I’ve always imagined that bomb goes off, Losties flash of course, but then there is a calm on the Island because the bomb worked to cancel energy. Dharma people such as Dr Chang figure out something happened to negate energy. Even though there is energy negated, maybe still small amount coming out or another pocket below. Swan is built over pocket to study residual energy, button mechanism is built..

But this is my confusion with the whole Incident situation.. Doesn’t there look like there was even another Incident? I mean the Swan is built nicely, hatch doors, blast doors etc… but then the door going to energy pocket on side. Completely sealed. The door that pulled the metal on Jack’s necklace. Why would they build a door to the energy pocket after the Incident? There must have been another incident, after first incident..then they sealed that door. I’m confused.. Always have been about that.. It is a cool mystery though, I don’t mind that they never explained it..

in the current reality, yes that energy is still building, and that is why Dharma had to layer all of that concrete onto the fissures and type in the numbers to prevent the electromagnetic energy from reaching dangerous levels…(i am not sure what the actual mechanism is that typing the numbers performs – perhaps it releases a small amount of energy, not enough to cause damage, but enough to prevent it building to dangerous levels)…

And all of this eventually gets Desmond his job as the button pusher.

Read through yours again.. I’m understanding only partially though… I understand flash and explosion, flash faster than explosion. Flash tears the fabric of space-time, allows the Losties to jump to 2007 before explosion hits them..

But I’m not fully understanding explosion part..You’re saying that the explosion occurs in the actual reality, but since it can’t happen in actual reality because of WHH, immediately there is another reality formed? The reality where island sank? So you’re not saying, that the explosion also went through a tear in space-time, to another Island reality and sank that island, correct? Maybe one in the same difference..

So the main issue I have with your theory is that, the purpose of exploding Jughead was to neutralize the Island’s energy buildup at the Swan.. If it did explode and neutralize it, but that particular Island that it neutralized is in another reality, what about the original island in the original timeline? Isn’t that energy still building and causing the Incident?

Speaking of explosions, my head just exploded

have you ever seen that old footage of nuclear bomb testing – the people would sit miles and miles away in the desert waiting to see the mushroom plume? first they would see the flash of the explosion (light travels the fastest via speed of light), and then they would get hit by the wind, etc. from the force of the explosion.

my theory is somewhat similar – the idea Jack had was to sink the island by detonating the h-bomb, and Juliet said “it worked”.

I believe it worked because the “flash” (magnetic energy) released by the initial explosion at the “point of impact” (where Juliet struck the h-bomb) traveled faster than the explosion itself – so the explosion followed the flash (like a car following the light from its headlights, or think of the light as a wormhole); and the explosion literally created the ALT by sinking the island, which could not occur in the true reality, yet had to occur somehow (thus the ALT).

A couple things to keep in mind: Jack et al flashed away before they were killed by the explosion, affirming that the flash was faster than the explosion (and thus the explosion followed the flash elsewhere). The explosion would have followed them into the current timeline if it was allowed to – but the theory of consistent histories (what happened, happened) did not allow the island to sink in the current timeline, because it never sank.

Also, the energy from the h-bomb cannot simply disappear or cease to exist. The energy had to go somewhere, and thus by going into the ALT, it makes more logical sense than it just converting into light or something like that…

I’m thinking now..based on THE END episode..that it’s the Island’s energy left unchecked by some other mechanism or force (Jughead at the Swan or the corked pool in the tunnel light) would cause the Island to sink…

Saying all that, I’ve kind of got a third theory to Island being underwater. It was when the light turned off briefly in the Actual Time line; I know it was probably only a couple hours (10 minutes TV time), but time doesn’t really matter in the ALT time line..

I think that the H-bomb released the magnetic energy, flashing Jack et al ‘back to the future’.
Because the island in the main timeline did not sink, the energy of the h-bomb was not present. Instead, the magnetic energy/light flash, which travels at the speed of light, created the timefold faster than the explosion itself. This means the energy from the explosion occured in the alternate timeline, sinking the island, and helping to create the ALT reality as we know it. I believe this is why Juliet said ‘it worked’ – in a way, it did – Jack’s plan was to have them fly over the island unharmed by sinking it, and they did, but in the alternate reality.

In Stephen Hawkings book, A Brief History of Time, he references “Consistent Histories”, which is a time travel theory that states ‘what happened, happened’. Therefore, the Losties could not sink the island by traveling back in time – impossible, because it was not sunk in 2007. Thus, the sinking had to occur in an Alternate Reality, which they “created” by creating the time fold.

I think the cement and pushing of the button, etc., was done to stop the leaking of the magnetic energy caused by the h-bomb blast (but since the blast itself was shifted to the ALT, the leak was likely serious but not insurmountable for the Dharma personnell to handle).

The bomb coupled w/the electromagnetism caused a folding of space-time and created a wormhole we saw as the final time flash that reunited the Losties.

Had this not happened, Jack, et al. would have died in the purge and they would *not* be there when Ben killed Jacob or be able to “save the world”.