Skipping

The more I think about the whole time skipping thing, the less sense it makes, so I just wanted to “think aloud” and see if I can put some things together. Here’s some things we know:

1. The island moved. We saw it disappear. We don’t know if it moved in time or space or what, but we at least know that something happened.

2. Airplanes and boats and submarines can reach the island during different time periods, and those time periods match the time period of the island. This would seem to indicate that time on the island matches time off of the island.

3. Anyone approaching the island must do so at a precise heading, or else their minds freely move through their own past.

4. The Lamppost is needed to determine the physical location of the island at a given time. Airdrops and Submarine movements could be coordinated with that information.

5. When Ben pushed the wheel, Juliet, Sawyer, Daniel, John, Jin, Miles and Charlotte started flashing through time, but their locations on the island did not change. Only these people were effected from what we saw. When John stopped the wheel, those people got stuck in 1974.

6. When Ajira 316 flies over the island, Jake, Kate, Hurley and Sayid join the other “pasties” in 1977, while the others land in 2007.

So that leaves me with a few conclusions. I don’t think the island is sliding and slipping around at a steady pace. I think it sits in the same place for awhile and then jumps. When the wheel is moved, the island jumps. Because the wheel was “broken” the island jumped over and over again. Each time there was a flash, the island physically moved to a new location. The act of Ben dislodging the wheel is what makes the island look like it’s constantly jumping around, and created the necessity for the Lamppost.

Our Losties jumped with the island, to the TIME that it was moving. The order of their jumps through time may have been related to physical proximity. So if in 1988 the island was only miles from it’s current location, then that’s the first place they would skip to. If in 3000BC the island was a few miles from where it is in 1988, then that’s the next stop.

An alternative model would be that the island is constantly sliding and slipping around ever so slowly, and during the flashes, the island moved dramatically, and the losties went to all the time periods when the island was in the same exact physical location that it was when they started. A theory going around for awhile is that the approach heading is the “wake” left behind the moving island. That would mean that unless the island is on collision course with the mainland, it had better change headings occasionally, which may explain why there are multiple headings mentioned.

So what happened to Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid? Well, for one, the plane must have flown over exactly during one of the flashes, while the island was moving! It’s possible that Eloise planned it that way, instead of having them leave on a airplane flying over a stable time for the island, she has them get on a flight that passes over the island right as it’s moving! So whatever sucked the first set of time travelers into flux grabbed the last four and sucked them out of the plane, and they fell down to the ground, since the plane wasn’t there in 1977 to hold them up.

What is interesting about this is that there is some inclusionary force for skipping through time, as well as an exclusionary force. So there are many things that Kate, Jake, Hurley and Sayid have in common with the other travelers, but Sun, Lapidus, Ben, and John share many of those same experiences, exposures, and traits! Why does Juliet skip but not any of the other Others? Why does Jin skip but Sun does not? Why does John skip when he’s alive and not when he’s dead? Charlotte, Miles and Daniel make a nice pattern for skipping…. but then why doesn’t Ben skip?