Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5's Time Travel Logic

So, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 featured time travel. They were taken to the future, came back, things happened, and that future never came to fruition. That's how it's treated by most of the characters in the show, particuarly Fitzsimmons. That they changed time, they broke a loop, they prevented that future. This is akin to the logic we see in Ms. Marvel, and more closely to something like Back To The Future, changing the past, changes the future. Before that, they were questioning if the future can be changed, essentially if they have free will, which is more along the lines of Determinism than anything else, but that's not important to the topic at hand.

However, Deke Shaw offers a differing theory, the theory of the Multiverse that multiple universes coexist, and the two timelines in AoS S5, the main MCU timeline and the 2091 Destroyed Earth timeline were not the same, and the latter was separate from the MCU. Essentially, the Multiverse Theory (which Endgame logic was based on).

Season 7 sticks closely to the latter, and it's obvious that they follow those rules in Season 7. In spite of that, it's not as clear in Season 5. Surely, the post-S5 existance of Deke Shaw would seem to indicate that the Destroyed Earth timeline was a branch, and Deke simply traveled from one timeline to another à la Wolverine in Deadpool & Wolverine. Since, if the Destroyed Earth timeline was the prevented future, Deke would've blipped out of existance.

So, does AoS S5's dystopian future a branch, or a prevented future? The MCU has broken its own time travel rules multiple times, so the latter would still be a fair conclusion, and anything that doesn't fit, we could just say the TVA let it happen.

Commentaires

FerrusManlyManus2025-12-19 18:02

There are multiple methods of time travel in the MCU. Time stone works different from Endgame quantum stuff, different from Ms. Marvel, different from Loki.

Also, notably, AoS isn’t currently in the main MCU timeline, it is surely part of the MCU multiverse.

Now back to Season 5. There was no time travel to the future. Why. Because Fitz didn’t go with them. He just slept for decades. Time passed normally and he woke up and interacted with his friends. The only time travel that season was traveling backwards. And yes, if you want to avoid paradoxes then their travel back created a branch timeline. Where the earth getting destroyed didn’t happen. This is how Deke can still exist.

marvelcomics222025-12-19 18:11

The monolith was technically a method of time travel, and the branch timeline return doesn't make sense because the branch moment is in Episode 22 when Coulson gives the serum to Daisy.

FerrusManlyManus2025-12-19 18:15

This is irrelevant to the current convo but no, Feige once he took control of Marvel doesn’t say otherwise. Brad the head of TV won’t say it is part of the main MCU either. The book they released about the “sacred timeline” main MCU doesn’t have the show in it either.

But again that’s all irrelevant to the post.

You mentioned the monolith. Irrelevant when discussing *the future*. Because Fitz did not use it. There is unbroken time from present day AoS season 5 to that future. Fitz was present for all of it. Right?

The only “time travel” to get to that future was the “time travel” we all experience of time passing each day. Right?

marvelcomics222025-12-19 18:22

Well, he didn't say it wasn't, and that book didn't have the Netflix shows, so...

Anyways, Fitz wasn't the only time traveler. They used the monolith to go through time, Fitz was just in the background of the whole thing.

FerrusManlyManus2025-12-19 18:28

Sigh. At the time of writing that book the Marvel leadership DID NOT consider those Netflix shows to be part of the main MCU timeline. They changed their minds on that in September 2023. Famously so. This made the news dude. No such news has occurred for AoS.

As for your on topic paragraph, are you ok? Who cares if Fitz is in the background. The point is there was no special time travel to the future. Every year, every day, every second, from the AoS present to that “future” was accounted for and lived in, by Fitz. Right? His travel was just the normal passage of time.

PhilRobinsonMusic2025-12-19 21:01

At the time of publication, the Netflix shows were not considered to be part of the sacred timeline, hence they were not included. It was around the time of Echo that they decided to make the Netflix shows canon, as evidenced by them then being placed in the official timeline on Disney+ and Brad Winderbaum explaining in interviews at the time that that was now the official way Marvel Studios communicated canon to fans.

As of now, Agents of SHIELD is still not listed in the official timeline on Disney+, so according to Marvel Studios, it is not considered canon. However, that may change in the future, as it had changed for the Netflix shows. Brad has mentioned recently that he watched all 7 seasons carefully and that the show WOULD really fit very well into canon, but that he wasn't ready to pull the trigger on that at that moment in time-- so it seems like they are poising to declare it canon in the future. But as of now, it is officially not part of canon.

ItsAProdigalReturn2025-12-19 18:30

>Also, notably, AoS isn’t currently in the main MCU timeline, it is surely part of the MCU multiverse.

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 THANK YOU!

NiSiSuinegEht2025-12-19 18:20

I've always been a proponent of the multiverse theory for resolving time travel paradoxes.

marvelcomics222025-12-19 18:28

It makes sense, and applies in most places.

mutedagain2025-12-19 20:55

For me this is the only way to correct the paradoxes. Even then Loki time slipping in the tva isn't fixed but what are ya gunna do.

CareerMilk2025-12-20 12:03

Personally I find it a boring answer because it means time travel is just traveling between universes rather than actually travelling in time

Romnonaldao2025-12-20 18:22

Thats just quantum realm time travel. The TVA Time Pads, Time Stone, Loki Time Slips, and Ms Marvels Bracer do go through time itself

SwimIndividual64492025-12-20 19:05

kinda makes Tony’s invention less cool. I dont like it

Romnonaldao2025-12-20 19:12

How's it less cool? It burrows through the quantum realm and creates new timelines. That's hella awesome

Shieldlegacyknight2025-12-19 18:36

2091 was another timeline. The Fitz and Simmons that created the Time machine that activates the monolith had decades to perfect time travel and create a timemachine that would allow them to access the multiverse.

bloodoftheseven2025-12-22 12:30

Also the fact the Deke knew about the multiverse theory sort of proves that Fitzsimmons taught their daughter about multiverse which would only happen if they realized they are in a multiverse after all not one timeline.

Once they realized that they know they can't change their timeline but they can keep their humans here from going extinct by bring the team here and giving them a chance to save their timeline as well.

Robin would then help them.

Wooden-Radish-90082025-12-19 18:43

The destroyed Earth future is the "main timeline." When the agents "change" the future and stop the Earth from being destroyed they branch off. That branch is now the "main timeline" that we continue to follow into Infinity War, Endgame etc etc

bloodoftheseven2025-12-19 23:49

I wouldn't say Main more like it existed before our timeline.

Wooden-Radish-90082025-12-20 00:51

It's the main timeline that we're following until it branches and we follow a new timeline

U2106_Later2025-12-19 19:00

To me it seems implied that the destroyed-Earth timeline sticks around as a branch even after they change the timeline. There's a tag where Tess and Flint are talking about putting the world back together. That seems out of place if their whole existence has been wiped.

I am also a firm believer that branches created by time travel are a different concept from branches that occur naturally as a result of "chaos" or free will or however it's explained in Loki. I think the TVA is mainly concerned with the latter.

tgillet12025-12-19 20:05

TVA is concerned with both because the only thing that matters to it (at least at the beginning of Loki) is avoiding the emergence of any Kang and thr multiversal war.

U2106_Later2025-12-19 20:35

Time travel of this kind is deterministic. It's part of the unique sequence of events in that universe. It doesn't create infinite unfolding branches that could lead to Kang or a multiversal war.

The time travel in Endgame was part of the sacred timeline; it stands to reason the other instances of time travel were as well.

I suspect the TVA would have to deal with time travelers a lot though. If time travel creates parallel branches, that means multiplying the possible points of divergence from the sacred timeline.

eagc72025-12-19 21:36

Yeah as you said i think much like the Endgame situation there are cases of time travel that the TVA allows since it was how He Who Remains planned things to go out. So the agents going back and forth wouldn't be an issue since that's what HWR intended.

tgillet12025-12-20 04:23

It is possible for the TVA to allow time travel that then creates a branch but then the TVA prunes that resulting branch. They may not, but if they don’t then they have to monitor that branch as well as the main “Sacred” one as it could generate random changes and branches just like the Sacred timeline does. We do not know whether the TVA pruned the branches created by the Avengers in End Game. We know the pruned the one that Loki made and it sounds like it is because he makes a different choice than “usual”, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they wouldn’t have pruned the branch generated by the Avengers’ time travel anyway. I expect they would given their goal.

Romnonaldao2025-12-19 19:16

Ok, so the main thing to always remember about time travel in the MCU is that there is not a singular method of time travel that has a written in stone rule set. There are multiple time travel methods shown in the movies and the shows, and they all work differently. AoS even has multiple versions itself. The monolith, the time engine, and Fitz/Simmons quantum device all deal and change time in their own ways.

The Monolith works kind of like Ms Marvels bracer, or a little how Time Travel works in Tenet. People can use it to time travel if they are pre-destined to. In the future, you emerge from the monolith, so that means you are already destined to use it in the past to get to the future you just appeared in.

The Time Engine from season 7 is basically just the Delorean from Back to the Future. They can go in time where they want, and if they make any major changes in the past, it will affect the future. They have to be big changes though. Butterfly effect doesn't happen here. The analogy Deke uses is sticks in a river. Throw a stick in a river, and the river is uneffected. Throw a *lot* of sticks in a river, or a huge log, and it will change course.

The quantum realm device Fitz/Simmons is just the Endgame method the avengers uses, so it works like that.

Quick mention, in season 3 they deal with a Inhuman who can see the future. He shows Quake a vision of someone dying in a quinnjet in space. Fitz tells everyone that the future is immutable and cant be changed, using a pen line on the pages of a book as an analogy. And he was correct (at the time). Despite everything I said above, there was nothing they could do do change the destined future, because they didn't have anything to do it with. Simply knowing the future cant change the future. It will happen regardless of what you do, because you trying to change it is part of the series of events that ensures it. A method of time travel would be required to change a destined future. One example being the Time Stone.

marvelcomics222025-12-20 01:57

The Determinsism thing in S3 and S5 did make sense,

warforge20042025-12-19 19:19

It's still comic book logic. The rules are only as consistent as they need to be for the current story and then everything can be discarded afterwards. Time travel is never consistent in comic stuff, not for long anyway

So-_-It-_-Goes2025-12-19 20:59

Time travel can never be consistent because it’s something that can never exist

In every time travel story there needs to be a willing suspension of disbelief. Doubly so for comic book time travel

FerrusManlyManus2025-12-20 00:02

Time travel with no paradoxes can easily exist if a multiverse exists and the “time travel” is traveling to branch / alternate universes.

This is what Endgame tried to do

thesword622025-12-20 04:58

Until Old Steve Rogers was on the bench; then they disregarded everything they had established up to that point

Romnonaldao2025-12-20 06:37

He still had everything he needed to get back to the main timeline, like originally planned. He just waited 70 years to do it

FerrusManlyManus2025-12-20 09:15

Sigh, no. Is this your first day on Reddit?

He could have lived in a branch an then traveled back. He obviously could travel back, that was the plan, he just decided to do it later.

thesword622025-12-20 15:23

https://screenrant.com/avengers-endgame-time-travel-rules-writers-directors/

Several MCU movies have had explanations that conflict. Probably because it’s all make believe.

FerrusManlyManus2025-12-20 16:00

Yes I think everyone and their mother in this sub knows the Endgame writers are embarrassing tools who likely weren’t involved in the reshoots and had the dumbest take in the history of mankind.

nyse252025-12-20 09:34

Did you just skim through the movie?

thesword622025-12-20 14:42

The directors and writers don’t even agree on the internal logic

nyse252025-12-20 18:33

Sure in interviews maybe but what the directors put on screen sets the precedent

FerrusManlyManus2025-12-20 20:27

The only internal logic is alternate branching timelines to avoid paradoxes.

The writers are morons for publicly saying the opposite. Maybe they weren’t involved enough in the massive amount of reshoots where this was made clear, they certainly weren’t involved in the editing. But the movie as shown is obviously alternate branching timelines (Nebula kills her “past” self and is fine for Pete’s sake).

eagc72025-12-19 21:05

Yeah like normally the comics function via the alternate universes/branchs theory that time travel results in a branch while your home timeline still exists, but then there are comics like Age of Ultron in where they treat time travel more in the traditional manner, as whenever Logan and Sue change the past they return a drastically different present than the one they were on, instead of returning to the Ultron dominated dystopian future

xylotism2025-12-21 06:58

Just finished this show and I can say NONE of the latter seasons make any sense or follow any consistent logic at all, it's just "rule of cool" the whole way with varying degrees of success.

I ended up being pretty disappointed with the overall writing/direction of the show by the end of it, but I think the actors are all pretty great and deserve more recognition - particularly Fitz/Simmons and Yoyo.

AnonymousFriend802025-12-19 19:34

All forms of time travel are valid and work, but the actual means determine the effect it has on the time stream.

Vaudevi11e2025-12-19 21:11

Its answered in the finale.They were able to reunite with Fitz because he had the ring tracker in the quantum realm which told him what universe they ended up in.
It basically used the Endgame logic of time travel.

MisterSpicy2025-12-19 22:43

While the show itself doesn’t give much more detail, I think it makes more sense that episodes after their return from 2091 take place in a different branched reality

cetinkaya2025-12-20 15:04

there are more then one ways to travel in time imo. multiverse one is one of them. of course there should be back to the future-like time travel at some point. but i'M sure AoS or any Marvel TV Show is not in main mcu, just in a very similar one. if they change anything in recent project which was taken from the marvel tv show era (for example, darkhold) this is the most logical explanation. they are just from another timeline like any other marvel movies before mcu.

Markus28222025-12-22 12:49

It’s pretty simple, they time travel, they branch, they come back to the MCU. Marvel has explained this

Petrichor022025-12-22 15:25

Basically the battle with Graviton is a nexus point. Depending on what happens at that battle, the characters experience a different version of the future. It's part of the main MCU timeline that the agents (minus Fitz) are pulled into the alternate 2091 and then return to 2018 (with the Deke and Fitz that are native to that alternate timeline coming in tow).

Then the agents defeating Graviton leads into the events of Infinity War. The agents losing to Graviton leads into the events of the destruction of Earth that we see in the alternate timeline flashbacks.