REVIEW: THEORIES PART 2

In the next installment of popular pre-Season 6 theories includes the collective notion that the characters have fallen by accident into a time rift.

There are many clues which supported this theory: the fact the island's time was different than the freighter's; that the light refracted differently on the island than on the sea; that the rocket experiment showed a major difference in both space and time (as the results indicated that the island was moving away from the freighter, perhaps going faster than the rotation of the earth because of a time shift); that several characters began to time skip while on the island; that Ben traveled off the island by turning the FDW but to arrive at a different date in the Arab desert; and that the island was "difficult" or impossible to find.

A few commentators tried to establish a purpose for this Earth bound time anomaly.  Why was the island so important that powerful men would kill in order to control it? And why was the military and science community (Dharma) so eager to set up stations on the island?

When viewers realized that the Numbers may represent the The Valenzetti Equation which is the mathematical equation developed by the reclusive Princeton University mathematician Enzo Valenzetti.  It was created following the Cuban Missile Crisis by the United States and the Soviet Union to find a solution to the hostility and danger of imminent global disaster created by the Cold War. The equation was secretly commissioned through the UN Security Council and is used to predict the time of human extinction.

According to the 1975 orientation film,  the Valenzetti Equation "predicts the exact number of years and months until humanity extinguishes itself."

Some propose that the island was the receiver for messages from mankind's future. The island had to straddle the time continuum of the present and the future in order to send/receive information.

As such, some speculate that some major disaster has happened in the future, and those in the future have managed to alert some people in the past by sending messages back in an attempt to prevent it. These futurists were attempting to alter the island present in tiny ways hoping that it will cause a chain reaction that will eventually lead to the prevention of the disaster. The theory believes that everyone on the island has a part, big or small, to play in eventually stopping this future disaster.

Because the island has a strange magnetic field,  futurists are able to focus their messages to the island so they can be understood by a less advanced human race. As such, they may have used symbolic meaning for complex subject matter, which may have led to a series strange things happening, such as the creation of the smoke monster from the messages or memories of those human receivers in the past.  The power to hear what could only be perceived as messages from the heavens may have been  discovered by Dharma, or possibly the original Others.

To some these future messages are just images, random things like the numbers appearing on objects. Other people can understand the messages better, such as the Others on the Island and possibly those on Jacob's  List. To the chosen ones,  the messages may be clearer. The chosen ones may be in a position to decode the messages in order to the disaster.

Ramping up to Season 6,  the issue of past and present and time have become quite important, especially with Desmond's developing story arc of having time flashes into the future.  Sub-conscious messages from the future could also explain how certain characters and supporting characters seem to know what is going to happen, or why everyone in the show appears to be some how connected.

The future disaster may have  something to do with fertility. The Others have always seemed interested in children, especially Claire's baby. In Season 3,  we were shown a scan of a 27 year old woman with the womb of a 70 year old.

The Others keep saying they are "the good guys," which could mean that they God's chosen people to receive his messages to save mankind. They at least believe that they are doing good work. The List they have might be warning about who is useful in preventing the disaster, or who might cause the disaster. It opens the spiritual context to the show.

The concept that LOST could have been centered around alien messages (as opposed to aliens themselves) is a good sci-fi basis in which to develop a complex story line. However, we are never told what the future "disaster" is that our heroes need to prevent. No one in the series explains to us the messages other than the vague excuse "this is what Jacob wants."  We will learn that the immortal Jacob is the island's guardian, but he does not divulge anything about the future to the island inhabitants. He is only concerned about finding his successor. It is sort of like a lonely light house keeper trying to trick another individual to take his place on a cold rock so he could escape his island prison. It may be noble work; but it is not rewarding to the light house keeper.

If the future messages were sent to create change for the planet, none of the main characters had the ability to make any global impact. Yes, a few were wealthy like Sun or Widmore, but they did not show any humanitarian purpose in their actions surrounding the island. And as Season 6 would unfold, the time angle of the series became moot. There was no great cry to save the human race from destruction. It was a temperate plea not to let Flocke escape the island, for some unexplained reason. Even if Flocke represented the devil who would be unleashed on mankind, there was plenty of back story evil in the world that that event would not make much of a difference one way or the other.

It is clear this sci-fi theory did have roots in the early plot lines of the series, but in the end science fiction was cast to the curb and not a factor in the main characters personal story endings.