Saturday, July 19, 2014

OPT OUT

In an alternative universe, not being the sideways one, what could have happened in Season 6 stripped away the after life parallel story line?

The fork in the road is the solution to the cliffhanger of Juliet pounding a rock on the atomic bomb while the Incident was happening, imploding the Hatch dig site.

Alternative 1A: Juliet somehow detonates the bomb and there is a huge explosion.
Result: Everyone on the island would "die" due to the nuclear blast and radiation fall out.
Problem: Then the paradox of killing the people in the 1970s would destroy the future, including Jack, Kate and the others being born,  and Flight 815 would have never crashed on the island.

Alternative 1B: Juliet does not detonate the bomb (which we believe we saw in the series), but the implosion causes her severe injuries which she will succumb.
Result: Everyone except Juliet would be "alive" on the island, but put back into their real time lines.
Problem: This implosion event in the 1970s would have changed the course of the Dharma collective, most likely causing it to fall a part (which actually may have happened) and thus not allowing Ben to become the leader of the Others. A leaderless Others would be merely the nomadic remains of other candidates brought to the island.

If we take the latter and move forward, the "re-boot" of the series would eliminate the Widmore-Others conflicts with the plane survivors. They would "disappear" from Season 6 as they would have been eliminated in the alternative.  This leaves the plane survivors back at the very beginning of their journey: to point where they survived the plane crash and are looking for rescue in order to survive.

The alternative Season 6 would have been the basic struggle to get off the island. There would be no Ajira rescue plane because Ben would not have built the runway. The final conflict remaining between the survivors would have been simple: those who wanted to go and those who wanted to stay on the island.

Those who wanted to stay on the island would include Rose and Bernard, who had little to do with the politics and violence swirling around the island groups. Also, Kate and Sayid would have nothing to go back to on the mainland so they probably could care less about rescue. Despite their personal differences, Jack and Sawyer would want to get off the island.  Sawyer's plan was always to leave. Jack had his mother and career to go back to, as well as his "duty" as leader of the survivors to get them home. Sun would want to leave to be reunited with her daughter. Claire would want to be reunited with Aaron. The other survivors like Hurley could be neutral.

Jin perhaps has the skill set as the son of a fisherman to take Michael's place and build a rescue raft. Sawyer had experience building the first raft.  The only person left to sabotage this plan is Jacob and the smoke monster, MIB.

We assume that Jacob and MIB would want everyone to stay on the island and fight, kill and corrupt for their amusement. But even if we take those supernatural beings out of the equation - - - no reference to them in Season 6 - - - there still could be major conflict as the island's resources could be at issue between the rafters and the beach camp.

Alternative Season 6 could have concluded with the tearful launch of the raft and its occupants. As they cross into the horizon, those who stayed behind make a vow to make their own family and community. But immediately after the launch, there is a violent tropical storm that hits the island, causing havoc and hardship on those who stayed behind. This is another cruel "re-set" of the plane survivors who have to start once again from scratch to rebuild their camp.  The series could end with a pan of the beach away from the beach camp, to find specific objects from the raft, coming on shore with the driftwood storm debris.