I have no flippin’ clue – it’s a submarine on a TV show. In real life, though, all subs I’ve ever read about use compressed air to force water out of the ballast tanks, and for an emergency blow you simply open the air tanks to their maximum settings until all the air (and presumably water) is gone. There’s no special equipment involved. Couple that with climb from the control planes if you have any forward momentum and you can pop up pretty quickly. Exactly how quickly I don’t know, but 300 feet per minute seems like a safe estimate based on the admittedly crappy research I’ve done on the topic in the last five minutes.
In any case, it was a joke post. Dwelling on it is like pointing out that the MiGs in Top Gun are actually F-5s disguised with black spray paint. It really doesn’t matter. :)
In happier news, I found this cool article on the history of escaping from submarines.
I could write three short stories based on that article.
Thanks!
This seems a likely outcome, but at the same time, there’s plenty of clues that the alternate reality people get the feeling that they are just that: not quite the real thing. And that if UnLocke escapes, Widmore keeps warning that everything goes away (though considering the carnage, I’m not sure how that is a bad thing for all the Losties). And in that whole vein, the original timeline Losties feel no sense of their alternate lives.
But yeah, death of a major character has lost its poignancy - Sayid, Jin and Sun die? Yeah, but do those deaths count or is the alternate reality their true destiny, meaning that they live (or even some alternate timelines fusion where they live). So I can’t get worked up, and if it really isn’t real (or is that unreally is real - I’m getting lost, so to speak) the mourning period is already past, so it’s still lost (there’s that word again) its impact.
I am still wondering if the real dead, unboned Locke (un-UnLocke?) will put in an appearance to Hurley.
Oh, and if UnLocke can’t escape the island, then just who the hell was it that appeared to Jack in the hospital (as his father), and Kate as Claire at her returned-from-the-island home (not to mention Claire was alive and thus not eligible to be a smoke-doppelganger).
MattN
6284
Wow putting lost concepts to text makes my head hurt.
I actually had a long detailed post written in response (I served on US navy submarines for over five years so it’s an area I have some expertise in) but you’re right, it’s pedantic.
I will say, though, there is considerable special equipment involved which is why I questioned whether a civilian sub would go to the expense of installing an EMBT system.
I obviously did not know that. Thanks! I wish you would have posted with the details, though, as I would like to read up on it. If you have any links I’d appreciate them.
OK, happy to provide details. Anyone not interested in how current US Submarine EMBT blow systems work (or at least those of 688s which is all I have experience with) please look away:
For normal surfacing, a submarine will just drive up to the surface and then start a low pressure blower which will take air from outside the ship and use it to push water out of the ballast tanks (which is at very low pressure since it’s within a few feet of the surface). After about 30-45 minutes the ballast tanks should be reasonably dry and the sub is now naturally buoyant so the low pressure blow can be secured and the sub will act, for all intents and purposes, just like any other ship and should be in no danger of inadvertently submerging.
The Emergency Blow system is completely separate. It uses several sets of dedicated air banks that are located in the main ballast tanks. These tanks are kept at very high pressure because they have to be capable of not only overcoming outside sea pressure at very high levels but also maintaining that positive pressure for a long time after the ship has surfaced since the ship is likely in extreme danger from submerging again.
To open the valves that contain the air in these air banks requires even higher pressure. So there is another set of air tanks, with even higher pressure, just for opening the valves and keeping them open.
No system is airtight so the pressure in the tanks is likely to drift a bit. So there also needs to be a way to charge the air tanks on a somewhat regular basis to keep to ensure the air banks are at the required pressure at all times.
So there is a fair amount of dedicated equipment that needs to be maintained and it adds a fair amount of space to the sub itself and, of course, space is always at a premium on these things. So I’m not sure if a civilian sub would necessarily go to the expense of installing a dedicated EMBT system which would hopefully almost never be necessary.
I did find the idea of it taking five minutes to surface absurd though. My calculations may be off but I think they would have to be at least 1000 ft deep and moving at just 2 kts for it to take that long to get to the surface.
That’s fascinating stuff. Thanks, Kevin!
I still found the death of Jin and Sun poignant but, strangely, their deaths left me feeling a little less invested in the final outcome. Almost everything we’ve been emotionally invested in over the past 6 seasons has been lost at this point. If there are three characters on the show who deserved a happy ending they would be Hurly, Jin and Sun.
Obviously we don’t know what’s going to happen in the end with regard to the two realities so maybe there is still a happy ending to come but, for now, I find myself joining the ranks of those who say that these two immortals playing chess can go fuck themselves for all I care. (I usually don’t require a happy ending but killing everyone we’ve ever cared about just seems a bit capricious.)
Any munitions experts out there? What would really happen in a confined space and four bricks of C4 going off? I’d think a few eardrums would pop at the very least.
In a confined space? Chunky salsa effect.
Looking back, I’m a bit confused on one point:
Ben and Widmore seemed at odds, Ben even lamenting that he couldn’t kill Widmore. But Ben was working with Jacob and Alpert, who are against the smoke monster, and Widmore is working against the smoke monster. So why were they at each other’s throats?
Ben had Widmore tossed off Cork Island at some point in the past for reasons we do not yet understand, and it’s pretty clear that Ben has been working for The Bad Man for a while now, even though he was under the impression that he was not (he thought that the cabin was where Jacob lived, while we know that he lives in the statue’s foot and isn’t allowed to communicate directly with anybody, aside from Richard). At this point, Charles is probably pissed enough at Linus that he wouldn’t accept an apologize, but if they just Christian Baled at one another, they’d probably find themselves on the same side of the arrangement.
Isn’t Widmore just as evil as the smoke monster? Or is he really doing seemingly evil things for the greater good, which I’d find hard to believe at this point?
I find it hard to believe that any of them are “good” after doing what they’ve done.
Plot device - I wouldn’t look at it too closely. The time frame had to fit the exposition required for the scene. Kind of like there was no reason for Charlie not to get on the other side of the door before he closed it (the water pressure would have helped close the door since it was swinging with the flow). Stuck with whatever way the set was built (or facility used).
Four blocks of C4 detonating on a small submarine was another problem, which would have generated far worse damage than what was shown (and Sayid didn’t close and seal the hatch behind him). Again, don’t write to Mythbusters - maybe Sayid separated a few bricks along the way and dropped them along the way and we just didn’t see it (or the appropriate scene got edited out for time/pacing reasons).
Widmore is ruthless, and doesn’t seem too upset to do rotten things, but he does seem driven by what he considers the greater good (whether it is good or not is probably debatable, but Widmore perceives of himself as working for the greater good).
JD
6298
Widmore being against Smokey doesn’t have to mean he’s ‘good’ or that he’s perceiving himself as ‘good’. He might have wanted to get back to the island to achieve his own personal goals, be it the hope for immortality or some other reasons. If Smokey leaving the island actually results in shit really hitting the fan - something Widmore himself stated, and something Jacob hinted at in Richard’s episode -, then Widmore should be interested in keeping him on the island so that he can execute his own plans.
That’s because they either:
A. Had no idea how they were ever going to end the show.
or
B. Had to change how they were going to end the show and had no idea what to change it to.
