doubleofive said:

xhonzi said:
At the very beginning of the episode, Sayid appears to be much worse off than Juliet, yet they can't get her to the pool fast enough...

Well, Juliet has her own show on the same network, so she HAD to die! ;-)

That's all I mean. It felt dictated by elements beyond the show rather than the logic of the show itself. Sort of like Shanon not being on the plane. :)

Lost2007 would be unmodified, as Sun and Lepidus have never traveled in time after leaving and coming back. The explosion must have reset the time skippers back to Lost2007 (as they inhabit the same Island that Lepidus made a landing on) while at the same time creating Alt2004.

It's obviously modified to the point that Sun saw a picture of Jin from 1974. And what of the Swan? Is the Swan in Lost2007 simply the result of Desmond's actions? Or of the incident too?

I'm of the opinion that Jin was always in 1974 in the normal timeline, we just didn't know it.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Faraday said, "What happened, happened." You can't change history. So, Jin was always in 1974. But then Faraday says, "We can change it!" So the pocket of negative energy DOESN'T always create the need for the button, the unpushing of which doesn't cause 815 to not crash and not bring the castaways to the island. Hence the difference between Lost2004 and Alt2004. So what else is different between the "Lost" timeline and the AltTimeline? More importantly, are there differences between the "Lost" timeline and the 2007 we saw last night? The Swan? When last we saw the imploded Swan in the Lost timeline... it looked like this:

Notice the lack of debris in the center and the height of the crater wallls.

This is the construction site (obviously). I can't find any pictures from the 2007 crater from last night's episode, but it can't be exactly either of these other two timeline's craters. If it's the wreck of the construction site, then it is the Alt2007 version of the crater where there was no plane crash. Or if it is the Lost2007 version, there wouldn't be all of that debris in the centre of the hole.

This is the conclusion that I have come to:
The Dharma van and all of the Dharma jumpsuits people are wearing and the bullet in Sayid's gut are all artifacts of the Alt1977 -> Lost2007 time jump. The van is there because Hurley and Jin were in it. The debris is there because Juliet was in it.

Everything in 1974-1977 time frame "Happened Happened" until the point where Faraday decides they can change things afterall. As soon as he says "Happened maybe happened" the Alt timeline was created. A 1977 where they did nothing and a 1977 where they blew the pocket of energy. The one where they did nothing leads to Lost2004 and Lost2007 where the plane crashes etc... and the one where they blew the detonator leads to Alt2004 where the plane lands at LAX.

Or it's a third timeline. But I don't want to talk about that.