"LOST's" Sideways World

Here's what imfromthepast thinks:

Facts:

* Ethan Goodspeed is an OBGYN in LA, having not grown up on the Island.
* Ben Linus lives with his old, sick father, Roger. Roger mentions DHARMA and the fact that they went to the Island and subsequently left.
* Alex and Danielle live in LA, not on the Island.
* In 2004 the Island is underwater and has vestiges of DHARMA on it, indicating a DHARMA presence before the sinking.

Speculation:

I propose that the first five seasons of LOST are in fact the “Alt” as in an altered timeline. The Flashsideways that we have been seeing depict the original, unaltered timeline.

How would that work?

Ben didn’t grow up on the Island, he and Roger left for some reason. What if they were evacuated? But not due to Jack and company trying to blow up Jughead, but because of the drilling at the Orchid setting off the Swan. The difference is because Ben was evacuated, he doesn’t grow up to turn the donkey wheel. Without the donkey wheel turning there were no time travelers. No time travelers means no Jughead.

Ergo, the Flashsideways depict the original, unaltered timeline and what we have been watching for five years has been the result of the time traveling in Season 5.

Back to Ben being evacuated. If he was evacuated then it stands to reason that Chang and Co. figured out Radzinski’s drilling was mucking everything up on their own. Why not? It’s not as if they had Sayid the Hostile and LaFleur and Juliet the Traitors-in-Their-Midst to worry about. So if they figured it out on their own they probably ordered the evacuation, but couldn’t stop the Swan from exploding because they didn’t have Jughead.

Maybe that’s why the Island sunk, because of the chain reaction set off by drilling at the Orchid.

So since the Island sank in 1977, then it wasn’t there for Danielle and her crew to wash up on, thus they made it back to civilization and Alex lives a normal life.
Conclusion:

The Flashsideways are not depicting an alternate timeline where Jughead was detonated, it is in fact depicting the original timeline where none of the time traveling and Incident stuff in Season 5 took place and the Island sank as a result of the DHARMA Initiative drilling at the Orchid.

For some as-yet-unknown reason, Jacob and/or the Man in Black decide on a do over, (perhaps Jacob in his capacity as the Guardian of the Island) and cause the time traveling, which in a chicken-or-the-egg scenario cause the real Alternate time line, ours, to come about.

We’re the Alt.