Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD Season 7 episode 5 "Trout In The Milk"

What's up with Jemma? What's that thing in her neck?

 

Not only was Project Insight 40 years early but the Terminator was a decade early

 

Perhaps Jemma was implanted with a Chromacon tracking device/inhibitor chip or perhaps she is a Chromacon herself, what ever it is she slowly losing her mind or getting ill in some other way.

 

If only Ant-Man & The Wasp could get involved, it would have been fun to see what the Chromacons might have done with the Pym Particles & shrinking suits. Perhaps the black box held the location of where Captain America was found in the ice & the Chromacons could have got to him first if they really wanted to hurt SHIELD. Without Cap around Hydra would have never fallen the way it did in The Winter Soldier.

 

She can't be a Chromacon though, because when she activated the EMP device a couple of episodes ago to knock out all the Chromacons, she would've also been disabled. In fact, like that other one who was fighting Coulson, she would've melted like him. And she can't be an LMD either because Coulson was rendered inactive, and she would've been too.

But maybe the EMP did something to the chip which is why it's now acting up.

 

Thinking back to my soldier days the radios were shut down before starting vehicles. As an EMP protective measure she could have blipped offline.

But I doubt if she is a Chronicom or LMD right now and I'm thinking it is some kind of neural link to Fitz. An AoS version of the Stark quantum GPS.

 

Given the parrallels that they have been showing between Captain Rogers and Chief Sousa I wouldn't be surprised if they use the return of the first fallen S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, especially with some S.S.R. veterans still around, in a similar manner to inspire some agent, or General, to refuse Hydra/S.H.I.E.L.D. because of Agent Sousa's orders.

 

I'm hoping Sousa makes it out of this somehow, establishing a new life for himself in the modern world. I can't imagine SHIELD will crumble once they make it back to whatever future they end up in, though at this point I really can't fathom how they're in the same timeline as the MCU one.

 

They don't even operate with the same rules of time travel that Endgame used. The Chromacons shouldn't even be able to change the past and Project Insight shouldn't be happening 40 years earlier as a result of their time meddling.

And if it did affect things, then the whole of Winter Soldier would now be rendered invalid. So they seem to be in a different timeline.

 

There's presumably at least four timelines existing at the moment from my understanding of MCU dynamics.

1. Pre Endgame
2. Post Endgame
3. Loki
4. Agents of Shield

There was the timeline, then the Avengers went back and a few things happened that didn't actually happen; Loki escaping, Rogers fighting himself and later returning to settle down with Peggy (despite her previous getting married to someone else and living her life). That's a new timeline right there, it's gotta be, else he'd have remembered fighting himself (and subsequently being KO'd by himself) ...

This further begs the question of which timeline our Avengers returned too, because if they returned to the one from where they left, there'd have been no Steve Senior sat on that log, overlooking the lake.

 

The thing is... I'm still watching under the headcanon that these Agents are from one of the alternate timelines created by the Avengers when they completed their time heist and that is why they exist in a non-snappening reality. (The last season did mention a five-year-jump, like in the movie, but not one of the characters ever mentioned anything about returned people and you'd think even if the show took place after the Avengers put everything right, someone would comment on it...) So AoS first 5 seasons were OG, season 6 happens in the timeline created by either Loki taking off, or Steve finding out about Bucky earlier. (I don't think it's the one created when Steve went into the past.)

So. That fixes the weirdness with season 6. Now, I think both Fitz and Simmons are smart enough to know that they can't actually change the present by altering the past. Deke existing pretty much proves that. But they also know that the Chromicons want to create an alternate timeline where they destroy SHIELD and they can take over the Earth and I'd say that neither of them would be ok with that many people being destroyed even if they don't exist in the same timeline as they themselves do. Plus, it wouldn't matter if the Chromicons created an alternate timeline leaving everyone Fitz and Simmons know safe and sound, the Chromicons want them specifically, so stopping them is also self-preservation. Meaning, (to me), it makes sense that Endgame time travel is correct but that Fitz and Simmons would still have motivation for this time-hopping adventure and trying to stop the Chromicons.