The Man in Black, after assuming Locke's form and memories, compared the Heart of the Island to the Swan. When he met Eloise Hawking, the two spoke extensively about the Swan, and she told him, "pushing that button is the only truly great thing that you will ever do." He spoke of the button when he ran into Charlie, and he later spoke about in in more detail to a friend. He initially forgot his adventures on the Island, but he experienced flashes of memory of his time in the Swan. Immediately after turning the failsafe key, Desmond's consciousness traveled back to 1996. (" Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1") Later references The discharge was also large enough to be detected at a distant tracking station. An electromagnetic pulse from the discharge interrupted communication among the Others and also caused the failure of the satellite dish at the Flame. Although Desmond activated the failsafe, the resulting "event" (termed the discharge) was felt across the entire island, and resulted in the destruction of the Swan station. (" Dave") (" S.O.S.") (" ?")Īfter Locke destroyed the computer's monitor, the timer once again expired without the button being pressed. Eko, however, took over the duty of pressing the button. Locke's faith in the station, however, began to fall apart after Ben's arrival - and Ben's description of the Swan as a "joke." This feeling intensified for Locke after he and Eko visited the Pearl - when he came to view the protocol as a meaningless psychological experiment. (" Lockdown")įollowing the DHARMA protocol, the survivors made an effort to set up shifts of two people in the station to operate the computer - with Locke initially taking on more shifts than anyone else. Ben (then still known as Henry Gale) claimed that he did not press the button, but given the catastrophic consequences of not pressing the button, it seems very likely that he was lying. Later, it appears a similar event took place off-camera, while Locke was trapped underneath the blast door. Locke discovered it was still possible to enter the Numbers and, on pressing Execute, the counter reset, flipping back to 108. The station released a loud escalating sound as if something were powering up and the timer then flipped to a series of red and black hieroglyphics. Button bad".ĭays later, Locke inadvertently let the timer reach zero. That same day, a vision of Walt appeared to Shannon and spoke backwards "Don't push the button. Locke convinced Jack to take a "leap of faith" and push it, and they agreed to organize shifts with other survivors to continue doing so. Sayid managed to repair the computer, and Locke and Jack had a stand-off over whether to push the button. Desmond explained the Swan protocol after a confrontation with them and then fled thinking the computer had been permanently damaged. On November 5, the survivors entered the station. He continued pushing the button for the next 40 days, though he at times thought that his failure had had disastrous consequences. Though late, Desmond entered the sequence and reset the station's timer. This triggered a system failure and released a massive magnetic surge that caused Flight 815 to break-up in mid-air and crash on the Island. Kelvin introduced Desmond to the protocol, which he described as "saving the world." He didn't share further details about the Swan, including the Incident and the fail-safe key, until a drunken conversation years later.ĭesmond killed Kelvin outside the station on Septemand returned too late to push the button in a timely fashion. Radzinsky committed suicide, leaving Inman alone and awaiting a replacement until Desmond Hume landed on the Island in 2001. Stuart Radzinsky, the station's designer, was running the protocol in the early 1990s, when Kelvin Inman joined him.Īfter the Island's natives eliminated the DHARMA Initiative, Radzinsky and Inman continued pushing the button. It was recommended that they work in alternating shifts in pushing the button. In case the protocol failed, the Initiative installed a fail-safe that would destroy and seal the leak with unknown consequences for whoever activated it.ĭHARMA assigned personnel to the station in teams of two for a tour of duty lasting 540 days. The protocol had to run within a 4-minute period every 108 minutes - a countdown timer tracked this time, and an alarm sounded during the 4-minute window. An excessively large buildup could lead to a global catastrophe. The Initiative designed the Swan protocol to discharge the amassed energy. Following this incident, an electrical charge continuously accumulated at the Swan site. A nuclear device also entered the pocket, further complicating matters. The Swan was originally designed for experiments, but during construction, the DHARMA Initiative punctured the research site's electromagnetic pocket.
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