Thread:CirUmeUela/@comment-27496405-20180307074410/@comment-26838855-20180522013312

Agh having so little time is frustrating with such big timeline stuff going on. I've been writing up a thorough breakdown of the timeline divergence and the potential rules of time travel in this universe, pertaining to Deke's existence etc., as well as the timing breakdowns for how the last 2 episodes interweave with Infinity War - but it's taking a while because I don't have enough time at the moment. But I want to reply to the discussion, I feel like I'm falling behind on it. So I'll quickly address what I can. The Wikia Editor wrote: I really liked the episode. Kind of odd that the whole timeline thing got resolved without any real explanation as to why it happened that way.

As for the timeline in general, I would say that the monolith sent them to an alternate future, in which that timeline's version of Fitz traveled back with them. Since the timeline has now been changed, they can remove present Fitz from cryo-sleep without really having to worry about paradoxes, since he would otherwise arrive in a future where the Earth wasn't shattered and the white monolith had been destroyed, preventing him from returning back to his own time. It's a bit unfortunate that present Fitz won't remember anything his counterpart did, thus requiring him to be brought up to speed and possibly remarry Jemma.

The general rule within the marvel universe is that time travel, for all intents and purposes, doesn't actually work. When you travel back in time, you essentially arrive in a world that was identical to the past until you arrived. The only exceptions are predestination paradoxes, in which the time travel had "always happened" that way. I don't think the Monolith can be the key to the switching universes, because Fitz basically lived for 74 years (just frozen) and woke up in that future. As well as this, Robin feels the shift in the timeline due to the characters' actions on January 11, 2018, not before. I think less than being already existing alternate universes, it's branching timelines, technically creating infinite universes, but stemming from the same ones. The Big Bang was the one universe, and then over the history of the universe, every decision splits off into a new alternate universe. We are looking at two of those, stemming from the same one. Marvelous 345678 wrote: Well, time travel is always a pain in the *ss, however, if I didn't geit it wrong: They are making a timeline fro Phase 4 I don't think they mean a timeline timeline, I think Moore is just talking about the structure and plan for future films. BardicFire wrote: Yall might like: https://i.redd.it/16c8uumjtwy01.png That's fun, but over-complicates things. It isn't that complicated. CirUmeUela wrote: That was an emotional finale. I liked it a lot. Here's some more intel for the timeline: http://tvline.com/2018/05/18/agents-of-shield-recap-season-5-finale-is-clark-gregg-leaving-iain-de-caestecker/ That reaffirms Clark Gregg's comment that the season ends before the snap, nice! CirUmeUela wrote: I still have some questions as it relates to Infinity War. I guess we can say this season ends before the snap, maybe by a few hours or so. That will be really odd tonally if someone attempts to watch these together in order: SHIELD being happy/sad and then Infinity War's snap with it's dark, bleak ending. It's waaaayyyy less than a few hours. I've been working it all through, and due to top speeds and things, it's literally impossible that, considering it was already morning last episode, everything happens and they get to Tahiti before 10:24AM Eastern time - the time shown in Fury's car, which you can actually also see in a HD still Marvel released the other day. I've decided the only way this can work is if we assume that Fury and Hill were recently a bit more west and so in the next time zone, and haven't changed their clock. So it's 11:24AM Eastern time. This is 18:24 Wakanda, about 20 minutes before sunset, so still just about fits. Also 05:33 is sunrise in Tahiti, which is 10:33AM Eastern time, again meaning that the snap cannot be 10:24AM.
 * 07:18 - Sunrise in east Virginia (using Norfolk, Virginia). Talbot's family lives in Virginia (cars have Virginia number plates), have to assume east Virginia to have sunrise as early as possible, because it is morning already in Virginia but then the agents get back to New York and it is still dawn.
 * 07:23ish-07:28ish - Events at Talbot's house in Virginia. At least a few minutes after sunrise, but cannot be more than a few minutes if the agents are going to get back less than a few minutes after Lake Ontario's sunrise.
 * 07:41 - Sunrise at Lake Ontario, New York (using Rochester, New York).
 * It's about 441.757 miles from east Virginia to Lake Ontario, which at top speed of Mach 2.1, 1611.27mph, is a 441.757/1611.27 = 16-minute flight. Maybe they found out that Coulson was dying and upped it to the dangerous top speed, which is shown in The Team and can be calculated to be about 2000mph. Let's assume about 1800mph. 441.757/1800 = 15-minute flight, plus a few minutes of speeding up and slowing down, so 19 minutes or so. They get back at 07:47ish and it's the end of dawn at Lake Ontario.
 * 07:49 - The absolute earliest Talbot can find out from Robin that the gravitonium is in Chicago.
 * 08:00 - If we assume Talbot was not too far from Chicago and/or used his gravitonium to fly the ship faster than what would usually be top speeds, this is the earliest Talbot can get to Chicago.
 * 08:01 - The earliest the team can find out Talbot is in Chicago.
 * It's about 512.120 miles from Lake Ontario to Chicago, which is a 512.120/1611.27 = 19-minute flight at top speed - well, the world is at stake, so dangerous top speed 512.120/2000 = 15-minute flight, plus a few minutes for boarding, speeding up, and slowing down, 20 minutes minimum.
 * 08:21 - The earliest the agents can arrive in Chicago.
 * 08:40 - The earliest the Chicago events can end.
 * 5697.053 miles from Chicago to Tahiti. Even at top speed, Mach 2.1 1611.27mph, it's 3:32, meaning the earliest they can get there is 12:12. Pushing it to the dangerous top speed (there is no in-universe reason they should have used the dangerous top speed but... eh...) from The Team of 2000mph, it's 2:51, meaning the earliest they can get there is 11:31.
 * 11:31 - The earliest the team can get to Tahiti. However, this is before the snap. So, I can try and compress things, try super hard to just about squeeze out those 7 minutes and fit things in before 11:24, but there is no way we're getting the events in any faster than that. And that's what I mean about assuming a second before the snap. Every second counts with squeezing this in. The episode ends at 11:24 New York time. Also, this is 06:24 Tahiti time, and fits as being after the 05:33 sunrise.

So yeah, even then, The End is very narrowly squeezing in. It might seem harsh, but in all honesty, I'm under the impression that this episode quite frankly should end a second before the snap😂.

As for watching it chronologically, yeah... I've actually just done that😂. I've been working out the timings for how things slot in, down to the second - including the credits scene as well. And yeah, it feels very odd. I actually pressed play at the right timings to watch them side-by-side, and it's weird. If I were ever doing an exact chronological watch, I wouldn't do any side-by-sides, I've been writing basically the order in which you should watch them to best fit them chronologically without interrupting any shots. Still though, jarring. But usually when doing a chronological watch-through, I'd just go Episode 19, Episode 20, Infinity War, Episode 21, Episode 22, watching each as a whole. The comfortable gelling of tones just can't disrupt the timeline. CirUmeUela wrote: As far as the future timeline they came from, I like your theory Marvelous. Maybe they did travel to an alternate future, one that had an identical past up to the moment the Earth was shattered by Talbot. Maybe the point was for them to at least be able to save their timeline's Earth by learning from the other one's. Also they were able to leave that future timeline (assuming it's an alternate reality) in a better place with Flint to rebuild. Again though, they can't have, because Fitz never travelled in time. CirUmeUela wrote: But here's another question: what was up with Thanos in that alternate future if it wasn't the original timeline? Did the snap still happen? I guess that's possible, and then Talbot shattered the Earth after. We know that at least Mack and Robin's mother were dead. They made it seem like they died on the ship originally except May and Fitz saved them when the loop was broken. But maybe they actually died from the snap in the alternate timeline. Maybe Simmons did too? Because I remember she was dead or something in the future. The real answer is the SHIELD writers didn't know about the snap but this is a possible way to make it work. Also, wasn't it implied that they were going through the time travel loop over and over with always the same result? Or was that just a false assumption that future Fitz had the whole time? (Actually about Jemma, she couldn't have died from the snap because then Deke's mother or father wouldn't have been born). Also, since Doctor Strange saw 14 million possible outcomes and in only one of them they win against Thanos, we have to assume he maybe saw several alternate futures where the Earth was destroyed. So then the question is, if he saw Earth destroyed in some of those futures, maybe he considered that as them losing also? This is hurting my head, lol. Does this make sense what I'm saying? I've been thinking a lot about things like this. I think the ultimate answer is that it doesn't matter, but there's two possible answers for if Thanos did still snap.
 * 1) It takes Talbot a few hours to properly destroy the Earth, and in the meantime, the snap happens.
 * 2) The one I'm leaning towards. If anything, the destruction of Earth helps Thanos. Vision's just left floating in space and he just grabs the stone from him. But I don't think the destruction of Earth would have stopped Thanos, and thus they count as failed timelines that Strange sees.

No, I think Mack and Polly died there and then in that timeline, because Yo-Yo I think says Mack dies in fire or something. Wait, let me check... Oh no, she says, "Until I was on fire, reaching for Mack. And then there was nothing there." Weird. She isn't with Mack in his potential death scene. Maybe Polly dies at that moment and then later on as the Earth falls apart, Mack burns up, or you can reinterpret it as the snap happening and Yo-Yo is burning holding him and Mack just crumbles to ash. Either the agents just got statistically lucky and the rest survived, or some Avengers made it out from Earth being destroyed and/or Tony and Nebula alone manage to reverse the snap. But Simmons is alive in 2022. CirUmeUela wrote: It's a stretch but we can kind of make it all fit together somewhat believably. It's better than just saying there are contradictions and that Infinity War can't possibly fit with SHIELD season 5. It fits. The episode just about slots in, and then as for all the different-timelines stuff, there's numerous explanations. The Wikia Editor wrote: CirUmeUela wrote: I still have some questions as it relates to Infinity War. I guess we can say this season ends before the snap, maybe by a few hours or so. That will be really odd tonally if someone attempts to watch these together in order: SHIELD being happy/sad and then Infinity War's snap with it's dark, bleak ending. Probably a bit closer than a few hours. We know that the snap happens at 10:24 AM as shown on Fury's car clock in the post credits scene. It's already a bit of a stretch to have everything that happens within the episode occur over the course of only about three hours, since everything occurs during day time. Indeed. As explained, the episode spans 3.5 hours, with an 11:24AM snap. The Wikia Editor wrote: CirUmeUela wrote: As far as the future timeline they came from, I like your theory Marvelous. Maybe they did travel to an alternate future, one that had an identical past up to the moment the Earth was shattered by Talbot. Maybe the point was for them to at least be able to save their timeline's Earth by learning from the other one's. Also they were able to leave that future timeline (assuming it's an alternate reality) in a better place with Flint to rebuild. Yeah, that's pretty much the simplest explanation. It should be noted that it was explicitly stated that the white monolith was activated in the present because the time machine in the future was activated. As such, one could argue that the white monolith was specifically connected to that particular future timeline. Again though, Fitz's 74-year sleep. I have another explanation for the alternate universes, below. The Wikia Editor wrote: CirUmeUela wrote: But here's another question: what was up with Thanos in that alternate future if it wasn't the original timeline? Did the snap still happen? I guess that's possible, and then Talbot shattered the Earth after. The timing of events seems to suggest that it's likely that the Earth was shattered before the snap. It's possible that the mind stone (and perhaps even Vision himself) survived. Not that it would matter much, since Thanos could easily have used the time stone to at least restore vision in order to get the mind stone and perform the snap anyway. Exactly! And yeah, I mean, it's possible that the destruction of Earth took hours, but I agree, whatever outcome, the destruction wouldn't stop Thanos. The Wikia Editor wrote: CirUmeUela wrote: We know that at least Mack and Robin's mother were dead. They made it seem like they died on the ship originally except May and Fitz saved them when the loop was broken. But maybe they actually died from the snap in the alternate timeline. Maybe Simmons did too? Because I remember she was dead or something in the future. We don't really know how Mack and Polly originally died. Future Yo-Yo stated that she was present when Mack died, reaching for him through fire. The best explanation I can think of is that Fitz and May did not originally enter the ship to help Mack and Polly, which eventually resulted in them failing to escape from it in time, with Yo-Yo perhaps trying to save Mack from the burning wreckage.

Simmons was still alive by 2022. You're thinking of the scene where Fitz was angry at Robin for telling him how Simmons was going to die, which obviously indicates that she was still alive at that point. Ah, you mentioned the fire thing, yeah. That would make more sense, that Yo-Yo got to him as he was dying, because the implication really is that that was where they were set to die. The Wikia Editor wrote: CirUmeUela wrote: Also, wasn't it implied that they were going through the time travel loop over and over with always the same result? Or was that just a false assumption that future Fitz had the whole time? (Actually about Jemma, she couldn't have died from the snap because then Deke's mother or father wouldn't have been born). Yes, that was definitely implied, we ultimately don't really know how the loop was broken. Perhaps Yo-Yo was not originally warned about letting Coulson die, which ultimately resulted in them successfully making him take the serum. Also, Fitz and Simmons are Deke's maternal grandparents. His father's name is Owen Shaw and his paternal grandparents would likely have that last name as well. Yo-Yo always gave the warning, because in the scenes in Past Life, she's talking about how she's just repeating everything she heard herself say when she was younger and encountered this version of herself. The reason we don't know when things split is because we don't know if/when Coulson took the Centipede serum in the original timeline. But I think by the time Daisy leaves the jet, the timeline has split. Things are still playing out pretty much the same because - wait, I just realised something - Coulson cannot have taken the Centipede serum yet at that point in the original timeline, because the shot of her leaving the jet is identical, she's angry at Coulson in the same way. But anyway, either the timeline split when Coulson slips the Centipede into her gauntlet just before, or he always did but this time she sees it. It would make more sense for it to be when Coulson slips the Centipede in, but then that would kind of make him more selfish in the original timeline. I don’t really like the idea that this was Coulson’s fault. It’s not in his character. Agh, I don’t know. The Wikia Editor wrote: CirUmeUela wrote: Also, since Doctor Strange saw 14 million possible outcomes and in only one of them they win against Thanos, we have to assume he maybe saw several alternate futures where the Earth was destroyed. So then the question is, if he saw Earth destroyed in some of those futures, maybe he considered that as them losing also? This is hurting my head, lol. Does this make sense what I'm saying? It's possible, although Strange was explicitly looking at possible outcomes of their fight against Thanos. There was nothing that they could do about the Earth's destruction while on Titan. Perhaps, Strange saw that that conflict would resolve itself and then focused on defeating Thanos. Yeah, I can see that working too. The Wikia Editor wrote: CirUmeUela wrote: It's a stretch but we can kind of make it all fit together somewhat believably. It's better than just saying there are contradictions and that Infinity War can't possibly fit with SHIELD season 5. It fits mostly just fine. The only thing that's kinda weird is that the agents basically seem to forget about Thanos' invasion after beating Talbot. I know that the show wanted to end on a positive note in case they didn't get renewed, but it's still a bit weird. Lol yeah. Maybe they think "Hey, the Avengers will deal with it." How wrong they are... Marvelous 345678 wrote: Oh man this is more confusing than Dragon Ball: Cell's saga. If I watched Dragon Ball I might know what you were talking about...😂 Marvelous 345678 wrote: Well, I like that you agree with me on the Multiverse theory!!! Plus, I don't think this is an alternate timeline from Earth-199999. We are still on the main timeline from the film. Yeah, we're still in Earth-199999. But I think the answer is that the final resulting timeline will always be Earth-19999, once time is set. As Simmons makes clear at the end of the episode, the future is fluid. So I think, essentially, potential futures exist but only the final resulting cemented one is Earth-199999. The others become discarded alternates. Marvelous 345678 wrote: As things play out. AoS finale can be ending from 7:00 a.m. to 10 a.m. Who knows man. But that is the problem with them trying to reach Infinity War's storyline. They just should have left it as originally planned, I mean, putting AoS5 timeline before Infinity War. "Who knows", well, I know because I've been working it out! And yeah, flight times and things considered, the absolute absolute minimum is that it ends right before the snap and the snap is pushed to 11:24AM. The Wikia Editor wrote: Marvelous 345678 wrote: Oh man this is more confusing than Dragon Ball: Cell's saga.

Well, I like that you agree with me on the Multiverse theory!!! Plus, I don't think this is an alternate timeline from Earth-199999. We are still on the main timeline from the film.

As things play out. AoS finale can be ending from 7:00 a.m. to 10 a.m. Who knows man. But that is the problem with them trying to reach Infinity War's storyline. They just should have left it as originally planned, I mean, putting AoS5 timeline before Infinity War.

Then I think this is how it plays out
 * Alternate Future 2091
 * December 2017: The team returns to their original Timeline
 * January 2018:
 * Thanos and the Black Order begin theur showdown against the Avengers.
 * Quake fights Graviton on the middle of Chicago
 * Mack and Polly die during the tremors. Yo-yo only rescues Robin.
 * Graviton absorbs Quake.
 * Thanos fights the remain Avengers on Titan.
 * The Battle of Wakanda plays out.
 * SHIELD starts to evacuate all people as possible. Coulson dies during Earth's destruction. He probably went to calm down Talbot.
 * Thanos obtains the Time Stone. He tries to go to Earth... LMAO.
 * The team goes to the Lighthouse and they stsrt living there.

Thanos never won.

What do you think? Sounds about right. And yes, the main timeline is still Earth-199999. The main marvel wiki currently lists the "Year 2091" timeline as "Earth-TRN676". Agreed on Earth-199999. I wonder where they got that designation from though.