LOST - The Otherworld Theory
This theory tries to explain some of the mysteries of LOST based on the following thought: The Island is connected to an alternative reality, which i will refer to as the "Otherworld".
The season 5 finale showed us two inhabitants of this Otherworld, namely Jacob and his nemesis, the mysterious "Man in Black (MIB)". I will not explain in detail WHAT i think this Otherworld "is" or WHAT kind of lifeforms Jacob and MIB are. You can call them ghosts, spirits, gods or maybe even reincarnated humans. Maybe the show itself wont even answer the WHATS and WHOS specifically.
The Otherworld, populated by many other "persons" like Jacob and MIB, is responsible for many mysterious things that happen in our world. Strange stuff happens everywhere. But there are a few places on earth, where weird incidents are happening much more often. Lets say the Bermuda triangle or Loch Ness or other "haunted" places.
These places all have one thing in common - you will find a pocket of unique electromagnetic energy in the ground beneath them. These pockets are all connected with each other. AND they are connected to the Otherworld.
The Island´s electromagnetic anomaly is the central point of this global network of pockets. This makes the island special - more special than the other "special" places around the world.
When humanity started to explore the oceans with ships, some of the inhabitants of the otherworld became afraid, that their major connection to our world would be in danger. There was a debate between individuals like MIB and other ones like Jacob. While the MIB-like persons were afraid of humanitys destructive nature, the Jacob-like individuals believed in the creative side of humanity and that they would use the islands power in peace and only for technical and spiritual progess.
As the debate in the otherworld went on, the island was discovered for the first time by human beings. It was an ancient egypt culture that settled down on it. The ancient people, deeply connected to spritual beliefs, decided to stay on this holy place, because they quickly learned about the mysterious powers of the island like healing the sick and guiding chosen people to their destiny.
The new inhabitants built a huge statue on the beach and several buildings all across the island which were all connected through a labyrinth of tunnels under the surface of the island. The central building of their world was the Temple, a sanctuary that only the spiritual elite was allowed to enter.
But, as time went by and popultaion on the island grew, the destructive nature of humanity ruined this utopian society. The spiritual leaders in the temple began to exploit their followers and the island. To protect themselfs from angry rebels, the leaders built a wall around the temple and started to attack resistant groups. A war was coming - no, it was already there.
The otherworld inhabitants decided that they cant let this happen. The MIB-fraction knew about the deep spiritual beliefs of the ancient culture on the island. So they decided to use their powers to create something, that would seem to be an angry god to these people - an angry god who would kill them all, if they cant live in peace on the island.
This angry god is our beloved Smoke Monster! Whenever a battle on the island began, Angry-God-Smokey showed up. Sometimes he killed everyone involved in a battle. Sometimes he just made them run away screaming to stop the fight. And sometimes, when someone special, a person with a higher destiny was involved in a battle, he just surrounded him like he did with Ben and showed him his mistakes of the past to warn him about his destructive nature.
But all those efforts couldnt stop the ancient culture from almost wiping out each other. Only a small group of them survived the war. Most of them were people that the Smoke Monster had chosen to survive. This group continued to live in the jungle as "the others". After this catastrophic genocide the Otherworld Inhabitants decided to not let any more people settle down on the island. They created a magnetic bubble around the island that would make it invisible to the outside world and causing the island to constantly move through spacetime.
Two Otherworld spirits, namely Jacob and "MIB", took human form and were sent as representatives from the otherworld to the island. It would be their task to protect the island from any further destructive human influence.
But one day the Black Rock came across the coordinates of the island. The ship was loaded with the same unique electromagnetic material of which the pockets all around the world consists. As the ship got closer to the island the electromagnetic pocket on the island startet to react with the material on the ship. The Black Rock was drawn to the island very fast. The electromagnetic energy between the island and the ship destroyed the bubble at a certain point. This point will later be refered to as the special coordinates through wich coming and going to the island is possible.
The Black Rock "landed" in the jungle and some people actually survived the crash. One of them was Richard Alpert. Because the captain and other higher ranked officers of the ship were killed, Alpert was now the leader of the black rock crew.
Jacob decided that this event was the evidence that humanity IS supposed to be on the island. MIB, though strongly disagreeing with Jacob, had to admit that this kind of weird accident can´t be a coincidence. The power of fate cant even be stopped by the otherworld inhabitants.
This is were the "game" between Jacob and MIB began. Jacob decided that the new castaways should know on what kind of place they landed and so he told Richard about the secrets of the island and otherworld. He told him that he and his people from the black rock should join up with the "others", who learned how to live in peace on the island. After the black rock crew joined the others, Richard became an advisor to their leader. He did his job in peacefully uniting the new castaways and the others so good, that Jacob decided to take him for a trip to the otherworld and back, which made him immortal (or at least he didnt age from this point in time on).
Jacob decided to bring more people to the island by going to the mainland and look for "chosen ones" like Richard. Jacob needs to visit these persons in very important situations of their lifes (like after Jacks first major procedure / Funeral of Sawyers parents). Situations, that are very important for their future actions. And he needs to touch each chosen one with his hand.
But as the decades and centuries went by, more and more ships came to the island and it seemed that MIB was right all the time. "They fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same". It must be around this time when the legendary conversation of Jacob and MIB near the statue took place. But Jacob still believed in humanity and that one day he will find a second Richard Alpert as a living example for a peaceful, calm and healthy person who has the ability of uniting people in peace. The Others got involved in fights too, but it was always that they were attacked and were just defending themself, which even Jacob could understand.
But everything changed, when the DHARMA Initiative came to the island. They weren´t supposed or chosen to be on the island at all. They used another electromagnetic pocket on the mainland and built the Lamp Post Station above it. A very clever fella found out there how the island is moving through spacetime and how it would be possible for anyone to go to the island via the special coordinates, that the black rock created centuries ago.
It was the goal of DHARMA to create the perfect, utopian society on the island and to further humanitys knowledge about electromagnetism, psychology and a whole bunch of other scientific disciplines. But even they coudnt live in peace with the others and therefore called them the "hostiles". Of course the otherworld inhabitants and Jacob/MIB clearly saw that DHARMA is the strongest enemy of the others and the biggest thread to the island ever. So they re-activated their "angry God" a.k.a. Smokey to attack the DHARMA Initiative. But DHARMA built a sonic fence around their headquarter at the Barracks, which could not be passed by the Smoke Monster.
Smokey failed his purpose to bring peace to the people of the island and therefore didnt have any further use for the otherworld inhabitants. They just let the Smoke Monster go without controlling it and so it started its own life on the island - still judging and attacking people, but not in the name of the otherworld.
When DHARMA found the electromagnetic pocket on the island they started to drill into it. This caused the incident. The incident is the electromagnetic anomaly going crazy, its NOT Jughead! Not a single one of the 815ers is on the island yet and they didnt timetravel to the 70´s in THIS timeline. I will explain this later...
The incident in the anomaly started to suck down everything metallic. When nothing metallic was around anymore the DHARMA people managed to build a huge concrete around the anomaly and they even found a way to stop the magnetic reaction. But they soon learned that the magentic reaction slowly builts up again everytime they stopped it. That lead to the SWAN Station and Protocoll. A hatch was built around the concrete and the anomaly, and a computer was installed on which you have to push a button every 108 minutes to stop the anomaly from getting too big.
Because if the anomaly wouldnt be stopped it would grow so long until it would blow open the island and overloading all the other electromagnetic pockets on the planet to which it is connected - that would cause the whole earth to implode (like the swan station did). So it is true: The SWAN Protocoll was in deed saving the world, just as Kelvin said.
But things started to change for Jacob when Ben became the leaders of the others. This dark and twisted individual seemed not to be the right person for this job. So he decided not to talk to Ben at all. Jacob has been accepting audiences from the others leaders all the centuries before, so Ben was the first one who never met Jacob. Jacob only talked directly to Richard during the time of Bens leadership. MIB realized Jacobs disinterest during this years and started to use Jacobs cabin to give out faked instructions that would cause even more trouble. Finally, MIB ordered the purge and Ben wiped out the DHARMA Initiative.
Jacob became aware of the tragic consequences of his disinterest and abscence and needed a new plan. He thought that not even the DHARMA Initiative deserved to die in such a cruel way. Thats why he decided that he would use some new "players" to go back in time and stop the purge from ever happening. One of the players would have to be a real chosen one like Richard Alpert. Someone with a peacefull and good attitude who is also able to lead and guide people - this is, of course, Jack Shepard.
When Desmond failed to enter the numbers on September 22nd 2004 it caused Oceanic 815 to crash on the island. As we know at least some of the 815ers were visited by Jacob before they got on the plane. So Jacob knew that the plane would crash. Its interesting that he visited especially the people who would end up in the DHARMA time later. This is because they were always supposed to be there to stop the incident with the jughead bomb. Even though Jack was believing that it is his destiny to un-crash Flight 815, his true purpose was to wipe out the timeline in which the purge happened, because thats what Jacob wanted.
However, the first time around Jack and co. didnt end up in the DHARMA time. They staid in 2004 like all the others. Maybe this happened because Jack wasnt a man of faith at this point of time. the second time around, on Ajira flight 316, he finally turned into a man of faith and found his destiny in throwing the bomb into the anomaly at the swan site. Juliet had to fulfill the last part of this action, but it was Jack who made it possible.
So here is what i think will happen in Season 6:
The Jughead Explosion at the Swan site will eliminate the timeline in which the purge happened. That was Jacobs intention in bringing Jack to the island. Jack has indeed "changed things". The 815ers in the past will catch up with Darth Locke and co. in 2007. When Jacob said "they are coming" he meant Jack and co. from 1977! When they are all reunited "the war" will come. Widmore will come to the island personally to take care of Ben and everyone else who crosses his plans. Jacob isnt really dead, only his human body is. Jacob will still exist in the Otherworld. Jack will enter the Otherworld to learn everything about his destiny on the island (other than preventing the purge) and he will in fact be the hero in the end who will save the island as a new Richard-Alpert-like immortal person.
This theory tries to explain some of the mysteries of LOST based on the following thought: The Island is connected to an alternative reality, which i will refer to as the "Otherworld".
The season 5 finale showed us two inhabitants of this Otherworld, namely Jacob and his nemesis, the mysterious "Man in Black (MIB)". I will not explain in detail WHAT i think this Otherworld "is" or WHAT kind of lifeforms Jacob and MIB are. You can call them ghosts, spirits, gods or maybe even reincarnated humans. Maybe the show itself wont even answer the WHATS and WHOS specifically.
The Otherworld, populated by many other "persons" like Jacob and MIB, is responsible for many mysterious things that happen in our world. Strange stuff happens everywhere. But there are a few places on earth, where weird incidents are happening much more often. Lets say the Bermuda triangle or Loch Ness or other "haunted" places.
These places all have one thing in common - you will find a pocket of unique electromagnetic energy in the ground beneath them. These pockets are all connected with each other. AND they are connected to the Otherworld.
The Island´s electromagnetic anomaly is the central point of this global network of pockets. This makes the island special - more special than the other "special" places around the world.
When humanity started to explore the oceans with ships, some of the inhabitants of the otherworld became afraid, that their major connection to our world would be in danger. There was a debate between individuals like MIB and other ones like Jacob. While the MIB-like persons were afraid of humanitys destructive nature, the Jacob-like individuals believed in the creative side of humanity and that they would use the islands power in peace and only for technical and spiritual progess.
As the debate in the otherworld went on, the island was discovered for the first time by human beings. It was an ancient egypt culture that settled down on it. The ancient people, deeply connected to spritual beliefs, decided to stay on this holy place, because they quickly learned about the mysterious powers of the island like healing the sick and guiding chosen people to their destiny.
The new inhabitants built a huge statue on the beach and several buildings all across the island which were all connected through a labyrinth of tunnels under the surface of the island. The central building of their world was the Temple, a sanctuary that only the spiritual elite was allowed to enter.
But, as time went by and popultaion on the island grew, the destructive nature of humanity ruined this utopian society. The spiritual leaders in the temple began to exploit their followers and the island. To protect themselfs from angry rebels, the leaders built a wall around the temple and started to attack resistant groups. A war was coming - no, it was already there.
The otherworld inhabitants decided that they cant let this happen. The MIB-fraction knew about the deep spiritual beliefs of the ancient culture on the island. So they decided to use their powers to create something, that would seem to be an angry god to these people - an angry god who would kill them all, if they cant live in peace on the island.
This angry god is our beloved Smoke Monster! Whenever a battle on the island began, Angry-God-Smokey showed up. Sometimes he killed everyone involved in a battle. Sometimes he just made them run away screaming to stop the fight. And sometimes, when someone special, a person with a higher destiny was involved in a battle, he just surrounded him like he did with Ben and showed him his mistakes of the past to warn him about his destructive nature.
But all those efforts couldnt stop the ancient culture from almost wiping out each other. Only a small group of them survived the war. Most of them were people that the Smoke Monster had chosen to survive. This group continued to live in the jungle as "the others". After this catastrophic genocide the Otherworld Inhabitants decided to not let any more people settle down on the island. They created a magnetic bubble around the island that would make it invisible to the outside world and causing the island to constantly move through spacetime.
Two Otherworld spirits, namely Jacob and "MIB", took human form and were sent as representatives from the otherworld to the island. It would be their task to protect the island from any further destructive human influence.
But one day the Black Rock came across the coordinates of the island. The ship was loaded with the same unique electromagnetic material of which the pockets all around the world consists. As the ship got closer to the island the electromagnetic pocket on the island startet to react with the material on the ship. The Black Rock was drawn to the island very fast. The electromagnetic energy between the island and the ship destroyed the bubble at a certain point. This point will later be refered to as the special coordinates through wich coming and going to the island is possible.
The Black Rock "landed" in the jungle and some people actually survived the crash. One of them was Richard Alpert. Because the captain and other higher ranked officers of the ship were killed, Alpert was now the leader of the black rock crew.
Jacob decided that this event was the evidence that humanity IS supposed to be on the island. MIB, though strongly disagreeing with Jacob, had to admit that this kind of weird accident can´t be a coincidence. The power of fate cant even be stopped by the otherworld inhabitants.
This is were the "game" between Jacob and MIB began. Jacob decided that the new castaways should know on what kind of place they landed and so he told Richard about the secrets of the island and otherworld. He told him that he and his people from the black rock should join up with the "others", who learned how to live in peace on the island. After the black rock crew joined the others, Richard became an advisor to their leader. He did his job in peacefully uniting the new castaways and the others so good, that Jacob decided to take him for a trip to the otherworld and back, which made him immortal (or at least he didnt age from this point in time on).
Jacob decided to bring more people to the island by going to the mainland and look for "chosen ones" like Richard. Jacob needs to visit these persons in very important situations of their lifes (like after Jacks first major procedure / Funeral of Sawyers parents). Situations, that are very important for their future actions. And he needs to touch each chosen one with his hand.
But as the decades and centuries went by, more and more ships came to the island and it seemed that MIB was right all the time. "They fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same". It must be around this time when the legendary conversation of Jacob and MIB near the statue took place. But Jacob still believed in humanity and that one day he will find a second Richard Alpert as a living example for a peaceful, calm and healthy person who has the ability of uniting people in peace. The Others got involved in fights too, but it was always that they were attacked and were just defending themself, which even Jacob could understand.
But everything changed, when the DHARMA Initiative came to the island. They weren´t supposed or chosen to be on the island at all. They used another electromagnetic pocket on the mainland and built the Lamp Post Station above it. A very clever fella found out there how the island is moving through spacetime and how it would be possible for anyone to go to the island via the special coordinates, that the black rock created centuries ago.
It was the goal of DHARMA to create the perfect, utopian society on the island and to further humanitys knowledge about electromagnetism, psychology and a whole bunch of other scientific disciplines. But even they coudnt live in peace with the others and therefore called them the "hostiles". Of course the otherworld inhabitants and Jacob/MIB clearly saw that DHARMA is the strongest enemy of the others and the biggest thread to the island ever. So they re-activated their "angry God" a.k.a. Smokey to attack the DHARMA Initiative. But DHARMA built a sonic fence around their headquarter at the Barracks, which could not be passed by the Smoke Monster.
Smokey failed his purpose to bring peace to the people of the island and therefore didnt have any further use for the otherworld inhabitants. They just let the Smoke Monster go without controlling it and so it started its own life on the island - still judging and attacking people, but not in the name of the otherworld.
When DHARMA found the electromagnetic pocket on the island they started to drill into it. This caused the incident. The incident is the electromagnetic anomaly going crazy, its NOT Jughead! Not a single one of the 815ers is on the island yet and they didnt timetravel to the 70´s in THIS timeline. I will explain this later...
The incident in the anomaly started to suck down everything metallic. When nothing metallic was around anymore the DHARMA people managed to build a huge concrete around the anomaly and they even found a way to stop the magnetic reaction. But they soon learned that the magentic reaction slowly builts up again everytime they stopped it. That lead to the SWAN Station and Protocoll. A hatch was built around the concrete and the anomaly, and a computer was installed on which you have to push a button every 108 minutes to stop the anomaly from getting too big.
Because if the anomaly wouldnt be stopped it would grow so long until it would blow open the island and overloading all the other electromagnetic pockets on the planet to which it is connected - that would cause the whole earth to implode (like the swan station did). So it is true: The SWAN Protocoll was in deed saving the world, just as Kelvin said.
But things started to change for Jacob when Ben became the leaders of the others. This dark and twisted individual seemed not to be the right person for this job. So he decided not to talk to Ben at all. Jacob has been accepting audiences from the others leaders all the centuries before, so Ben was the first one who never met Jacob. Jacob only talked directly to Richard during the time of Bens leadership. MIB realized Jacobs disinterest during this years and started to use Jacobs cabin to give out faked instructions that would cause even more trouble. Finally, MIB ordered the purge and Ben wiped out the DHARMA Initiative.
Jacob became aware of the tragic consequences of his disinterest and abscence and needed a new plan. He thought that not even the DHARMA Initiative deserved to die in such a cruel way. Thats why he decided that he would use some new "players" to go back in time and stop the purge from ever happening. One of the players would have to be a real chosen one like Richard Alpert. Someone with a peacefull and good attitude who is also able to lead and guide people - this is, of course, Jack Shepard.
When Desmond failed to enter the numbers on September 22nd 2004 it caused Oceanic 815 to crash on the island. As we know at least some of the 815ers were visited by Jacob before they got on the plane. So Jacob knew that the plane would crash. Its interesting that he visited especially the people who would end up in the DHARMA time later. This is because they were always supposed to be there to stop the incident with the jughead bomb. Even though Jack was believing that it is his destiny to un-crash Flight 815, his true purpose was to wipe out the timeline in which the purge happened, because thats what Jacob wanted.
However, the first time around Jack and co. didnt end up in the DHARMA time. They staid in 2004 like all the others. Maybe this happened because Jack wasnt a man of faith at this point of time. the second time around, on Ajira flight 316, he finally turned into a man of faith and found his destiny in throwing the bomb into the anomaly at the swan site. Juliet had to fulfill the last part of this action, but it was Jack who made it possible.
So here is what i think will happen in Season 6:
The Jughead Explosion at the Swan site will eliminate the timeline in which the purge happened. That was Jacobs intention in bringing Jack to the island. Jack has indeed "changed things". The 815ers in the past will catch up with Darth Locke and co. in 2007. When Jacob said "they are coming" he meant Jack and co. from 1977! When they are all reunited "the war" will come. Widmore will come to the island personally to take care of Ben and everyone else who crosses his plans. Jacob isnt really dead, only his human body is. Jacob will still exist in the Otherworld. Jack will enter the Otherworld to learn everything about his destiny on the island (other than preventing the purge) and he will in fact be the hero in the end who will save the island as a new Richard-Alpert-like immortal person.
