Monolith

"It's Kree, dangerous, intended to destroy our people." "But didn't they make us?" "Then they decided we were a mistake."

- Jiaying and Raina

The Monolith was an ancient Kree construct that could transport certain individuals or objects across space to Maveth, and was potentially dangerous to the Inhumans.

Origin
"This "stone", were there deep cavities carved into it?"

- Gordon

The Monolith was one of many products produced by the Kree during the creation of the Inhumans on prehistoric Earth. The ruling Kree hierarchy, deeming the creation of the Inhumans by a rogue Kree faction as being a mistake, conceived the Monolith as a means of wiping them out. Aside from destroying the Inhumans, the Monolith also had the ability to absorb and then transport individuals across space.

HYDRA's Possession
"Over generations, HYDRA's taken different shapes. The entity has been given different names. But every generation has sent men through the portal, hoping to save or at least serve our leader on the other side."

- Gideon Malick to Grant Ward

An Inhuman of immense power was born and desired to rule the Earth. He was banished by others through the Monolith to Maveth. The Inhuman's followers later formed a secret society with the goal to bring their leader back to Earth and gained possession of the Monolith. Over the centuries the society became known as HYDRA.

The leaders of HYDRA decided to extract five smaller stones from the Monolith. These were eventually divided evenly among HYDRA's most powerful leaders. Over the course of history, the Monolith changed hands a lot. It was owned by Germanic tribes, spent the Hundred Years' War in France, and before the Napoleon era, it was moved to England. In 1839 the Monolith was kept in a castle in Gloucestershire. A group of noblemen, members of the HYDRA society, used the Monolith to send various people to the other side of the portal, but none of them ever came back.

NASA's Possession
"NASA was always curious about the Monolith. Budgets for space exploration had vanished, so some small group on the inside convinced everyone it was the affordable future of space exploration."

- Will Daniels to Jemma Simmons

The Monolith was later found on an excavation site in Yucatán during the late 1800s or early 1900s. By 1970 the artifact was known to be in the possession of HYDRA cultists whose members included the Malick family, used again in their regular sacrificial rituals to the Inhuman on the other side.

In 2001, the Monolith was in the possession of NASA which sent a four man expedition into its portal to survey the planet on the other side. Will Daniels went with three scientists; it was his job to protect them from danger until they could be retrieved. However, the whole expedition was secretly orchestrated by Gideon Malick's HYDRA branch as part of Project Distant Star Return with which Malick hoped to bring HYDRA's ancient Inhuman leader back to Earth. When the expedition did not return, the Monolith was given to S.H.I.E.L.D. and was stored in the cargo hold of the aircraft carrier Iliad.

Battle on the Iliad
Director Nick Fury ordered Bobbi Morse to destroy the Iliad to assure that the Monolith would not fall to HYDRA during the HYDRA Uprising. Morse ultimately defied her orders, saving the ship, and continuing the existence of the Stone.

War against the Inhumans
When Phil Coulson became Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., he learned of the Monolith from the Toolbox. It revealed that HYDRA sought the item and that it was in Robert Gonzales' possession. Raina had a precognitive dream about the Monolith, and this information was passed on to Afterlife leader Jiaying, who allowed Raina and Gordon to infiltrate the vessel to verify its location. When the two were discovered by Lance Hunter, Raina and Gordon escaped and the Monolith was given an armed regiment to defend it.

During the Inhuman War against S.H.I.E.L.D., the first place that the Inhumans attacked on the Iliad was the room that housed the Monolith. After taking control of the room, and later the ship, Gordon and Lincoln Campbell observed the Monolith; Gordon assured Campbell that it would not be used against them with the ship now conquered.

Research
After the Iliad was retaken by S.H.I.E.L.D., the Monolith was moved to the Playground. Jemma Simmons tried requesting permission from Alphonso Mackenzie, who had been put in charge of all extraterrestrial artifacts, to send a probe into the box to examine the Monolith but Mackenzie declared that they will never open the box. While Leo Fitz awkwardly tried to ask Simmons out to dinner, he stumbled, causing the lock on the case to loosen. Simmons then found out that the case was unlocked; when trying to re-lock the case, the stone morphed into its liquid form, shooting out and swallowing her. It transported her to another world, then went back to its original form.

Dormant
"And now I think... I know it's a black hole. It's dark matter made solid. It can warp space-time."

- Leo Fitz about the Monolith

The Monolith was deemed off-limits and locked away after the disappearance of Jemma Simmons was discovered. Lincoln Campbell was asked about its capabilities; all he knew was that it was dangerous. Frustrated after months of research and having come up with no results other than the conclusion that Jemma Simmons had been killed, Leo Fitz took a shotgun and blasted the lock off the container of the Monolith. He then stepped inside the container and began punching and kicking it, begging it to "do something"; it remained solid and dormant.

Used One Last Time
Just as the other agents pulled Leo Fitz away from the Monolith and closed the door, it transformed to its liquid state. When it returned to solid, it had left sand on Fitz's face and the floor. Analyzing it, Fitz determined that the sand didn't originate from Earth and realized the Monolith's function as an interstellar portal. Recognizing the need for an alien in the hopes of understanding the portal, Coulson recruited the Asgardian Elliot Randolph. Randolph only agreed to come to the Playground to confirm the portal's existence and destroy it. Upon seeing the Monolith's random transformation, he guessed that it reacts to another planet. He agreed to help S.H.I.E.L.D. rescue Simmons in exchange for destroying the portal afterwards. Alphonso Mackenzie later loaded the Monolith into the Zephyr One and delivered it to a castle in England. There the rock was placed in a containment unit that forced it to open a portal. While the portal was open, Fitz fired a flare to Maveth. Suddenly the machines fell apart and the stone returned to its solid state.

Later, Daisy Johnson used her vibrational powers to open the portal. Fitz entered, tied to a tether. The machinery of the tether began to collapse; Bobbi Morse and Mackenzie tried to sustain it while Johnson was straining to hold the portal open. The rock could no longer maintain its integrity and disintegrated; Fitz and Jemma Simmons were back on Earth.

Fragments of the Monolith were brought back to the Playground; Simmons saw the pieces as she took a tour of her laboratory. Sometime later, Simmons returned to the lab and inspected the fragments. Morse entered and assured Simmons that the pieces were now inert.

Fragments
"HYDRA's actually as ancient as this stone."

- Gideon Malick

After the War on HYDRA, HYDRA's leader Gideon Malick started collecting the five fragments of the Monolith so he could finish Project Distant Star Return. The task was easy for him because most of HYDRA's heads were dead, and the remaining ones were being hunted by Grant Ward who was aiming to remake the organization in his own image. One of the fragments of the Monolith was kept in Wolfgang von Strucker's secret vault in Zepkow, Germany, which was procured by Malick six months after Strucker's death. While Malick visited the vault, Grant Ward entered; Malick showed Ward the contained fragment and asked him to watch as it transformed between its solid and liquid states, as he told Ward the story of Hive, his banishment to Maveth, and the true origin and purpose of HYDRA.

Return of Hive
"These five stones were extracted from the monolith centuries ago. The idea was that they should be divided up evenly among HYDRA's most powerful leaders." "Now you've got the full set, thanks to me."

- Gideon Malick and Grant Ward

In order to bring Hive back to Earth, Gideon Malick, who possessed all five fragments, used a device that turned the fragments into the portal automatically. The device was put in a chamber in the HYDRA Castle. With the help of Jemma Simmons' calculations, HYDRA knew exactly when the portal would reopen. Grant Ward, Leo Fitz and a team entered through the portal to Maveth to search for Hive. Before Malick ordered his men to close the portal, Phil Coulson jumped from a Quinjet through the portal, seeking revenge after Ward. After a few hours, S.H.I.E.L.D. managed to take control on the portal chamber. Simmons told the group about HYDRA' goal to bring Hive back. Lincoln Campbell believed that the portal had to be destroyed. Acting Director, Alphonso Mackenzie, decided that he and Daisy Johnson would stay to make sure Coulson and Fitz would come back. After the two returned, Mackenzie ordered Melinda May on Zephyr One to destroy the castle, with the fragments with it. However, Hive managed to return to Earth through the portal, using Ward's body as a host.

Behind the Scenes

 * Prior to the release of Season Three, Executive Producer Jeffrey Bell refered to the Monolith as "the portal" in an interview.