Swan Station Countdown Timer -VS- Radzinsky's Blast Door Map
Yesterday saw our 3rd and 4th place finalists battling it out. In the end it was comfortable victory for our much loved Swan Station Computer. One could say that it was fate, that the Swan Station Computer should place in at 3rd, given that it placed 3rd in last year’s competition too. Congrats to the computer terminal. Congrats too go to Desmond's Photo, which finishes in at 4th.
Now on to the matter at hand; the final. Today pits Radzinsky’s Blast Door Map against the Swan Station Countdown Timer. Which will win? Nobody knows for sure; at least not yet. So without further ado, let the voting commence.
Scroll down for prop info and images.
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Swan Station Countdown Timer – This split-flap countdown timer was directly connected to the Swan Station Computer Terminal. The countdown timer would count down from 108 minutes, continuously and ceaselessly. The constant clicking sound of the split-flap panels was often a reminder that the world hung in the balance. When the clock reached below 4 minutes, the code would have to be entered into the computer terminal. Entering the code in time would reset the clock back to 108 minutes. Not entering the code in time was thought to lead to cataclysmic consequences. When Jack and Locke butted heads over the treatment of their prisoner, “Henry Gale”, Jack threatened to allow the timer to tick down to zero. Locke barely managed to enter the numbers in time to avert disaster, but not before the timer offered us our first haunting glimpse at the infamous hieroglyphic symbols. Those very same hieroglyphic symbols were introduced in a more prolonged format during the final episode of Season 2, when Locke insisted that the entire station was a meaningless joke. Our last glimpse of the countdown timer came when a surge of electromagnetic energy quite literally caused the timer to wither up into a bundle of twisted metal.
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Radzinsky's Blast Door Map – After the apparent suicide of Radzinsky, his station partner, Kelvin, took up the job of continuing Radzinsky’s work; not only as a button presser, but also as an artist of sorts. Radzinsky’s blast door map detailed the layout and workings of several Dharma stations scattered around the island. The map, invisible to the naked eye, could only be seen under blacklight, during a complete lockdown of the station. Locke later happened upon the map, following an incident involving a near catastrophe within the station. Locke memorized the blast door map and used his new knowledge to later track down the Pearl station. The map was subject to much online scrutiny, and not least because of the references made to the “Cerberus System”. It was thanks to the blast door map that Lost fanatics were able to establish that “CV”, which stood for “Cerberus Vent”, referred to underground passageways used by the Smoke Monster.
