I know what caused the alternate timeline by General eLwin

i've said this before, and with recent developments it seems more likely by the day.

it seems that jughead did not go off in the island reality, and the sunken island reality does not implicitly mean that the nuke went off. what normally sinks islands is the volcanos underneath them. its a relatively common occurence, volcanic islands eventually return to the sea.

but of course, the real question is why we are seeing this alternate reality. if its simply an alternate universe, then using that theory means one of two things scientifically.

either the alternate universe is an anomaly and was created through force, or it is only one of an infinite number of universes.

but thats neither here nor there.

my point is.

when we saw faraday talk to young charlotte, we didnt see him say what she said he said. the camera cut away. i think he told her something different. my guess? he told her to come back to the island as soon as she could. this would be simple reverse psychology with reference to what he knew of her in the future. or maybe he knew things that were going to happen to her.

the simple fact is, on this ocassion dan had explicit knowledge of an event that was going to happen in his future (charlottes past). he would be foolish not to take advantage of it and say something completely different to what she said happened.

i think all of dans actions in the season 5 finale were inspired by a desire to save charlotte. he told her something different, he pushed the incident into action, as either his primary or secondary plan, to to get the island to evacuate andto try and possibly make it that she couldn't come back even if she wanted too.

that what i think.

but if this is just one of millions of alternate universes, whats the point in us being shown it? surely there are millions of realities where oceanic 815 didn't crash? but maybe the angle is that this is the first time one of these universes has been created. the crash of 815 might have been a universal constant until this reality was created. i could dig that.