Lockdown incident/Theories

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Theories about Lockdown incident

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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.

Nature of the Lockdown

• The female voice said "Please repeat ****al" twice before starting the countdown
• The air vents only allowed "Henry" and Kate into other parts of the Hatch, suggesting that when the blast doors close, they were actually completely sealed off from the outside including the vents.
  • That is not necessarily true - neither Kate or 'Henry' were attempting to escape the Hatch itself so there is no proof they couldn't have escaped if they had tried.

Cause and purpose

• The lockdown was probably the original high security resupply procedure for the Swan. There are two ways it could have worked:
  • One man of the team stays at the controls behind the blast doors. The other man exits the Swan and gathers the supplies in. This would ensure that if the doors of the Swan to the outside were opened, no outside attacker could kill both men or get to the button.
  • Both men of the team stay at the controls behind the blast door. A DHARMA team from the outside enters the hatch and resupplies it. As soon as they leave, the lockdown ends.
    • Unlikely as after the Purge, the station must have been receiving further supply drops and Ben's "Others" seem to have no real knowledge of the Swan.
  • I would think of it as kind of similar to the old elaborate procedures for relief of US Air Force crews at nuclear missile silos.
  • The UV lights would have been used to biologically decontaminate the Hatch during resupply.
  • It's possible that the hatch was never meant to be opened even from the inside outside of a lockdown.

The Blast Door Map

• It's not clear what caused this incident; it's also not clear how often they occur. They might be:
  • Random (as speculated by Locke)
  • Related to the concurrent supply drop procedure — the blast door map even mentions "LOCKDOWN AND RESTOCKING PROCEDURES" — perhaps to ensure that hatch residents don't leave during the drop.
    • For their safety?
    • So they don't see the plane/delivery system?
      • Or the lack of one.
    • To see where the supplies come from if not by plane (perhaps from somewhere else on the Island)?
    • The "supply drop" might not actually be dropped from the sky, but instead delivered from another location of the Island. If this was the case, then the blast doors would descend to prevent the people in the Hatch from coming into contact with whoever delivers the supplies.
      • If it were delivered from elsewhere on the Island, it would have to be with heavy machinery (due to the weight of food), which would leave tracks or disturb the trees/plants noticeably.

• • • The drops might sometimes include high explosives. If the drop lands near an open set of doors and detonates from the landing event, the inhabitants could be killed by direct or indirect exposure to the explosion. The blast doors would mitigate the inherent risk from dropping explosives.
    • The countdown does however give the Hatch residents ample time to leave the Hatch.
  • Punishment for not pushing the button in time a few days earlier.
  • Punishment because Michael communicated with "Walt" using the computer, even though he was not supposed to.
  • Somehow initiated by Ben as retaliation for his treatment.
• It would appear that the blast doors are meant to protect the inhabitants from an outside threat, as opposed to containing them, as mere bars such as those used in prisons would easily seal off access.
  • This is supported by the fact that Ben was able to exit the area via the air ducting system; something not likely to be engineered into a prison.
  • The venting system means that the interior was not airtight.
  • The outside threat is unlikely to be gaseous in nature such as the black smoke since a gas could enter the same way that Henry Gale exited.
• The black lights are used to clean out any germs. Ultraviolet lights, of course, kill most contaminants. This would be because the Hatch's quarantine would be breeched during a lockdown.
• If it is of such importance that the button is pressed, then it follows to ask why inhabitants would be sealed off from access to the button, especially in the last four minutes of the cycle. It seems to create a contradiction of the system established within the Hatch. (Unless the prompt that appeared on the computer at Countdown Timer Minute 47 was supposed to be used to reset the counter in anticipation of the lockdown). In "?", we learn that the Pearl Station is set up to observe the actions of the inhabitants of other hatches, and is implied that pushing the button isn't as important as those in the Swan have been led to believe. Therefore, the lockdown may occur only to allow the observers to see how the button-pushers react to being prevented from performing actions they've been told are of vital importance.
  • As pointed out on the main page, "ACTIVITY," i.e., the activity of the magnetic anomaly, is "MINIMAL DURING LOCKDOWN AND RESTOCKING PROCEDURES." The systems in the Swan are able to measure the strength of the magnetic effect during each cycle, so the lockdown/supply drop is scheduled during a phase when failure to press the button won't lead to a system failure. So Ben is in fact telling the truth when he said he didn't push the button. He didn't need to in this case. We hear the anomaly power up (the mechanical whirring noise) but no discharge occurs since the anomaly does not have sufficient power during this cycle.
  • You are forgetting that the "designers" gave the button pushers 20-odd minutes of audio announcements to "please proceed..." presumably to the dome so that they were in the right place at the right time. Locke was in the wrong place as he couldn't hear what was being said.
• When the computer room is in Lockdown mode the geodesic dome functions as a Faraday cage.[1]

• Because the Hatch was ostensibly re-tasked from research (whatever the Pearl was observing) after the Incident, the blast doors could be a leftover from that role. And because there is some sort of vaccine being used by the inhabitants of the Island, the dropping of the blast doors and the use of germ-killing ultraviolet light could be a cobbled together decontamination protocol, designed to sterilize the Hatch before restocking from the supply drop. This would explain the ad nauseam warnings via the loud speakers.
• The lockdown procedure is in fact to sever or at least discourage contact from those inside the Hatch to outside elements. Proof is the experiment itself. It has been confirmed that the electromagnetic experiment that was going on was real, not fake as the Pearl video would suggest.

• The first stage of the lockdown is the 20 minute warning. One member would go to the computer room. The second would grab a gun and put on a hazmat suit. Then when the second is ready he stands near the door. When the lockdown starts the UV lights kill any infections. The second person goes out collects the supplies and comes back. the rest of the p-lace is in lockdown incase any hostiles try to take advantage of the situation. The lockdown ends when the numbers are entered.
• One man could not move that entire pallet intended for the Swan.
• The lockdowns could be triggered by an alarm set off by the hostiles because the swan was originally created in hostile territory so the hostiles would be kind of mad and they might try killing the inhabitants and the best form of protection is prevention so the hostiles wouldn't get a chance to kill them because of really thick blast doors and the UV lights were probably installed by Radzinsky to make his blast door map. But this is assuming the blast doors were built from the beginning and not installed after the quarantine was issued. if it was installed after the quarantine was mandated the whole thing becomes moot, because Occam's Razor would essentially say that the blast doors were installed to insure the sterility of the whole operation and preventing the occupants from getting infected.

Lockdown and "the incident"

• The following reasons could not be reasonable since there are normally two researchers in the Hatch for the "Push Button" procedure, and it would be probable that one of them is locked when the other is anywhere outside of the Hatch. So, the following items could easily be detected.
  • So they don't see the plane/delivery system?
  • To see where the supplies come from if not by plane (perhaps from somewhere else on the Island)?
  • The "supply drop" might not actually be dropped from the sky, but instead delivered from another location of the Island. If this was the case, then the blast doors would descend to prevent the people in the Hatch from coming into contact with whoever delivers the supplies.

Ben's actions

• Ben knew of the Lockdown procedure. Evidence of this is the fact that he shouted to Locke after he heard the loudspeaker to lure him from the computer room (so he would be shut in). In the last 10 seconds before the procedure, Ben even shouts "Maybe we should get Jack" knowing full well that this would anger John. Sure enough, John runs to the Hatch interior as the lockdown occurs.
  • According to the March 20, 2007 Official Lost Podcast, the Others had no knowledge of the Swan prior to the Losties arrival there. How would Ben know about the Lockdown procedure? He did presumably know about typing in the numbers from his Pearl surveillance, but didn't (as above). The "ACTIVITY MINIMAL DURING LOCKDOWN AND RESTOCKING PROCEDURES" message applies here and Ben was telling the truth when he said he didn't enter the numbers. He merely improvised during the whole Lockdown procedure.

• • Ben also knew that the vents were the only way to breach the locked areas, and that he knew John would enlist his help in doing such.
    • But how could Ben know that Locke would end up pinning his legs under the door?
• We know from "Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1" that Ben did enter something into the computer. But he didn't type in 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42; he typed in other numbers that executed the black light program. More clearly, the Numbers we know execute a program that settles down the electromagnetic activity. Ben typed in a different code/command (different numbers) to cause the black light to come on.
  • We can't say without a doubt that he didn't enter in something. During Lockdown, the numbers might not need to be entered to discharge the magnetic anomaly because "ACTIVITY MINIMAL...".
• Ben wanted Locke to see the blast door map.
  • Ben would want Locke to see the map so that he would want to find the Pearl station, causing him to doubt the importance of pushing the button. He would in turn refuse to push the button, causing the system failure. Ben might have wanted and (indirectly) engineered the system failure to happen.