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| - The polar bears have been seen on the island and as a skeleton in the Sahara Desert. The bear in the desert had a Dharma Initiative collar on, signifying that this bear, was in fact, a product, or victim, of the DI. A Hanso Foundation Orientation video shows "Dr. Halliwax" holding a rabbit with a #15 and explaining to the viewers the Casimir Effect "field" to be studied at the Orchid Station. He is interrupted by a sudden event that produces an identical, #15 rabbit on the shelf behind him. He is dismayed by this and warns the room to keep the rabbits away from each other.
- While polar bears are strong and can tolerate very low temperatures, it does not seem that these qualities are very important or a requirement of turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel. Locke was badly injured and wasn't wearing anything warm when he turned the wheel. Clearly they could have used a more predictable and less dangerous animal, for example, a donkey.
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| abstract
| - While polar bears are strong and can tolerate very low temperatures, it does not seem that these qualities are very important or a requirement of turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel. Locke was badly injured and wasn't wearing anything warm when he turned the wheel. Clearly they could have used a more predictable and less dangerous animal, for example, a donkey. DHARMA might have used polar bears because they were looking for the exit. Sending a bear would greatly increase the chances that they would get back a report of somebody spotting a polar bear where one would never expect to encounter one (unless, of course, if the exit happened to be in the Arctic regions).
* This seems to be the most fitting explanation. The polar bears seem to me to be little more than giant lab rats, not unlike Daniel Faraday's lab rat "Eloise" which was used in his own time travel experiments, white with red eyes. It seems likely that they were using the polar bears in their own experiments. We see in the video that they were using bunnies, so it reasons to believe that they may have at some point used the polar bears, which is why the remains of one are discovered out in the desert, because that's where it ended up, just like Ben and Locke. Other than the skeleton in the desert and the fact there were some Arctic parkas on the Island, there doesn't seem to be any direct evidence that Dharma ever actually used the wheel in any way. Chang stopped the drilling when the wheel was found and around the same time threatened Hurley with the task of weighing polar bear poop (indicating the bears were already on the Island around the same time the wheel was first discovered and not brought there explicitly to turn the wheel). Also, Dharma never mentions having moved the Island in any way (or knowing that if a person did move it they would either disappear or be unable to return to the Island).
* This seems to be the most likely case. Although Chang may have been mistaken about "releasing a massive pocket of energy", DHARMA built the Orchid over top of the wheel with knowledge of its presence, but did not go into the chamber. The fact that the wheel chamber is the same in terms of objects inside of it in both the scenes with Ben and Locke, which were likely thousands of years apart, leads one to believe that DHARMA never went inside. With regards to Ben, what likely happened was that he simply learned about the wheel, including its purpose, effects, and location, from the Others, and so knew what to do in "There's no Place Like Home". As for the polar bear in Tunisia, the explanation is simple. DHARMA knew about the wheel cave and built a little chamber right next to it, which is what Ben put metal into. Somehow, they fed off of the energy in the wheel cave and used it to teleport objects through space and time, the one that the audience saw being the bear in Tunisia. This is further supported by how Chang instructed DHARMA members in the Hyra film to be sure that the bears did not have any metal on them (signifying that they were put in the chamber), that they were not pregnant (signifying that they were exposed to electromagnetism, like that in the wheel cave) and to affix a tracking collar on them (signifying that DHARMA knew they were being transported to somewhere else, likely off The Island).--Master Tej (talk) 17:18, March 28, 2014 (UTC)
- The polar bears have been seen on the island and as a skeleton in the Sahara Desert. The bear in the desert had a Dharma Initiative collar on, signifying that this bear, was in fact, a product, or victim, of the DI. The polar bears have been transported to the island and the Sahara desert by way of some special device. Ben Linus is familiar with this device as he has already been a user of its effects. He was seen in the Iraqi desert wearing a parka-type jacket (the same type that with no nearby conveyance or transport. The locals that found him were quite alarmed to his seemingly sudden presence. A Hanso Foundation Orientation video shows "Dr. Halliwax" holding a rabbit with a #15 and explaining to the viewers the Casimir Effect "field" to be studied at the Orchid Station. He is interrupted by a sudden event that produces an identical, #15 rabbit on the shelf behind him. He is dismayed by this and warns the room to keep the rabbits away from each other. Jacob's mouthpiece (Dr. Christian Shephard) tells Locke that they must "move the island." This feat seems impossible or a type of double-speak. Ben then informs the small party that they must head for the Orchid Station.
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