Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26838855-20190803131136/@comment-26838855-20190810213702

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Time Travel (Edward Zachary Sunrose)
Edward Zachary Sunrose wrote: People disagree on the divergence point (some people say it's Yo-Yo letting Coulson die during CPR, which didn't happen, others say Coulson didn't always put the Serum in Daisy's gauntlets and took it, but we're explicitly shown while still in the loop video footage of Daisy yelling at Coulson to take the Serum after he's put it in her gauntlets and Elena tells Yo-Yo that no matter what they did, Coulson died anyways, I personally think it's Daisy noticing the Serum in her gauntlets). Unfortunately the show keeps it vague, and the characters don't know what broke the loop either.

And they also disagree on the rules, mostly because of Endgame, since the arugments fall on the same two camps as Endgame (loop v. multiverse). I think the main difference though, is AoS5 transports the team to the future, then brings them back to the (relative) present. Endgame brings the team to the past, then back to the present.

While AoS7 is going to be jumping all over the place, apparently, but definitely focused in the past. So while AoS5 can have the flexibility of sloughing off the alternate future into a separate timeline, AoS7 will either have the team traveling to alternate pasts or they will be caught in that whole "this only happened because we were there to help make it happen" scenario. With the divergence point, we have, in order: So basically, the two options really are it either splits when Coulson puts the serum in the gauntlet (depending on whether he always did or if that's a new thing), or around Fitz returning and saying that Mack and Polly are both supposed to die (just before or just after) and then Daisy spots the serum this time because the timeline has just split a few minutes ago so things are allowed to be different this time and that just happens to involve her spotting it.
 * Coulson giving Daisy her suit, in which he has slipped the serum. Unclear if this is the first event of the new branch or if the timeline hasn't split yet and he always slipped her the serum.
 * Mack entering the tunnel to get Polly. If it's already split, this should nonetheless happen in both timelines, considering it's strongly implied that this is the event that gets Mack and Polly killed in the original timeline. But it might not have split yet.
 * Daisy gets off the Quinjet and is filmed shouting at Coulson to take the serum. If it's already split, this should nonetheless happen in both timelines, considering we see this footage in the future.
 * Fitz reentering the room and reminding May that Mack and Polly both are supposed to die. It's possible that the timeline hasn't split yet and they were just then unsuccessful in rescuing them in the original timeline, but it's starting to feel like the split should have happened by now.
 * Mack and Polly are rescued. By this point, the timeline should be split, unless for some reason Mack and Polly still went on to die while May and Fitz got out.
 * Polly reunites with Robin, pretty much definitely a new timeline by this point. You could argue that maybe that just wasn't the event where Mack and Polly were supposed to die, but it very much is implied to be.
 * The rubble falls on Fitz, fatally wounding him. It's definitely a new timeline by this point, as Fitz doesn't die in the original timeline. It would also further support the idea that by their rescue, the timeline has split, since it would mean Fitz isn't in that same position at that time in the original timeline.
 * Robin senses the timeline has recently split, and that something is different, edited to imply that she's referring to Daisy having/seeing the serum.
 * Daisy spots the serum in her gauntlet.

I've always seen it as the former, mainly because of the whole "Coulson will put the pieces together", that ultimately it comes down to Coulson managing to save the world. Some other reasons are:
 * That feels more right to me as an actual decision rather than just Fitz happening to get to that room at the right time.
 * While the idea of the "timeline has split, meaning that events just are able to play out differently" with Daisy spotting the serum works fine, it's not a great explanation, as there's no actual reason from the new timeline that that should play out any differently. If something was done differently in the building with Fitz where the timeline split that would affect the street where Daisy is fighting Talbot in at least a tiny way, it would make more sense for why her arm would be in a different position, but there isn't anything, so it would purely be coincidence of the new timeline for some reason being different immediately. As well as that, again, Coulson making an active decision feels better than a coincidence.

There is one problem, for me, with it being Coulson. It's not exactly like "Coulson made a self-sacrifice that saved the world this time". Because the problem is that that would mean there's a timeline where Coulson doesn't make the sacrifice he clearly would always choose to make, but also, we know that Daisy shouts at Coulson exactly the same way both times, so presumably for exactly the same reason: he hasn't taken the serum. Which means that the difference is just that in the original timeline, Coulson still chose to make the sacrifice and not take it (good), but it just didn't occur to him, or something to that effect, to put it in the gauntlet. And that, for the same reason as the other coincidental incidents mentioned above, doesn't quite feel right.

Still though, it seems to me that that's the split.

Anyway, the disagreement I was referring to was not that, but the fact that I recently learned that Marvel Database and Shabook feel that it is necessary for there to be three universes involved, not two, for there to be three versions of Fitz. I think Marvel Database also seems to feel that because traditionally in Marvel Comics, every jump in time takes you to some alternate reality, and they're considering this all part of a Marvel multiverse with uniform rules across the board so had to find a complicated way involving identical universes for 2091 to be an alternate universe from the start despite Fitz sleeping through to it, leaving the weapons in the wall, it being a loop, Yo-Yo's frustration at being stuck in the loop, the "74 years later", etc.. I had no idea anyone posited a third universe until recently. Obviously, for the reasons I explained recently when this came up, I personally think this is misguided and there is absolutely no necessity for a third universe, but also don't want to come across as argumentative.

I don't think the fact that, if one were to accept that Endgame involved a jump every time, the agents going to the future instead of the past would be the difference. The Avengers going "back to the future", if you will, when they return to 2023 is not so much a jump as it is a yank back, since they hit more of a return button (or in the Hawkeye test run situation, it's programmed to activate that return after a few minutes), hence why they get back to their timeline and don't just go to the 2023 of these new timelines (why I have a problem with the theory of Steve using the GPS to get to 2023), and that would be why they don't create a new timeline when they go forwards in time (if indeed going back in time were to create a new timeline). I think (again, if accepting that every jump in time created a new timeline) if they were to just jump forwards from 2023 to, say, 2024, they would still create an alternate timeline, and then hit the return button and go back to their 2023 in the same way.

If there is a difference in the time travel rules between Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Endgame, that being if every jump in time in Endgame creates a new timeline, in my opinion it's much more likely it's to do with the medium of travel. So Quantum Realm time travel involves, for some hand-wave-y "quantum/dimension/reality" technobabble reason, creating new realities, while the White Monolith, being purely a stone relating to time, purely shifts you in time.

I'm definitely interested in what Season 7 will do, but also grateful we have about 9 months before it kicks off.

Avengers: Endgame Möbius Strip Scene (MrRLopez, Edward Zachary Sunrose)
MrRLopez wrote: has this been discussed yet? I had no idea about this, thank you. The 2008 and 2019 have no significance really since they're not tied to any sort of event. The 2024 can obviously be ignored due to the mountain of evidence otherwise, maybe Tony is just deciding, "I need to programme in a date that we could be jumping back from in the near-ish future, I'll just plug in whatever near future date soon comes to mind, it doesn't really matter."

Nonetheless, as always, great to find out about this stuff to add to the evidence list.

Edward Zachary Sunrose wrote: I mean, present-day Nebula is timestamped to 9 years after 2014, which would be 2023 so that already invalidates 2024 for Endgame.

Plus, as far as we know no one traveled to just before the Snap (Clint is implied to in his test run, but this isn't confirmed), so that would invalidate the 2019 date (not to mention the fact that the Snap is already set in stone as 2018 thanks to Agents of SHIELD, regardless of Endgame and Infinity War's information).

So those dates aren't really all that pertinent. Yeah, it's not particularly pertinent. Still good to be aware, though.

Loki (additional)
A report says Loki will "change historical events" in his show. Obviously it's not possible to "change" them, so who knows what's going on here? Every development about this show I become less and less interested and actually somewhat annoyed. I was fine with the idea of a Loki TV show, not supposed to be as important as the films, that's a prequel about his adventures in history. But if it's supposed to be as important as the films, I don't feel Loki has earned an instalment of that level on his own, and it's about an alternate timeline Loki whom I have no reason to care about, will be set in an alternate timeline or multiple alternate timelines which will be a pain for chronology and I have no reason to care about events in alternate timelines, it's more Loki and I feel he's run his course, and it involves more annoying time travel, plus the time travel sounds potentially problematic. Ugh. I don't get why this is supposedly, from some sources, fans' most anticipated instalment of Phase Four. It's easily my least.

Two More Avengers: Endgame Time Travel Notes
In writing my blog, I managed to find the exact original source of the most recent Markus and McFeely quotes, Backstory magazine, whose editor hosted their SDCC panel. And they were offering this issue free, so I've got an online version and read the full interview, and there was another interesting quote.

This is purely for notes purposes, to make sure everyone's aware of the information, and not for argument purposes.

Markus and McFeely have only, in the past, very lightly touched on the comment about the timelines being erased, but here they do say it explicitly.

"What would you tell the people asking about where Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, is?" McFeely: "I think he brought it back to Asgard." Markus: "He gave it back to the Thor of that time." McFeely: "Which was actually probably unnecessary if you take the stone because you're going to erase that time - that branch where he doesn't have it anyway."

'Whether they are right or not is of course debated alongside the rest of the Endgame'' rules and that's fine, I'm not even passionate about the erasing thing the way I am about Cap, but all of this has been discussed to death as we all agree and doesn't need to be debated further. This is just for notes/awareness.'''

Also, Feige did a Q&A with Empire, the audio for which will be uploaded in a couple of weeks. As a subscriber, I was actually given the opportunity to apply for tickets to this Q&A and I did apply, but didn't get them unfortunately, it was a raffle and there were just something like 55 tickets available. Anyway, he Maz Kanata-d the Cap question, the same response he gave when asked about Sif not being in Ragnarok in 2017. Didn't expect him to give an answer after his response on the AMA about it.