Widmore's Test of Des didn't make sense...

[Madam P]

At this point, I think Desmond will actually talk the Losties into sacrificing themselves and the original timeline completely because he knows it will bring about the X timeline where everyone will eventually live happily ever after.

Talk about your "leap of faith"... I would say there'd be no way they'd all agree to do that, except for the fact that a good number of them have already done it once... when they blew up the nuclear bomb.

[RM]

At this point, I think Desmond will actually talk the Losties into sacrificing themselves and the original timeline completely because he knows it will bring about the X timeline where everyone will eventually live happily ever after.

Talk about your "leap of faith"... I would say there'd be no way they'd all agree to do that, except for the fact that a good number of them have already done it once... when they blew up the nuclear bomb.

Yeah, but if Desmond can do more than just tell the Losties in the original timeline that something better exists ...  I mean, what if he can do something like Charlie X just did for him -- show them; let them experience the X timeline and see that Charlie, Daniel, Charlotte, Juliet are alive and happy, then they might believe it's worth sacrificing themselves from a timeline where they're miserable in the real world and the Island will just keep draggin them back.

[BobBX542]

I don't think Widmore necessarily knows absolutely everything.  I don't think he knew that by exposing Desmond to that much EM energy that he was sending his consciousness to an alternate reality.  That's different than anything Daniel had been saying (i.e., just going back and forth inside your own lifetime inside the same timeline).

I don't know about that. I think that he, and Eloise are both aware that there are two (or multiple) time lines. And this is why he told Desmond that after the test, he would need him to make a sacrifice.