Be warned. This assumes Smokie is not the MIB. But then who is the MIB anyway?

Cretaceous era. An asteroid from another dimension enters earth’s atmosphere via a whitehole. The asteroid generates an extremely powerful magnetic field and is controlled by an AI. The AI’s function is to examine and study alien life-forms. It’s presence is largely indectible due to its magnetic field (so powerful that it warps time to create its own self-contained time-field) which renders it more or less invisible. As part of its research, the AI makes virtual copies of local flora and fauna and downloads them into a virtual zoo. Man proves to be a particularly interesting species, if naturally destructive.

Certain protocols are in place to deal with intelligent and potentially hostile aliens.

(1) One of the inhabitants is abducted and infected with a virus that makes it blindly loyal to the island to the extent that he/she is willing to sacrifice the lives of others, even its own life, in order to protect the island. This ‘guardian’ can only relinquish their position after finding a willing replacement, who then drinks the blood of his/her predecessor in order to be infected by the same virus.
(2) The island can project simulations of indigenous inhabitants whose personalities have been downloaded in order to negotiate with the locals.
(3) Failing this, a security system – a cloud of electromagnetically-charged metal dust – patrols the island. Although a stand-alone system, this cloud has the island’s ability to scan sentient organisms, to download virtual copies of them and to project human simulations, but is essentially a roving lock-up. Its secondary function is to quarantine any creatures or individuals who would upset the delicate balance of the primary zoo at the island’s core. Over time the cloud has acquired some of its many prisoners’ traits.

In religious terms it is probably easiest to think of the AI as ‘God’ (although its disposition is essentially feminine) the storage facility at the island’s core as ‘Heaven’ or ‘Eden’ and the Cloud as ‘Hell’. By extension, Heaven is the constant to Hell’s variable. One static, the other in eternal, restless motion.

An island guardian kidnaps a pregnant women with the intention of inducting her off-spring as the next island guardian. However the woman gives birth to twins. One twin has an empathic ability to tap into the island’s data base, realises the nature of the infection and how it is transmitted from one guardian to the next and a great deal more besides. He is killed, but not before he has substituted the infected blood and wine with his own blood – the original ‘rebel angel’ virus – thus duplicating his own personality in his brother – the person meant to be the next guardian.

….AND ALL BECAUSE MUMMY LOVES NAUGHTY LITTLE BOYS.

‘Jacob’ is made island guardian despite his ambivalent nature (the body of the intended incumbant, but the soul, personality etc of his rebellious brother). A big decision on the part of the island, as he is the first guardian in its history to possess free will. This is a bone of contention for his twin. This is the same twin from which his personality was derived but who has since been turned into a loyal island servant via resurrection.

Confusing, non?

Both brothers are loyal to the island – their ‘mommy’ – albeit in very different ways. Jacob believes people should only ever serve the island of their own free will – and because Mommy Island loves him, she indulges him. Zombie Samuel wholly disagrees. He believes mankind are innately evil and anybody on the island should automatically be infected with the virus which makes them its loyal servants. By extension, he hates and distrusts his brother. For his part, Jacob regards Zombie Samuel as a threat to the outside world as he is a carrier of the ‘good angel’ virus, a virus which has the potential to turn all mankind into blindly loyal servants of the island.

Needless to say it is Jacob who continues what he began while he was still Samuel, this time without the island or Smokie’s interference: he recruits more workers/followers off island to help him re-build the donkey-wheel, then commences work on the lighthouse etc etc. while Zombie Samuel sulks in the wings.

Zombie Samuel is largely responsible for the cult which develops around the two brothers as he actively recruits followers from amongst Jacob’s workers, specifically those who feel a mystical, almost religious connection with the island. These people voluntarily submit to being infected with the ‘good angel’ virus via Zombie Samuel’s blood. Meanwhile, Jacob’s workers are taught by him to respect the importance of free will. As a result, there is a real idealogical friction between the two ‘tribes’, with Mommy island doing her best to arbitrate, and Smokie occasionally interceding when things get completely out of hand.

Eventually Jacob decides he’s been around long enough. He desperately wants to die. This means (a) finding somebody willing to kill him – the only way of resigning from your position as guardian and (b) ideally, somebody who can carry on his good work – somebody with the right kind of attitude, somebody whose natural gifts will be enhanced by the island, etc. The idea is to duplicate the circumstances which made him (while he was still Samuel) so exceptional. In this respect he’s going against the island’s wishes. She has no intention of letting the same situation occur again – ie. a child being born on the island with the ability to acquire an intuitive knowledge of it.*

*which is why no women has been able to bring a child to term since the birth of the twins.

The only alternative is bringing a group of exceptional young men onto the island to see which respond best to it. This young man will be Jacob’s successor. John Locke is one such candidate. A successful applicant to the mittelos summer camp, he’s brought to the island around 1972 along with several others (Widmore being one of them, more than likely).

Not completely trusting Jacob, the island decrees Zombie Samuel will undertake the education of the young candidates. The tacit assumption is that Zombie Samuel will allow the candidates to remain free agents. Zombie Samuel feels otherwise. He ensures they’re infected with the ‘good angel’ virus by drowning them in the waters of rebirth (already tainted with his blood) and resurrecting them as loyal servants of the island. His ultimate intention is to ensure Jacob’s successor is a loyal zombie guardian.

Discovering what his brother’s up to, Jacob manages to infect the water with his own blood just in time to ensure that the young Locke (the most gifted of the potential candidates) is infected with the ‘rebel angel’ virus instead. Locke subsequently leads an insurrection against Zombie Samuel, is paralysed in the ensuing battle, then incarcerated in Horace’s cabin, where he is to spend the next thirty five years.

THE LOOPHOLE.

After this debacle the island tells Jacob he can only relinquish his position if he can find a replacement whose qualifications for candiditure are the same as his own. Let’s call this ‘The Cain & Abel Rule.’

The Cain & Abel Rule. The guardian must be one of two candidates, both born on the same day of the same mother.

Jacob fulfils this criteria. Flocke clearly does not.

The Dharma initiative is set up by the two with the express purpose of exploring the peculiar nature of the island in the hopes of finding a loophole to this particular injunction. Once again (as when he was building the donkey-wheel and the light-house) Jacob goes on a recruitment drive. Beforehand he ensure the donkey-wheel is reset every 108 minutes, thus confining the island’s exit and entry points to a specific time so that people can be brought on and off the island with relative ease. Needless to say his behaviour is met with a certain amount of hostility from loyal followers of Zombie Samuel, and from Smokie, who kills any Dharma employees who stray too far from the camp.

Eventually, armed with knowledge gained via the Dharma initiative, and exploiting how his prison is immune to temporal fluctuations on the island, Flocke creates a temporal paradox – one in which he was never brought to the island – then orchestrates the crash.* This is to ensure Locke (Flocke in the new, altered time-line) is brought back to the island. The island never specified that the other candidate had to be a twin: simply that he be born of the same mother on the same day.
This is Flocke’s famous ‘loop-hole.’ By introducing Locke as a candidate he is ensuring that he now qualifies as well.
Initially Flocke’s plan looks like it might backfire as the island and Zombie Samuel think Locke shows real potential to replace Jacob. Ultimately Locke does get the position but fails miserably at which juncture, Flocke has Ben assassinate him and in doing so qualifies by default and is released.

*Like the others, Flocke survives the temporal anomoly created by the central characters because he was instrumental in bringing them to the island in the first place.

FLIGHT 815.

Flocke and Jacob have a secondary motive for orchestrating the crash. The island needs to be periodically shut down to vent excess electromagnetism from its core. And it is the search for a suitable candidate for this job which pits them against Zombie Samuel.

Zombie Samuel has always wanted this particular task to be carried out by a candidate infected with the ‘good angel’ virus. Jacob has always insisted he can find a candidate willing to carry out the task of his/her own free will. Typically, Samuel disagrees and points out that if the chosen candidate changes his mind at the last minute, the very future of the island (and anybody on it) will be at risk. However, as island guardian, Jacob gets to over-rule his brother – with the island’s support, which says something about how much she loves him.

I’m guessing this is really in the nature of a bet, nothing more. Samuel always has an infected candidate waiting in the wings just in case Jacob’s candidate screws up.

On this occasion, Jacob assembles various potential candidates to carry out the task prior to his death, safe in the knowledge that his successor – Flocke – will complete what he has begun. These have to be free-thinking individuals with a bad attitude towards authority, but also sad, empty unhappy people to whom such self-sacrifice will seem worthwhile.

These are the passengers of flight 815.

THE LONG CON.

From the start, Jacob and Flocke play the passengers of flight 815, one being the kind wise saintly one, the other pretending to be evil incarnate. The intention is to establish which passenger has what it takes and then to orchestrate events so that person descends of his/her own free will down into the island’s core and releases the excess electromagnetism. A bet is a bet, and they are determined to prove to Zombie Samuel it isn’t necessary to coerce or infect anybody. Flocke even accompanies Jack on his journey just to make sure everything goes according to plan.

The fact that it took two people to turn the island off and then on is interesting. It would suggest that one was the ‘infected’ candidate, most likely Des.

ADAM & EVE?

Turning the island off and on again means that it begins its journey through time all over again. Which makes me wonder about Kate and Sawyer. Lapidus’s attempt to leave the island was doomed as Jack had already turned the island back on and its magnetic field would ensure the plane crashed. Given that Kate and Sawyer were in the sideways world (the island’s ‘zoo’) we know they died on the island, in Kate’s case – by her own admission – many years after Jack.

Yeah, yeah, she told Jack she loved him and had missed him, but is it all that likely she and Sawyer didn’t get jiggy after spending most of their lives on the island? Jack may have been her true love, but he was dead whereas Sawyer was very much alive.
Just a thought….

Last week we got Jacob and Samuel’s back-story. It does raise some interesting questions and it got me thinking about the first time we saw them on that beach, having a chat.

The backstory set up a certain premise, but as usual with the scriptwriters, this whole premise can be turned on its head.

The premise is simple enough. The island’s caretaker survives by being transmitted in the form of a virus. This is the ‘infection’. It is transmitted in liquid form – ie. it has to be taken orally. The result is a loyal island guardian with vestigal memories of the possessed individual’s personality. Last week’s episode left us with the impression that by drinking from the poisoned chalice, Jacob had doomed himself to replacing his mother as a loyal island zombie while MiB had transmogrified into Smokie.

Retrospectively the scene on the beach seemed to confirm this impression with a few qualifications. MiB was around, having briefly adopted human form to squabble with his brother. He seems like pretty much the same old MiB: bad attitude, dislike of mankind, in a hurry to get off the island. True, Jacob’s behaviour initially seemed to strike a discordant note – why is a loyal island guardian encouraging visitors? – but offering his brother that bottle of wine, effectively saying ‘here. Drink this. Turn into a zombie like me. It’ll make things easier,’ seemed to demonstrate that he still has the best interests of the island at heart.

But what if everything about this premise is wrong? What if neither brother is what they seem? What if it is MiB who is having the last laugh at the island’s expense?

What if one brother is in fact masquerading as the other? What if he looks like his brother, talks like his brother, to such an extent that he’s fooled the island? What if he’s pulled off an elaborate, eon-long con on something that thought it was so smart it could treat people like chess-pieces?

Now I know there’s a lot of debate about Smokie and his ‘true’ identity. Sorry, but I’ve never believed Smokie had any other identity (unless you count the many dead people he’s impersonated throughout the series) and I don’t believe MiB is Smokie, either. To accept the following theory, preposterous and all as it might be, you need to forget about Smokie for a minute. This is what I think really happened.

(1) The infection. The wine which Jacob’s Mom offers him should have been a simple mix of wine with water from the magic fountain. This turns you into a loyal island guardian. The water is infected with the virus. However, MiB was one step ahead of her. He substituted the diluted wine with his own unique brew: a mixture of wine, waters from the fountain – and his own blood. He didn’t know he would get killed, but he knew it was a possibility, and got a kick out of knowing that if Mom gave poor dumb Jacob a sip from the bottle she won’t be turning him into a loyal island zombie, but duplicating MiB’s personality in his own twin.

(2) MiB. MiB’s body is resurrected in the same way as Sayid. That is, in the fountain of life, probably by Jacob before the virus fully kicked in. He’s not the rebellious MiB of old. He’s a loyal island guardian now. Only the island doesn’t know or understand this. Smokie certainly doesn’t. Smokie has been told to stop MiB leaving the island and that Jacob is the new island guardian.

Now let’s go back to that scene on the beach. The man who looks like Jacob, is – to all intents and purposes Samuel. MiB looks like MiB, but he’s not. He’s the island’s bitch now as Jacob was intended to be.

In this context Jacob’s gift is heavily ironic. This is how the island has inducted countless minions and it is effectively been offered a taste of its own medicine. And of course this is the infected bottle. Drinking from it would only infect the MIB zombie with the MIB virus, the last thing that the island or its guardian might want. No wonder MiB destroys the bottle in a rage.

The island is full of them, but look closely, and you’ll find there are three distinct species.

Spectres summoned up by Smokie. These have no corporeal existence and are just mouthpieces for Smokie, who (as referee) has no loyalty to either side but just wants to ensure the game is played according to his rules. Smokie screws around with a person’s brain so that they see something that isn’t there. This is obviously tricky, so usually only one person can see a spectre at a time. However there have been a few occasions when (out of necessity) Smokie was forced to stretch himself a bit and get more than one person to see the same spectre (e.g. inside Jacob’s temple). On the plus side, Hurley is particularly receptive, so inevitably Smokie tends to relay a lot of messages, orders warnings through him.

The Undead. These are corpses reanimated by being immersed in the waters of rebirth. Sayiid is the most obvious example. Again, these people are not really ‘alive’ as their personalities are obliterated in the process. They end up loyal servants of MiB. If the water has been infected with Flocke’s blood, they end up loyal servants of Flocke. My guess is Smokie doesn’t approve of this carry on. The waters of rebirth were intended only to heal injuries, not to create your personal army. It’s also contrary to the ‘everybody on the island must have free will’ rule. No wonder Flocke was careful to burn Bram’s body, along with the other two henchman.

Survivors from previous incarnations of the hoop. Create a temporal paradox and you survive into the next incarnation of the hoop in conjunction with your ‘new’ self in the new timeline. Flocke is a case in point, but Christian may well be a candidate. In both cases, their ‘new’ selves died (Flocke actually orchestrated the assassination of his new self in order to impersonate him) giving rise to the impression that the person in question had come back from the dead. Not so.

Complicated, huh?

*In ‘Sundown’ Sayiid tells the temple members to get out of Dodge before the final shoot-out. Those who have free will do so. Those who have already been infected with the original strain of the virus (i.e. those still blindly loyal to the MiB) remain and are killed by Smokie, which is fair enough – they are not serving MiB of their own volition and (if Sayiid’s resurrection is anything to go by) are no longer human. Most importantly of all, they lack free will.

Flocke has been contaminated by the virus, an infection which replicates MiB’s personality in the host.* However this virus is not easily transmitted. In fact, transmission may only be possible via the waters of rebirth. Ilana is unconcerned as Flocke doesn’t have access to the temple. Hence her remark that ‘he can’t. Not anymore. He’s stuck this way.’ The virus may have successfully replicated itself in the past (before Flocke was caught and quarantined in Horace’s cabin) but not anymore. Flocke may have used the secret entrance in and out of the temple to infect the water, possibly with his blood. This was his first act, proably in order to recreate an army of loyal henchmen, and Sayiid was the first victim of the virus.

Who let Flocke out? Claire, one would assume.

* This is what Flocke means when asked by Ben if he and Jacob know one another. He replies – ‘in a manner of speaking.’ They have never met, but as Flocke’s memories and personality are indistinguishable (up to a point) from the MiB’s, the point is not as clear-cut as it might seem.

I guess it’s pretty obvious who Flocke really is by now, but I thought – what the hell – I might as well give a few obvious pointers. So much for clones. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I was trying to figure out how the ‘angels’ were created but made the wrong deduction from the right evidence. The current series has made Flocke’s true identity a lot clearer.

(1) We now know that anybody involved in the course correction (eg. the destruction of the swan station) creates a temporal paradox. As a result, they co-exist with their ‘new’ selves in the next incarnation of the loop.
(2) This isn’t the first time one of the characters has tried course correction with the same results.
(3) Remember how Richard gave the young Locke a test? Supposing he had made a different choice? What if he had? That sketch was probably due to a vestigal memory of what happened the last time.

Smokie, by the way, is indeed a security system. You might also call him/it a referee. He’s there to ensure that the rules are observed. You may think Smokie’s temple massacre was a bit excessive, but MiB was breaking the rules, big time. As one of MiB’s guinea pigs, Flocke knew this but was but prevented from telling Smokie.* Well he finally got his chance, and Smokie is just ensuring an even playing field once more.

*The ash around the cabin was to stop the two communicating. I’m guessing it isn’t ‘ash’ but magnetically charged dust – most probably, pulverised iron. Smokie is constituted from the same stuff, and as both dust and monster are positively/negatively charged, one automatically repels the other.

ESAU.
Esau is a control freak. Melancholy and obsessive, he hates any sort of change or disruption. His priority is protecting the island from any incursions. Esau’s followers (as opposed to his soldiers) see themselves as supporters of law-and-order, fighters against chaos.

JACOB.
Jacob is more restless. We know he gets around, whereas it’s unlikely that Esau has ever left the island. He embraces change and disruption. You could say his job is recognising the importance of adaptablity and its role in the long-term survival of the island. His followers believe people should follow their own consciences rather than be constrained by rules.

SMOKEY.
We’re already familiar with old Smokey. Smokey patrols the island, attacking or abducting anybody it perceives as a threat. It is also programmed to coerce people by taking the form of those they have mistreated – i.e. by emotional blackmail. There seems to be a lot of debate about Smokey’s real identity, but it is precisely what Rousseau described it to be – a security system, nothing more or less, designed to deal with threats by physical or pyschological means. It is not ‘alive’ in any real sense.

Collectively the three ensure the continued welfare of the island.

ESAU’S ARMY.
Esau is helped fulfil his remit by very unusual means: the island clones the bodies of the dead. These clones can absorb the memories of the recently deceased in their entirety*, thus rendering them indistinguishable from those they are impersonating. They are hardwired to prioritise the safety of the island above everything else, including their own lives if need be. They are aware from the start that they are copies, what is expected of them, and the consequences of any disobedience. They are ultimately answerable to Esau.

It is important to distinguish Esau’s clones, who have a tangible, corporeal existence, from the phantoms conjured up by Smokey.

*Miles, as somebody born on the island, has this ability but to a much lesser extent.

THE RULES.
Given the disparate philosophies of the two brothers, the island enforces a simple set of laws to ensure the Pax Romana.

(1) You cannot harm one another.
(2) You can only affect change via intermediaries.
(3) You must respect the free will of these intermediaries – that is, they must be acting of their own free will, although you can use your powers of persuasion if you so desire.

Esau’s army do not constitute intermediaries. They are simulacrums and without free will. However, that might change….

SO WHAT’S GOING ON?

The ship’s arrival was the last straw for Esau, who finally decided he’d had enough of Jacob’s disruptive behaviour. Discovering that Jacob was grooming a new leader for his tribe, he saw a means of assassinating his brother.

This involved reaching into the past (via Horace’s cabin) and influencing events by impersonating Jacob* – we can only assume the real Jacob was off on his travels during this period. Ultimately Esau hoped to ‘turn’ John Locke – i.e. to persuade him to kill Jacob voluntarily, but when this failed he had one of the island’s soldiers (Ben) kill Locke and the body brought back to the island. The body was cloned as per usual, however on this occasion it was exposed to the memories and personality of a living man – i.e. Esau himself – and then sent forth to orchestrate Jacob’s assassination.

*Ben complains about the endless orders he carried out on Jacob’s behalf. Ironically, he was carrying out these orders on Esau’s behalf, as Esau was impersonating Jacob during that period of time.

THE LOOPHOLE.Esau isn’t breaking the rules – he’s simply downloaded a copy of his own personality onto a Locke clone. It’s him, but not him. Clever, huh?