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[skyblade]

Lost has been now exploding peoples' heads with its time travel plotlines. It can be pretty head-spinning to even some of the bigger sci-fi geeks. It especially wreaks cerebral damage since Lost accidentally appealed to people outside that ghetto. I was raised on a diet of some out there, and at times, incestuous, time travel plotlines, so I think

Comments

[mmaresca]

I don't think the evacuation of all the out-of-time Losties from 1977 to 2007 when the bomb goes off is a problem. It's course correction on a drastic scale. Like I posted on SF, I think the existence of the two concurrent timelines is the result of the creation of a time paradox too drastic for Course Correction to right. The timeline where the bomb exploded can't exist unless the Losties came from the future; the Losties can't come from the future if the bomb exploded. So the two results of the bomb exploding are A. sunken island timeline comes into existence and B. the paradoxical time-travelers are force-shunted back into the Absolute Now (2007). Was this guided by Jacob or someone else? Perhaps. Part of my theory is that the twin timelines and sliding most of the Candidates into the past are part of Jacob's long game against Smoky.

[skyblade]

See, I'm just always of the opinion that "If ___ happens then they can't go back in time to ___ because _____ wouldn't be there in the first place" is just circular and gets us nowhere. The usual course correction of paradoxes is the "Always happened" instance. Usually what results in people being their own grandfather or whatever. Now Lost has actually hinted at this, via Daniel Faraday and Ben being shot.

The creation of divergent realities however, indicates there's no one way to go. Time is not a one lane road, and therefore passengers can pull in and out of it should they have the resources to do so. This isn't Back to the Future where things either are or are not. They have been uprooted from time, so whatever happens to timelines can't really affect them

[mmaresca]

Oh, I totally think there's a selective guiding hand, and it's Jacob.

Here's the thing: Back To The Future Time is, for the most part, something fluid. You can go to the past, taking a newspaper from the future, and do something to change the past, and the newspaper will change with whatever you do. (Which makes the Sports Almanac plan so brilliant-- no matter what changes you make, the Sports Almanac will still be right.)

Lost Time, on the other hand, is static and hard. You go to the past, and that past is always a part of the future you had known. Yes, you have free will, but the history you already know is a result of your own exercise of free will. I believe Desomnd travelled to the past in "Flashes Before Your Eyes", and really tried to affect change... but time course corrected. Time, in Lostverse, doesn't move... unless you really BREAK it. Which is what they did in "The Incident". We are seeing the results of Broken Time... but I think that Time will still want to course correct, and heal that break.