Thread:Elledy92/@comment-26838855-20190425183005/@comment-32644080-20190812141611

Ah. I originally assumed that the moment Steve Rogers returned the stones, everything was restored and the original timeline continued, meaning that the alternate timeline of Thanos from 2014 never travelled to 2023 with his army upon Captain America returning the Power Stone. Even the Hulk mentioned that if they managed to return the stones to the spot from which they were stolen, the alternate reality would have never happened. What doesn't make sense to me is why Steve Rogers returned the Power, Space, Mind, and Reality Stones without encasing them in the Orb, Tesseract, Scepter, or liquifying the Reality Stone into the Aether. If Steve returned the Reality Stone to Asgard in its solid form, the Sacking of Asgard may not have played out as Malekith's goal was to obtain the Aether and spread its destructive powers across the Nine Realms in the Convergence. The Reality Stone itself displays different powers than the Aether does. And another thing that makes no sense is where exactly on Vormir was the Soul Stone? And who was the previous Stonekeeper before the Red Skull?

But how were the original timelines resumed if Steve returned the stones in their solid forms? Ancient One would have easily taken it from Rogers and inserted it back into the Eye of Agamotto, Red Skull idk could have just placed it back in its original spot i guess. However, SHIELD wouldn't have known what to do if he returned it in its original form, the Space Stone would be placed within the vault at Camp Peary, and Steve would have a hard time injecting the Reality Stone into Jane Foster's body.

So technically, in the alternate timeline, the Infinity Stones are still active, Asgard and Xandar may have not been destroyed, and characters such as Ego, Ronan, Korath, Kaecilius, Hela, Erik Killmonger, Crossbones, Odin, Nova Corps, and the Ancient One could possibly be alive then?