The Y theory by warrens

I mainly wrote this theory to consolidate many ideas I have seen floating around on the internet concerning LOST. I do not think any of the ideas I bring up are new; however, I thought it would be constructive to try and restate the thesis of several theories more precisely ---and then engage in some meandering speculation.

My thesis: Both "Whatever happened, happened" (WHH) and "Alternate Timelines" (Alt) can co-exist.

How? The incident always occurred, and since 1977 two single parallel timelines have existed. (Giving us a ‘Y’ shaped timeline)

The consequence: When the plane crashed in the Pilot episode, Jack and friends had already caused the incident (the island’s past is their future, WHH). Moreover, a parallel and yet unseen timeline had been occurring simultaneously (that always had existed) where Jack and friends land at LAX in an alternate LA --as the writers seemed to hint to at comicon.

Note: Because the timelines diverged fairly recently (1977) they are somewhat the same.

Random speculation 1: We can speculate that perhaps the timelines need to re-merge and that to do so certain events must happen (explaining people having destiny/course correction?) because if WHH is true and the timelines re-merge in the future, the two timelines must also start converging. (What great logic! Did I really need to explain that?). Could this also be the impetus for the coming war Charles Widmore likes to bring up?

Random speculation 2: The island, specifically the temple, could be the nexus between the two timelines. This is plausible if we buy the theory that the island’s pockets of dark energy were responsible for splitting the timelines in the first place.

My reasoning:
Perhaps it is only me who is puzzled by trying to reconcile both WHH and Alt; certainly throughout Season 5 it seemed to me that the writers were presenting these ideas as mutually exclusive. I was desperately hoping WHH would prevail because the thought that every decision that our characters were making was spawning some branch in a large multiverse seemed unappealing to me --it made the show too complex-- and it lessened the dramatic power of all that had transpired. To think that in some parallel universe anything was possible and that by traveling back in time the characters could undo the tragedies in their lives in favour of a more appealing future seemed like a cop-out.

I was further dismayed by Faraday's sudden change of heart. How could he go from espousing WHH to believing that people's free-will had the power to change things, that he was forgetting the variables --people. How could he forget people??? What else was there to consider? The season 5 deleted scenes clarify this point a bit better: If you can do something big enough you can change the future. By big enough I assume having the island’s "mysterious dark pockets of energy" interacting with a nuclear explosion would suffice. It is Pseudo-science, nevertheless I buy it. (Of course by change the future I mean create two futures --which again always happened.)

I find the existence of only two parallel universes much more satisfying then an infinitely many universes.

The existence of Alt helps explain many of the larger mysteries:

-If the island is a nexus for two parallel universes it could explain the whispers as echoes from the other side (Then again I thought time travel would explain the whispers).

-It could explain the pallet drop, (which again time travel could have explained too).

-It may also explain the coming war between two sides, light and dark, or rather a war between two universes. (I especially like this idea because its appearance in the show FRINGE adds the possibility that the idea may have been kicking around in JJ's head when he was discussing cool ideas with Damon during the creation of the writing of the Pilot.)

-The Alt time line might explain why in season 5 we see Sun, Frank and Ben visit the Dharma village to find the processing centre decrepit but intact and not having been co-opted by use by Ben and the Others as seen in season 3. (However this would un-explain the purpose of building the runway in season three if we assume its purpose was for AJIRA airways to land safely. Unless of course it was built in both timelines, but we are assuming no one crashed on the island in the Alt timeline –meaning there is no one to return to the island on an Alt AJIRA flight. Also Ben’s house appeared intact)

-The Temple being the Nexus of two timelines might explain why Ben doesn’t remember being shot by Sayid. They could have swapped him for Alt Ben. (Though I realize this doesn’t explain how he was healed, nor does it provide any motivation for swapping the two Bens after the injured one was healed other then it being a cool plot device.)

-it may explain why Desmond is special. Having been at the epicenter of the swan implosion (which is in someway the opposite of the incident that we are speculating created the two time-lines) turned Desmond into some kind of fixed point. What exactly do I mean by this? Well, in a WHH universe there has to be some original happenings to have ever happened. That is, there is some fixed point in the universe that has free will (GOD perhaps) to whose decisions every other event must course correct itself towards to ensure paradox free time travel. Perhaps Desmond is now a god (okay probably not).

I have been trying to think of counter-examples to this theory –the most obvious being it is a tad complex. One way to prove the theory we would need to find examples of WHH based time-travel from the ALT time line back into their common ancestor time-line. I’m not exactly sure how to falsify it, but I’m sure once season 6 starts this speculation could turn out to be a load of crap –as all my other theories have proved to be.