Smokie and the Fence/Does Smokey = Cerberus

[Nancy Drew]

Ok, I have a question to throw out there about Smokie.  This probably isn't the thread to post it in, but since we're talking about him anyway..... Does Smokie only want to "scan" the people on the island who have killed in the past?  Eko, Kate, Juliet, Locke (if he indeed did kill Eddie, or maybe because he thought about killing himself before coming to the island??), the pilot (the plane crash killed people), Sawyer, etc..  It is kind of a stretch, but it is something they have in common.  And if it is true, does that mean it will come after Charlie, Desmond, Sun, Jin, and anyone else who has played a part in someone's death?

[DirtyMaggieMae]

Well Desmond killed Kelvin (from what we know).  I don't think anyone on the island has clean hands.

[Nancy Drew]

Yep, and even Claire was responsible for her mom even though it was an accident.  Then there's Jack.  He agreed to operate on that old man even though it was an impossible surgery and it ended up killing the guy.  He was dying anyway, but he died on the table.  I wonder if Rose and Bernard were responsible for the ill-fated death of anyone?

[puff6962]

Rousseau describes the monster as a security system.  Now, I like what was said above about the thing scanning people to see what they are capable of.  Contrast Locke with Kate.... Locke was hurt so deeply by his father but, upon finding that Cooper is playing a new scam, only confronts him trying to prevent him from hurting others.  Kate, on the other hand, kills her father "in cold blood."

It fits that the monster kills those who are killers.  That would prevent a "lord of the flies" progression on the island.  We don't know what the pilot may have done in his past, but I suspect there's a murder in there somewhere.

Further, I suspect that the monster either recognizes Julia, scans her, and deduces the presence of the mark.  It is the mark that makes the monster return as it identifies her as a killer.

[Nancy Drew]

It may have been pilot error that got them off course to begin with.  That could be his "murders".  And if Smokie does go after those with death in their eyes, then it is no wonder that the Others need that fence to protect them.  We know the real Henry Gale was killed, and there was the "purge" where some of them may have done some killing.

[Cowboy Up]

a microwave is an electromagnetic wave.  what you're relating may better be described as the creation of a magnetic field.  but, realize, that the strength of a magnetic field dramatically weakens as you increase the size of the field.  this is my MRI tubes are small and, as you switch to an "open" MRI....the quality of images suffers.

in the good old days, if a pilot mistakenly turned on the radar of say....an f-105...while on the tarmac with you 40 feet away, you could have gotten some pretty serious brain damage.  (newer radar systems are "quiet" and more stealthy by emitting a lower amplitude signal of lower frequency). 

mikail got "cooked" by a high amplitude, high frequency, microwave signal very similar to sticking your head in a microwave oven....Don't do this at home....but, the idea of a "force field" or strong "magnetic field" physically repelling smoky doesn't seem as plausible to me.

of course, taking the particulate nature of the monster into account, one is tempted to say that the particles could individually be repelled as they are small.  this notion brings to mind the distribution of a magnetic field.  the field is concentrated directly between the poles (more magnetic lines) and then dissipates rapidly outside of this axis.  this means that smoky while probing along the fence line could have found a weak spot or travelled right over the pylons (as did the group).

na, whatever blocks the monster intuitively was noxious to it.  sonic or microwaves seem most appropriate.  the idea would be that the waves disrupt the ability of one particle to successfully interact with others.  here i am presupposing that the particles are functional units of the whole (nanites).

i do like blitz wing's onomatopoeia relating to smoking be confused.  the monster has intelligence.  it scans, toys, interprets, flees, doesn't like rain, blah blah blah.

what i want to know is how does the monster get inside your head.  does it send in a few nanites to live with you for a while, get inside your brain, perform a brain scan.....when these little guys get sneezed out and go tell the rest of the cloud about you, what happens?  it screws with you (apparitions and whispers), judges you (echo), or leaves you alone (locke).

if the monster is a grouping of nanites that can scan a human mind, assume a human form, and "think," how about the big daddy question of them all....

CAN THE MONSTER/THE ISLAND IMITATE YOU?  CAN IT LEAVE (Ben as a security checker)?  CAN IT RECRUIT OTHERS TO THE ISLAND (the great man, Ethan and wierd looking guy in Juliet's flashback)?  CAN IT TOY WITH YOU BEFORE YOU REACH THE ISLAND (Anthony Cooper/Locke)?

Have the Others truly ever left the island or has the island, at times, "left" the Others?

I am liking this train of thought.  Thanks BWing for the use of the work confused in your post.

You beat me to it...
Also if you look at a close up of the switch for the fence (this could be intentional, or it could be just a prop error) it has, like a thermostat type switch, red on one side and blue on the other...some variable setting type switch...meaning my they are able to control the amount of "power" . But who knows at this point....

[Jugdish]

It almost looked like a timer switch, but that would not make sense.

[PrincessLeia]

A few thoughts-

TPTB have previously denied "nanobots," however I don't know if that means that all nano-technology based explanations should be thrown out.

If Smoky is travelling through the same tunnel system that the Others are, that may explain why some of the entrances/ paths have been poured completely with concrete.  Smoky may be somewhat isolated even underground.  I believe he is primarily confined to the "Dark Territory."

My theory is pretty much in line with puff's.  I believe that he is a bio-mechanical/ electromagnetic/ parapsychological (telekinetic) experiment that was created by Dharma to serve the purpose of a security system.  His primary function was/ is to protect the island's secrets.  I don't think he passes moral judgement as much as he makes an assessment on whether or not he believes that someone is a threat to the island & it's secrets.  While, he was @ one time under the control of Dharma, I believe that he somehow acquired intelligence possibly during the "catastrophic malfunction of the Cerberus system" as noted on the blast door map.  While I think that he is mainly autonomous, I believe that he is still sometimes directed by the intellect, will, emotions, or memories of our Losties.

[Michelle]

A few thoughts-

TPTB have previously denied "nanobots," however I don't know if that means that all nano-technology based explanations should be thrown out.

If Smoky is travelling through the same tunnel system that the Others are, that may explain why some of the entrances/ paths have been poured completely with concrete.  Smoky may be somewhat isolated even underground.  I believe he is primarily confined to the "Dark Territory."

My theory is pretty much in line with puff's.  I believe that he is a bio-mechanical/ electromagnetic/ parapsychological (telekinetic) experiment that was created by Dharma to serve the purpose of a security system.  His primary function was/ is to protect the island's secrets.  I don't think he passes moral judgement as much as he makes an assessment on whether or not he believes that someone is a threat to the island & it's secrets.  While, he was @ one time under the control of Dharma, I believe that he somehow acquired intelligence possibly during the "catastrophic malfunction of the Cerberus system" as noted on the blast door map.  While I think that he is mainly autonomous, I believe that he is still sometimes directed by the intellect, will, emotions, or memories of our Losties.

  Daaaaang! you smart

[PrincessLeia]

A few thoughts-

TPTB have previously denied "nanobots," however I don't know if that means that all nano-technology based explanations should be thrown out.

If Smoky is travelling through the same tunnel system that the Others are, that may explain why some of the entrances/ paths have been poured completely with concrete.  Smoky may be somewhat isolated even underground.  I believe he is primarily confined to the "Dark Territory."

My theory is pretty much in line with puff's.  I believe that he is a bio-mechanical/ electromagnetic/ parapsychological (telekinetic) experiment that was created by Dharma to serve the purpose of a security system.  His primary function was/ is to protect the island's secrets.  I don't think he passes moral judgement as much as he makes an assessment on whether or not he believes that someone is a threat to the island & it's secrets.  While, he was @ one time under the control of Dharma, I believe that he somehow acquired intelligence possibly during the "catastrophic malfunction of the Cerberus system" as noted on the blast door map.  While I think that he is mainly autonomous, I believe that he is still sometimes directed by the intellect, will, emotions, or memories of our Losties.

  Daaaaang! you smart

See what happens when Lou's not around to distract me?  rofl

[Jugdish]

I thought he was tied only to the dark territory or losties area also. But Left Behing ruined that theory.

[this is some crazy stuff]

Isnt there something on the blast door map that says Cerebres malfunction or something like that. 

Maybe this is where Otherville starts??

[casino]

Back to smokie. Is he like a heat seeking missile and can only follow humans? Maybe that is why the fence is only so high. He can get up that high but only if he's chasing someone who's up there. If he were chasing someone they probably wouldn't climb a tree they would run across the ground.
If smoky does travel underground could that be why the swan hatch was all patched up like Chernobyl? Maybe smoky got into the hatch through the tunnels accidentally and wreaked havoc. or was it because the place might implode?
I'm digging the atmospheic moisture idea too. Do rain and moisture create a current for smoky to travel through?
And does anyone think smoky's chain sounds sound like a ships anchor and the horn like a departing or docking ship's horn?

If Smokey is working of a heat signature, then I have a flashback to "Predator," where Arnold smears himself with mud to block his heat signature and fool the Predator's infrared sensors.  Maybe falling in the mud pit made Kate and Juliet harder to find.  Arnold also jumps in a pool of water to accomplish the same thing. Maybe the rain also masks the heat signature and messes with Smokey's targeting system.

Smokey's sounds all seem to me to be distorted verisions of animal sounds.  The clicking noses that some people refer to as chain noises remind me of crickets or cycadas.   The rest of the sounds appear ape-like, or the roar of a bear or lion.  So, I don't really hear the ship sounds that you do.

[threep*]

then I have a flashback to "Predator," where Arnold smears himself with mud to block his heat signature and fool the Predator's infrared sensors.  Maybe falling in the mud pit made Kate and Juliet harder to find.

arnold... oh, come on

[rjmb]

Juliet confesed they knew about the smoke monster, but didn't know too much about it and it didn't like the fence. My thought is, if the losites were able to climb over the fence, why couldn't smokie?

Also 'Patchy' was able to pass through it whereas the Smoke wasn't, it was physically repelled/resisted. It would stand to reason that the more robust defense of the fence to the smoke monster is because it is geared to deal with that threat and it is simply repelled by it's physical properties when it gets close. And or maybe it doesn't have cognitive abilities.