A Renewal is an event organized by Kasius in order to help control the remaining humans of the Lighthouse, by making them kill each other based on the token amount in their Metrics.
Background[]
A faction of Kree enslaved the remnants of humanity having gathered in the Lighthouse, one of the latest inhabitable places of the now destroyed Earth. The Kree Watch, led by Kasius, enforced a harsh rule in the Lighthouse, forcing the humans to work for them and implanting them with Metrics, a device used to track them down and keep scores of the number of tokens they had earned.
In order to keep the human population under control all the while forcing them to work as hard as they could, the Kree Watch periodically held Renewals, during which the Metrics of all the Lighthouse residents would be scanned. The Metrics of the people who had earned the least would turn red and these individuals would have to kill each other in order to save their own life.[1] The young Inhuman Flint lost both his parents to such a Renewal.[2]
2091 Renewal[]
In 2091, shortly after the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrived into the future Lighthouse, Kasius decided to hold a Renewal to cut down the population of the Lighthouse. Several Kree guards led by Sinara went to the human levels of the Lighthouse and ordered the adult residents to line up and present their Metrics for scan while the children were sent away to avoid being killed.
Phil Coulson, Alphonso Mackenzie, and Yo-Yo Rodriguez, who had no Metrics implanted in their wrists, quickly figured out that this would be a problem once they would encounter a Kree guard. Therefore, Coulson went to Grill, the ruler of the Salvage he had met before, and asked him to put Metrics on them in exchange for a Kree tablet they had stolen earlier. Although Grill stated that the tablet was not worth three Metrics, he admitted that the person able to steal it was and he accepted the deal, provided that the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents would also work for him.
Sinara selects the individuals meant to fight for their lives
While Grill implanted the Metrics, the Kree Watch finished the scan and selected the people having earned the least, leaving a shotgun for them to use in their fight to the death. Several people saw their Metrics turn red, which caused a massive rush in the Lighthouse, with those selected running to the shotgun while the others left to avoid the fight. Holt managed to pick up the shotgun and headed to the Salvage as he blamed Grill for his low wages, while several other residents killed each other across the Lighthouse.
Grill had actually tampered with the Metrics he had implanted on the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents so that he was able to pin them against a wall while he and his right-hand-man Zev hid in safety. When Holt arrived and confronted Grill about not being paid, Grill answered that he could kill the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in exchange for his own life. Before Holt could do so, however, Melinda May intervened and disarmed him. Holt claimed that he owed a life and attacked May, but he was shot down by Tess who had picked up the shotgun. As May told Tess that Holt did not have to die, Tess retorted that someone had to.
Holt being the last victim of the Renewal, the Kree Watch arrived in the Salvage to confirm his death. They scanned the Metrics of the people present, and when they remarked that the Metrics of Coulson, Rodriguez and Mackenzie were not regular, Grill swore that they worked for him and that they would for a long time.[1]
Aftermath[]
Alphonso Mackenzie is forced to work for Grill
- "If you pick a fight with the Blues, they are gonna take it out on all of us. Today's Renewal was for three people. Tomorrow could be for thirty. Death comes easy here."
- ―Deke Shaw to Daisy Johnson[src]
Due to their deal with Grill, Phil Coulson, Alphonso Mackenzie, and Yo-Yo Rodriguez were forced to work under his harsh rule in the Salvage.[3] Grill would later use Mackenzie as a means to recover a sizable debt from Gunner.[4] Witnessing the brutality of the Renewal helped the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to understand how hard the life of the humans was under the rule of the Kree and it urged them to find a solution to fix things and save humanity.[3]