The alternate reality is what really happened by J. Brett Lavin

Here it is. With everything in lost you need to look at everything from different angles.

I believe that the original timelime matches the alternate reality. Jack has a kid, Locke is with helen and so on. MIB find a way to destroy Jacob. A follower of Jacob travels back in time via the donkey wheel to warn him at of his impending doom.

Knowing he needs to prepare for his impending doom he "pulls" to the island a variety of people that can take over for him once he is gone. He decides to pull from all walks of life. A doctor, a musician, a fugitive, a former soldier, a lottery winner, etc. By pulling these people to the island he can ensure a proper replacement will be there once he is gone.

Unfortunately he can not stop his own death. If he were to do that his follower would never end up going back in time to warn him. In turn he makes sure that Hurley is granted the power to talk to him so his mission can continue even after death.

But he also knew that he could not just destroy the original (ALT) time lime. To him that would amount to genocide. So his original thought is that once everyone is sent back in time. at some point they would be pushed to destroying the orchid and inturn restoring the timelime why knocking themselve back to the present to be available to take over the island.