LOST Theories - DarkUFO

Evolving Alternating Timelines by Oderik

I think that traveling through time spawns new timelines. Ok, I know, that's not a big surprise anymore. Now this obviously seems to be the case on Lost.

The differences in two timelines caused by time travel may be of disparate significance. For example, we have seen the situation of Cindy asking Jack about the drink in two different timelines; the situations slightly differ. The differences may be caused by timetravel or just by chance, assuming the universe is non-deterministic. To me, a little more significant seems to be the fact that Jack has a different hairdo and that he seems to have switched roles with Rose concerning the fear of flying. Or Hurley switching from bad luck to good luck. These are consequences of their different experiences in the respective timelines.

To take another step, it is quite significant that some passengers are missing in both timelines. For example Desmond isn't on the plane in one timeline, Shannon in the other. This affects some key issues, some of which are that in the ALT timeline, Desmond can't cause the plane crash from whithin the hatch and Shannon could not translate the french distress call even if they did crash.

Concerning Lost, the most significant difference is of course the fact that in one timeline the plane doesn't crash while in the other it does crash. Now to the actual theory:

What if the "crash / no crash" fact is a dangling one? We have seen that the "crash timeline" seems to lead to a "no crash timeline". But maybe the "no crash timeline" later on leads to a "crash timeline" again. I would call that a "varying major issue" (VMI) causing two (or more) alternating timelines to take turns. That doesn't mean that every second (or n-th) timeline is just the same. They are only similar, escpecially concerning the VMI.

Having this in mind I like the idea of other theories, that the ALT timeline is actually happening "previously" to the one we start observing in season one.

As I already mentioned, even if we do have a VMI situation, that only means that some timelines are similar - not necessarily identical. Iterating, the differences may even escalate to resolve the VMI situation. That's why I called this article "Evolving Alternating Timelines".

I like the idea that the big picture behind Lost involves Jacob and the MIB experiencing some kind of "Groundhog Day" situation from which they want to escape. This concurs with the famous conversation between Jacob and the MIB:
- "It always ends the same." -> We are stuck in an infinite loop.
- "It only ends once." -> You are wrong: the loop is not infinite!
"Anything that happens before that… just progress." -> We just need to let the loops evolve!
Jacob actively supports the evolving process by intervening. He applies what he has learned from previous iterations.

Strictly speaking I am presenting a mixture of two theories here:

Theory 1: Jacob and the MIB are stuck in some kind of time loop. Jacob is confident that there is a way to exit the loop. The MIB doesn't believe in that and is annoyed by Jacob's interventions and their consequences.

Note: Maybe any timeline whithin the loop terminates in a near "end of the world", according to the Valenzetti Equation.

Theory 2: The loops may involve one or more VMI situations, making it even more interesting.




So, what do you think about it? I hope this theory doesn't already exist, but I had to write it out of my mind anyway... :)

We welcome relevant, respectful comments.
 
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