Good questions Steph, and thanks again for the compliment. i'm going to try and answer two things here with more knowledge from last nights epi...

1. about time being different on the island. I want you to think of Time as matter, like gold, or a pop tart, something you can hold. When whoever first found the entrance to the Island, and wanted to go back again, they devised a way to keep the portal open, with sound waves(sonar) and broadcasting the numbers. When they did this though, Time started to leak into the island, and have an effect. Perhaps the hatch was meant to slow time down that was leaking in, or hide the signal of the broadcast, but whatever it did, or the Others and Dharma devised, Time is now having an effect where it didn't before. i think it is why the others are so suprised to hear that a sailboat is on the island. Ben and Patchy both seemed VERY suprised about this fact, like a sailboat doesn't have the strenght too rip through time like a sub can, hell, it ripped a 747 in 3 pieces. Does this make sense?

2.Like the butterfly effect, one person's decision can affect many others. Maybe Jack needs to go back and save a high ranking official, maybe Eko killed a soon to be leader of his country, and must go back and NOT be a drug lord to prevent this. By the island pulling in people who have made decsions to arrive at the island, it in itself is trying to stop events that happen and which will eventually cause the Valenzetti equation to happen. A lot of Stephen King's book are based on this, especially Insominia(I think it was called) where death started taking to many people, and Fate intervened and made two geriatrics hero's. Well, this I believe is the sam thing.

You guys should check out Doc Jensens story on Entertainment Weekly afer last weeks epi, he has a theory on who the Others are and why they consider themselves 'the good people'. VERY interesting, and makes a whole lot of sense and can tie directly into my grand (mostly drunken) theory.

Another thing queenstephie, if this place, the island existed LONG before Dharma or whoever the first occupants were, why did the Swan have to do anything that would save the world. If there was something that would cause instability, t would have happened before anyone got there. So, I think the swan was there to cover some sort of signal of the entrance to the island, or to cover some communication. What do you think...

Now another question for you guys.... Was Kelvin the last living member of Dharma, or did he kill one of the last. The loodstain could have come from a fight where kelvin ended up on the bottom and shot upwards.

That's an interesting thought, kelvin as part of the 'purge'

I dig the idea of time as matter (which if it's matter you should be able to manipulate it, right?) and at first I was thinking of the little dutch boy and the finger in the dyke, the Swan being the little dutch boy's finger holding back the time that was leaking through the rift - BUT THEN you said the thing about the rip being there for a long time before the Swan (is that why the slave ship from the 1800's is there?) and I'm confused again. Ugh! btw - I'm not really familiar with any Stephen King, but the other day The Langoliers was on the TV and I remember somebody mentioning it (maybe Benmer) and so I watched it and that movie has a rip in time where the passengers are only ahead by a little bit (desmond's visions?). What do you think about that book (I only saw the show) and it's implications on Lost?

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I read the book, but a LOONG time ago, so I'm influenced more by the tv series which could be a bitt different, but I can't remember. But Benmer pointed me to it, about the rip in time that bought you back to yesterday... kind of wierd. I just want to use the rip in time to go to a lace where time stands still. The rip into the island is being held open at a time say in the 60's, and that's why the radio broadcast Sayid picked up and the song played at the funeral for colleen are both old. The rip is open at that time. i'm not sure myself, but wednighter and i are collaborating on a theory that will hopefully shed some light more on this idea. not an answer, but a theory to bring more ideas and specualtion as to the cause and/or meaning of this time rift.