We know that DHARMA engineered and built (presumably in the 70's) the Fail-Safe Switch - a single-use mechanism which destroyed the Station and the Electromagnetic Anomaly (but not the darts/dartboard, stationary bike or the ping-pong table), momentarily revealing the Island to The World - which permitted Penny (and her Daddy) to find it in S4. The destruction of the Swan was also enabled by Desmond - the only person in the world (other than 1995/1996 Ms Hawking and her Time Cop colleagues) - who knew about the fail-safe switch and key.
Desmond, is/was the carefully-selected and conditioned subject who was manipulated into falling in love with Penny, manipulated into breaking up with her and then into/out of the Army, then onto the Elizabeth, then into the Swan long enough to learn about the fail-safe switch and how to "fake" a Lockdown - and just long enough (within a few days) for Kelvin to have repaired the Elizabeth, then manipulated off the island long enough for the Losties to learn about the Swan and the Pearl, long enough for John to lose his faith and then, ON THE DAY of Libby’s funeral (whom Desmond couldn’t be permitted to encounter on the Island) to return and hook up with Locke. Talk about LOST being one big Game of "Mousetrap".
Since the Fail-safe switch was a single-use device - turn it once and the Station (including the switch itself) blows up - the fact that Ben manipulated JL into preventing the button from being pushed, complete with a detailed description of the humming and the shaking, tells us that either A) Ben (and the DHARMA designers)foresaw the one-time destruction of the Swan or B) the Swan destruction has occurred (in a Time Loop) “before” - but with Ben having been present (or having debriefed someone who was present) during a previous Iteration of the Swan Implosion.
The fact that the mindless “work” of Pushing The Button every 108 minutes was done by (unreliable) humans (instead of say - a clock)suggests to me that DHARMA needed fallible, gullible but Very Special humans to man the Swan so that they could be manipulated - at the correct point in time - into triggering (at the right moment)the System Failure that crashed Flight 815 and subsequently (at the right moment) to turn the fail-safe switch.
The fact that Ben (in LTDA) didn’t skip a beat during “the Discharge” tells us that he knew it was coming and that it was harmless - except for the fact that it disabled communication with the mainland - which is exactly what Ben wanted.
Theory by Roland
Desmond, is/was the carefully-selected and conditioned subject who was manipulated into falling in love with Penny, manipulated into breaking up with her and then into/out of the Army, then onto the Elizabeth, then into the Swan long enough to learn about the fail-safe switch and how to "fake" a Lockdown - and just long enough (within a few days) for Kelvin to have repaired the Elizabeth, then manipulated off the island long enough for the Losties to learn about the Swan and the Pearl, long enough for John to lose his faith and then, ON THE DAY of Libby’s funeral (whom Desmond couldn’t be permitted to encounter on the Island) to return and hook up with Locke. Talk about LOST being one big Game of "Mousetrap".
Since the Fail-safe switch was a single-use device - turn it once and the Station (including the switch itself) blows up - the fact that Ben manipulated JL into preventing the button from being pushed, complete with a detailed description of the humming and the shaking, tells us that either A) Ben (and the DHARMA designers)foresaw the one-time destruction of the Swan or B) the Swan destruction has occurred (in a Time Loop) “before” - but with Ben having been present (or having debriefed someone who was present) during a previous Iteration of the Swan Implosion.
The fact that the mindless “work” of Pushing The Button every 108 minutes was done by (unreliable) humans (instead of say - a clock)suggests to me that DHARMA needed fallible, gullible but Very Special humans to man the Swan so that they could be manipulated - at the correct point in time - into triggering (at the right moment)the System Failure that crashed Flight 815 and subsequently (at the right moment) to turn the fail-safe switch.
The fact that Ben (in LTDA) didn’t skip a beat during “the Discharge” tells us that he knew it was coming and that it was harmless - except for the fact that it disabled communication with the mainland - which is exactly what Ben wanted.
Theory by Roland
