This article has been marked for merging It has been suggested that this article be merged with Ethan Rom/Theories - Discuss

Ethan and crossed TimelinesEdit

• Ethan = Ethan Goodspeed. In the original version, Ethan's parents were Amy & Horace, but she only married Horace after the Hostiles had killed off Amy's husband Paul, Amy being rescued by Sawyer and Juliet. Unless we are going to get a second bout of time travel, in which Sawyer and Juliet return to 1974 and rescue Amy again (unlikely as the producers have said the time travel season is over) then

(a) This is probably the first indication that this timeline is the one which occurs POST 'incident', and Ethan is there as a result of being evacuated from the island, either on the sub, or in some other way. However, the Miles and Charlotte who arrived at the island on the freighter were both evacuated from the island just before the incident. We would therefore expect that the timeline that has Ethan working in the hospital (and not dead) should have a Miles and Charlotte also (even possibly a Faraday). Given that these two were recruited by Widmore to go to the island, should we not expect that to occur in this timeline also? (Would these be the same Miles, Charlotte and Faraday who arrived on the island in the original timeline?) (b) If this is not the case, and Ethan was born on the mainland, then this means that this alternative timeline has been in existence since at least the time of Ethan's conception and probably earlier. This means that the timeline was created prior to the incident (since Juliet helped to deliver Ethan first time around). In other words, if this is the case, the incident had nothing to do with the creation of this new timeline.

• It is possible that Ethan was born off the island to the 'same' Amy and Horace (we did see Horace in Portland). In this case it is possible that Amy was never married to Paul, or he still died, therefore Ethan had no choice of his last name.
  • There are no multiple parallel time-lines – “…but you cannot create a new string”, right? I have posted this somewhere else but here it is: try this: draw a straight line (which represents time, and therefore history) and a circle next to it that at one point touches the line. This circle is the Island’s time line, which is rather a loop. So, the loop, which repeats itself with additional events every time. There are different points of connection of the time loop of the island with the real time-line at different points in time – “the island is always moving”. Dates and times do not match on the island and in all the remaining world, we know that. Jacob seems to be concerned to sustain the loop, bringing new people (progress), but MIB is working to break it apart. Many new events make the loops seem stronger on one hand, but also more fragile on the other. If one single event does not happen as planned (rules) the whole loop ceases to exist. And it will happen, sooner or later. But the point where our circle touches the line is just a small dot, a smallest fracture of a second. That is why it actually does not exist for a viewer from the outside world (or from the string). The history was recorded as we see it in the LA X “time-line” in which the flight 815 has safely landed in LAX, AND also crashed on an island sending all our characters to a non-existent world living in a time-loop. And also it does not matter what breaks the loop – it could be as big as the a-bomb detonation, or as small as Richard forgetting to give Locke the compass. Now, it is absolutely irrelevant when, by the island’s time, the island finally disappears with the whole its world – even if this will happen in 2008, or 2009, the island will be already on the bottom in 2004 of the real history, and in 1850 as well. Because it never existed. And that is why Ethan could be possibly born off the island too.
• Separate Point: There have been two timelines created with the detonation of Jughead. One (in which all the Losties we've been watching for 5 years) inhabit where the nuke didn't affect the timeline, and one where it did. Where Jack, Kate, Sayid et al are now is the same timeline where Ethan was shot by Charlie, and Aldo was fooled by Kate and Sawyer with the Wookiee trick - just three years later. In that one Ethan was taken away and brought back, to eventually join the Others. In the Alt timeline, he was never brought back because the island sank.

Alt Ethan and the consequences for the Alt Timeline.Edit

In the 2004 RW alt timeline, Ethan = Ethan Goodspeed.

In the original S1-5 version, Ethan's parents were Amy & Horace, but she only married Horace after the Hostiles had killed Amy's husband Paul, and the time-travelling losties stopped the Hostiles from killing her. If the losties had not travelled back to 1974, then, in that timeline, Amy would be dead, and could not have married Horace, with the consequence that Ethan would not exist.

Observation 1: In any timeline where the events occurred in the original island timeline up to the point in 1974 when the losties arrived, but the Losties do NOT time travel back to this point, Ethan cannot be born on the island.

Note that this means that if Ethan is born on the island, then the circumstances must have been different well prior to the point at which Amy was captured: Amy is not captured, but she & her husband must have split in some other manner, and subsequently still marry Goodspeed. This timeline must therefore have diverged from the original S1-5 timeline, prior to 1974, when Amy was rescued; if it did not, she would be dead. In this case, Since Ethan is alive, but the island is underwater, Ethan must then have left the island prior to its demise. Although we have seen Ethan was on the island in 1989 (see Ethan Rom#1989, this event may not have happened in this ‘alt’ timeline. All that we can say is that he must have left after 1977 when we know Ethan was born. Note that since the losties did not have any involvement in these events, they were not responsible for the island’s demise.

Similarly, the consequences of Ethan NOT being born on the island, means that he must have been conceived in some alternate timeline. This timeline must have been in existence since at least the time of his conception, and probably much earlier. This means that in 1976, when Ethan was conceived, Amy & Horace were living on the mainland. (How they might have got together is an interesting speculation, but not totally relevant). We can conclude in this case, that it is a completely different timeline to anything we have seen in S1-5, and it must have diverged from the timeline prior to 1974 (otherwise Amy would have been killed), and by 1977 neither Amy nor Horace were part of the DI on the island. However we do know that in this timeline, the DI still did go to the island (witness Dharmaville & the shark in LA X, Parts 1 & 2. This means that Horace nor Amy were either never recruited, or if recruited, left the island prior to 1977. Consequently, we can conclude that the losties did not time-travel back to this underwater ‘alt’ island, and therefore could not have been responsible for its being underwater. Therefore

Observation 2: The alt timeline introduced in LA X, Parts 1 & 2 must have diverged from the original 2004 timeline prior to 1974.

Observation 3: The losties were not responsible for the island being underwater.

• Disagree: Ethan was always born on the island. The Losties always saved Amy. He left with Amy on the sub. He returned later and is with the Others in 1989. He traveled back and forth with Mittelos Labs. This always happened...until the bomb. Now in the X timeline he doesn't go back to the island because it sunk.