Agents of SHIELD Series Finale Just "Confirmed" What We Knew About Endgame Time Travel

After watching the series finale of our beloved Agents of SHIELD there is nothing more satisfying than the validation it gives to a time travel theory we talked about back in May. 

Back before season 7 premiered we all knew time travel was going to be the main theme of the season. After the devastation of their homeworld the Chronicoms used Fitz and Simmons to create their own time travel device that would give them the ultimate advantage against Shield in their pursuit to establish the Terran homeworld as Chronica 2. And as interesting as it is to watch our beloved Agents  of SHIELD go back in time, save Hydra and expose Area-51 as SHIELD bases , our main interest here is in their time travel technology.

We learn that the Zephyr is programmed to follow the Chronicom ship as it travels through time. And so the Agents follow the Chronicoms whenever they go in an effort to undermine and undo any changes made to history. The timeline is changed irrevocably anyway, Fitz appears from a quantum tunnel, modifies the Zephyr to take all the Chronicom ships with them to their future present. Boom boom, bang bang: mission complete, problem solved. Right? RIGHT? 

Well, let's go deep into it:

1. The SHIELD time travel technology, however advanced it may seem, is relatively crude and not thoroughly tested and researched. Hence, like Bruce Hulk, their understanding of its consequences was shallow.

The tech is first used by the Agents to escape the doomed timeline. It is, more or less, the same tech the Chronicoms "stole" from Fitz and Simmons to go into the past to destroy SHIELD before it becomes formidable enough to stop them. It is also the same tech that allows the Agents to take the Chronicom ships with them, through the quantum realm, to their supposed present. Why am I pointing this out? Because every instance the tech is used does not actually lead to any changes in their future. And why am I pointing this out, you ask? 

We theorized that the Time Heist was executed in at least 4 random universes because of the simple fact that the Revengers travelled to the past without a destination anchor to, well, anchor themselves to their universe of origin, unlike Fitz who was pulled by the quantum tunnel to his team. If Fitz jumped to the past without the quantum tunnel actually pulling him to his friends, he most definitely could have arrived at alternate universe to different versions of his friends.

The Agents of SHIELD may have escaped the doomed future of a quaked Earth but what they did when they came back did not actually change their original timeline. Why? Because their time travel tech has no destination anchor. They arrived months after their departure, but IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE. They altered another Earth's fate, not their own. Much like Fitz, a quantum tunnel needed to be built by Enoch in the present in preparation for the Agents' arrival from the future. Since that didn't happen, they traversed realities while time travelling. They never arrived back.

2. Fitz's travel to the past was anchored by the quantum tunnel to the correct universe where his friends were. But their eventual return trip to the future through the quantum realm was not. Hence they never arrived in the correct universe they left.

The truth is right there. They never return to that universe they "invaded" when they escaped the doomed future. There are already four distinct realities in the Agents of SHIELD which came as a result of:

i) Daisy quaking the Earth apart;

ii) Daisy quaking Graviton to outer space;

iii) the changes made to history by the Chronicoms' attempt to destroy SHIELD;

iv) the Zephyr travelling to the future without a quantum tunnel as an anchor, as opposed to the way Past Thanos did.

So knowing all this, you should start to understand how they created all these other alternate universes as a result of time travelling without an anchor. It's clear that both the Avengers team and the SHIELD team actually have not yet understood the importance of anchors in time travel, and the consequences that follow when they are not used.

And by the time they do it will have been too late: the multiverse is already in chaos. Or should I say "madness"?

Time Travel in "Schrodinger's Multiverse"

We finally got to witness the MCU's first attempt at time travel in Avengers Endgame, and a lot of people have mixed feelings about it. This radical theory presented here may prove useful in understanding the events of Endgame as well as the science behind the time travel itself.

While some people point out Smart Hulk's lack of expertise when it comes to time travel I believe he was on the right track. But before we get deep into this we need to understand the complexity of the multiverse, and time travel in the context of the multiverse. And for us to do that we need to establish certain in-universe scientific principles - reverse-engineered to support the movie's own definition of time travel - and then note the actions taken by our heroes.

I feel I should point out that I'm a theorist not a scientist, so please just glide over any scientific inaccuracies that may be ahead. This theory's goal is to satisfy Endgame's time travel shenanigans.

1. One might say the multiverse may be an infinite number of planes of existence,  superimposed on and out of phase with each other, each being slightly different than the next but all being similar to each other in some respect. At least for the most part. 

To borrow from quantum physics, the multiverse may simply be the superposition of the prime universe that forms infinite universes, superimposed on and out of phase with each other, reflecting the infinite number of paths available and the probabilities of each of those being chosen. I chose the words "superposition" and "superimposed" intentionally because those infinite universes are all supposedly occupying the same physical space and they are playing themselves out in real time but nobody can observe them "directly", hence the term "Schrodinger's Multiverse". We only see our own universe because it's the only universe we are in phase with, the same way you'll know the fate of the cat only after opening the box. So if the multiverse is a superposition, then one universe is just a prime universe existing in one of the infinite probabilities that make up the superposition. It's very important to have this definition of the multiverse because once we do we will realize that one moment exists within three variables not just two. Also, this version of the multiverse seems to fit well with the MCU judging from what we've seen in Endgame.

We've seen many live-action films and tv shows in our lives and most, if not all of them, deal with one or the other: time travel or multiverse travel. Keeping these separate keeps things simple. That's why time travel stories are easier to make and follow without having to worry about other universes and whatnot. Time travel in this instance will only need to satisfy 2 variables: where and when. But when infinite universes exist there arises another very important variable, at least in the MCU's case because of the use of the quantum realm,  that needs to be solved before one travels through time: which universe. 

2. The quantum realm exists out of phase with its universe and its phase shift properties allow both time travel and universe hopping.

The entire time heist in Endgame banks on their being able to manipulate the quantum realm to that effect. We see Scott Lang emerge from the quantum realm unscathed by the decimation. Time also moves differently in there than it does in the real world. Also, that quantum energy blast bestowed phase shifting abilities to Ghost when she was a child. These three facts show us that the quantum realm may also exist out of phase with its universe. It makes sense for time travel to be possible in the quantum realm. Another important point to note here is that time travel may only be possible if you first  phase out of the universe and into a place that allows time to pass you by, or get ahead of it. This brings me to my earlier point that in this reality time travel has 3 variables: coordinates, time and phase, because you need to phase into the correct universe when it's time to exit the quantum realm at a certain point in time.

3. Time travel without a destination anchor/phase randomly takes you to another universe.

Remember Smart Hulk's theory of time travel? The past can't be changed by time travellers. I believe this is why: TRAVELLING TO THE PAST WITH NO DESTINATION ANCHOR TAKES YOU TO A RANDOM DESTINATION UNIVERSE. In any other movie this theory would fail to apply but Endgame creates a specific case where it actually makes sense. They had no destination anchors in the past to make sure they phase in to the correct universe after exiting the quantum realm. They only had the where and when without the correct phase of their universe provided by the anchor. I'm of course talking about that quantum tunnel machine that sends them on their way and pulls them back to the correct universe. Both the time GPS and the quantum tunnel are made in the same universe which means they are in phase with each other. We've seen it in AntMan and Wasp. Without the quantum tunnel pulling him back Hank Pym would have been lost forever in the quantum realm. The same is also true for Scott Lang who was also lost in the quantum realm before the quantum tunnel was activated to pull him back. This fact allowed Past Thanos to follow the Revengers from his universe through the quantum realm into theirs. But our heroes weren't pulled into their past by a quantum tunnel that could have anchored them to their universe. They did travel to the past but who knows which universe they arrived in. So if the heroes couldn't change their past it's because:

4. THE TIME HEIST WAS NOT IN THEIR UNIVERSE but in at least 4 other random universes. They split into 3 groups, each with different time destinations to random universes; with the power and soul stone being obtained from one random universe, the mind stone from another, the space stone another, and the reality stone from another. The quantum tunnel would then ultimately pull all of them back to their original universe. No one is the wiser.

Why else would changing the past fail to bring any change in the future? Simply put: you're changing the wrong universe. That's why I said earlier on that Smart Hulk's explanation was on the right track. He may not have known everything - because how could he? -  and that may have ultimately led him to believe the past can't be changed. 

So knowing what we know about time travel in SCHRODINGER'S MULTIVERSE we start to really understand the consequences of the time heist, especially when you consider how many versions of Avengers did their own time heist and how many of them actually defeated Thanos, or whoever their Big Bad was. Because let's face it: not all Doctor Strange versions peaked into the future in an effort to get ahead of the Mad Titan. And even if they all did, some Avengers may have failed, died or been lost in the time heist; leaving their original universes unprotected from whatever is coming next. And even if they all succeeded in their time heist, some Avengers may have failed to defeat their own version of Past Thanos or whichever Bag Bad; leaving other universes where they did the time heist forever changed since no one would have returned the stones back to their original universe. AND, even if all the versions of the Avengers did defeat their Past Thanos some may have also failed to return the stones to their universes of origin since they may not even know that they didn't take them from their past. See where I'm going with this? 

5. THE MULTIVERSE IS IN CHAOS. The balance of power in the multiverse has shifted. Most of the stones were never returned to their universes of origin.

Universes are now forever changed because of this, just as the Ancient One said. The balance of power in the multiverse has shifted. Stability has been severely compromised. Not even the Avengers can fix this now. They don't even know what they did. And in extreme cases like this it's up to the mystical beings to fix this. So is it a coincidence that Doctor Strange 2 is in the multiverse of madness? Of course not. I could be wrong about this but we might see The Living Tribunal in this movie, at least in some capacity, restoring order in the multiverse or, in the very least, guiding others on how to limit the damages  on a universe to universe scale. 

But who knows. And one more question: is the MCU really a couple of movies or something else?