The Real Candidates by PsychedelicRelic

We have all believed that the candidates are 6 of the people on the island. But, these people are horrible wretches. Jack says he's a broken man. Hurley is unlucky, etc. But, maybe the real candidates are in the alternate time line. Hurley is the luckiest man in the world there. Jack has a loving son, etc.

So, what if the duties of the island candidates are simply to allow themselves to be substitutes for their better selves. Their better selves in the other verse can then be entrusted with guarding the island. This explans the template of substitution, why you can get to the island by positioning a replacement corps on an airplane. The whole idea of substitution makes sense this way. It's an exchange of equal energy. Each person and their mirror image represent a total amount of energy, which has to be equal in order to maintain the balance between universes. Sending one without the other could result in a destructive interchange because of the imbalance.

Dead is dead, but in one universe. When we see or hear from the dead, we might just be witnessing the remaining other-verse person, a former potential candidate, who had been made aware of his purpose and works to fulfill the ultimate goal of balanced exchange. Even Jacob, who we now see as dead Jacob, could have been working with his counterpart, Jacob 2. The Lighthouse, where Jack saw his house, may have actually been showing Jack 2's house, the real candidate.

Ah, but how can Richard's dead wife speak with the living of today? Time is irrelevant on the island. We have witnessed numerous non-linear time events in the series. So, it is not totally out of the question that Hurley is actually communicating with someone who lived hundreds of years ago, since the other person is in a different time sequence in an alternate time line. The same principle applies to Miles.

* * *

Such an imbalanced exchange as I propose may explain what happened to Smokey and how he became spatially challenged, unable to maintain his original corporeal self, and why we have not seen nor had implied an other counter-self. 2 objects cannot inhabit the same space. 2 MIBs, occupying "one" verse, but of somewhat opposite charges, could result in what we see as Smokey today.

The reason sonic/sound waves work adversely against Smokey is because he is essentially human. We humans have electrical charges running through us. The human brain triggers these charges to make our muscles and other organs function. We also have the capability of reading other people's minds, ESP, which we have seen Smokey demonstrate.

Were Smokey merely an electromagnetic force a sonic fence would have little to no effect. Sound waves are "mechanical" and project in longitudinal waves. They effect matter! Electromagnetism projects in latitudinal waves and passes through space and bypasses matter.

Remember, MIB said Jacob stole his humanity. Regardless of the truthfulness of Jacob's supposed action, the statement appears to indicate that MIB is, indeed, human in origin and thus subject to "mechanical law."

I would propose that at some time in some universe Jacob was a scientist, perhaps a physicist. That is why he has such a proclivity for numbers and why he understands the island's extra-physical nature. It may be that he constructed an experiment, which could send a human to another, alternate verse. And MIB was his first test subject.

See the last episode of "Fringe" for some insight to what I have proposed. Take note of one of the character's missing hand and possibly apply it to Smokey.