There were two basic modes of space-time teleportation revealed before the FDW Event: physical space-time teleportation caused by being zapped as revealed in the DI orientation film for the Orchid, and the Labrat-Eloise/Locke/Desmond type of mind trip. Both of these are very conventional from the typical physics/philosophical/sci-fi point of view. After the FDW Event, the Thumpers (like time-jumpers, but also in honor of the Dharma rabbits?) are experiencing something completely different.
They are experiencing physical, bodily space-time teleportation like the rabbits without being zapped. Someone *could* argue that the island has always randomly sent out random bursts of "purple sky" particles and it somehow just affects Thumpers. If that were true, I would expect that Ethan and Richard would've seen the purple sky before Locke jumped, just as Richard and the other Others did when the FDW was turned or during the Swan Implosion.
So, it seems that the Thumpers are behaving very differently from all the other matter around them, except for certain items that they pick up and use (like sawyer's shirt, the guns, and the outrigger). These seem to be swept along with the Thumper when they jump. Also, and all of the Thumpers are jumping at the same instant and to the same when.
Let's assume that the show wants to stay away from the idea that some higher power is moving the Thumpers around in spacetime like chess-men. The only possible rational explanation as to why some things become unstuck in time and others do not is that they were somehow marked by some process and that mark made the FDW event unstick them in time.
Looking at who and what became unstuck is seems that the mark has something to do with how/when something came to the island. The island seems to have been inside some very strange space-time bubble. It cannot be detected by normal means, a certain bearing takes you in and out without temporal effects, and the inside of the bubble can normally be hours or days out of sync with the outside world. I could believe that crossing that space-time rift would mark someone somehow through some technobabble quantum phase shift or by pushing you slightly off the 4d membrane that our universe resides on, blah, blah, blah. Faraday hinted that everyone carries a "clock in their brain" so maybe a messed up clock is the key. Anyway, there must definitely be something *physically* different with the Lostaways compared to the Island natives. It has to be something like this small physical variance that caused the Thumpers (and Ben) to become unstuck during the FDW Event while leaving the Nati! ves alone.
As to why new objects can be picked up, why clothes jump with the wearers, why it's not just the Thumper's brains that make the trip leaving zombies behind... well, I think that gets into the realm of fantasy. So how could a writer of fantasy make some logical sense out of it? Try this one out: every conscious thing that is marked by the island gets splashed with purple fairy dust during the sky change. It's the fairy dust that unsticks you in time. Desmond just got a little on him during the Swan Implosion; just enough to transport him outside the station without clothes and fry his brain for a while. Luckily it wore off very quickly. ;) The Thumpers can take some objects with them because the fairy dust rubs off onto other things?
So, this still raises some questions:
- What can be marked?
- What can't the fairy dust rub off on?
- If some of the time jumps *aren't* caused by preventing paradoxes, what is fueling them?
- If the Thumpers have an infinite amount of fairy dust, will they eventually cover the whole island in it and prevent the annoying jumps, flashes, and inevitable deaths that way? Theory by Palirath
They are experiencing physical, bodily space-time teleportation like the rabbits without being zapped. Someone *could* argue that the island has always randomly sent out random bursts of "purple sky" particles and it somehow just affects Thumpers. If that were true, I would expect that Ethan and Richard would've seen the purple sky before Locke jumped, just as Richard and the other Others did when the FDW was turned or during the Swan Implosion.
So, it seems that the Thumpers are behaving very differently from all the other matter around them, except for certain items that they pick up and use (like sawyer's shirt, the guns, and the outrigger). These seem to be swept along with the Thumper when they jump. Also, and all of the Thumpers are jumping at the same instant and to the same when.
Let's assume that the show wants to stay away from the idea that some higher power is moving the Thumpers around in spacetime like chess-men. The only possible rational explanation as to why some things become unstuck in time and others do not is that they were somehow marked by some process and that mark made the FDW event unstick them in time.
Looking at who and what became unstuck is seems that the mark has something to do with how/when something came to the island. The island seems to have been inside some very strange space-time bubble. It cannot be detected by normal means, a certain bearing takes you in and out without temporal effects, and the inside of the bubble can normally be hours or days out of sync with the outside world. I could believe that crossing that space-time rift would mark someone somehow through some technobabble quantum phase shift or by pushing you slightly off the 4d membrane that our universe resides on, blah, blah, blah. Faraday hinted that everyone carries a "clock in their brain" so maybe a messed up clock is the key. Anyway, there must definitely be something *physically* different with the Lostaways compared to the Island natives. It has to be something like this small physical variance that caused the Thumpers (and Ben) to become unstuck during the FDW Event while leaving the Nati! ves alone.
As to why new objects can be picked up, why clothes jump with the wearers, why it's not just the Thumper's brains that make the trip leaving zombies behind... well, I think that gets into the realm of fantasy. So how could a writer of fantasy make some logical sense out of it? Try this one out: every conscious thing that is marked by the island gets splashed with purple fairy dust during the sky change. It's the fairy dust that unsticks you in time. Desmond just got a little on him during the Swan Implosion; just enough to transport him outside the station without clothes and fry his brain for a while. Luckily it wore off very quickly. ;) The Thumpers can take some objects with them because the fairy dust rubs off onto other things?
So, this still raises some questions:
- What can be marked?
- What can't the fairy dust rub off on?
- If some of the time jumps *aren't* caused by preventing paradoxes, what is fueling them?
- If the Thumpers have an infinite amount of fairy dust, will they eventually cover the whole island in it and prevent the annoying jumps, flashes, and inevitable deaths that way? Theory by Palirath
