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Lost: A Theory on Time Travel
The Timeline of Lost
Early
1800’s: The Black Rock was a slave boat crossing the Pacific. The boat was transporting a large assortment
of metallic minerals, which were highly reactive to other forces of
magnetism. Unexpectedly, the boat
encounters the island of LOST. Being
that the island has unique magnetic properties, the magnetic materials on the
boat “react” with the magnetic forces on the island, and the boat is literally
hoisted onto the island. The boat,
having strong levels of magnetism, creates a hole in the invisible bubble that surrounds the island – this hole
is at coordinate “325”, or the “special location/coordinate” that Daniel’s team
travels through to get to the island.
Once the Black Rock crashes, the leaders aboard the ship, including Alvar Hanso, begin studies on the
magnetic aspects of the island. Their
descendents ultimately form the DHARMA initiative in the late 1900’s.
1960’s: The DHARMA
initiative was created for the enhancement of the human race. What initially began as a simple research
initiative developed into a massive project that was designed to test fate. At some point
during DHARMA’S studies, someone managed to leverage the magnetic properties of
the island to bend time and space – thus, a time machine was created. This time machine isn’t a Delorian
with a flux capacitor. It’s, in fact,
much simpler. Let’s say that DHARMA
created a time machine, and activated it in 1960 – then, after 1 year of the
time machine running, someone decides to enter the machine in 1961. They can only go back in time,
and they can only go back in time up to 1 year (back to 1960, when the time
machine started “running”). Furthermore,
once you go back in time, you’re STUCK in the past. You cannot go back to 1961, because you now
EXIST in the past. In addition to your
body going through the time machine, say you contracted a deadly disease in
1965, but went back to 1960, before you developed the disease – you wouldn’t
have the disease when you stepped out of the time machine in a past time.
In the beginning stages of testing the time
machine, DHARMA chose to run tests on animals (namely, polar bears), as to
avoid creating any time-related catastrophes or paradoxes. The first initiative of testing the time
machine was to see they could extend the life of an animal. They sent a polar bear back in time a few
years, and then changed its habitat to see if it could “survive.” DHARMA used the same type of mechanism to
work with polar bears that Daniel Faraday had discovered back in 1996. DHARMA saw that once polar bears had gone
back in time, they could survive off the island, and even in remote extreme
climates (such as deserts) – thus making them partially invincible. Realizing the power of this time machine, the
leaders of DHARMA opt to only keep limited knowledge of the time machine’s
existence. Thus, many of the experiments
on the island of LOST are just a façade to conceal the “true” research behind
the DHARMA initiative.
Shortly after the experimentation with the polar
bears, DHARMA starts sending people back in time. Over a few years of researching the time
machine, DHARMA becomes curious to see if this time machine can allow people to
alter the course of history. In order to
see if people can “change a future that’s already written,” DHARMA begins
simple tasking their time travelers with doing things to alter the course of
history. Unfortunately, these time
travelers were not able to do anything to permanently alter the future that was
already laid out.
Now getting desperate to prove that there’s
ANY benefit to the new time machine, the leaders of DHARMA find a group of
their own people to involuntarily become “test subjects” of their next
experiment involving time travel. This
being: can sending people back in time permanently cure them of a deadly virus?
Without proper warning, DHARMA releases
a virus in an area of the island that infects many of the “test subjects.” Then DHARMA claims that they can cure the
disease with this special “device,” that device being the time machine. This, however, is NOT obvious to the test subjects
- they just want to get cured, and think the time machine is some type of
complex vaccination. As fate would
predict, the test subjects go back in time and are cured of the virus, only to be later killed by the smoke
monster, as the monster is the “physical means” in which the timeline course
corrects itself. DHARMA, seeing this
smoke monster for the first time, is now officially fearful that this time
machine will end up serving no purpose whatsoever. The only thing DHARMA has accomplished is
pissing a small portion of their work-force.
The surviving test subjects who weren’t originally infected by the virus
become a faction of the DHARMA initiative, and are subsequently referred to as
the Others/Hostiles – Richard and Jacob are among that
group.
1970-1985: Ben’s mother is
recruited by DHARMA to come to the island and work on this time machine. After several years of testing the time
machine, she too has given up on its abilities.
She has also met Richard, the leader of the Others,
and he tells her about the horrible experimentation that DHARMA did to his
people, resulting in the death of several of his friends. Ben’s mom quickly grows to hate DHARMA for
the morals that they’re willing to ignore in the name of science. She deems it her destiny to bring down DHARMA
for the pain that they’ve brought upon the innocent. But, instead, she decides to kill two birds
with one stone: instead of just leaving the island and possibly angering DHARMA
at her departure, she decides to use the time machine to go back in time to the
point at which she came to the island.
Then, she leaves the island. This
way, it would appear to the outside world that she never even left to go to the
island. She’s going back in time to
re-live 15 years of her life that she lost out on while she was doing testing
in the island. Brilliant!
1970: Ben’s mother has
traveled approximately 15 years back in time, back to 1970, where she finds
herself back in
When the time comes for Ben’s mom to give
birth, she dies, but still manages to produce a baby boy. The reason she died was because the timeline was course correcting to
replace her with Ben. In a way, Ben
is the embodiment of her, and was thus “created” to fulfill her legacy as the
disgruntled DHARMA engineer that would ultimately bring down the shady
corporation. It’s Ben’s role to figure
out how to “work around” fate, and to find a way to make the time machine “work”
without using DHARMA’s methods.
1980: It’s not long
after Ben’s mother’s death that their good friend Horace recommends that they
go to the island. Horace is likely
affiliated with DHARMA, and was sent to investigate Ben’s mother. After finding out about her death, he sent
her husband and Ben to the island so that DHARMA could “contain” a potential
hiccup in time. When Ben and his dad get
to the island, we find out that Ben’s father was merely to become a peon for
DHARMA. Ben was the real reason that
they came to the island: It was Ben’s legacy to fulfill his mother’s
destiny. Ben, unfortunately, isn’t aware
of this at the time. He’s just trying to
enjoy himself, and make sure his father isn’t too much of a jerk.
1981: After a good bit of time on the island, Ben
hears and sees his dead mother outside his house on the island! The reason he sees her is because in an
“alternate future,” she was actually alive and working on this island for
DHARMA. She appears half-dead to him
because her dead spirit is designed to
“help Ben understand his destiny” so that he can carry on her legacy. Thus, her spirit is time’s way of course
correcting the future.
Shortly after Ben sees his dead mom, he
sees Richard in the jungle, who says “you’re not ready.” Richard is a time traveler - and a
DHARMA-hater. When Ben first encounters
Richard in the jungle, Richard has traveled back in time from the year 2007 to
1981. Thus, while Richard is working
with Ben, Richard is not aging. Why did
Richard go back in time to get in contact with Ben? To recruit him. Richard knew Ben’s mother in the alternate
timeline, so he knows that Ben is an incarnation of his Mother, and that he is
some type of prodigy on the island. From
there, Richard and Ben then spend their years plotting on how they will
ultimately bring down DHARMA, and use the time machine for tests that don’t
involve killing people.
1988: Rosseau’s crew was an opposing force to DHARMA. They weren’t affiliated with the Others;
however, they were going to the island to investigate “shady business
practices” being conducted by DHARMA - These business practices being the
releasing of the virus to the locals on the island. Unfortunately, at the point in time, other
Others and Ben hadn’t conceived their “master plan” to bring down DHARMA. However, they didn’t want to expose children
to the experiments of DHARMA. Once Rosseau lost her baby, she set up a looping signal. That ran for years on the island, but the
signal was being blocked by the looking glass.
1981-2007: Ben grows up from
the age 10 to 37, planning with Richard and Jacob the “ultimate plan” to wipe
out DHARMA, the purge. In the mean time,
DHARMA continues to test other unique aspects of the island in order to see if
they can leverage the time machine for some other purpose. In the midst of this, DHARMA discovers the
magnetic anomaly in the island via the SWAN station. This magnetic anomaly is a bubble that
encompasses the entire island.
Unfortunately, DHARMA only does some basic tests on this anomaly, as
they don’t really know how to use it for anything. During this time, both the others and DHARMA
are trying to learn how they can leverage the time machine “for the greater
good.”
During
the testing of the time machine, DHARMA and the others make the following
discoveries about time travel. Note that
there is not a specific “definition” of time travel that applies to the show –
time travel is simply used as a concept in the show, and the “weird things”
that we see are typically fate’s way of course correcting to preserve something
that’s meant to happen in the future.
- When someone
enters the time machine, they can only go back in time – and only to a
time where the machine was currently running.
- When you go
back in time, you do not de-age.
For example, if you are 50, and go back 10 years in time, you do
NOT have your 40-year-old body.
HOWEVER, while you are re-living 10 years of your life, you body
will not age until you catch up with the time in which you entered the
time machine.
- When you go
back in time, you will still have your current hair style, tattoos, and
memory. However, say you were
paralyzed; fate would need to do some course correction to make sure that
you are still able to play your past role in life. Thus, time travel can TEMPORARILY cure any
physical ailments you may have had prior to entering the time
machine. However, fate will still
find a way to paralyze you once you catch up with the current time. Say the first time you were paralyzed,
it was because you were pushed out of a window. Because “the universe has a funny way of
course correcting,” you may get hit by a car the second time around.
- When you go
back in time, you can only “change” things that don’t have an impact on
your destiny. In other words, if
you went to church on a specific date in the past, and then went back in
time, you wouldn’t necessarily go to church in your new timeline. However, if you changed a belief as a
result of going to church the first time around, “fate would find a way to
influence you into that belief.” Perhaps you would have a near death
experience, or maybe a mysterious person would greet you in a jewelry
store and tell you that you need to change your beliefs… or, maybe fate
would just kill you since it couldn’t find a way to change your belief.
- If you go back
in time and die, you are not “totally” dead because there has already been
a variation of the universe where you were alive in the future. Thus, you become “half dead” until time
catches back up. In other words,
your presence may be known to some people but not others. Your presence would only be known when
you are required to make an impact to fate.
- If you have
never had a child, you cannot go back in time and give birth. Fate does not allow for a new entity to
exist in a past where it originally did not exist. Thus fate would either have to kill the
mother, the baby, or both in order to course correct. UNLESS,
fate decides to use the baby or mother to “replace” someone else in the
timeline.
- Basically,
the “rules of the time machine” are not governed by any physical
definitions of time travel. The
“rules,” if you will, are governed by how FATE decides to preserve the
timeline. Thus, if you are required
to do something profound in a future timeline, fate will find any way
possible to preserve the timeline – we’ve seen ghosts and smoke monsters
in LOST. So according to the show’s
definition of time travel, fate “does have a funny way of course
correcting.”
2007: Swelled with
hatred, Ben, Richard, and Jacob find a way to hijack the time machine, and go
back in time to the year 1996 to wipe out all of DHARMA on the island (The
Purge). Note that in Ben’s original
timeline from his birth to 2007, Oceanic
815 did not crash on the island and Ben did not come down with cancer. The fact that Ben, Richard and a few others
lived out a life to the year 2007 gives them some unique powers: they know that
they will technically remain alive until 2007, no matter what happens (unless
fate deems their existence as not necessary in preserving their original
timeline). This is one reason for Ben
being able to survive through the whole power struggle on the island in season
4, and the reason he can take a severe beating from the Losties
in almost every episode.
1996
(new timeline on the island): Having gone back in
time, and realizing that there are plenty of DHARMA folk in other aspects of
the world (Penny’s father), the Others need to quickly think of something that
will prevent DHARMA from ever reaching the island. Thus, Ben figures out a way
to put the entire island into a “time loop.”
This time loop will keep the island suspended in time in the past (in
the year 1996) – thus preventing any outside DHARMA people from reaching them
on the island. Once Ben and Richard
start the time loop, they round up the remaining locals on the island – these
people ultimately grow to become the opposing force to DHARMA, the
“others.”
In order to create this “time loop,” Ben
and Richard snatch up the time machine from the ARROW station, and move it to
the swan station. With the engineering
mind of Mikhail, they are able to cement the time machine into walls deep
within the swan station. In addition,
Mikhail is able to “sync” the time machine up with the magnetic anomaly that
encompasses the island – thus giving the Others the ability to send the entire
island back in time! They then rig-up
the computer system that requires the pushing of a button every 108 minutes;
however, this button pushing is actually activating the time machine every 108
minutes. So, for a great number of
years, DHARMA is able to suspend time on the island by “resetting” the time
machine every 108 minutes.
Unfortunately, one of the downsides to this is that time on the island
is contained in its unique magnetic bubble – thus, time in the rest of the
world is still running its course.
Therefore, island time stays in the year 1996, while real world time
eventually reaches the year 2004 at the time of the plane crash. The only way to pass through the island time
and the real world time would be to use the “special” coordinate, which is
referenced in season 4. Note that in
season 3, Ben makes a comment to Richard “Remember when we used to celebrate
birthdays?” Well, there wouldn’t be any
reason to celebrate birthdays if the Others are repeating time every 108
minutes, and thus not aging.
1996-1996
(8 years elapse on the island): While time is staying constant on the
island, the others, now invisible to
the outside world, are able to continue tests in time travel. The Others want to start a new “world” on the
island. They want to keep the island in
its time loop forever. They believe that
with time stopped on the island, the rules of fate won’t apply. But, what’s the only problem? With time suspended, and the fact that fate
always kills mothers and babies, the others need to find a way to pro-create on
the island. Thus, they recruit Juliet to
explore the known pregnancy issue. They
also find a prestigious military officer (Kelvin) to press the button, making
him think that he’s saving the world.
Meanwhile, the rest of the natives are living out their days while not
aging (including Richard, Ben, and all of the others).
Because the island is hidden from the outside
world, Ben and Richard have to be careful in letting people on and off the
island. Furthermore, you can only leave
the island through the “special coordinate” that the Black Rock created over a
century ago. If you don’t leave through
that coordinate, you could end up leaving in the year that the island exists,
which would be at some point in the past – this would require you to find a
“constant” between island time and real world time in order to survive. Conversely, if you were to try to enter the
island from the future into the past island time (assuming you don’t use the
special coordinate), then your mind would become “stuck” between the island
time and the real world time – also requiring you to find a constant.
Jacob is also a time traveler with Richard
and Ben; however, we haven’t seen him in his “alive” state. At
some point in time after Jacob goes back in time with Richard and Ben to start
the time loop, Jacob dies. However,
being that Jacob lived in a previous timeline on the island up to the year
2007, his “spirit” is able to stay alive in order communicate with Ben and
Richard.
1996-2004
(Off-Island Time): While the island is stuck in the year 1996, all of the main
characters of LOSTS’ lives play out via flashbacks. We see the initial backstories
from their second iteration through
time. Keep in mind that when Ben,
Richard and Jacob lived out their first timeline to the year 2007, the plane did not crash.
The Losties’ flashbacks that we see in seasons
1-3 are taking place as the Others are in the time loop on the island (or the
Other’s second iteration through time) – and the flashbacks are designed to
represent how fate changed the lives of
the Losties to ultimately bring them to the
island.
For example, in Jack’s original timeline,
his father was perfectly normal and didn’t end up getting killed in
1996
(Island Time - around 2001 in Off-Island time): Richard and Ethan leave the island via the
special coordinate, about 5 years into the time loop to carry out a recruiting
mission. They pinpoint Juliet to explore
the child birth issue on the island. She
is genuinely a good person, and will do anything to help her sister. However, she is not aware of the time loop
which is occurring on the island, and Ben is using her lack of awareness to
keep her at the island. Since Ben was
from the future, he knew that Juliet’s husband would get hit by a bus on a
certain date – so he strategically timed Richard and Ethan’s visit to be a few
days prior to the husband’s accident, knowing that would be a trigger to get
Juliet to the island. Also, Ben knew
that Juliet’s sister would ultimately get cured of her cancer and have a baby
girl. That’s why Ben is so persistent on
the fact that if Juliet comes to the island, that they can cure her
sister. Thus, Ben isn’t a liar. He knows from his past timeline what is going
to happen, and he’s manipulating things based on his knowledge.
1996
(
2004
(Off-Island Time): Oceanic 815 crashes on the island because Desmond didn’t
press the button to reset the island time back 108 minutes. Not pressing the button temporarily stopped
the time machine from harnessing the power of the magnetic bubble, thus
creating an opening over the island the split second Oceanic 815 flew over – 8
years into the island timeloop, and in the year 2004
outside the island. The resulting power
of the current flowing through the magnetic field ripped the plane in
half. We, as viewers, are left with two
huge questions: was it a complete coincidence that the plane just happened to
crash over the island leading Locke to not press the button OR did DHARMA
somehow engineer this plane crash to happen the exact second that the plane
flew over the island, knowing that specific group of people would free the
island of its time loop? That, my
friends, brings us back to the theme of LOST – did fate cause the plane crash,
or had DHARMA staged certain “characters” to ultimately “lead” our heroes to
the island… OR was it some combination
of both fate and the work of DHARMA?
After the plane crashes, our heroes now
exist in the year 1996 on the island, and they have taken on their physical
attributes from the year 1996. Locke is
healed because he hadn’t gotten into his accident until around 2002 – the same
with Rose. Also, in the original
timeline of the universe, Oceanic 815 did NOT crash. Therefore, if the losties
ever got off the island and back into the year 2004, fate would deem that they
survive at least until 2007 (which was how far the future had been written in
Ben’s original timeline).
1996
(island time): All of the events in the first 2 seasons of LOST take
place. The hatch is discovered and Locke
ultimately ends up not pressing the button and Desmond turns the fail
safe. The turning of the fail safe destroys the time machine, and now the
island time is officially moving again; however, the purpose of the fail safe
was to permanently set time back to the original start date of 1996! Now the island is moving at about 8-9 years
behind real world time. When Desmond
turned the fail safe key, his life flashed before his eyes… Well, actually, he
got to “re-live” about 9 years of his life!
He got to relive being rescued from the island, witnessing Charlie’s
death, and then starting his life up again off the island, meeting Penny, and
then ultimately coming back to the island, thus creating a full loop for his
life story. Desmond could not escape his
fate. The reason only Desmond got to
re-live his life was some function of him being the “key turner” OR the fact
that he was exposed to the extreme magnetic radiation levels in the hatch (which
is referenced in Season 4). I’d venture
that he was probably “at the heart of the time machine” thus, he was a little
more clairvoyant to his alternate future than say, the folks who were out on
the beach. And, that is ultimately how
he gets “flashes” of Charlie’s death.
Who knows how many times Desmond actually got to “re-live” his
life. And, each time Desmond re-lived
his life, he saw what would ultimately lead our heroes to getting off the
island – and that would be Charlie sending out the message.
2004
(Off-Island time, after the plane crash):
Widmore stages a fake Oceanic 815 plane crash
because he has gotten wind that the plane may have entered the secret DHARMA
research island. The fact that the plane
can’t be found at the island’s location leads Widmore
to believe that time travel does
truly exist on the island. Widmore is a
rich man, so he wants to use time travel for his own benefit.
On another side of the power struggle,
there are a few DHARMA folks left in the real world, who also are desperately trying
to get back to the island, ultimately to kill Ben – because he is responsible
for the disappearance of their research team on the island (aka, the
purge). Once DHARMA discovers that Widmore is sending a ship to the island, they round up a
small crew to travel to the island as spys: Naomi,
Faraday, Lapidus, etc.
Ben is on the third point of this power
triangle. He knows that he’s destined to
survive until at least 2007 – yet in his original timeline, he didn’t have to
deal with this struggle. However, since
Ben believes that there is a pre-written future for him, he doesn’t have much
fear that Widmore or DHARMA will ever be able to
succeed in bringing him down. So, with
that, Ben sends Tom off the island to recruit Michael to destroy everyone on the
boat: DHARMA and Widmore’s folks. So, from Ben’s perspective, he’s killing two
birds with one stone.
1996
(island time): after Desmond is able to finally lead Charlie to his
destiny and losties remove the blocking-signal, Jack
is able to communicate to the freighter using Naomi’s device. Her device is a specially manufactured DHARMA
device that allows Naomi to communicate in the past (on the island) with the
future DHARMA in 2004 (on the freighter).
Note that even Sayid pointed out how
futuristic the device was – it’s futuristic because it’s used to communicate
between different times!
Daniel has his friend on the freighter
launch a payload in order to “test” the special coordinate that allows passage
from the island. If the payload had been
launched very far away from the
special coordinate, it may have arrived as much as 8 years later in time! The fact that the payload arrived 31 minutes
suggested to Daniel that they had almost found the exact coordinate. As for the motives of Naomi’s crew - these
are working for DHARMA, they are not happy, and they are after Ben. They want to know why DHARMA was wiped out on
the island.
1996
(Desmond’s timeline): As Sayid and Desmond leave the island, they pass through the
time barrier between the island time and the real world time. In other words, Desmond is instantly passing
from the island time of 1996 to the future time of 2004. Only Desmond is impacted by the “time transition,”
because he was originally exposed to the high levels of the magnetism (aka
radiation) in the SWAN hatch for the past 3-4 years. While Desmond makes the transition, his mind
is meshed with the 1996 version of himself.
Daniel understands exactly what is happening to Desmond – so he uses his
communication device to talk to the 2004 version of Desmond in order to create
a “constant” for himself so that he could eventually make it off the
island. That is why when Daniel checks
his log; he is able to see the newly written content, saying that “Desmond is
his constant.” Daniel wasn’t actually changing the past by asking Desmond to make
contact, he was just trying to figure out how he could get off the island,
and back in to the present year of 2004.
Unfortunately for Daniel, Naomi, and their
crew, they were hand selected by DHARMA to be guinea pigs. We’d seen in their flashforwards
that they possibly knew too much about DHARMA – thus they were expendable.
As for the other crew member on the
freighter who’s experiencing Desmond’s symptoms – that guy attempted to get to
the island, but didn’t pass through the special coordinate. As a result, his mind was sent from 2004 to
1996, and he didn’t have a “constant” to keep his mind connected between the
two timelines. As a result, he
died. So, the only true way to get to
the island is through the special coordinate, which allows passage between
timelines.
1996
(island timeline): Once the power
struggle on the island plays out, 6 “survivors” emerge and leave the island:
Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sun, Aaron and Sayid. It’s still unclear how the 6 get off the
island, but we do know that the rest of the survivors remain on the island in
the year 1996; however, DHARMA, nor Ben, ever tell the 6 that they were
previously living in the year 1996 on the island.
2005:
Along
with the “6,” Ben has also gotten off the island. Remember that he has traveled from the future
(around 2007) back in time to 1996 as well.
Now that Ben is off the island, he uses Sayid
to help course correct to ensure that the future to 2007 plays out according to
plan. We’re not exactly sure why Sayid is killing the people that Ben chooses; however, it
is likely that these people must die in order to preserve the new timeline –
perhaps they are members of DHARMA, and once Ben can eliminate all of
them. It’s clear, however, that Ben’s
interest is now taking over DHARMA and regaining control over their time
machine. Once he can obtain that, he can
travel back in time to 1996, go back to the island, and restart the time loop
(hopefully).
2007: Jack has lived about 3-4 years off the
island in the new timeline. He knows
that there are people living on the island in the year 1996 (now probably 1999
on the island). Jack may also be aware
that in an original timeline, his plane wasn’t meant to crash, and he was meant
to survive. Thus he tried to jump off a
bridge (similar to how Michael tried to shoot himself with a gun), to test fate
to see if he CAN actually kill himself.
Jack then reads in the paper that Ben has died – which may create the
perfect opportunity to go back to the island, assuming that Ben was previously
preventing them from going back. One
thing to note is that Jack and the other survivors may not even be aware that
they had lived in the past on the island.
However, the fact that they are still alive is testing fate, given that
they were meant to die in the plane crash, years ago. I predict that the show will end with a final
scene that will determine whether or not the survivors have “free will” to
overcome some type of obstacle that fate would’ve deemed impossible. What is that obstacle? Only time will tell.
Conclusions:
Going forward, I can only predict a few
things that will happen: Throughout season 4, I think Naomi’s DHARMA folks will
infiltrate the island and there will be a cat and mouse game between the
Others, our heroes, and DHARMA. I think
that Jack and Ben will slowly start to see eye to eye, and Jack will start to
realize Ben’s pessimistic viewpoint on fate.
However, I don’t believe the “time machine” concept will come into play
until the final season.
By the end of the series, I think some
people will stay on the island and some will leave; however, the question will
remain: will our heroes be able to “beat fate” somehow. Either way, the failure to keep pressing the
button and the leading of DHARMA to the island has caused a great burden for
Ben and the Others, as they now have no control over DHARMA and the
island. Our only hope is that they can
harness some more of the islands powers to finally allow free will to change
the future and stop DHARMA once and for all!
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