Sawyer and co. joined the DI in 74. Ethan was born in 77, right before Jack and them came back to 77. About a week later, the bomb went off. Nothing before the bomb going off should have been affected, so everything we saw, happened in both timelines. It's after the incident that things get changed around.
Doc Jensen's Recap. I have to agree with him when he says "Like I said, though, the more I thought about the episode, the more I liked it, and better yet, the more I became convinced that it contained some extremely valuable ideas for making sense of the season's risky flash-sideways storytelling device."
I understand your post to mean that you believe that in the "bomb" timeline, Sawyer and co. were in the DI in 1974. Maybe I'm missing something, but... When the bomb went off in 1977, everyone's ability to time travel went with it, right? So there was no island in 2007(?) to become unglued in time? And if there is no time travel, then how do Sawyer and co. get from 2007 to 1974?
Those are decent questions, but they're moot at this point. "LOST" is showing us two concurrent realities (as far as we can see) so there's no need to wrap your head around how one can exist in spite of the other. This show has stayed pretty far away from hard and fast causality rules, opting instead to make "whatever happened, happened" the only real guide to how the island works. "LOST" has always included the element of supernatural in its science fiction, even going as far as putting those words into Faraday's mouth during the time hopping, so any inconsistencies can be swept under that rug without turning the show into a continuity mess like "Heroes".
A "LOST"/"It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" crossover would be fantastic. I can only imagine the possibilities: - Dennis trying to use the D.E.N.N.I.S. method on Kate - Sweet Dee running wild through the jungle with Rousseau and Crazy Claire - Charlie joining the Dharma Initiative as a janitor - Mac (not Aldo) trying to convince Sayid to star in his new Project Badass videos - Frank turning the Swan Station into an underground gambling joint - And of course, Jacob and the Dayman versus Smokey and the Nightman
We still don't know what effect the bomb actually had besides setting these two distinct realities into existence. According to Miles, Juliette said that "It (presumably the bomb) worked", but in the 2004 reality, the island is at the bottom of the ocean, while in the on-island 2007 timeline, the island is obviously still there. In order to avoid a serious time paradox that you mentioned, I think it's safe to say that the bomb didn't explode in the on-island 2007 timeline, especially considering pre-1977 structures like Dharmaville, the temple and the 4-toed statue are still standing.
Well, for the sake of argument let's just examine what we know. - The only "survivors" of Operation: JUGHEAD were those who were time displaced in 1977: Jack, Kate, Sayid, Hurley (the Ajirans) and Sawyer, Miles, Jin, and Juliet (Dharmans). If you consider that those eight individuals were the only people on the island with living doppelgangers in 1977 it would make sense that they could be shunted back into their original universe once Jughead reset the island and created a Darkoverse. - Rose, Bernard, and Vincent (fuck you, he counts) were also present in 1977 and their current whereabouts in 2007 might be a telling indication of what's going on.
You're all thinking about this wrong. We're not dealing with the "many worlds" theory here, and the "flash sideways" aren't simply going to another reality in which The Island is underwater and not815 doesn't crash (it might still be flight number 815, yes, but we already know it took off in October 2004, not September, so I'm christening it not 815, deal with it... where was I) So, in Reality 1 (R1) the island exists, the plan crashes, they time travel, Jack cries, Locke dies, bomb explodes. We've seen that. It's what happens AFTER the bomb explodes that is significant. The explosion of the bomb CREATES the parallel reality we're now watching (R2). This is actually half of what Jack assumed would happen. The bomb explodes, the Island somehow winds up underwater, and every single happening from R1 that had anything at all to do with the Island, the Others, Jacob, Daniel Faraday OR CHARLES WIDMORE (important!) doesn't happen. This is what is presumably the cause of all the differences we see in R2. Hurley wins the lottery, but not from the numbers so he's not cursed, etc, etc. Now, Jack assumed that this would be the only reality, and everything would be reset. However, if this was the only reality it would create a classic time Paradox because without the crash of 815 and the actions of Daniel Faraday, there's no time travel, there's no idea to blow up the island, there can be no explosion. Get it? In order for R2 to exist, R1 has to occur. Because of this, some force; be it the space time continuum, Jesus, Jacob, Smokey the Island or fate, demands that there be two separate realities. So R2 is CREATED when the bomb goes off. Everything in R2, from the Big Bang up through 1977 and the explosion of the bomb is exactly like R1.
Some easter eggs from the last ep. Vozzek's recap. Lost Diary recap. Damn, I just remembered Chang getting women and children on the sub before the incident.
Maybe without the island all of the things associated with the island have no weight in the new reality, i.e. the numbers are just some numbers. Who knows? Also am i right in thinking Daniel wont exist in the new reality so he cant come along and physics his way through how this happened?
Daniel only wouldn't exist if he was born after 1977. Not sure how old Daniel is supposed to be but for what its worth, the actor who plays him was born in 1969. Sherwood - back to your last post about the bomb creating the alternate universe - I think thats what most people are thinking (and why El Tee referred to it as a Darko-verse) but it begs the bigger question of whats going to happen to one of them. Will they somehow combine? Will R2 (we need a better name for the non-crash-universe) be destroyed because the Dharma initiative was basically destroyed in 1977? Doesn't that go back to the basic purpose of the organization being to somehow save the world? Or was all of it - absolutely all of it just a means for Smokey to kill Jacob? And are we ever going to find out why women on the island stopped being able to reproduce? Or is that going to just get left unsettled. Does someone have a nice long list of questions that need to be answered?
Quick theory, thought I typed it out before, but I don't know what happened to it. I wonder if when a person dies in either reality, both of their consciousnesses join in the other. Juliet, for instance, would now be alive and well in world_x, but with the memories of both timelines. I'd be ok with that as a possible way for the series to end. Most of them die on the island trying to do... whatever it is they need to do, and then get to go on living in world_x, better adjusted versions of themselves because of their island struggles. Just a thought.
But what would that mean for the people that have already died in R1? Charlie, Boon, Etc. By that theory, in the scenes that we saw those two they would have had to have had the experiences of both worlds. Or are you thinking that it would only apply to those that die after the split? EDIT: I meant to say "In the scenes that we saw those two on the plane in R2". Sorry 'bout that.
This. Though that would mean that the inner resolution all those characters got before they died would be for nothing now. I'm trying to think if any of the people that died presplit had any kind of path crossing with the ones alive, pre-island. I don't think Shannon or Boone did. Charlie and Libby only crossed paths with Des, and Charlie only when Des was mind-time-traveling. Ana Lucia crossed paths with Sawyer, but not really. Christian was the one who hit him with the car door. Eko didn't cross paths with anyone. Just a little theory. Needs some fine tuning. But it's the first way I've thought of so far that they could end it and I'd be satisfied with it.
Ana-Lucia met Jack at the airport bar before takeoff. Shannon's father died when Jack ignored him to treat Sarah. But Libby was in the fucking mental hospital with Hurley. A fact we're NEVER going to get a resolution to. Unless it comes this season. Please, I WANT TO KNOW!!!!!!!!!
The one thing I keep coming back to when it comes to the alternate realities is Pierre Chang's arm. If these two realities are supposed to be separate or whatever, what about his arm being crushed during the Incident? In some of the Dharma training videos, he clearly had a fake arm. I suppose this goes along with the saying that "Whatever happened, happened", but doesn't this lend some credence to the fact that maybe the Island timeline continued even after they exploded the bomb?
Hurley and Locke are indirectly linked via Randy, Locke's boss at the box company and manager of Mr. Cluck's. Have no fear Sherwood... Spoiler Cynthia Watros is confirmed as a special guest star this year.
I'm of the mind that he would have had his arm crushed in "The incident" either way. His arm was crushed by the magnetic anomaly, which he was there to argue about with that dickhead Radzinski, regardless of if the Losties were there or not. Also, it happened before the bomb. I think we can take anything that happened before Jughead as happening in both timelines... Also, the double D's are for a double dose of pimpin...