Harnessing the island’s abilities by Cassiopea

I’m looking at a combination of theories in the hopes of coming up with something new. If it’s been said before then my apologies. Credit where credits due and all that. Just hoping I might put a different slant on things. The main new things I’m mentioning are in the bit titled LOOP HOLES in case you want to skip to the end to read.

ALT NOT AS A RESULT OF THE INCIDENT
I’m thinking of all the scenes in Lost as parts of many versions of a similar story running thorough Lost which has been cleverly edited to look like one story which set in a linear time line. Like when Des saved Charlie time after time, I think these were separate timelines made to look like they happened in one time line. Pieces of those many stories are different iterations of time line and we’ve not seen the whole picture, we’ve not seen how all the differences progress in time. For example I think that hidden in the story we’ve seen so far there was one iteration of the time line where Locke did kill the undercover cop in the commune. I believe therefore that there are alternative time lines in Lost but not as a result of the incident.

ISLAND IS ALWAYS MOVING THROUGH TIME
It was moving constantly when the Losties were on the island Hawking told Jack. However we have been told that time moves the same on island as it does off it. The time discrepancy is approx 30 minutes but I think sometimes it’s out of sync by 30 years or 300 years. On island time would pass but come in and out of line with off island time. If you were able to leave the island you could get to 1954, 1961, 1977, 1820, 1930, 1012 depending on where the island moved to. It might spend 3 months in line with one year and then moves to a completely different year and stay there for 3 years. The location of the island is predicted by the Lamp Post. People on the island wouldn’t know what time it was off island until they left the island or were privy to that information.

THE ISLAND IS OUT OF ALIGNMENT
I think when the island comes in line with off island time, both times should run along side each other for a certain length of time until the island moves again. IE if it is 1:45 on October 12th 2009 off island it should be the same off island. Therefore Daniel’s clock from the Kahana should read the same as the clock on the island but it isn’t and there’s this approx 30 minute discrepancy. What concerned Daniel IMO was that something had gone wrong so that the island was malfunctioning, it was not quite lining up on island time with off island time. The experiments being conducted by Dharma on the island had caused this problem.

HOW AND WHY IT IS THIS WAY
I’ve said before that it was Dharma that made the island this way especially considering how time travel can result in backwards causality, although I admit it could be a natural phenomenon.

SPATIAL CO-ORDINATES THEORY
By transmitting the numbers from the radio tower to a receiver (the Lamp Post) off island they can determine the position of the island in time. Constructed in the distant past by Dharma hidden for centuries in a church basement it would be recording the years when the island arrived in a certain time frame because it would detect the transmitted signal from the island. The data could be analysed and then Dharma could predict when and where it will turn up and perhaps control its movement.

INCIDENT DAY
Those numbers, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 could have been when the island started to move through time. Like D Day or I Day – Incident Day perhaps. Maybe out of date now, if the island has been moved, but still hold some significance. Dharma’s goal when they drilled into the EM to try to move the island in time or maybe it was just to harness its power and keep it one place. Entering the numbers could have been Dharma trying to reset those spatial co-ordinates. The plan went wrong and maybe they couldn’t control it as they anticipated. The numbers were either meant to keep the island in one place, constantly resetting it’s spatial co-ordinates (maybe could have been automated) but since things went wrong in the incident I think that inputting the numbers is now just to keep the space time continuum together – “Just saving the world, brotha!” Somehow the energy released from the incident (which could have prevented the end of the world) could be controlled by sending ! the disastrous material into an ever repeating time loop which may or may not have caused a rip in the space time continuum.

THE ISLAND SKIPS 5 YEARS
After the incident the island jumps from 1977 to 1982 (lets say). Maybe as a result of the incident or because someone turns the wheel again. Most of Dharma left the island in 1977 but the island moved and Dharma were not able to get back to the island until 1982 when it reappeared in the same time frame as the outside world again. The island jumped ahead in time so that it effectively jumped 5 years. Then they start up the experiments again on the island, Chang and Radzinsky are 5 years older. They record the new video for the Swan and have some new personnel. Life in Dharma Ville must have been different from how we saw it in the 70’s, extra precautions; maybe that explains the quarantine on the Swan. Whatever happens in this time period is not clear but just as things are getting back on track the hostiles instigated the Purge. Also, so that Dharma cannot come back or find the island again, the hostiles turn the wheel and send the island to another time period. At the s! ame time they jam the transmission signal from the radio tower. Therefore Dharma cannot find the location of the island in time.

EXPLAINING AGE DIFFERENCES
This idea explains why Ethan looking a lot older than 27. If the hostiles and Ben and Ethan spent a few extra years out of time they would both age while they were there. It’s much more noticeable in Ethan because we know his exact birth date and as the actor playing a 27 year old is 44 in real life it’s more obvious. The same argument could also be used to explain the apparent discrepancy in Charlotte’s date of birth. She could have been born in 1979, like Ben said, her parents could have moved to the island and then Dharma experiments moved the island in time, back to 1970 (for example). Charlotte ages about 7 years on the island and then leaves, looking a little bit older than she should be. A mistaken age is not a nice thing for an actress – or it could be a large marketing ploy to bring this to everybody’s attention. I know the arguments about this one, could be just fan fiction not theory.

RICHARD’S NOT AGELESS - JUST COMING AND GOING FROM A TIME TRAVELLING ISLAND
We know he left to see John being born in 1956 but what if he went back to the island and then the island jumped from 1956 straight away to 1961 and then he left again to go see John as a little boy. Off island time would have passed but Richard would look as if he hadn’t aged. I say he was coming and going from the island and the island is moving though time. He may have turned the wheel or maybe he used the right bearing to come and go. I keep thinking that there’s more to the idea that one must find the correct bearing.

WINDOWS OR DOORS TO OTHER TIMES
Cannot see the island until you are in the immediate vicinity of it but it’s known to be there physically at some point in time. It’s location in time is only found through detecting it’s location (Penny’s men at the listening station) or plotting it’s course (Lamp Post). To get to it without the correct bearing people experience a mind shifting to a different time maybe because the island time was not correctly aligned with off island time or because the island is aligned with another point in time, maybe 1996 as theorised previously. It’s not easily accessible on any bearing or visible to people in 2004 but it possibly would be in 1996. Your mind cannot make the jump over the time difference. Maybe if you approached the island from off island in 1996 you would have no problems. Maybe if you know the correct bearing to take then you could leave to a different time. That’s if you can learn more about Constants so that you can stop yourself from dying in this mi! nd swapping process. You’d need to go into your past and change your life to include encounters with important people so that you would always have a constant. This maybe something to do with the connections our Losties have with each other off island…Maybe why Jacob touched certain people. Dharma learned this and I think we are watching Faraday discovering what Dharma (and Jacob) already know.

LOOP HOLES
Messing with time travel in this way is what provides these characters with a loop hole. A way to create a second version of themselves who is following behind them in time and using it to their advantage. Since the island has been moved in time there are two Locke’s – one off the island who turned the wheel and the other is still on the island. I know that Locke moved forwards in time but the island may have been moved back in time. If it was moved back in time to 1980 (lets say) then the Locke from 1980 is due to grow older and go to the island. Eventually he will get to the point in time where he should turn the wheel but instead of doing this as his counter part has done before him (which he should do because if he doesn’t then there’s a paradox but this could be a delayed paradox…) he instead leaves the island on the correct bearing so that he can return at a different time period one the island has been moved through time again.

Now the extra bit is where Locke gives his past self “future knowledge” so that he is able to complete the loop hole. When Locke turns the wheel he is exposed to EM and experiences the same phenomenon that Des experienced - a flash forward (pun intended) experience. In this flash his past self will get a glimpse of his future. Not the Locke whose just turned the wheel but the Locke who is still in 1980. This enables past Locke to see how his future will turn out. That Locke gets a vision of himself turning the wheel and other helpful scenes. He decides the last thing he will do is turn the wheel when he gets to the island. He will not know everything and that’s why we sometimes see John of old and other times he seems empowered. That’s because, just like Des the flashes didn’t stop. He continues to get flashes of the future. He learns about coming and going from the island on the correct bearing and takes steps to leave just before he is due to turn the wheel. Inst! ead of turning the wheel this Locke leaves and then returns using the correct bearing again. Once back on the island he seems to have been resurrected or his body could have been assumed by the MIB’s. I reckon it’s just Locke with future knowledge and maybe once back on the island he knows a lot more. It might not have been 1980 when Locke got future knowledge of course, maybe he had future knowledge from when Jacob touched him and that’s part of Jacob’s counter strategy. He has decided when John would have that knowledge from, what point in time the flashes would start. Maybe to help John or maybe to hinder him. Maybe one of those flashes to the future was when Locke is deciding whether or not to kill the undercover cop at the commune he’s living at. He says he is a hunter not a farmer.

ALT has been happening before our eyes all along. Flashes before our Eyes have been happening all along.