ENDINGS, BACKGAMMON, POWER CONVERSATIONS, DIFFERENT STATES OF DEATH, LOCKED LOOPS. PART 3 OF 3 by Dishyvaeda

After Alpert had witnessed John’s birth in 1956, he would have confirmed to Jacob that the words of the old man, who strode into their camp 2 years previously before disappearing in a flash, were true.

As John claimed to have met Jacob in about fifty years time, Jacob would now believe in his own existence and influence in that future. A real future, which effectively had already happened. One where the island and humankind still existed. So Jacob knew he would still hold an advantage over his enemy Bearded Rival, who was controlled by the island’s malevolent forces (see part 1).
When the Dharma Initiative arrived the island tolerated them, because their ideals for saving the world and humankind were similar to Jacob’s. But Dharma showed no respect for the Others, regarding them as hostiles and then began experiments in ‘sacred’ areas of the island.
When Alpert went to the Dharma Barracks in 1974 and was convinced by Le Fleur to preserve the truce, he would have reported back to Jacob that he had met someone who had knowledge of the hidden H-bomb, and also of the events of 1954.
Jacob would have probably accepted that if these ‘time travellers’ were working undercover in the Dharma Initiative, then they were linked to John Locke’s purpose and must be trusted.
When Dharma drilled into the Swan electromagnetic source in 1977, they endangered not just the island, but the world itself. If the gravitational strength of the leak had continued to increase, presumably the island would have imploded and done some serious damage beyond that.
There are obviously some real world scientific flaws in the Lost theory of electromagnetism but hey, let’s not spoil a good story. Anyway I don’t think Jacob foresaw the Swan incident because if he had, surely he would have sent some Others to halt the drilling.
But now that the Swan incident was in the past, and having learned that people from the future had sealed the leak with the H-bomb warhead to save them, a huge burden would now be placed upon Jacob and the Others. They now had to spend the next three decades ensuring that those same people WOULD travel back in time. As well as trying to prove to the island that humans were worthy of saving (see part 1), Jacob now had to save the island itself.
Jacob therefore had to set up a ‘locked’ (no pun intended) time loop. An out of control electromagnetic leak would have devastated the world in 1977. Enough to have changed the future of humankind beyond course correction. But the known original future 1977 to 2007 would be preserved, providing Jack and co went back in time to halt the drilling. The devastated future might have been very close to suddenly becoming reality around 2007, if the flight 316 window had been missed. “God help us all”.
However, if it was so important that specific people were sent back to 1977 surely they should have been brought carefully to the island in 2004, and not had their lives risked on flight 815. It can only be that Jacob/the island knew exactly who to spare from death when Oceanic 815 crashed.
Eloise had witnessed her son Daniel die as an adult, before she gave birth to him. Her whole future would now be dedicated to raising her child to be a quantum physicist, who would eventually have to go back in time to his death. If she failed to do this Daniel would not be there in 1977 to convince Alpert to allow the H-bomb warhead to be used. Even the banished Widmore, despite his personal feud with Ben, cooperated to preserve the last 30 years. So he financed Daniel’s education and work, and then ensured his son was on the freighter.
If Widmore had retaken the island, he would surely have spared the people needed by the Others to time travel back to 1977. When he told John to go back to the island to prevent the wrong side from winning the ‘war’, I think he must have meant as original John and not as a corpse. His intention was still for Jacob to succeed, but also to ensure Ben lost his leadership. Having witnessed John’s mysterious appearance and disappearance in 1954 and his bravery through injury in 2007, Widmore sensed this was the ‘special’ person he could use to depose Ben.
Jacob now set out to find Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Sun, Juliette and Locke. Notice that the four people on Jacob’s list from Series 2 where involved in stopping the drilling at the Swan. If you watch Series 5 finale carefully Jacob either touches them, or passes some object to them in their pasts. Presumably this was enough set the course of their lives towards the island.
The sealing of the 1977 Swan Hatch electromagnetic leak, and Jacob’s death in 2007 seemed to coincide, albeit in parallel time lines. Although 30 years apart, both events involved flight 316 passengers about an equal time after 316 was brought down. So when John and Benjamin went to kill Jacob (can’t get any more biblical than that), the world had just been saved by Juliette’s heroics in the parallel time line. The last 30 years were safe at last, locked in place, and could not be undone.
“It takes a long time to make a thread, but then, that’s the point."
In Series 5 finale we saw that Bearded Rival had found a loophole, through undead John, to kill Jacob. But Jacob appeared to be anticipating this, and chose to die at the hands of Ben, whom undead John had carefully primed. Presumably Jacob believed there was purpose to not resisting his own assassination. Maybe to lure his enemy into a tactical mistake. After being immobilised on the backgammon board for so long Bearded Rival could not resist this opportunity to move his pieces again. So he jumped at the chance of using John to get to Jacob.
How does that work? Bearded may have made a last desperate move for victory, but Jacob’s followers from Flight 316 were outside the statue with John’s corpse. “They’re coming.” said dying Jacob to undead John. That is his followers had arrived with proof that John was the enemy, not their new leader. Game over for Bearded Rival? Undead John the imposter with partner in crime Ben will have some serious explaining to do in Series 6.
I expect John and Ben will blame each other, to try to buy more time for themselves. In fact John could claim that the island resurrected him, and then told him to seek Jacob to ask what he should do next. The Others might well believe John’s version if Ben visibly has Jacob’s blood on his hands, when they walk out of the statue.
“They’re coming” might of course refer to something more sinister. Dying Jacob may have been warning Bearded Rival of consequences. Maybe worse things than Bearded Rivals’ trapped followers are about to be released from the island’s realm of whispers (see part 2).
Perhaps Jacob meant the 815ers in 1977 would now return to 2007. They may have to join with Ben (if he escapes the crime scene) and any Others still loyal to him, to oppose the undead John/Bearded Rival alliance. I believe this is going to be the ‘war’ in Series 6, which may even spread beyond the island. The outcome will determine the destiny of humankind, and the ending of Lost. Light or dark.
Well, thank you for taking the time to read this theory, I hope some of it made sense.
And, dare I say …“Always nice talking to you”.