Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31408169-20170626161306/@comment-24118271-20170702215028

I think they'll be loosely tied. My theory is that because SHIELD going public again failed  they'll make S.H.I.E.L.D. (or SWORD) Earth's first line of defense (Stark had the same idea with Ultron, so maybe they still followed it) so when Thanos comes they'll try to stop him but obviously fail, they die dramatically and in Infinity War we'll see Thanos already on Earth, or maybe someone saying "SWORD is down" and stuff