Since Season 5 began to reveal whole handfuls of answers - and of course, more mysteries - I've been trying to see whether there is any rhyme or reason to the island's time skipping.....
Turns out, there may very well be.
Just for curiosity's sake, I constructed a timeline based upon years indicated in all the episodes up to "LaFleur", and sure enough, I discovered an unmistakable pattern that closely resembled a certain set of digits. To wit.....
1954: Left-behinds w/Locke arrive and encounter Richard, young Charles Widmore and - presumably, young Eloise as a result of Ben's turning the FDW, their behavior influenced by a very dangerous and unstable atomic bomb....
1958: John Locke is born (now part of different timeline?)
1962: Benjamin Linus is born outside Portland OR
1966: Events yet to be revealed?
1970: DHARMA Initiative officially begins
1974: Left-behinds arrive WITHOUT Locke; young Ben also arrives (?)
1977: Oceanic 5 arrive and encounter first Jin, then Sawyer as LaFleur
1980: 'The Incident' occurred? Remember, the Orientation videos all
had a copyrighted date of 1980 and reference is made to it in
Swan Station video.....
1984: Events yet to be revealed?
1988: Jin washes ashore and encounters younger Danielle w/French
science team before finally flashing back out of that time
period for good.....
1992: The Purge; Ben takes over as leader of the Others.....
1996: Desmond flashes back to London after turning the Swan failsafe
key and encounters Charlie.....
2000: Desmond crashes on island late in the year (shortly after
summer starts in the Southern Hemisphere, when a solo boat race
would be held) and is rescued by Inman; actually a bit OVER 3
years.....
2004: Oceanic 815 crashes in water off island due to Desmond's being
lured away from Swan hatch by Inman in Charles' attempt to
thwart Ben's plans (hence the runway being built on Hydra
Island and, isn't it interesting that Ajira 316 landed
there instead.....) Locke forces Desmond into turning the
failsafe key; Oceanic 6 leave the island
2005: Ben lands in Tunisia, now appearing to be an exit point from
the island
2008: Ben, the corpse of Locke, Caesar, Frank, Illana and Lapidus
crash on Hydra Island in Ajira 316 while the Oceanic 5 -
presumably all of them except for Sun, who appears to be with
Frank - land in 1977 and stay there as a result of Locke
stabilizing the FDW when he returns to the outside world.....
Now you may have noticed that, with the exception of those time spans between 1977-1980 & 2005-2008, these are FOUR-year intervals (not counting the start year) and of course all the Numbers except for 23 and 42 are multiples of 4 - with that in mind, there are exact intervals of 4, 8, 12 and 16 years between the events listed, with one very noteworthy exception - 1977, but if we add 23 to a presumed starting point of 1954, that is precisely what we get, and if we add 42 to that same baseline year, we get 1996.....
Coincidence?
What I'm saying is, while the numbers MAY represent the so-called Valenzetti Equation per The LOST Experience, what I believe we will shortly discover in upcoming installments is that they are, first and foremost, A PROGRAMMING CODE FOR THE ISLAND, a way of setting the Island's time-jumping capability to control access to specific points in its recent history.
Only one man we've been introduced to has the ability to do such a thing: Daniel Faraday, probably coerced by his likely father and benefactor, Charles Widmore, the man with the most interest in being able to quickly access the associated events and change their outcome (although the question of why Faraday as a surname remains to be answered.....). Somehow using the concrete-embedded Jughead to stabilize or facilitate the time-jumping function, Daniel linked it to the program and Widmore brought Inman (like Keamy a mercenary) in to make sure the numbers were input without fail and the Island's figurative needle never jumped all over its historical record, lest there be grave consequences Widmore (and possibly the Others, still working together with him in 1980) would no longer be able to rectify.....lastly, I believe that Desmond's turning of the failsafe key caused A) Ben to land in 2005 after turning the FDW and b) the Oceanic 5 minus Sun (why not, though?) to arrive in 1! 977 is one more reason why Desmond may be the subject of Episode 14, "The Variable".....
If anyone can think of events that I overlooked and may be linked to 1966 and/or 1984 please do comment..... Theory by ogam5
Turns out, there may very well be.
Just for curiosity's sake, I constructed a timeline based upon years indicated in all the episodes up to "LaFleur", and sure enough, I discovered an unmistakable pattern that closely resembled a certain set of digits. To wit.....
1954: Left-behinds w/Locke arrive and encounter Richard, young Charles Widmore and - presumably, young Eloise as a result of Ben's turning the FDW, their behavior influenced by a very dangerous and unstable atomic bomb....
1958: John Locke is born (now part of different timeline?)
1962: Benjamin Linus is born outside Portland OR
1966: Events yet to be revealed?
1970: DHARMA Initiative officially begins
1974: Left-behinds arrive WITHOUT Locke; young Ben also arrives (?)
1977: Oceanic 5 arrive and encounter first Jin, then Sawyer as LaFleur
1980: 'The Incident' occurred? Remember, the Orientation videos all
had a copyrighted date of 1980 and reference is made to it in
Swan Station video.....
1984: Events yet to be revealed?
1988: Jin washes ashore and encounters younger Danielle w/French
science team before finally flashing back out of that time
period for good.....
1992: The Purge; Ben takes over as leader of the Others.....
1996: Desmond flashes back to London after turning the Swan failsafe
key and encounters Charlie.....
2000: Desmond crashes on island late in the year (shortly after
summer starts in the Southern Hemisphere, when a solo boat race
would be held) and is rescued by Inman; actually a bit OVER 3
years.....
2004: Oceanic 815 crashes in water off island due to Desmond's being
lured away from Swan hatch by Inman in Charles' attempt to
thwart Ben's plans (hence the runway being built on Hydra
Island and, isn't it interesting that Ajira 316 landed
there instead.....) Locke forces Desmond into turning the
failsafe key; Oceanic 6 leave the island
2005: Ben lands in Tunisia, now appearing to be an exit point from
the island
2008: Ben, the corpse of Locke, Caesar, Frank, Illana and Lapidus
crash on Hydra Island in Ajira 316 while the Oceanic 5 -
presumably all of them except for Sun, who appears to be with
Frank - land in 1977 and stay there as a result of Locke
stabilizing the FDW when he returns to the outside world.....
Now you may have noticed that, with the exception of those time spans between 1977-1980 & 2005-2008, these are FOUR-year intervals (not counting the start year) and of course all the Numbers except for 23 and 42 are multiples of 4 - with that in mind, there are exact intervals of 4, 8, 12 and 16 years between the events listed, with one very noteworthy exception - 1977, but if we add 23 to a presumed starting point of 1954, that is precisely what we get, and if we add 42 to that same baseline year, we get 1996.....
Coincidence?
What I'm saying is, while the numbers MAY represent the so-called Valenzetti Equation per The LOST Experience, what I believe we will shortly discover in upcoming installments is that they are, first and foremost, A PROGRAMMING CODE FOR THE ISLAND, a way of setting the Island's time-jumping capability to control access to specific points in its recent history.
Only one man we've been introduced to has the ability to do such a thing: Daniel Faraday, probably coerced by his likely father and benefactor, Charles Widmore, the man with the most interest in being able to quickly access the associated events and change their outcome (although the question of why Faraday as a surname remains to be answered.....). Somehow using the concrete-embedded Jughead to stabilize or facilitate the time-jumping function, Daniel linked it to the program and Widmore brought Inman (like Keamy a mercenary) in to make sure the numbers were input without fail and the Island's figurative needle never jumped all over its historical record, lest there be grave consequences Widmore (and possibly the Others, still working together with him in 1980) would no longer be able to rectify.....lastly, I believe that Desmond's turning of the failsafe key caused A) Ben to land in 2005 after turning the FDW and b) the Oceanic 5 minus Sun (why not, though?) to arrive in 1! 977 is one more reason why Desmond may be the subject of Episode 14, "The Variable".....
If anyone can think of events that I overlooked and may be linked to 1966 and/or 1984 please do comment..... Theory by ogam5
