Plan A by Marcus

I believe MIB’s plan all along was to kill the candidates by having them detonate a Nuke back in 1977 ( Kudos Lockesdisciple) Season 6 was just like watching MIB’S plan B for the candidates.

If MIB always intended to kill the candidates in 77, then what did Jacob do to thwart this plan? What was his move? More on that later

MIB wanted all the candidates, together, in a place where they had no chance of survival. This was the swan site. Also he needed them to kill each other willingly or his plan wouldn’t work. Remember Lennon said to Jack about candidate Sayid “ He has to take it willingly or it won’t work, and he won’t take it willingly from us”

So for MIB’s plan to work all of the candidates had to believe that detonating Jughead was the right thing to do, and you’ll notice that all of them did, even Sawyer the non believer, the guy who fought against Jack during the entire episode, accepted his fate at the very end. And that was important, Sawyer needed to accept his fate or that whole jughead scene wouldn’t work.

If we look at that scene closely, the arrangement, who did what, we find some interesting stuff. Jack stands over the hole poised to throw the bomb in, but he pauses first and looks at Kate, she nods her approval, then he looks at Sawyer, and he gives his approval, only then does he throw the bomb down the hole. This last minute approval allowed the plan to work. All the candidates were willing to die at that point. The problem is though, Jack, being a candidate, cannot kill himself, and that’s why the bomb didn’t go off. So for that whole scene to work it needed an outsider, someone who is not a candidate, to detonate the bomb.

So how did Jacob know all this was going to happen?

Simple, because whatever happened, happened and it ALWAYS happened. That last part is crucial.

This is where it gets tricky. I’ll try and explain time travel within a single universe.

There’s a problem with time travel in a single universe. A very big problem in fact and it’s this, the act of creating a time machine in a single universe instantly creates your own destiny. In other words, if time travel is possible, and if we live in just one universe, then there is no free will and every decision that you or I are ever likely to take, has in fact already been taken. Why? Because anyone who has access to this time machine can travel to the any point in the future and find out all the decisions you have ever made in your life. These decisions will not change because, remember, there is just one timeline. This timeline has no degree of flexibility to it and there is forever a link between the past and future events. A time traveller would just be an onlooker ( not sure how that would work) completely powerless to change any of these events.

However there is an answer to this problem. Since there is no free will in a single universe which has time travel, and since the time machine exists in this universe, then the time machine itself has no free will. All its actions are predetermined. For example, you decide to time travel into the future to find out if you’re still alive. You only think you’re exercising free will here, when in fact you’re not. Your decision to time travel into the future has already been taken. Let’s say that when you arrive there you decide to influence an event. This action is predetermined too. It means you always travelled into the future, and you always influenced that event. There wasn’t a time where you did not do those things.

So our Losties ALWAYS travelled into the past. They ALWAYS joined up with the DHARMA initiative. They ALWAYS set off Jughead. There was never an original timeline when these events did not occur. This is the only way time travel can be self consistent in single universe.

Ok Jughead goes off and kills all our Lostie’s in 77. Richard later confirms this. Remember this ALWAYS happened, so Jacob, who lived through all this, would’ve undoubtedly known that these were his future candidates and probably suspected that MIB was involved in their death. So sometime before they even got to the island, Jacob would’ve had to construct a plan to rescue them from their impending fate.

How do you fool the universe though? How can you change things within a single universe? Remember the Jughead blast is a time travel event and its whatever happened, happened.

I always remember this line from season 3.

“only fools are enslaved by time and space”

What is the only thing in existence that is possibly not constrained by space time??

Consciousness

In our minds we can move faster than the speed of light. Our imagination can break all the known laws of physics. We can live in worlds where all our fantasies become reality.

How can Jacob rescue the candidates from certain death in 77?

Conscious time travel of course and this involves setting up constants. Faraday defined the constant is a person or object that is familiar in both times or more specifically an anchor for the mind holding it into position.

Our Losties mind anchor was Jacob. Remember Faraday said that to become a constant you have to make some kind of physical contact. So Jacobs goes out and makes physical contact with all our candidates, becoming their constant. Notice he didn’t visit Juliet. More on that later.

I always wondered why Jack and co didn’t suffer nose bleeds after time travelling back to 77. Was it because they had each other as constants? Maybe. For the sake of this theory though let’s say they needed another constant, and that constant was Jacob.

I believe that Jacob died on purpose, that explains why he didn’t put up much of a fight. He knew he had to die. Why? Because his death allowed our Losties to mind flash out of the year 77 and escape the loop.

Remember he is their anchor, locking their minds into position in the year 77. When he dies this destroys the anchor, allowing them to mind flash and escape death. Its similar to what Desmond experienced before he found his constant. Juliet died not because of her injuries but because her consciousness remained locked into the year 77, she could not escape from the loop.

I admit the theory is a little dodgy in places. Thanks for reading anyway )