The Dark Territory was an region that featured the Black Rock, Rousseau's camp, and the Temple. It was supposedly the area where the smoke monster was most active. It attacked the survivors on their mission to get dynamite to blow the hatch. The blast door map indicted that "primary nexus of Cerberus related activity" in close approximation to the Black Rock.
Rousseau's crew was killed and taken by the smoke monster at the temple's outer wall. One of her crew said the Monster was security system that was guarding the Temple.
It was also the place were the "Hurley bird" made its first appearance. The bird was thought to be a warning device to Hurley that danger was present.
Warning devices, security guards, and danger in the Dark Territory should have allowed for more detailed stories instead of miscellaneous mission treks through the jungle.
Was the smoke monster a temple spirit? Or was the smoke monster created from the dead damned souls of the departed Black Rock crew? Or was the smoke monster more than just a thing, but a growing conglomeration of dead souls - - - which increase its knowledge base, but add more mental confusion and anguish with the emotional fears of the deceased's memories. Then one could speculate that the smoke monster's existence could have been to absorb the minds of any island intruder, which in itself could have made a fascinating case study of a supernatural being.
Yes, the one true and great back story that was never shown on the series was that of the Smoke Monster. The writers always claimed that they wanted to leave certain mysteries for the fans to figure out on their own, but this one is really too big to avoid. There were not enough clues for fans to connect any dots to determine what the monster was - - - and there is a high probability the writers had no idea either. It was merely a plot device, the dark shadow creek under the bed, to scare the childlike innocence in the viewers.
The slow reveal of the island mysteries should have included the smoke monster, who came to default prominence as Flocke in Season 6. We still don't know why the smoke monster had to take Locke's form (or have Locke's body on the island in order to do so). So was the monster merely a mechanical projection of the dead, or it is a spiritual evil construction of life force energy? Since we don't know if it was good, bad or malfunctioning, the smoke monster embodies the weakest link in the island mythology.
