Smocke is Recruiting His Replacement by back_gammon

Just as Jacob needs a candidate to replace himself, the smoke monster needs to replace himself, too. The island must always have two forces representing light and dark to maintain a balance. Further, Smocke can't go home until he's found his replacement.

Smocke doesn't need Hurley's employment agency to find his replacement. As the smoke monster, he can scan a potential job candidate's thoughts faster than Optical Character Recognition Software can scan a resume. Further, Smocke doesn't need to ask what kind of animal someone would like to be. Once someone has the job of smoke monster, they can morph into any animal they choose.

Nevertheless, the Smoke Monster has a few limitations that hamper his replacement search. For one thing, there's all those infernal rules that Human Resources comes up with. For another thing, unlike Jacob who can roam around, touch people, and bring them to the island, Smocke, who is trapped on the island, must recruit his replacement by claiming or infecting someone who is already there. But he has one thing going for him that Jacob doesn't have. His replacement doesn't have to be alive. In fact, just the opposite. His replacement must be dead.

That's why Richard thinks Smocke wants everyone dead. Not because Smocke is evil, necessarily, but because he can only claim someone as a possible replacement if they're already dead.

Further, Smocke is now recruiting Sawyer as his replacement, and he needs him dead. That's why the blonde boy from Human Resources appeared and cautioned Smocke about the rules of hiring, er, the rules of killing.

So Claire and Sayid have been claimed as possible Smokey replacements and now Smocke is eyeing Sawyer's resume.

Who's next? And which of the recruits will accept the job offer?