MULTI-VERSES

One of the bothersome aspects of LOST was its backhand use of Time to distort the plot lines.

Most people consider a time line as a lineal progression of events in a daily second, minute, hour grid. Ancient people felt that time was a cycle that progressed like the seasons.

One science fiction genre is the parallel universe. It is trope that allows a writer to "alter" present reality but mask it with the all the familiar settings of our current world.

Multiverses is the plural of a parallel universes. In some fictional mythologies, every action one does in real life affects and changes the pathway and development in an alternative universe. And since there are trillions of daily decisions, there are almost infinite parallel universes based on the outcomes.

A basic example of this change is this:

You are in Universe A at a stop sign. Your plan is to turn left to go to the store. But if you turn right, you suddenly alter the decision to create a Universe B. In Universe A you get to the store and buy your goods. But in Universe B you drive into a gas station, to be shot and killed during a botched robbery. In Universe A you go home to your family. In Universe B your family comes to the morgue, setting off a series of unintended consequences. In Universe B, your spouse can either remain single or remarry a close friend, which creates a new Universe C. In Universe C, the second marriage complicates the relationships between your children, splitting them onto various destructive paths in other universes. It is an avalanche or domino effect.

One theory about LOST is that the show's premise is that of multiverses. The continuity errors between shows and seasons are not errors per se, but the effects of previous actions.

If one breaks a part the show, one can find four different parallel universes:

1. The Pre-Flight 815 World.
2. The Post-Crash Island World.
3. The O6 World.
4. The Sideways World.

The Pre-Flight 815 World seems to be the "real" world in the context of the characters' background stories, and how they came to Sydney, which was the focal point of change. There was something in the preboarding that altered the normal time line to create the post-crash island world. Perhaps it was the airline not putting Christian's body on the plane. As a result, the normal universe created a second parallel universe where the plane lands safely in LAX. However, there is an alternative explanation that the pre-flight world was actually part of the sideways continuum.

The Sideways World where Flight 815 did not crash could be considered by some to be the first or "real" world view. This is because in normal course of events, planes arrive at their destination. In the sideways world, people go forward with their lives unaffected by the flight events. (This is problematic for some viewers because that would infer that the real world began as an afterlife setting.)

Some event on board the plane, such as Bernard going to the back cabin, altered the normal universe event line, which in turn caused a parallel universe to be created where the plane crashes on the island.  This can be considered true because in the sideways universe, Ben was seen as an Sydney airport employee, which would be impossible since he was on the island at the time of the plane crash unaware of Flight 815.

Once the second world, the island, was created, it spawned two more parallel universes.  The island world seems to be a "closed" system since it was difficult for outsiders to find. The barrier could be considered the border between universes. Some scientists believe that time and space (or Einstein's concept of space-time) can be the separation fields between universes. The next universe created would be the O6 world which had different events and outcomes than the sideways world.

Since each universe is self-contained, the timing of the life events can be different. This is the only way to logically explain why Aaron and Ji Yeon could be "born" both in the sideways world and in other worlds. On the island world, Sun was found pregnant on the island and gave birth in the O6 world. However, she had to be far along her pregnancy in the sideways world because in that time line (a few weeks) she gave birth to her child in the hospital.

When the show runners talk now about asking the big questions like life or death to help temper the complaints about the show's direction and conclusion, that seems like a throw-a-way bone to fans. It does not help explain the apparent inconsistencies in scripts and seasons. The bigger question is whether the multiverse theory is the best foundation to help understand the show's big premise.