The Island, the Closed Loop, and the End of the World by Aaron is Jacob

First, this theory is based in part by the videos we saw released last summer at Comic-Con. Some people consider these to be spoilers to season 6, so if you are avoiding those, avoid this theory as well.

So… The videos at Comic Con basically showed us a world where Flight 815 never did crash. Many speculate that this means Jack/Daniel's plan to 'undo' the crash worked. But I see this as a red herring. I believe that the bomb either did nothing (doubtful, I think we all agree it did in fact go off when Juliet hit it the 8th time), or was the actual cause of the incident, the concrete inside the hatch, the button, and ultimately the crash. Is this a paradox, where cause and effect are interchangeable - a closed loop, seemingly impossible system? Yes! Its just like the compass that Richard gives to Locke and Locke gives back to Richard. How is this possible, when both of them only have the compass because the other one gave it to them?

That will be the central question to be answered in season 6. Everything we see in the show is operating on a closed-loop system, where the end of Lost will basically show us how the island came to be in the first place.

The flashes in Season 6 are not of an Alternate Universe that co-exists but rather of this current Universe, before the island was there. Starting in September 2004, we'll see the characters living out their lives, encountering each other seemingly randomly until the world ends with a Nuclear War made possible by the Hanso Company’s weapons. Magnus Hanso made his fortune trading slaves on his ship, the Black Rock, which in the original timeline, never crashed on the island either (since it wasn’t there yet), and the money from these voyages led to the weapon being made that killed everyone.

Our survivors will be just that - survivors of this nuclear winter living on an island in the south pacific who were brought together randomly. They figure out a plan to save the world. They have one of these weapons and figure out a way to use it to open up a 'black hole' that surrounds the island in order to separate the island from normal space-time, thus traveling back in time. But the only one who can survive the journey is a child; adult minds can’t cope with time travel well (bleeding noses, etc.). So they send the island back, with only Aaron surviving the journey through time. The big reveal will be that Jacob is in fact a time-traveling Aaron, and the Smoke Monster is a security system guarding the Temple, where all of the information from the original timeline remains including the alt-versions of our survivors (dead of course).

Aaron/Jacob then is able to ‘save the world’ by bringing the Black Rock to the island, thus changing the timeline so the money that helped create the weapon that ended the world is never earned in the first place! Thus, iteration 2 of the course of history is now what always happened.

But there is a catch, of course. Basically, the weapon they use to send the island back prevents it from ever being created in the first place – a Closed Loop System and paradox in and of itself. The only way to solve this paradox is for these same people to still end up on the island! Collectively, they were able to create the set of circumstances that led to the island moving back in time, thus stopping the end of the world. Even though in iteration 2, the world doesn’t end, they still must end up on the island in order to send it back in the first place, effectively closing the loop and keeping the Universe in tact. Fate dictates this.

So where does MiB/Esau fit in? The short version would be that not everyone on the island wants to use it to save humanity. He leads the group that wants it for themselves so they can live forever, with or without the rest of the world. To Jacob and Esau, the entire world is a game with 2 players, one light (Jacob) and one dark (Esau). They are battling for control of the island, and therefore, control of the Universe. Jacob keeps changing the course of history so the survivors end up meeting each other and coming to the island, thus ensuring he exists to stop the Black Rock and keep the doomsday weapon from being created. Esau finds the island (by accident?), discovers its power in the Temple, and begins undoing what Jacob did to save the human race from wiping itself out.

There have been many iterations of the course of history, with neither side figuring out how to stop the other from undoing things until finally, Esau finds his loophole in how to set things up so Jacob can be killed, and he can take control of the island for good. With Jacob now out of the picture, nobody will be able to undo what he chooses to change, thus allowing him and his followers (Widmore, Paik, Hanso) to live forever on the island. This means everything we saw in Lost really was a master plan, and now, he is ready to go and change things once and for all so his future, where he rules the island and lives forever, plays out since there is no Jacob to stop him.

So this season, as usual, we’ll see 2 simultaneous story lines happening.

1. We see the 'original' timeline and discover what initially brought the survivors together, how the world 'ended' and the circumstances that led them all to find the island and send Aaron back in the first place. These will be the flash-sideways – the alternate 2004 where the plane never crashed.

2. We realize the whole series otherwise has been a look at the ‘final’ timeline, where Esau and Jacob have made all of their moves, including Esau finding his loophole, becoming Locke, and killing Jacob. This ensures that history will no longer repeat itself – its up to the survivors to save the world this time by taking control of the island and ensuring its existence remains – otherwise the Universe will revert back to the original timeline and all will be destroyed.

The last scene of both timelines will be the characters doing the same exact thing – choosing (them actually choosing this is the important part - which is why Jacob couldn't just tell them what to do) to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of humanity. The island will ‘move’ once again, back in time. Or better yet, from the end of the story, back to the beginning, thus closing the loop and allowing the world to keep spinning.