In Season 5, Jacob and MIB were on the beach. They appeared to be equals, but with differently viewpoints on why human souls were being brought to the Island. MIB was so angry with Jacob's unending cycle he wanted to kill him, but he could not directly do so.
We know that Smokey had been called a "security system" by the Others. Ben said he could summon it but not control it. We found that for at least 16 years, Smokey lived inside the outer Temple wall, and had ingress/egress from a hole in the wall's foundation. Through that opening was a hallway into an underground chamber which had Egyptian hieroglyphs, including one depicted opposite the god of Anubis, the god of mummification and protector of tombs. It was unclear whether this image showed the two as foes or both representations of protectors of the Temple.
It would make more sense that if Smokey did live inside the Temple walls, and the Others occupied the Temple, that they existed in some form of harmony. To do so, Smokey had to distinguish between friend (the Others) and foe (the damned). We were led to believe that Smokey was its own entity, but we were told that Smokey is in fact MIB when he takes an attack mode. If MIB was so upset with Jacob, why did he not (as Smokey) wipe out Jacob's followers (the Others)? The Others were afraid of him when they heard the news from Hurley that Jacob was dead. They immediately spread ash around the Temple to ward off Smokey. They fired an ancient rocket into the sky to warn Alpert and the others about the danger of Jacob's demise. It was then that Alpert recognized that Flocke was MIB. And everything was about to change because Jacob was not around to protect them.
There has to be power structure on the Island. Jacob appeared to be the power, and MIB his near equal. They may have initially had the same purpose or mission on the Island. The Others had been called the original inhabitants of the Island. They appear to serve Jacob. They tell the Dharma folks and the 815ers that "this is our island." That means they have a deep connection to it. It also appears that Jacob allowed human souls to come to the Island to live, research and co-exist with the Others.
The power structure pecking Order:
Jacob , then MIB, as a ruling class.
The Temple priests, in charge of the island magic.
The Island "leader" of the Others, who in some way is considered "special."
The Others, who are the "blessed souls" of the underworld.
Outsiders, human souls who have been brought to island. They are considered beneath the Others.
Outsiders can become Others if they die and they are blessed by the Island.
Which leads to a perplexing problem. What level of dead is dead. Now, Alpert was keen on receiving a Dharma leader's dead body in return for the breach of the truce. And after the purge, the Dharma were not buried, but thrown in a ditch. Was that like an inventory of some sort? Afterward, if an Other was killed (like Colleen), they had a Viking burial. When outsiders died, they were buried. There appears to be a rule that an unburied body can be "used" by the island spirits such as MIB as Flocke and Rousseau's crew mates. Buried people do not reappear as manipulated forms. However, Alex reappeared to Ben inside the temple wall (too shallow a grave?)
So who are the Others? Inhabitants of a spirited realm, the dead souls who have yet to judged? Indentured souls to serve the gods? Prisoners in a hell or purgatory existence? It could be a combination of all of the above. But at some point in time, some one down the power chain decided that they wanted to move up the ladder. Alpert, in order to be released from his chains, pledged allegiance to Jacob, and was rewarded an advisor position over his prisoner peers. Maybe MIB was tired of being the head security guard for low life souls, and wanted to change the rules and get rid of the warden so he could "close" the prison and "go home." In order to do so, he would have to recruit traitors among Jacob's followers. To overthrow the existing order, one has to start a rebellion. The seeds of that rebellion could have been with the arrival of the Black Rock, a pirate/slave ship, which carried the lowest form of human behavior that MIB abhorred.
We know that Smokey's (MIB in another form) lair was inside the Temple wall. That's where Rousseau's crew was taken and transformed; and where Sayid was taken to be healed. Also occupying the Temple are the Others. The Others had no problem running around the underground passages, capturing Sayid's MASH unit and bringing them to the Temple. This shows that the Others and Smokey were living together in harmony at the Temple.
Now, after the Others at the Temple heard Jacob was dead, the immediate reaction was PANIC. Ash around the grounds to ward off Smokey's attacks.Firing off rockets and grabbing arms: The reaction was like defending the palace from a coup.
And as tangent in looking up the word, there is a historical North American Indian word "coup" which means the act of touching an armed enemy in battle as a deed of bravery or an act of first touching an item of the enemy's in order to claim it. Add another item on the Jacob "touching" theory pile.
