Endgame Let’s talk the T word (SPOILER DISCUSSION)

Well, it's not THAT big of stretch that Cap returned to the original timeline so easily... think that the Avengers, once stolen the stones at the beginning, then come back to the future (present time - 2018) of their original MCU timeline without any problem. Right?

So there's officially a way... no matter where you go in time and how many branched realities you create, you can always come back to the original timeline.
 
Hi all,

Thought I had it figured out, just one thing I don’t get. If Cap goes back to put the stones back, he obviously goes to the points just after they were taken and puts them back. When he goes back even further and decides to live with Peggy does he get to a point where Loki gets tesseract or does he live through the normal timeline again. If he has to put the stones back the fact they took the stones in the first place affected the past so what reality does old cap live through?

We don't know, really. All we know of the new Peggy Timeline is that the past is identical to that of the Prime Timeline but exactly how Steve changes things from here on is up to him. Maybe the Battle of New York doesn't even happen or maybe it happens very differently.

The future is uncertain.
 
We don't know, really. All we know of the new Peggy Timeline is that the past is identical to that of the Prime Timeline but exactly how Steve changes things from here on is up to him. Maybe the Battle of New York doesn't even happen or maybe it happens very differently.

The future is uncertain.

So when he goes back to replace let’s say the soul stone, just at the point Hawkeye goes off with it Cap returns and replaces it. Then he goes back to Thor Dark world for the red one. Now, when he is in Thor Dark world time, let’s say he did replaces it and stayed there then, if he got up to the soul stone time would anyone take the soul stone or would he be in a different reality where the soul stone was never taken? Does that make sense?
 
I guess that what i’m getting at is when they go back to take the stones they create new timelines, for cap to return the stones to points when they were taken, he needs to go to other timelines, which he can’t do.
 
So when he goes back to replace let’s say the soul stone, just at the point Hawkeye goes off with it Cap returns and replaces it. Then he goes back to Thor Dark world for the red one. Now, when he is in Thor Dark world time, let’s say he did replaces it and stayed there then, if he got up to the soul stone time would anyone take the soul stone or would he be in a different reality where the soul stone was never taken? Does that make sense?

Yeah, good question.

So, I'd say that because we don't know how each of these new branches relate to each other then it could be either one of these possibilities or neither or there could be a multitude of different timelines created with a whole host of different possible outcomes.

If we're to believe that they're establishing the MCU as just one timeline in an infinite multiverse of timelines then anything and everything is possible. It's probably not something we're supposed to put a lot of thought into based only on the events of Endgame.
 
i believe there are 5 timelines currently in the MCU:

timeline: CURRENT - this is the whole MCU we've seen to date

every time they traveled to time - there's a new reality/timeline

1. thor/rocket go to asgard to get the reality stone - created timeline: ASGARD
2. hawkeye/widow go to vormir to get the soul stone - created timeline: VORMIR
3. hulk go to ny to get time stone - created timeline: NY-TIME
4. cap/tony/antman go to ny to get mind stone - created timeline: NY-MIND
5. cap/tony/antman go to ny to get space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 1
6. loki steals space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 2
7. cap/tony go to 1970 to get space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 1970
8. rhodey/nebula go to morag to get power stone - created timeline: POWER
9. cap goes back to 1940 and stays there - created timeline: CAP1940's

so getting the stones created 8 new timelines/realities plus cap's final timeline:

ASGARD
VORMIR
NY-TIME
NY-MIND
NY-SPACE 1
NY-SPACE 2 (loki)
NY-SPACE 1970
POWER
CAP1940's

the question now becomes when did cap go back to return all the stones.

timelines: ASGARD, VORMIR, NY-TIME, NY-MIND could easily be deleted. just go back to the same point they took the stones.

NY-SPACE 1, NY-SPACE 2 can never be undone b/c cap had to go back to 1970 to return it, which only deletes NY-SPACE 1970.

returning the power stone does not undo timeline: POWER b/c thanos + nebula from then jumped to timeline: CURRENT and died. therefore i believe timeline: POWER could not be undone.

so final tally of timelines:

CURRENT
NY-SPACE 1
NY-SPACE 2 (loki)
POWER
CAP1940's
 
i believe there are 5 timelines currently in the MCU:

timeline: CURRENT - this is the whole MCU we've seen to date

every time they traveled to time - there's a new reality/timeline

1. thor/rocket go to asgard to get the reality stone - created timeline: ASGARD
2. hawkeye/widow go to vormir to get the soul stone - created timeline: VORMIR
3. hulk go to ny to get time stone - created timeline: NY-TIME
4. cap/tony/antman go to ny to get mind stone - created timeline: NY-MIND
5. cap/tony/antman go to ny to get space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 1
6. loki steals space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 2
7. cap/tony go to 1970 to get space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 1970
8. rhodey/nebula go to morag to get power stone - created timeline: POWER
9. cap goes back to 1940 and stays there - created timeline: CAP1940's

so getting the stones created 8 new timelines/realities plus cap's final timeline:

ASGARD
VORMIR
NY-TIME
NY-MIND
NY-SPACE 1
NY-SPACE 2 (loki)
NY-SPACE 1970
POWER
CAP1940's

the question now becomes when did cap go back to return all the stones.

timelines: ASGARD, VORMIR, NY-TIME, NY-MIND could easily be deleted. just go back to the same point they took the stones.

NY-SPACE 1, NY-SPACE 2 can never be undone b/c cap had to go back to 1970 to return it, which only deletes NY-SPACE 1970.

returning the power stone does not undo timeline: POWER b/c thanos + nebula from then jumped to timeline: CURRENT and died. therefore i believe timeline: POWER could not be undone.

so final tally of timelines:

CURRENT
NY-SPACE 1
NY-SPACE 2 (loki)
POWER
CAP1940's
I would dispute you just a touch. Hawkeye and Widow initially traveled with Rhodey and Nebula to 2014 Morag. After arriving on Morag, they unshrunk the ship, pulled out the pod for Rhodey and Nebula to have (if needed) and Hawkeye and Widow went in the ship to Vorimir (Nebula had pre-programmed the coordinates/auto pilot to take them there). So your Timeline #2 & #8 are actually the same branched off timeline. Same thing with 3, 4 and 5. Tony, Cap, Hulk and Ant-man all made the same initial jump together to 2012 (this was the point of Nat realizing that "if you pick the right year, there are 3 stones in New York"). It's this same timeline branch that Loki steals the space stone... so also your #6 event is already a part of the branched off timeline (he doesn't jump through time when he steals it... he just uses it to escape his predicament - so he doesn't create yet another branch).

So I'm going to use letters instead of the separate stones and what not.

  • Timeline A/Prime Timeline - the whole of the MCU to date. Currently in the year 2023 (5 years after The Snap)
  • Timeline B - Branch off of the year 2012 - Tony, Cap, Hulk and Ant-man travel together to steal the Mind, Time and Space stones during the Battle of New York - during this branch, Loki steals the Tesseract and escapes. Mind and Time are successfully retrieved
  • Timeline C - Branch off of the year 1970 - After failing in 2012 Tony and Cap use their time GPS to travel to 1970 New Jersey to get the Space Stone from SHIELD as well as recover additional Pym Particles
  • Timeline D - Branch off of the year 2013 - Thor and Rocket travel to Asgard just before the Dark Elf invasion to steal the Reality Stone (which is inhabiting Jane Foster at this time). Thor also takes Mjolnir
  • Timeline E - Branch off of the year 2014 - Rhodey, Nebula, Hawkeye and Widow travel to Morag where they further split up. Rhodey and Nebula knockout Quill and retrieve the Power stone from the building it was kept in. Hawkeye and Widow travel via space ship to Voromir to retrieve the Soul Stone. During their attempts, Thanos of this branch becomes aware of travelers, abducts Timeline A-Nebula and using his Nebula infiltrating the Avengers, travels himself and his army to Timeline A.
  • Timeline F - Branch off of some year in the 1940's - After returning the stones to the timeline they were taken from, Cap jumps further back and lives life with Peggy.

After returning the stones (however he did it, whether the Time GPS's were able to keep log of the 'temporal coordinates' of the newly branched timelines or what). Timeline C & D are likely the only ones to *maybe* return to a "close enough" state to Timeline A (IMO, despite what Hulk said/implied, there is no truly erasing them, simply the act of time traveling to them, branched them off) - as Cap returning the stones (as well as returning Mjolnir to 2013) should keep things mostly intact.

So we have:
  • Timeline A/Prime Timeline
And then in terms of remaining *significantly* altered timelines (ignore any that were returned to "close enough" to A)
  • Timeline B - Loki had escaped with the Tesseract, so this remains a significant branch off (not to mention, you now have Hydra/SHIELD agents that think that Cap is Hydra and a Cap that has been told at this point in time, not finding out 2 years from this point, that Bucky is still alive)
  • Timeline E - As you say, lack of Thanos & crew - so significant branch off
  • Timeline F - Eventually Cap returned to Timeline A, but because of living life with Peggy (and who knows what else he did, personally - I don't see him sitting on the sidelines when he knows he has a chance to stop Hydra infiltrating SHIELD, or rescuing Bucky sooner (which might prevent Howard and Maria's deaths, etc...) this remains a significant branch off

(and sorry if I went into that more than I needed to, I'd been planning on typing it all out at some point...eventually)
 
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How the Russo Brothers Wrote Stan Lee’s Cameo Into Avengers: Endgame

I was gonna ask you about that. There’s been chatter online where people have been confused as to how the time travel works for Cap’s final decision. I didn’t really care, personally, I just enjoyed the character beat. Do you feel like people are maybe thinking too hard about Cap going into the past?

JR: It doesn’t exist.

AR: So you can’t actually rationalize it and logic it out. We come up with a set of rules that are based upon theories of time travel that primarily come from quantum physics, which is where the Ant-Man story line …

JR: This is a multiverse theory of time travel, which is, essentially — this is what’s complicated about the end of the movie, but it’s an interesting story someone can tell someday — Cap would’ve created a branch reality by his existence. If you listen to what Hulk says, he says that your present is always fixed. Even if you leave that present to go to the past, then that present has become your past. And now the new past is your new present. The past that you come to is the new present. And anything you do out of that is going to create a new future. There’s no butterfly effect. You cannot affect that present in any way, shape, or form by affecting the past. You can only create a branch reality from which events would occur in some different manner, because there is now a new entity that exists that never existed before.
 
i believe there are 5 timelines currently in the MCU:

timeline: CURRENT - this is the whole MCU we've seen to date

every time they traveled to time - there's a new reality/timeline

1. thor/rocket go to asgard to get the reality stone - created timeline: ASGARD
2. hawkeye/widow go to vormir to get the soul stone - created timeline: VORMIR
3. hulk go to ny to get time stone - created timeline: NY-TIME
4. cap/tony/antman go to ny to get mind stone - created timeline: NY-MIND
5. cap/tony/antman go to ny to get space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 1
6. loki steals space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 2
7. cap/tony go to 1970 to get space stone - created timeline: NY-SPACE 1970
8. rhodey/nebula go to morag to get power stone - created timeline: POWER
9. cap goes back to 1940 and stays there - created timeline: CAP1940's

so getting the stones created 8 new timelines/realities plus cap's final timeline:

ASGARD
VORMIR
NY-TIME
NY-MIND
NY-SPACE 1
NY-SPACE 2 (loki)
NY-SPACE 1970
POWER
CAP1940's

the question now becomes when did cap go back to return all the stones.

timelines: ASGARD, VORMIR, NY-TIME, NY-MIND could easily be deleted. just go back to the same point they took the stones.

NY-SPACE 1, NY-SPACE 2 can never be undone b/c cap had to go back to 1970 to return it, which only deletes NY-SPACE 1970.

returning the power stone does not undo timeline: POWER b/c thanos + nebula from then jumped to timeline: CURRENT and died. therefore i believe timeline: POWER could not be undone.

so final tally of timelines:

CURRENT
NY-SPACE 1
NY-SPACE 2 (loki)
POWER
CAP1940's

I think you have got this a bit wrong in that the power stones do not undo the timelines but prevent a timeline from being created where there is no stones, like a dark timeline. When War machine gets power stone and Nebula gets hacked, Cap would appear just after war machine teleports, to put the stone back. This will not erase the timeline created where Thanos finds out about the plan and travels to the future, but it will stop that timeline from not having a stone and becoming a dark timeline.
 
I would dispute you just a touch. Hawkeye and Widow initially traveled with Rhodey and Nebula to 2014 Morag. After arriving on Morag, they unshrunk the ship, pulled out the pod for Rhodey and Nebula to have (if needed) and Hawkeye and Widow went in the ship to Vorimir (Nebula had pre-programmed the coordinates/auto pilot to take them there). So your Timeline #2 & #8 are actually the same branched off timeline. Same thing with 3, 4 and 5. Tony, Cap, Hulk and Ant-man all made the same initial jump together to 2012 (this was the point of Nat realizing that "if you pick the right year, there are 3 stones in New York"). It's this same timeline branch that Loki steals the space stone... so also your #6 event is already a part of the branched off timeline (he doesn't jump through time when he steals it... he just uses it to escape his predicament - so he doesn't create yet another branch).

So I'm going to use letters instead of the separate stones and what not.

  • Timeline A/Prime Timeline - the whole of the MCU to date. Currently in the year 2023 (5 years after The Snap)
  • Timeline B - Branch off of the year 2012 - Tony, Cap, Hulk and Ant-man travel together to steal the Mind, Time and Space stones during the Battle of New York - during this branch, Loki steals the Tesseract and escapes. Mind and Time are successfully retrieved
  • Timeline C - Branch off of the year 1970 - After failing in 2012 Tony and Cap use their time GPS to travel to 1970 New Jersey to get the Space Stone from SHIELD as well as recover additional Pym Particles
  • Timeline D - Branch off of the year 2013 - Thor and Rocket travel to Asgard just before the Dark Elf invasion to steal the Reality Stone (which is inhabiting Jane Foster at this time). Thor also takes Mjolnir
  • Timeline E - Branch off of the year 2014 - Rhodey, Nebula, Hawkeye and Widow travel to Morag where they further split up. Rhodey and Nebula knockout Quill and retrieve the Power stone from the building it was kept in. Hawkeye and Widow travel via space ship to Voromir to retrieve the Soul Stone. During their attempts, Thanos of this branch becomes aware of travelers, abducts Timeline A-Nebula and using his Nebula infiltrating the Avengers, travels himself and his army to Timeline A.
  • Timeline F - Branch off of some year in the 1940's - After returning the stones to the timeline they were taken from, Cap jumps further back and lives life with Peggy.

After returning the stones (however he did it, whether the Time GPS's were able to keep log of the 'temporal coordinates' of the newly branched timelines or what). Timeline C & D are likely the only ones to *maybe* return to a "close enough" state to Timeline A (IMO, despite what Hulk said/implied, there is no truly erasing them, simply the act of time traveling to them, branched them off) - as Cap returning the stones (as well as returning Mjolnir to 2013) should keep things mostly intact.

So we have:
  • Timeline A/Prime Timeline
And then in terms of remaining *significantly* altered timelines (ignore any that were returned to "close enough" to A)
  • Timeline B - Loki had escaped with the Tesseract, so this remains a significant branch off (not to mention, you now have Hydra/SHIELD agents that think that Cap is Hydra and a Cap that has been told at this point in time, not finding out 2 years from this point, that Bucky is still alive)
  • Timeline E - As you say, lack of Thanos & crew - so significant branch off
  • Timeline F - Eventually Cap returned to Timeline A, but because of living life with Peggy (and who knows what else he did, personally - I don't see him sitting on the sidelines when he knows he has a chance to stop Hydra infiltrating SHIELD, or rescuing Bucky sooner (which might prevent Howard and Maria's deaths, etc...) this remains a significant branch off

(and sorry if I went into that more than I needed to, I'd been planning on typing it all out at some point...eventually)

See the only bit confusing me is how cap jumps back to the other realities. So by them going back the first time they changed the past (which does not affect their future) so when cap goes back a second time to replace the stones, he appears just after the stones are taken to put them back. I think these new pasts (where avengers take the stones) become the past of the main timeline which explains how cap is able to go back and replace the stones. But when he goes further to 1950 to live with Peggy, will that timeline not be the one where Loki gets the cube?
 
My biggest gripe now:
How Old Cap or the Peggy Avengers managed to defeat Thanos in the Peggy Timeline?
I guess that Old Cap influenced the past, informed anyone about Thanos and found a way to make the stones unavailable.
So Peggy Thanos never snapped the Peggy population. Great.
 
Old Cap may not have fought Thanos in the other timeline at all. You know, cause he is old. Like, ancient old. Assuming time plays out as normal, there would be 2 Caps in that timeline. Young Cap would fight Thanos.

But it is not on Endgame to explain that, honestly. The movie is not about "Peggy Timeline." It's about the main timeline we follow. We don't have to explain the comings or goings of every possible future or present.
 
Old Cap may not have fought Thanos in the other timeline at all. You know, cause he is old. Like, ancient old. Assuming time plays out as normal, there would be 2 Caps in that timeline. Young Cap would fight Thanos.

But it is not on Endgame to explain that, honestly. The movie is not about "Peggy Timeline." It's about the main timeline we follow. We don't have to explain the comings or goings of every possible future or present.

Was the 2014 Thanos coming from the Peggy Timeline? If so, we fixed that.
 
Likely no since Cap travelled after Thanos was defeated. Therefore, the branch in the timeline had not been created yet. Even assuming Steve went back to the Thanos 2014 timeline, him going back again to Peggy created another branch reality, therefore he was no longer in 2014 Thanos reality.
 
Even assuming Steve went back to the Thanos 2014 timeline, him going back again to Peggy created another branch reality, therefore he was no longer in 2014 Thanos reality.

Yeah. Right, exactly.
 
See the only bit confusing me is how cap jumps back to the other realities. So by them going back the first time they changed the past (which does not affect their future) so when cap goes back a second time to replace the stones, he appears just after the stones are taken to put them back. I think these new pasts (where avengers take the stones) become the past of the main timeline which explains how cap is able to go back and replace the stones. But when he goes further to 1950 to live with Peggy, will that timeline not be the one where Loki gets the cube?
True we don't know exactly how he does it, but there are possibilities. For example, I noted in my post that the Time GPS devices could have recorded or logged the temporal/quantum coordinates of those particular timeline branches allowing him to return to them specifically to return the stones.

Regarding the bolded, I feel like you're still trying to treat it as a loop (if I'm misunderstanding you, though, I apologize), that changing the past changes the main timeline's present. That is not the case - not according to the movie, and not according to the Director's/Writers (the Word of God/Powers That Be in this case). The new pasts do NOT become the past of the main timeline. They become alternate timelines that will go on their own way (some of them might return "close enough" to the events of the prime timeline with the return of their respective stones, but they're still technically branched off, and others will always remain significantly different). So when he goes to live with Peggy, no that timeline will not also be the one where Loki gets the cube because Cap is likely going to make a myriad of changes (and the ripple effects of his changes could mean that the battle of New York turns out quite differently, or maybe never even happens in (what in my earlier post I referred to as) Timeline F/the '1940' branch off).
 
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I’m sure it’s been mentioned, but given how Endgame’s time travel works, then surely there’s nothing stopping them going back and picking Tony and Nat up from earlier in the story and bringing them back to the present, right? If changing the past doesn’t change the future, then there surely would be no consequences to doing that?
 
I’m sure it’s been mentioned, but given how Endgame’s time travel works, then surely there’s nothing stopping them going back and picking Tony and Nat up from earlier in the story and bringing them back to the present, right? If changing the past doesn’t change the future, then there surely would be no consequences to doing that?
Think about what they did in this film, though, picking up Tony and Nat from a few days or weeks or whatever ago would create a newly branched timeline that's doomed to fail against that branched timeline's Thanos. The point of them returning the stones from the timelines they were taken from wasn't to preserve anything in the Prime Timeline, that's already solidified and is history. They did it so they wouldn't screw over those newly alternate timelines (i.e. leave the Sorcerer's without the Timestone when it's needed for them to fight off Dormamu). I don't see the Avengers bringing Tony and Nat from an earlier point and screwing over a timeline in their fight against Thanos (and I don't see Tony and Nat wanting that either)
 
Honestly, while we don't know the details, I doubt Timeline-Peggy would have any problem with Thanos. With Steve Rogers arriving back in 1945 and being present and active presumably all the way to the present day? That's 70 years worth of critical juncture points that are largely all going to just go better, because you've got Steve Rogers there. At absolute bare minimum, you've got Steve nipping Hydra in the bud, leading to an untainted SHIELD, far less global chaos, and probably a world of public superheroism that doesn't take 50 years off.
 
Honestly, while we don't know the details, I doubt Timeline-Peggy would have any problem with Thanos. With Steve Rogers arriving back in 1945 and being present and active presumably all the way to the present day? That's 70 years worth of critical juncture points that are largely all going to just go better, because you've got Steve Rogers there. At absolute bare minimum, you've got Steve nipping Hydra in the bud, leading to an untainted SHIELD, far less global chaos, and probably a world of public superheroism that doesn't take 50 years off.

That's my point too.
 
Can someone explain to me (without the explanation of "The Russo Brothers said so") why it's not possible for Cap to have always been married to Peggy in the core timeline?
 
I’m sure it’s been mentioned, but given how Endgame’s time travel works, then surely there’s nothing stopping them going back and picking Tony and Nat up from earlier in the story and bringing them back to the present, right? If changing the past doesn’t change the future, then there surely would be no consequences to doing that?

Do those alternate Tony's and Natasha's WANT to live in some other timeline, though?
 
Can someone explain to me (without the explanation of "The Russo Brothers said so") why it's not possible for Cap to have always been married to Peggy in the core timeline?
It’s not impossible but that means Peggy would have had to do a lot of cover up and accepting Steve would just stay on the sidelines knowing what he knows about Hydra and Bucky.
 
Can someone explain to me (without the explanation of "The Russo Brothers said so") why it's not possible for Cap to have always been married to Peggy in the core timeline?

His character for one. He wouldn't have just let things play out as he experienced in the prime timeline knowing Bucky was being forced into being a slave to Hydra just as an example.

Given the way they posited time travel in the movie though, in the branch that Steve creates by going back and staying with Peggy he's freed up from worrying about affecting the people he knows lives and the history of the Prime MCU timeline. Now he can use his foreknowledge to actively participate and not just stand idly by. He can search for Bucky and bring him home. He can prepare his Earth for alien encounters before they occur. He can stop the Kennedy assassination etc.
 
All Cap really has to do is tell Nick Fury to tell Captain Marvel to kick Thanos's ass before he collects the infinity stones. Same goes for most big problems. Currently, thanks to the magic of retcons, every major conflict in the MCU only exists because Captain Marvel happened to not be around at the time.
 

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