The Test by System1988

Ok get ready to shoot this theory to sunshine! :)

I haven’t posted anything for quite a while now and considering the fact that this theory is based on a rumor I think you might as well give me some space to express it more freely

So the Losties have arrived on the island more than twice (815, 316) how interesting!

Jacob touches each of our main characters all over again during some critical points in history.


Claude Levi- Strauss (Anthropologist, died in 2009 at age 101)

All civilizations are equally logical and progressive. There are no cultures inferior or superior to others. It all depends on our point of view. We modern- western people (Europeans and Americans) believe that technology and science are the criterion with which we can evaluate a civilization’s progress. Sadly though it never occurred to us that the Inuits believed that a civilization progress is determined by it’s ability to survive in hostile environments. Keeping this point of view in mind we can easily say that the Inuits are the most advanced society in world history so far because they spend all their lifes surviving in low temperatures, fighting sea lions and polar bears. Points of view…. We all are pathetically same as we are magnificently different from one another.

Claude Levi- Strauss, a free mind. Truly a magnificent man, god rests his soul. I respect him deeply; he will always be a mentor to young social anthropologists like me. My teacher said that I am responsible for his death however, due to a research I presented earlier this year, criticizing his work. Apparently my paper reached Levi Strauss in some LostMagicalBox way, and after he read it he decided that it was time for him to withdraw in peace. LOL!

But seriously, I posted this man’s way of thinking to show you why LOST is the show it is and always will be.

It seems to me that our Losties have been brought to the island by Jacob more than twice. Let’s make a list shall we? It will become clearer (John –from the spoiler/rumor article- thanks for backing this theory up before I even posted it!)

1) Time not yet determined – Possibly Prehistoric Times (The invention and use of fire) - Others living in huts and wearing ripped, dirty clothes

The Losties arrive for the first time on the island by means unknown and form a society on it. They understand its unique properties and decide to live there and protect it. They Build the Temple and the statue in order to keep their women fertile and their children protected by the island’s mysterious ability to prevent birth. They build the FDW in order to travel through time and space more smoothly. Aaron is been born –the first child to have ever survived birth- and he is considered holy. The loop happens – means unknown, possibly by a FDW malfunction- Aaron, as a healer and with a mysterious ability to affect reality –just like Walt- is given the mission of always creating the loop.

2) Black Rock times - Renaissance (Global Enlightenment) – Others living as a more sophisticated version of their older appearance (See Richard in young Ben’s flashbacks)

The Losties arrive for a second time on the island. Jacob has touched them in ways so they would all end up as slaves in the Black Rock. MIB is angry of this happening again so he accuses Jacob for messing with the loop which must not be fixed so everything will end. Something happens – probably a struggle between Jacob and MIB- Richard is chosen by Jacob as his ambassador because he and MIB cannot seem to discuss their “issues” peacefully. Jacob knows his importance so he withdraws for the world and leaves Richard to make sure that the loop continues, not completely the same, but progressively until it ends when is supposed to. The Losties die (see No.3)

3) 2004 Flight 815 – Modern Times (Nuclear Power, DNA analysis, Technological Progress) – Others living as we see them, under the command of Benjamin Linus, dressed in modern clothes, living in houses etc.

The Losties arrive for a third time on the island. Richard plays along as Jacob told him but he makes the fatal mistake of trusting fake Locke- the MIB who wants the loop to end violently, not through progress which involves it happening all over again. We now have our Losties on an island on which their past selves already exist. They live in the Temple and always try to stay hidden. They use Jacob who uses Richard who uses Ben in order to make them strive for their lifes, become better people, thus stopping the Incident. This chain of command is used to prevent MIB to see clearly who is calling the shots and disorient him. The Losties fail once more. Richard didn’t lie when he said he saw them all die. He meant he saw them die as slaves in the Black Rock Incident – Remember the skeletons inside the ship? Maybe the dynamite didn’t blew up only Arzt after all! Hehehehh… This “I saw them all die” must also apply also to the ancient Losties but I am not sure. The d! ead Losties from Renaissance (Black Rock) are possibly the whispers in the jungle. That’s why Ben told Rousseau to run the other way when she heard whispers. If se ever saw any of the Losties in the same age they had when she first met them (2004) she would have gone completely insane, blowing the whole cover.

4) 2007 Flight 316 – Modern Times – The Fatal Mistake, Daniel was right the O6 should have never returned to the island, nor Ben should have turned the FDW!

Ok this is it. The big one! Ready? I thought so. Here we go: MIB wants the loop to end violently, if this means even killing everyone, even the whole world that seems to always reset at the point when the same people from all historical periods of human history always arrive to the island. MIB does not want that. He wants the loop to end. Jacob however wants his mother alive as all of the Losties who loved and took care of him. He was chosen by them to make sure they get another chance to fix things. They all have been slaves literally and metaphorically. They always were sent back to the island at their own “commands” so they would end this nightmare. They trusted Jacob to make sure they end up on the island again at some point during their past, present and future lifes. They have no choice but to interfere with history only through the use of other people like Ben, Richard or Jacob.

That’s because they all have come to believe in progress, that at some point their future selves will understand what needs to be done so that the loop ends without catastrophic repercussions for everyone (God Help Us All). They cannot risk being revealed to their future selves, telling them what to do, because this will close the loop violently. Free Will is the key to all this ending at some point. Only a man/woman with a clear conscience, free of strings or manipulation can hope to close the loop. Sadly the Incident is not the point where the loop can end. It’s the point where the fatal loophole MIB was searching for all this time is created. Thus the time travelling season, MIB’s plan to close the loophole violently, hoping that one of the Losties will come across one of their past selves.

MIB had all this planned. In 2004 he manipulated everyone so the freighter would arrive and cause enough panic to make Ben and Locke believe that moving the island was the only option. Ben moves the island and that’s where MIB takes his chance to become Locke. He eventually succeeds in killing Jacob, making sure he will never try to cause the loop to happen again. Before his death Jacob asks Ben to do things as a free man, not someone manipulated. Sadly he fails and dies but not before he realizes that there is one last chance. “They are coming”

WHO is coming? Our Losties of course! This is their last chance to fix things, no more rabbits in their hats, Jacob is dead, he can’t create another loop for them, he did his best. Also Locke is also dead in means that he is MIB now, so one variable stops existing as a “pawn with free will”. Very, very interesting don’t you think? Hehehheheh…….

So we come to the final chapter, season 6 where the timelines become one and our losties reunite trying for one last time to end the loop smoothly. MIB will try to kill them all, ending the loop violently but our Losties have some experience now of how to make all this mess work out. The problem is that MIB’s plan worked after all. When the producers of the show told us that in this season we won’t be able to tell when our Losties are in each scene they mean that we will see our Losties but in their past selves during certain points in history before they came to the island each time. This is MIB’s ultimate plan to cause the loop to end violently. I won’t be surprised to see a Kate Austen know- all version in 815 trying to avoid her 2004 self from seeing her at the airport……


I believe that the Incident is not the point where the loop is created but the point where MIB’s plan succeeds. I hope I made that clear. The loop happens at the point when each time something (Desmond failing to push the button, a storm or some other s h i t causes Black Rock to lose the bearing and discover the island etc) happens and our Losties end up on the island. That simple. MIB’s twisted plan was to recreate a mean of the Losties returning to the island but through manipulation, not free will. That’s why all the theatricalities about proxies and recreations of the original flight. So the loop can close but violently. Everything, according to Jacob must be products of free will.

Aijira was a fake but successful attempt of the manipulated Losties to return to the island. They knew they had to return and that was the problem. All the other times they were sent as pure husks of their past selves but at least filled with free will. Not this time though. Only Jack with his “then he dies” speech about little Ben came a bit close to understanding how things should have gone. MIB’s plan to disorient the Losties, sending parts of their group in different times/ timelines was ingenious. They can screw everything!

Yet not everything is lost, and that’s my point in this theory which I admit has a lot of plot holes!

The main question is why?

Let me get back to Claude Levi-Strauss again:

Each civilization has something it created to show to the other civilizations. Such a thing could be an idea (democracy) or an invention (fire, automobile, train). What matters is that the global culture can always count on each and every civilization to come forth at least once during its history and present its contribution to the international progress.

I believe that LOST has to do with people. Not just some people but all people. Throughout the show we have come across with all possible civilizations and cultures, especially the Greek and Egyptian ones. My point is that the island functions as a beacon to each civilization’s best representatives, calling them to live on it so that the human race and culture can always survive. This might also apply for all kinds of organisms (remember how Arzt said that he had discovered many “new” insect species?) Birth is out of the question on the island because since it got what it needed – the first Losties – it considered the birth of more people unnecessary.

Human culture could have stayed as it was but it continues to advance. Thus the island wants better versions of the main characters all the time. Thus it creates loops, ensured to happen by Jacob. However MIB (who I cannot yet fit into the picture quite well) represents the evil, destructive forces that can always threaten survival. That is why MIB hates Jacob. Jacob is given orders to manipulate free will in a smart way, not directly, but by affecting events that lead the Losties each time back to the island. MIB wants things to end as they “should” end, chaotically. If it’s the human race’s fate to be destroyed, so be it. Jacob represents the hope, the romantic yet so fulfilling aspect that people are the species meant to survive, the leaders of life itself that found home on an island, a safe haven where no one can ever hurt their divine nature. The only way to keep life on this planet is to create chronological loops, making sure that life goes on.

The problem with humans is that they evolve too rapidly, so the island needs better versions of humans all the time. Only when people of true free will and complete enlightenment arrive on the island on their own accord, like the Dharma Initiative who searched for it but did not respect it by tapping into its power, will the loop finally end smoothly. A representative of each civilization is needed however because not all people are the same, unlike animals that are clearly categorized into certain behavior and mental patterns according to their species.

The island is the Arc. People are the most difficult species to obtain. That’s why the loops are happening. There is a chance the island itself may be the “villain” in all this. What I mean is that since Jacob is born (the only child to have ever been born on the island) is because the island let him been born in order to use him as a loop creator. That simple. Our Losties fight against a force known as MIB but they also fight a battle they do not know, a war with their conscience, the fact that they have to become better people, better versions of themselves. Only then can they hope to end the loops which are the test they are each time called to pass. The test the island made for them. True human beings are the ones that act completely on their own free will. People that make the right decisions freely, without any kind of disturbance, even Jacob who made the events flow in a direction the Losties themselves wanted.

Are you following me? The only way for the loop to end is the island having perfect human specimens on it and perfect specimens can only be created like Locke’s moth, through nature’s struggle. At some point the Losties will return to the island because they will make the right choices in their lifes and meet before they return without anyone affecting events for their sake. They will travel to the island knowing everything because they will have earned that knowledge. The loops occur because they are all still flawed just like mr. Eyepatch said they are. The loops will end when they are perfect, when there won’t be any reason to create a loop.

So there you go, Island tells Losties it will put their race to test, the test of loopholes, the test will be extremely difficult and MIB will try to make sure that they fail, he is part of the test. Each time the Losties fail to end the loop MIB will be even harder to overcome. In order to pass the test the Losties will have to prove that they are perfect versions of themselves, true humans. Otherwise they will create another loop.

The Island is the entity that tests creation before it saves it.

MIB cannot stand that. He believes that all beings are subjects to chaos and destruction, especially the human kind which is self most destructive of all.

Jacob is hope that people are different, just like all living things are different, therefore they always deserve a second chance, a chance to survival.