Ancient Culture Guardian Theory? by Locke4God

This just sprung up in my mind, but it fits nicely with the whole mystery of the ancient culture, pregnancy problems, the nature of the island and the rivalry between Jacob & MIB.

So lets say there's an ancient culture and they erect statues to themselves or their god. Of course there is a devil for lack of a better term, and that's what we know as smokey. This culture comes to a ritual by where there is a guardian or controller of smokey. That person is responsible for that job over a certain number of years, but eventually is replaced by somebody new within the civilization.

Well what does smokey do first? He realizes that if there was no more civilization, that there would be no more guardians, and so somehow he creates a situation where it becomes impossible to bare children on the island (I know Amy seemed to go full term on the island in the 70's, but I'm not sure that we know that 100%, so stay with me for a moment) By eliminating children, smokey eliminates the culture, but unfortunately for him, the civilization finds a way to embody the protector with some level of immortality.

This last protector is Jacob, and realizing the solitude he now has to accept, in addition to his immortality, he also uses the islands powers to create a barrior around it, one in which it is incredibly difficult to escape or enter. This almost ensures that smokey can't leave, and practically ensures that smokey can't use random people who find the island against Jacob.

What it does allow for is Jacob to bring people to the island he chooses. He needs to do this, because he understands that smokey's ultimate goal is to be freed, and in order to do that he has to have somebody to take his place. And so these people come, with the goal being to find somebody who will understand the need to keep Smokey at bay, and will have the patience and faith to endure that task for a very long time.

Jacob realizes that smokey will also use the people he brings against him, but it's better to have a replacement at hand, because what smokey needs is to undo the island's barrier that keeps him imprissoned. It keeps him imprissoned no matter where it is he wants to return home, whether that be some spiritual realm, the real world, another planet, etc. Jacob's mere presence maintains the barrier, and that's why MIB needs to kill him.

But Jacob's backup plan, is that suitable candidates to replace him, will also carry Jacob's own essence, and thus maintain the barrier as well. That's why when Flocke discovered "They are coming" he knew that he still wouldn't be able to leave unless he killed them as well. Fortunately for him, the losties have no idea what's going on.

So, MIB's plan now is to get the losties to kill eachother, and once all of the candidates are gone, the barrier will fall, and he'll be able to go home.

The reason he didn't just let Sawyer die, is because Sawyer is his key to getting to the rest of them.

Meanwhile Jacob's plan is that one of them realize the signficance of the situation, and prevent themselves from being conned into death.

That's why Jacob remained alone. He couldn't tell anybody, because revealing anything would compromise his own security, and so all he could do was continue to shop around for likely people to succeed him.