sorry if there is a thread about this already, but Ben's father comments about Dharma together with Alex's comments about her mom makes me think that the island probably sank between 1977 and 1986, right?

Also, it must have happened some time after the incident because Ben was nowhere to be found when they were evacuating everybody right before the Incident. This means that the island wasn't blown up and sank as an immediate consequence of the detonation.

Ben and Roger left the island sometime after for x reasons. Also, I think the island wasn't in any immediate danger when they left (like started to sink) because I think Roger said something along the lines that they shouldn't have left....


Now, if they did it BEFORE the incident, that would debunk the theory that both timelines share a common past right up to 1977...

That means a whole heck of a lot of people could have gotten off the island before it sank and they're walking around in the parallel fully aware of what the Losties look like, right? I mean, if you were ParaRoger and you ran into, say, Kate, you'd remember her, right? But she's not going to remember you. It's kind of like the opposite of them remembering Ben and that not having happened to him yet in '77. This is the first time my head feels like it might pop off.

sorry if there is a thread about this already, but Ben's father comments about Dharma together with Alex's comments about her mom makes me think that the island probably sank between 1977 and 1986, right?

Also, it must have happened some time after the incident because Ben was nowhere to be found when they were evacuating everybody right before the Incident. This means that the island wasn't blown up and sank as an immediate consequence of the detonation. If the island sank as an immediate consequence, Ben and Roger would be dead on the sunken island.

Ben and Roger left the island sometime after for x reasons. Also, I think the island wasn't in any immediate danger when they left (like started to sink) because I think Roger said something along the lines that they shouldn't have left....Roger did say something about they shouldn't have left, how he's no genius and what Ben could have become. (If I'm remembering correctly.) I don't think the island was in danger when they left, due to Roger's comments. It seemed like it was their choice. I don't believe they were on the evacuation sub.

Which leads me to believe...
Now, if they did it BEFORE the incident, that would debunk the theory that both timelines share a common past right up to 1977...Yeah....they might have left before the incident. I've been trying to wrap my head around this timeline thing since last night. This scene in particular kind of warped what I've been leaning towards - that the 2 timelines shared a common past up until the incident. Now I don't know what to think! :shrug:

If the island sank as an immediate consequence, Ben and Roger would be dead on the sunken island.

Roger did say something about they shouldn't have left, how he's no genius and what Ben could have become. (If I'm remembering correctly.) I don't think the island was in danger when they left, due to Roger's comments. It seemed like it was their choice. I don't believe they were on the evacuation sub.

Which leads me to believe...
Yeah....they might have left before the incident. I've been trying to wrap my head around this timeline thing since last night. This scene in particular kind of warped what I've been leaning towards - that the 2 timelines shared a common past up until the incident. Now I don't know what to think! :shrug:

The timelines diverged at the earliest point that the time travelling losties interacted with the people already on the Island ... as far as I know, that's the time of Jughead.

No 'incident' means no Swan station with the button for Desmond not to press on time ... ultimately means no time travelling Losties.

sorry if there is a thread about this already, but Ben's father comments about Dharma together with Alex's comments about her mom makes me think that the island probably sank between 1977 and 1986, right?


This is the $64 question as it pertains to the Flash Sideways. If we know this, the mystery will begin to unravel.

I'm curious about the way Roger waxes nostalgic about the island and about they might have done better had they stayed. Had Ben been shot, and cured by the Others in a magical spa, and then they both survived a nuclear blast - I doubt that Roger would have had kind reminiscences about the island.

So there are a few possibilities:

1. Roger and Ben left willingly BEFORE 1977.
2. The Incident never happened in the Flash Sideways timeline. Roger and Ben could have willingly left after 1977 had the "Island Timeline" events never happened.

Either way - whatever changed that prompted the Linuses departure from Craphole Is would have taken place BEFORE 1977. Therefore this suggests that the 1977 Incident (whether it happened in this timeline or not) was NOT responsible for the initiation of the Flash Sideways timeline. So some other event prompted this alt-timeline. And it could have started way before 1977. Maybe 20 years before - therefore possibly linking to the timeframe Adam and Eve died which has long been assumed to be pre-Dharma in the 1950s or 60s.

If the Losties never time traveled in the Sideways Universe, Ben couldn't have been shot by Sayid. Simply because Sayid would never have been there. So maybe Ben still saw his mom, met Richard in the jungle, waited patiently for his opportunity to join the Hostiles, but the opportunity never arose. No captured Sayid, no Sayid in jail for Ben to visit, etc, etc.

If Daniel was right with any of his calculations at all, then the need to evacuate the Island still must have occured in 1977, even without the Losties, when Dharma drilled into the pocket at the Swan site. Only differences would have been that Dharma wouldn't have been warned beforehand (no Daniel, no Miles), and that the Jughead core wasn't near the Swan pocket at the time of the incident, but under Dharmaville instead.

Or did only the Losties drive Radzinsky to his frenzy to drill/carry on his experiments at all costs? Horace still would be the boss, maybe Radzinsky simply didn't manage to "take over" without all of the chaos created by Losties. Chang had been in the process to order a full stop to the drilling, because of a sudden rise of the temperature, so maybe caution did prevail without the Losties, and Dharma never drilled into the Swan pocket - or they did so at some later time.

The Linuses don't seem aware of the fact that the Island is at the bottom of the sea.

Can you guys imagine if Richard has a flashback which is also a flash sideways? What if the writers decide to tell Richard's story starting with the black rock, his interactions with Jacob and MIB, his time as the Other's "adviser," then, when when the Incident happens his story splits and it shows one story where Ben takes over with Richard assistanting (what we've seen), and one where Richard is forced to leave the Island as it sinks - all in one episode.

If the Losties never time traveled in the Sideways Universe, Ben couldn't have been shot by Sayid. Simply because Sayid would never have been there. So maybe Ben still saw his mom, met Richard in the jungle, waited patiently for his opportunity to join the Hostiles, but the opportunity never arose. No captured Sayid, no Sayid in jail for Ben to visit, etc, etc.

If Daniel was right with any of his calculations at all, then the need to evacuate the Island still must have occured in 1977, even without the Losties, when Dharma drilled into the pocket at the Swan site. Only differences would have been that Dharma wouldn't have been warned beforehand (no Daniel, no Miles), and that the Jughead core wasn't near the Swan pocket at the time of the incident, but under Dharmaville instead.

Or did only the Losties drive Radzinsky to his frenzy to drill/carry on his experiments at all costs? Horace still would be the boss, maybe Radzinsky simply didn't manage to "take over" without all of the chaos created by Losties. Chang had been in the process to order a full stop to the drilling, because of a sudden rise of the temperature, so maybe caution did prevail without the Losties, and Dharma never drilled into the Swan pocket - or they did so at some later time.

The Linuses don't seem aware of the fact that the Island is at the bottom of the sea.


The only problem I see with this scenario is.......the Linuses speak as if they willingly left the island. Not forced by evacuation involving events caused by a crazed Radzinski. If it is the case they were not evacuated DURING the Incident then,

They left afterward in the aftermath a different-type 1977 Incident, or
They left before any Incident ever took place.

I suspect they left before 1977. Then you could have the Incident sink the Island. If they left after, you would need ANOTHER Incident to sink the island. And of course if they left before - then events were changing pre-1977. Back to some watershed event prior to 1977.

I don't think they were evacuated. That was not the tone of this weeks' conversation.

Now, if they did it BEFORE the incident, that would debunk the theory that both timelines share a common past right up to 1977...
I was skeptical to begin with, but now I consider that theory thoroughly debunked. A shared past would mean all of the child Ben and Roger scenes we've seen were also part of the past. That includes Ben getting shot and swimming in the magic hot tub and the shootout at the DHARMA compound. These were not those people. I don't see Roger thinking, "Maybe your life would have been better if we'd stayed at that place with the child killers, gunfights, and exploding busses."

We know from Eloise that the island moves. Why couldn't it move underwater? We've also seen the island moved in time, so maybe that enters into it. Another thought -- what if some entity is able to move the island spatially too. We've seen landmarks like the Lighthouse appear out of the blue.

I know there is a lot of debate about when the timelines split...I don't really want to debate that...because I will just say I believe the split occured due to jughead thus creating two realities from that time on... that is just the conclusion I have come to just my opinion. But what I think happened is kind of like what happened when Desmond turned the failsafe key (go with me I know they aren't the same) but we saw a huge bright light for Desmond it was do or die at that point. What we see is Desmond turning the key but there wasn't an explosion etc... so the people that didn't know Desmond turned the failsafe key really weren't all that worried. Now what I am suggesting is that when Juliette hit the bomb and detonated it...something similar happened for the people on the island. For them there was a lot of panic to get evacuated some did and some didn't. Apparently we have to assume that Ben & Roger for sure didn't get off the island at evacuation but also didn't get blown up. So I think that there was a big flash and they found out a way to set things back to normal and then normal opperations for Dharma went on up until an event we have not yet seen that will "sink" the island. Ben and his dad were probably reunited after the "hoopla" and lived there for awhile then given a chance to leave and they did...we cannot say that the island sunk in 77 reallly and it seems tbtb are dropping hints the island was still up and running after the incident in some sort of fashion. What do you think?

I was going to start a thread but saw this one and thought it was appropriate to post here instead!

If the differences started in 1974 when Sawyer, Jin, Miles and Juliet arrived there, surely that occurrence itself would only have happened in the universe in which the Island is submerged? That would also trash the idea that "whatever happened happened" back when we were dealing with only the one universe. We're shown a photo of the six time-travelers in the Dharma Initiative - yes, mysteriously previously unseen until then, because time travel is a great plot hole generator - but definitely there, in the universe in which the Island was clearly not underwater in 2007.