Loophole Explained

How Jacob’s Nemesis Used Time Travel For A Loophole
As previously theorized in Lost Solved, Richard Alpert is Jacob’s Nemesis aka Smokie aka Cerberus, and The Others have ALWAYS been following Nemesis’ orders, not Jacob’s.

And here is how the loophole works...

Jacob is omniscient, Nemesis is not. Jacob knows that Eko is wounded in the polar bear cave, Smokie has no clue, or he would’ve killed him then. Jacob knows that Nemesis is Fake Locke and is coming to kill him, Nemesis has no idea that Ilana and the Shadow of the Statue folk are outside the foot.

Nemesis just can’t win.

Until he finds the loophole, which arrives in his lap in 1954 in the shape of John Locke. Locke name-drops Jacob to Richard Alpert(Smokie/Nemesis), and Alpert’s eyes light up. If Alpert really talked to Jacob, wouldn’t he be able to prove Locke wrong or right, without visiting him and testing him again and again? No, Alpert was not testing Locke to prove if he was special. He was testing Locke to see if he was from the future. Locke picked the knife because his destiny is to shove it into Nemesis’ midsection..but I digress.

The loophole is the information that Alpert/Smokie/Nemesis/Others were able to acquire as a result of the donkey-wheel being pushed and the Island skipping through time. Between conversations with Locke, Jack & co, and Faraday’s journal, Team Nemesis was able to figure out pretty much everything that happened between 1977 and 2004. They knew the names of everyone on Oceanic 815, and could trace them from infancy to adulthood. They know their weaknesses and shortcomings. Nemesis has studied them and is about to pounce...little does he know that sometimes people change.

Nemesis, via Alpert, tells Locke he has to die.
Nemesis, via Christian & Claire, tells Locke he has to move the island.
Christian tells him again in the chamber, this time informing him to look up Ms. Hawking.
Nemesis tells Ben to kill Locke off-Island.
Hawking makes sure that Locke’s body is on Ajira 316, as she was instructed.
This is how Nemesis knows that Ben killed Locke. He set it all up, he doesn’t have access to Ben’s memories, he just happens to know what happened because he planned it.

This is the Loophole. The word is actually LITERAL in this case, because it’s a time-loop. As a result of time-travel, Team Nemesis can manipulate the Others and keep up with Jacob. However, his knowledge is limited to Ajira 316 landing(hence why the Others were building the runway), and once he kills Jacob, he gets blindsided by Ilana and The Shadow of the Statue people.