[YellowHare]

For example, in Jack’s original timeline, his father was perfectly normal and didn’t end up getting killed in Australia; however, when Ben went back in time, fate created a series of events in Jack’s timeline, which ultimately brought him to the island. The same applies for all of the other Losties.

1996 (Island Time - around 2001 in Off-Island time): Richard and Ethan leave the island via the special coordinate, about 5 years into the time loop to carry out a recruiting mission. They pinpoint Juliet to explore the child birth issue on the island. She is genuinely a good person, and will do anything to help her sister. However, she is not aware of the time loop which is occurring on the island, and Ben is using her lack of awareness to keep her at the island. Since Ben was from the future, he knew that Juliet’s husband would get hit by a bus on a certain date – so he strategically timed Richard and Ethan’s visit to be a few days prior to the husband’s accident, knowing that would be a trigger to get Juliet to the island. Also, Ben knew that Juliet’s sister would ultimately get cured of her cancer and have a baby girl. That’s why Ben is so persistent on the fact that if Juliet comes to the island, that they can cure her sister. Thus, Ben isn’t a liar. He knows from his past timeline what is going to happen, and he’s manipulating things based on his knowledge.

1996 (Island Time - around 2001 in Off-Island Time): Widmore, a third party who has an obsession over DHARMA, purchased a journal of the Black Rock at an auction. The journal gave him the coordinates that the boat traveled through to get to the island. Widmore hires Libby’s husband to be the first “test subject” to try to reach the island. He give’s Libby’s husband a boat with pre-programmed coordinates – this will ultimately allow him passage into the island, through the time barrier. However, Libby’s husband unexpectedly dies, and she hands the boat over to Desmond. It’s unclear whether or not Widmore is intentionally sending Desmond to the island just to get rid of him, or if it’s a total coincidence that the boat ends up in Desmond’s hands.

2004 (Off-Island Time): Oceanic 815 crashes on the island because Desmond didn’t press the button to reset the island time back 108 minutes. Not pressing the button temporarily stopped the time machine from harnessing the power of the magnetic bubble, thus creating an opening over the island the split second Oceanic 815 flew over – 8 years into the island timeloop, and in the year 2004 outside the island. The resulting power of the current flowing through the magnetic field ripped the plane in half. We, as viewers, are left with two huge questions: was it a complete coincidence that the plane just happened to crash over the island leading Locke to not press the button OR did DHARMA somehow engineer this plane crash to happen the exact second that the plane flew over the island, knowing that specific group of people would free the island of its time loop? That, my friends, brings us back to the theme of LOST – did fate cause the plane crash, or had DHARMA staged certain “characters” to ultimately “lead” our heroes to the island… OR was it some combination of both fate and the work of DHARMA?

After the plane crashes, our heroes now exist in the year 1996 on the island, and they have taken on their physical attributes from the year 1996. Locke is healed because he hadn’t gotten into his accident until around 2002 – the same with Rose. Also, in the original timeline of the universe, Oceanic 815 did NOT crash. Therefore, if the losties ever got off the island and back into the year 2004, fate would deem that they survive at least until 2007 (which was how far the future had been written in Ben’s original timeline).

1996 (island time): All of the events in the first 2 seasons of LOST take place. The hatch is discovered and Locke ultimately ends up not pressing the button and Desmond turns the fail safe. The turning of the fail safe destroys the time machine, and now the island time is officially moving again; however, the purpose of the fail safe was to permanently set time back to the original start date of 1996! Now the island is moving at about 8-9 years behind real world time. When Desmond turned the fail safe key, his life flashed before his eyes… Well, actually, he got to “re-live” about 9 years of his life! He got to relive being rescued from the island, witnessing Charlie’s death, and then starting his life up again off the island, meeting Penny, and then ultimately coming back to the island, thus creating a full loop for his life story. Desmond could not escape his fate. The reason only Desmond got to re-live his life was some function of him being the “key turner” OR the fact that he was exposed to the extreme magnetic radiation levels in the hatch (which is referenced in Season 4). I’d venture that he was probably “at the heart of the time machine” thus, he was a little more clairvoyant to his alternate future than say, the folks who were out on the beach. And, that is ultimately how he gets “flashes” of Charlie’s death. Who knows how many times Desmond actually got to “re-live” his life. And, each time Desmond re-lived his life, he saw what would ultimately lead our heroes to getting off the island – and that would be Charlie sending out the message.

2004 (Off-Island time, after the plane crash): Widmore stages a fake Oceanic 815 plane crash because he has gotten wind that the plane may have entered the secret DHARMA research island. The fact that the plane can’t be found at the island’s location leads Widmore to believe that time travel does truly exist on the island. Widmore is a rich man, so he wants to use time travel for his own benefit.

On another side of the power struggle, there are a few DHARMA folks left in the real world, who also are desperately trying to get back to the island, ultimately to kill Ben – because he is responsible for the disappearance of their research team on the island (aka, the purge). Once DHARMA discovers that Widmore is sending a ship to the island, they round up a small crew to travel to the island as spys: Naomi, Faraday, Lapidus, etc.

Ben is on the third point of this power triangle. He knows that he’s destined to survive until at least 2007 – yet in his original timeline, he didn’t have to deal with this struggle. However, since Ben believes that there is a pre-written future for him, he doesn’t have much fear that Widmore or DHARMA will ever be able to succeed in bringing him down. So, with that, Ben sends Tom off the island to recruit Michael to destroy everyone on the boat: DHARMA and Widmore’s folks. So, from Ben’s perspective, he’s killing two birds with one stone.

1996 (island time): after Desmond is able to finally lead Charlie to his destiny and losties remove the blocking-signal, Jack is able to communicate to the freighter using Naomi’s device. Her device is a specially manufactured DHARMA device that allows Naomi to communicate in the past (on the island) with the future DHARMA in 2004 (on the freighter). Note that even Sayid pointed out how futuristic the device was – it’s futuristic because it’s used to communicate between different times!

Daniel has his friend on the freighter launch a payload in order to “test” the special coordinate that allows passage from the island. If the payload had been launched very far away from the special coordinate, it may have arrived as much as 8 years later in time! The fact that the payload arrived 31 minutes suggested to Daniel that they had almost found the exact coordinate. As for the motives of Naomi’s crew - these are working for DHARMA, they are not happy, and they are after Ben. They want to know why DHARMA was wiped out on the island.

1996 (Desmond’s timeline): As Sayid and Desmond leave the island, they pass through the time barrier between the island time and the real world time. In other words, Desmond is instantly passing from the island time of 1996 to the future time of 2004. Only Desmond is impacted by the “time transition,” because he was originally exposed to the high levels of the magnetism (aka radiation) in the SWAN hatch for the past 3-4 years. While Desmond makes the transition, his mind is meshed with the 1996 version of himself. Daniel understands exactly what is happening to Desmond – so he uses his communication device to talk to the 2004 version of Desmond in order to create a “constant” for himself so that he could eventually make it off the island. That is why when Daniel checks his log; he is able to see the newly written content, saying that “Desmond is his constant.” Daniel wasn’t actually changing the past by asking Desmond to make contact, he was just trying to figure out how he could get off the island, and back in to the present year of 2004.

Unfortunately for Daniel, Naomi, and their crew, they were hand selected by DHARMA to be guinea pigs. We’d seen in their flashforwards that they possibly knew too much about DHARMA – thus they were expendable.

As for the other crew member on the freighter who’s experiencing Desmond’s symptoms – that guy attempted to get to the island, but didn’t pass through the special coordinate. As a result, his mind was sent from 2004 to 1996, and he didn’t have a “constant” to keep his mind connected between the two timelines. As a result, he died. So, the only true way to get to the island is through the special coordinate, which allows passage between timelines.

(cont.)

[YellowHare]

1996 (island timeline): Once the power struggle on the island plays out, 6 “survivors” emerge and leave the island: Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sun, Aaron and Sayid. It’s still unclear how the 6 get off the island, but we do know that the rest of the survivors remain on the island in the year 1996; however, DHARMA, nor Ben, ever tell the 6 that they were previously living in the year 1996 on the island.

2005: Along with the “6,” Ben has also gotten off the island. Remember that he has traveled from the future (around 2007) back in time to 1996 as well. Now that Ben is off the island, he uses Sayid to help course correct to ensure that the future to 2007 plays out according to plan. We’re not exactly sure why Sayid is killing the people that Ben chooses; however, it is likely that these people must die in order to preserve the new timeline – perhaps they are members of DHARMA, and once Ben can eliminate all of them. It’s clear, however, that Ben’s interest is now taking over DHARMA and regaining control over their time machine. Once he can obtain that, he can travel back in time to 1996, go back to the island, and restart the time loop (hopefully).

2007: Jack has lived about 3-4 years off the island in the new timeline. He knows that there are people living on the island in the year 1996 (now probably 1999 on the island). Jack may also be aware that in an original timeline, his plane wasn’t meant to crash, and he was meant to survive. Thus he tried to jump off a bridge (similar to how Michael tried to shoot himself with a gun), to test fate to see if he CAN actually kill himself. Jack then reads in the paper that Ben has died – which may create the perfect opportunity to go back to the island, assuming that Ben was previously preventing them from going back. One thing to note is that Jack and the other survivors may not even be aware that they had lived in the past on the island. However, the fact that they are still alive is testing fate, given that they were meant to die in the plane crash, years ago. I predict that the show will end with a final scene that will determine whether or not the survivors have “free will” to overcome some type of obstacle that fate would’ve deemed impossible. What is that obstacle? Only time will tell.

Conclusions:

Going forward, I can only predict a few things that will happen: Throughout season 4, I think Naomi’s DHARMA folks will infiltrate the island and there will be a cat and mouse game between the Others, our heroes, and DHARMA. I think that Jack and Ben will slowly start to see eye to eye, and Jack will start to realize Ben’s pessimistic viewpoint on fate. However, I don’t believe the “time machine” concept will come into play until the final season.

By the end of the series, I think some people will stay on the island and some will leave; however, the question will remain: will our heroes be able to “beat fate” somehow. Either way, the failure to keep pressing the button and the leading of DHARMA to the island has caused a great burden for Ben and the Others, as they now have no control over DHARMA and the island. Our only hope is that they can harness some more of the islands powers to finally allow free will to change the future and stop DHARMA once and for all!



Source: http://duggmirror.com/television/An_...g_LOST_Theory/

[nathanexplosion]

Nice posts. I will be interested to read that when I get a chance.

I started watching the whole series again to pass the time during the break. I'm currently in the middle of season 2.

[YellowHare]

I honestly think the guy who wrote those 4 posts nailed it, and it's even better to see that my own theories have pretty much been shades of what he's theorizing on. Don't let the length deter you; you'll love it!

[2short]

Originally Posted by YellowHare

I honestly think the guy who wrote those 4 posts nailed it, and it's even better to see that my own theories have pretty much been shades of what he's theorizing on. Don't let the length deter you; you'll love it!

Wow is that long. I will try and read it, but ...Damn that is long.

[Provocateur]

We still have no real explanation of what the smoke monsetr is!!!

[kakashi]

hey I just watched the 8 episodes of season 4 and they're pretty damn good, just like the last episodes of season 3.
that's cool cause I was kind of a Lost hater until then, too much fillers

does anyone knows what Jacob is ? Some kind of ghost ?

[YellowHare]

Originally Posted by Provocateur

We still have no real explanation of what the smoke monsetr is!!!

Read that long 4-post I made; it's theorized in there, and it makes sense.

Originally Posted by kakashi

hey I just watched the 8 episodes of season 4 and they're pretty damn good, just like the last episodes of season 3.
that's cool cause I was kind of a Lost hater until then, too much fillers

does anyone knows what Jacob is ? Some kind of ghost ?

We don't officially know, no; but, again, read that 4-post I made, it's all in there.

[Provocateur]

Originally Posted by YellowHare

Read that long 4-post I made; it's theorized in there, and it makes sense.

.

I read it but it didn't make sense about the monster. Can you elaborate?

[kakashi]

Originally Posted by YellowHare

Read that long 4-post I made; it's theorized in there, and it makes sense.



We don't officially know, no; but, again, read that 4-post I made, it's all in there.

i've forwarded them to my email address at work, I'll read them tomorrow while being paid if you don't mind hehe