Teori

I love this theory. Here's a slight re-working/flushing of it. So... this theory involves: -two timelines. -two major button-pushing incidents... that result in... -two major time travels. SUMMARY: The island exists in the future. And the "OTHERS" are actually the descendants of the 50 island survivors. Ben is possibly a grown-up Aaron (Claire's baby) and/or a descendant of the Aaron/Claire/Jack/Christian family. He was "born on the island." Just like Aaron... the island's FIRST native citizen. TIMELINE This island, at the start of the show, exists in the future. Demond is there... he misses pushing the button... this pulls the Oceanic flight (of 2004) through a wormhole/timehole into the future and onto the island. Later, the survivors don't push the button... and Desmond, instead, turns the "fail-safe" key to "reset" things. This is our second button-pushing incident... and our second major time travel. The key is a REVERSAL of the button-push. An opposite. IT SENDS THE ISLAND BACK IN TIME TO 2004. Resetting the island. Resetting the "loop." Suddenly the island pops up on the radar in Desmond's girlfriend's little arctic station (in 2004 - in line with the creators statement that the Penny Widmore scene exists at the same time as the island... This is true... but only just barely, cuz they JUST time-travelled). Everything pre-button push = the future Everything post-button push = 2004 timeline This is why Desmond can see the future. The "future" is his future-selves past. Desmond turns the key and is therefore (ala Dr. Manhattan) at the center of a magnetically fueled time-travel incident. The creators have said the "Adam & Eve" skeletons are pivotol to proving that they "knew what was going on from the beginning." Those skelelons are our survivors. Jack & Kate? Kate and Sawyer? Locke later finds a skeleton in the bear cave while rescuing Eko. This skeleton is him. The skeletons are signs of the islands past. The first civilization on the island that would eventually evolve into the OTHERS and the civlized "Othersville." The Others, aware of how they, as a people, got there... NEED to make sure their anscestors get to the island (so that they, the "others," will eventually be born and exist!) The OTHERS somehow manipulate the past (perhaps via a time travel device, or "box," that is more controllable than the random button incidents). The OTHERS have to make sure that their ancestors gets to the island ("Demond, don't buy the ring!" "Claire, you HAVE to be on THIS FLIGHT!") There are people on the list (known ancestors) and then there are random people who just happened to be on the flight (the poor people that the smoke monster judges and/or takes care of). In a nutshell. It's two timelines, moving forward, but connected. It's a loop... with the people from the future desperate to shape the past in order to make sure that THESE particular survivors (their anscestors, who they KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT) get to the island, otherwise.... it's "goodbye reality").

That's why the OTHERS keep the survivors in the dark... that's why they are so vague. The truth is "cosmically shocking" and/or dangerous in some way. Think Terminator 2. Think 12 Monkeys. Think Back 2 the Future Part II. Think Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. This is a future that is propogating itself in a loop. I think this will be a major story beat. With the next logical beat being... "how do we break this loop and prevent ourselves from having to endure an isolated, crappy future on this island." This theme is already prevalent in the Charlie/Desmond fate stuff. The show is quite obvious in its subtexts. These people are metaphorically "Lost." They are all lost souls with tragic pasts who are fighting internal demons. At the end of the show they will have to: a) overcome their personal demons to prevent a destiny of "being lost" on the island. b) stay messed up mentally... and keep repeating the loop of death/tragedy/lostitude. That'll be your last season. Beating the loop. NON-MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE THEORIES 1) The island-of-the-future is post-apocalyptic (the "incident" could be a catastrohpe and/or a rapid climate change... which would be timely). 2) Smoke Monster is a shape-shifter. Someone we know? Is it Dr. Desmond Manhattan having fine-tuned his super-powers? Or someone else... if it's a vestigal Dharma experiment gone wrong on someone, I mean... isn't that TOO many super-powered Dr. Manhattans on one island? 3) Jack's father has to be involved (go Daddy Issues!) and his faked-death is foreshadowed by an empty, coffin, misleading spider poison "deaths," and Hurley's discovery of the season 4 Expose script... in which Billy Dee Williams turns out to be King Cobra (a mysterious, unseen villain). 4) Magnetic dome over the time-travelling island. 5) There is a third contingency on the island (apart from the SURVIVORS and the OTHERS). Perhaps the ancestry split at some point (Locke vs. Jack seems to be a major theme, could this be our split leaders)? 6) Other button-pushing incidents sucked Desmond/Rosseau to the island at points along the moving, connected timelines. 7) Somebody/somewhere along the way has psychic powers. Maybe walt comes back. Maybe it's Desmond. But these powers are BRED into the society of the future... thus allowing the weird, seemingly pyschic WHISPERS and kookiness of the OTHERS (or the 3rd island contingency). Lotta maybes there. But I do think the secret to the show... somehow involves a time loop (the very nature of EVERY episode is flashing back... in itself... a form of "time travel."