[DharmaBeerBoy]

I've been thinking for a few episodes now that the Alt X timeline is not an alternate timeline at all and that it is really the end of the story, the happily ever after, resulting from the culmination of events of Season 6.

This season has been billed as "The Beginning of the End", and I believe we began getting to see how it ends from the very first scene in Season 6. All our characters back on the plane with it landing safely in LA to resume their lives, but with a few very distinct differences from a butterfly effect of sorts. "The Beginning of the End" is the biggest clue yet to how it ends, because they started the season by showing us the beginning of how Lost ends.

What we have been seeing as a possible flash sideways is in reality how the individual stories of all our characters play out in their own end of story and we are watching it one "flash sideways" at a time. I don't think there are enough episodes left to be anything different. I mean I don't think there is enough time to have the two timelines merge with the La Xers trying to get back to the Island, but there is time enough for the Island events to play out while being intertwined with the happily ever after story. We have enough episodes left to wrap up about 10 things and then the finale, and the rate at which each episode moves is very slow. Especially since roughly half the shows seem to be commercials.

Now the so called Alt X timeline will result from something someone, probably Jack, does to reset the timeline by destroying the Island, killing MIB and all it's inhabitants, sinking the island on the ocean floor and completely removing the existence of the island from any of their lives. That's the only way all the people that have died seem to be much alive in the "LA X timeline". And with all the people that died on the Island that are now alive there had to be some kind of butterfly effect which alters their existence in varying degrees. And how is he gonna do this? I got no idea, perhaps something with the FDW, the hydrogen bomb, or probably something we don't even know about yet. But I believe he will find a way to bring this about.

Lost has always been about the good and evil in everybody and Jacob and MIB may end up being the good and bad side of one entity that was sent to the Island as a sort of punishment to decide if man was inheritantly good or bad, but in order to make this decision he has to use both his good and bad qualities. But the bad side of this entity broke the rule by the use of the loophole killing the good side. And now he is a threat to humanity and must be destroyed himself.

Lost has also been about fate vs. free will and Jacob represents free will and making the right choices, while MIB I feel represents fate controlling ones destiny. I feel the LA X timeline will be the result of someone making the choice to destroy MIB and the Island and let free will control their destiny through the everyday choices one has to make in their lives.

Of course that's just my opinion...I could be wrong.

Sorry about posting here instead of in Theories, but I thought it might get more reads on a pretty bare board this week. Feel free to move it.

[Peel]

yeah, I thought it could be the case, what we see in the X universe being the results of events that will happen during the rest of the season could be a nice move.

[Tandarie]

I don't like Alt X. And really there are lots of reasons but the main one is..

Locke is a quitter who now has people telling him what he can and can't do.

[Rob G.]

But he's happy.  Isn't that, in the end, all that matters?

Why does he want to go on the walkabout?  So he can overcome his disability and find fulfillment.  Why does he want to do that?  To be happy.

If he can find happiness some other way, isn't that the end goal?

[Olivier]

I have been thinking along that line for last couple of episodes, but have also been wondering about Darlton's insistence on calling them "flashsideways"; of course, it is a convenient way of referring to them without revealing much, but it also suggests an alternate universe, which they have denied to be possible from the start.

If the flashsideways turned out to be flashforwards, it would be a repeat of a narrative device, but the big advantage obviously is that it would enable them to tell "the story after" and tie up every character arc without the risk of boring people with "soap opera" off-Island stories after a powerful middle season.