the island's time-warping properties and the pregnancy problem. Fitzbuhn 10:52, 25 April 2008 (PDT)
• In "The Man Behind the Curtain" commentary the producers mention that Ben is the one who numbers rabbits. This means that the experiments done in the Orchid by Dr. Candle are occurring after The Purge and that Dr. Candle is, or was, one of the others.
  • Or Candle passed on the torch to Ben.
  • Or the film is from when Ben was on the island before The Purge.
    • Maybe Halliwax is Jacob
    • Is there any basis for this, or are you just guessing?
• The Orchid's research involved studying and researching the Casimir Effect, in order to create Zero-Point energy, which in theory is unlimited. If the DHARMA Initiative succeeded in creating this energy, they would have solved the need for oil, electricity and other natural substances, and in the process changing one of the core numerical values of the Valenzetti Equation.

Connection to The Swan

• The generator in The Swan Station is a product of the Orchid gone wrong leading eventually to Desmond's time travel experience.
  • It might also be the other way around, seeing as Desmond time-traveled after the discharge. He was no way near the Orchid, which suggests that any means of time travel are present at the Swan, not the Orchid. The so-called "incident" opened a "hole in time" that was kept closed by pushing the Execute button. The Orchid only studied this newly discovered means of time travel, possibly even reproducing it (doing the "incident" in a smaller scale). The Orchid basically just studies what the computer at the Swan is keeping sealed.
    • If Candle/Wickmund/Halliwax are one and the same person then the Orchid orientation film had to have been made before the Swan's due to the loss of his arm in the Swan orientation film, but not in the Orchid film, meaning that they planned (or constructed)the Orchid before the Swan.
• In botany, there is indeed a Swan Orchid, genera Cycnoches. The stamens of which look remarkably like a swan's head, and thus the logo of the Swan.
• Maby it's purpose is simply to reproduce Bunnies for other testing facilities since the Bunnies can't reproduce on the Island
• The Orchid orientation video suggests time travel experiments, the reaction to the two rabbits getting so near to each other is similar to that of the doc in back to the future when he stresses to Marty the importance of a past and future versions of the same person not coming in to contact with one another. This could also explain why Richard Alpert doesn't appear to age, prehaps he was sent back in time by Ben to when ben was younger to initiate the purge.
• The Orchid and the Swan are separate stations, but the "casimir effect" is a product of the interaction of both stations magnetic forces. The particles created by the two magnetic stations creates a unique environment (in between the two stations) that make time travel possible. (see wikipedia for explaination of casimir)
  • The "incident" that made the Swan release terminal necessary was a build up of too many particles resulting in involuntary and uncontrollable time travel. (ie, Desmond)
  • The Orchid is the control center for the time travel, and can be used like a "Magic Box" by pulling object out of different timelines. The timelines themselves are affected and therefore do not create paradoxes in and of themselves. Instead a new timeline where the events took place is created (see string theory for time travel). Example, if Halliwax has seen the rabbit come into being in front of him, he need not send the rabbit back at a future point because it being sent back has already altered the time line into a new string. Therefore, anything you can concieve of someone sending to the island has potential to appear on the island (as an object sent from a future timeline)

Candle, Wickmund, Halliwax

• Perhaps he uses different names for the separate areas of the initiative to help ensure they stay separate.
• Candle, Wick, Wax - Mark Wickmund and Edgar Halliwax are clones of Marvin Candle, just like a wick and wax are part of a candle.
• In Flashes Before You Eyes, Desmond's physicist friend mentions that if you run the same experiment 10 times, you get 10 different results. The island is an experiment that has been looping for years, and each iteration has it's own Candle, Wickmund, or Halliwax. The same person, yet one who is slightly different in terms of life experience - a different name, a missing arm, and so forth.
  • This holds true as each "Clone" had its own problem (lazy eye, prosthetic arm, ?) Further investigation of the video is needed to discovery what this version's problem is. It could be a psychological issue with his temper.
  • Copies degrade every time another is made.-
    • This version might suffer a skin condition that makes his skin unusually oily or shiny.

Misc.

• The Orchid somehow failed/malfunctioned, and this was The Incident.
  • Haven't the producers made it clear that The Incident was an electromagnetic disturbance emanating from the site of The Swan?
• The incident in The Orchid caused Marvin Candle to lose his left arm.
• The Orchid is the main and top-secret station of DHARMA and is located on the "?" on the Blast Door Map.
  • However, The Pearl station seems to be the "?".
    • There is a little “?” near the Swan station. Perhaps the big “?” is The Orchid station and the little “?” is The Pearl. Plus, the central “?” seems very big to be The Pearl.
      • It has been confirmed that the "?" is The Pearl.
    • The mapmaker(s) suspect the Pearl to be on the right side of the map. The big question mark in the middle is likely the barracks, the dotted line surrounding it representing the sonic fences.
• The Orchid may lie between The Pearl and the Capsule dump. If any anomalous time disruption occured along the length of the pneumatic tubes, then the resulting tube dump could be one copy of every tube that had already been sucessfully sent and recorded.
  • If Candle is correct, no tube could safely be near a copy of itself. Thus each tube represents only one tube previously sent.
    • This theory is unlikely at best. The tube dump is exactly what it looks like.
• The Orchid station is somehow responsible for the transportation of the polar bear from The Hydra station to the desert of Tunisia, as seen in Confirmed Dead.
  • Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse hinted in a podcast that fans, curious about Charlotte's discovery of the skeleton in Tunisia, should watch the Orchid orientation film, then draw a link between the polar bear and the bunny.
    • I thought this was obviously meant to imply that the polar bear (like the bunny) had ended up on the island as the result of somebody tinkering with Time Travel. Maybe during the last Ice Age, at the Island's latitude and longitude, there was an ice shelf with a polar bear on it, destined for an interesting life on a tropical island a couple thousand years in the future.

Josiwe 18:48, 27 March 2008 (PDT)

• • • • The producers confirmed in the aforementioned podcast that The Dharma Initiative brought the polar bears to the island to conduct experiments on them - they were not transported to the island by time-travel-accident.
  • Assuming that this link has anything to do with the "kind of Casimir effect" that Edgar Halliwax was referring to in the film, perhaps a more intrinsic connection should be drawn between Oceanic Flight 815 and the slave ship, Black Rock. Both the plane and the ship are existing on the Island while most people off-island have a much different expectation to where these should exist.
  • The R.O.V. footage we saw at the beginning of Confirmed Dead belonged to the salvage ship, Christiane I. Revealed as part of the Find 815 ARG, the Christiane I was supposedly searching the Sunda Trench for Black Rock when they accidentally found the remains of Flight 815.
    • This only furthers the possible link to a wormhole or some kind of Casimiresque space-time shift on the Island; this was addressed twice in the episode -- both the plane and the bear were somewhere they should not have been.
    • The ROV from Christianne I went to the Sunda Trench to look for the Black Rock because that is where the logs from the Black Rock said its should be. After Charles Widmore bought the Black Rock logs at auction, he doctored them with those Sunda Trench coordinates to throw off would-be seekers of the Black Rock. Meanwhile, Widmore found out exactly where the Black Rock was really located and began efforts to truly find it.
• The Orchid is responsible for acquiring the statue.
• After viewing "Confirmed Dead" and "The Shape of Things to Come": The Orchid has a very cold room inside of it or is in a cold region of the Island due to Ben wearing a parka belonging to Haliwax. Either way, Ben was about to get into the teleporter when a polar bear attacked him. Ben then managed to get it into the teleporter and send it to a random time that wasn't 2005 before he "teleported" himself. This explains the gash on his arm, the polar bear, why Ben made asked the receptionist what year it was, and the purpose of the Orchid.
  • The Orchid relies on the Casmir Effect, which states that you can travel faster than the speed of light by passing an atom through a gap between two very thin metal plates (this could relate to the possible orchid symbol on Ben's jacket in "The Shape of Things to Come") . This would allow a object/creature to travel though time and space. When reseach was conducted in The Orchid they tested this theory out on a polar bear, sending it to the sahara. When Ben was in a sticky situation, he grabbed Halliwax's parka from the closet and used a previous destination (aka the sahara). It is unlikely that the polar bear came along with him/ attacked him because we could have seen the body of the polar bear when he woke up in the desert in "The Shape of Things to Come"
    • The second theory is more likely. The first theory suggests that there was only one incident of time travel and that everything all happened at once, whereas it seems that the teleportation process has been used multiple times and is refined enough for Ben to travel at least to Tunisia regularly. Also, Halliwax/Wickmund/Candle has a missing arm at one stage, suggesting that Ben's gash may be related to the actual teleportation process, not to a random bear attack.
    • Conjecturing from comments and observations in The Shape of Things to Come and Cabin Fever, one can conclude that The Orchid and Penny's listening station seen at the end of Season 2 are one and the same. Bear with me. If Widmore has a good enough understanding of the island's location to send a freighter there, why would he wait until NOW to send it? Because he didn't know where the island was until Desmond blew the hatch. Penny found out about the island (and the reason she even knew to look for an island, and for electromagnetic signals, is because of her father). She then told her father (or the information was stolen) where the island is, which prompted him to send his big bad freighter to check it out. The theory goes that Widmore is former DHARMA, and has been searching for the island ever since the Purge, when Ben made it invisible to the outside world (through yet-unknown means -- although his use of the Looking Glass and selective sonar beaconing would certainly help). Judging from Ben's DHARMA parka seen in his The Shape of Things to Come flashforward, it can be assumed that the Orchid is located in a cold, snowy region. It is 99.9% certain that Ben's parka indeed does bear the Orchid logo, as Keamy's handy DHARMA protocol book bears the same logo, and Keamy kept going on about how this was the "one place Ben can go if we're gonna torch the island." Now, the REASON it's the one place Ben can go is because it's not actually ON the island. It's up in the Arctic or the Himalayas or something. There's got to be some portal leading to the Orchid somewhere on the island that Ben's going to be heading towards in the very near future. *MILD SPOILERS*: Further evidence backing up this theory: Alex Petrovitch reprises his Season 2 role as Henrik in the Season 4 finale, and there's been talk all season about how we're going to see the Orchid. We've got three hours of show left, so we'd better head off to the station pretty soon.

• The Orchid obtains heat for its greenhouse, by being above a volcanic vent. Traveling down into the volcanic cavern beneath the station, gives access to the island's geologic structure, which both allows access to the Cerberus vents (similar to what Ben did under New Otherton), and also allows triggering of the volcano, which will move the island.

Ben using The Orchid.

• In the episode The Shape of Things to Come, we see Ben laying in the desert with Haliwax's Parka which is the name of the scientist in the Orchid Orentiation film. As others have discussed here, this is very likley that he has travled there from the orchid, possibly in time too.
  • If this is so, he could very well use the orchid station to go back in time and save Alex's life, and possibly Danielle Rousseau and [[Karl]'s live(s) too, Which we may see in future episodes.
    • However, Ben seemed disorientated and unsure about when or where he was, so the space and time traveling effects may be volatile and difficult to use in a precise manner.
    • If this is so, we would have seen future Ben save her life in TSOTTC.--Deus ex Machina 08:25, 28 April 2008 (PDT)
      • Even if he did, they would just die anyway since the universe has a way of correcting itself.--Sic3030 02:06, 29 April 2008 (PDT)
        • Exactly. Furthermore, Ben would not have been so devastated at losing Alex (a moment of pure humanity and genuine grief in the Benjamin Linus storyline), he would not have needed to exact revenge on Widmore by declaring his intention to find and kill Penny, and he would have saved the lives of various others on the island who had died, such as the many pregnant women who did not survive.
  • It's almost sure already that Ben travels in time using some sort of time machine possibly located in the orchid station, but that doesn't imply that time travel is so controlled, if it was, they would have used it for they proposes a lot of times before. Also, uncontrolled time travel sound far more "real" than a DeLorian type of travelling.

The big picture

• The time travel machine/device in The Orchid exploded/overloaded/malfunctioned and sent the whole island back in time, thus creating a time loop. This was The Incident. Once the island reaches the date of the incident again, the island will be sent back in time. Again.All the Losties are trapped in this time loop, reliving their time on the Island over and over again, unknowingly. But something may happen differently for every time. Like Christian Shephard being alive on the island. The whispers are the voices of people who have lived on the island during the time loop, things they have said at that exact time. “Visions” of people on the island, like the one Jack had of Christian, are really two people from different “goes” meeting. --Deus ex Machina 14:08, 30 April 2008 (PDT)