Sub Timeloop/Timeline within greater Time Loop by IanG

"Still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?"
"You are wrong."
"Am I? They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.""It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."

The short version: Jacob and this Hetero Lifemate are both the end result AND cause of everything that has happened in the Lost series. This theme of causing your own pain has been used pretty extensively in Lost thus far, and I believes it applies to Jacob and friend as well.

They are stuck in a time loop that they have been unable to escape from because no matter what they do they continue to create the conditions for their own loop. They cannot die because they have died multiple times already, yet the loop still exists and they are forced to restart it from the beginning (Groundhog Day style). While further time loops and alternate realities can be created within their master time loop, these are of course destroyed once the main loop restarts, as they do not affect the cause of the original loop.

Who are these people??

I do not believe there is anything god-like about Jacob and his bud MIB. To uncivilized people, many of the things we possess today seem magical and godlike. Their knowledge of events, apparent grasp on cause/effect, and apparent powers are all the result of just having been living for as long as they have, and amassing the knowledge of precisely when something needs to occur.

This does not discount the Island itself from having special properties, just the individuals, but they may have learned how to harness them correctly.

I believe in season 6 we will be introduced to Jacob and MIB yet again, only this time they will be who they were before the time loop had started (for them). Something will occur that will push them into this loop. It would be a real kick in the pants to find out they are both modern day Dharma Initiative, who through experiments or involvement with the Losties and the Island are hurled into this loop, and create the foundations for what will always lead to be the Dharma Initiative in the future. They can't escape from that because Daniel's original assessment IS correct: You CANOT change what happened or happens.

HOWEVER, he might have discovered that since their own timeline/timeloop is actually just a tangent inside a larger time loop, maybe the rules do not apply to them because their timeline can always be affected by forces that live within a larger scale, namely Jacob and MIB.

So let's take a look at that beach conversation that Jacob and MIB had from another perspective:

"Still trying to prove me wrong, aren't you?"
- That there is some way they can stop causing this time loop
"You are wrong."
- You are wrong, jackass. I just don't think we've got the circumstances right yet. Prick. Go get some 'Just For Men' beard coloring and buzz off.
"Am I? They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same."
- HERE's the key. This is how I think this sentence breaks out:
- The Black Rock always comes.
- The Black Rock / 815, Others/Dharma, 815/Others ALWAYS fight in each time loop.
- They always cause some type of destruction such as The Incident or another release of the energy of the island.
- They always corrupt the timeline.
- Every time this loop completes, it ends the same, and we start right back here.
"It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."
- You're not thinking big picture, Esau the Gray. It really only ends once when we're outside of this time loop we created. Anything else is just progressing to that point. Man you're a jerk. But have some fish.

Why is Jacob not really concerned about being killed? Because he's been killed before. Many times. He's possibly killed MIB before too. But no matter what, when their eye opens and their pupils dilate, they are back in their time loop. Nothing changed.

As we know since the story continues after Jacob is killed in Season 5, the actual act of killing him isn't the end result MIB needs, but there is something more to it that Jacob's death is the cause of. If either of there deaths were really that pivotal, you'd think they'd not hang out like they need each other so much.

The "rules" on the grandest scale are that Jacob and his mate are NOT able to change their timeline. But the Losties can.
Unfortunately for them, once the main time loop ends, they are destined to repeat it all again. Sucks for them.

But with that we can satisfy both theories that you can change the future and that you can't change the future. It all depends on your perspective from whatever time loop you're trapped in. If you're in a sub-loop, you can get out. Otherwise, good luck to you both.

This is by no means the cleanest theory out there, but I hop it gets your brain juices going and maybe we can all complete a better theory together.