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Agents of Shield - Season 4

The previews are very eerie. I just hope they have a really good explanation of why Radcliffe's and Aida's "world without pain" turned out like this.

Probably because they learned (via May) that some people are only happy with conflict. Any "evil" in the Framework may not result in any deaths.
 
Probably because they learned (via May) that some people are only happy with conflict. Any "evil" in the Framework may not result in any deaths.

Except Simmons is apparently dead. It seems to me that the Framework has diverged pretty radically from what Radcliffe wanted it to be. (So it's radical, but not Radcliffal.)
 
Probably because they learned (via May) that some people are only happy with conflict.


Why would May be only happy with conflict? I thought her problems centered around her encounter with the Inhuman child in Bahrain?
 
Probably because they learned (via May) that some people are only happy with conflict. Any "evil" in the Framework may not result in any deaths.
I don't believe that they so much learned what kept May happy as they did to learn what kept her engaged in the Framework. That is to say, in the real world, she might be capable of happiness without conflict.
 
Except Simmons is apparently dead. It seems to me that the Framework has diverged pretty radically from what Radcliffe wanted it to be. (So it's radical, but not Radcliffal.)

I expect Simmons faked her death like Fury post Hydra's reveal. I imagine without Coulson, the Avengers never assembled, Captain America was lost during the battle for NY fighting on his own (or with Blackwidow and Hawkeye, though Iron-Man would presumably still have flown the nuke into the gate), and the events of The Winter Soldier happened without it's superheroes. Fury would still fight back using any means necessary, including inviting new recruits like Simmons and faking there death.
 
I was wondering if "the Cambridge incident" was a reference to the first Civil War comics miniseries, but it was the Stamford incident that set that in motion. It sounds like a very similar idea, though -- a superpowered person causing a massacre and provoking a crackdown on civil rights.

We were expecting the divergence to be the events of The Winter Soldier, but in fact, it happened much sooner. The Bahrain incident was in 2008 -- the same year Tony Stark became Iron Man. So it sounds like Hydra's takeover and displacement of SHIELD happened years earlier, long enough for these harsher ideas to become entrenched. Hydra was probably already in charge before Steve Rogers was even found in the ice -- if he ever was, since locating him was one of Fury's projects.
 
I wonder if Framwork Ward is actually a good guy, or just his obsession with Daisy makes him want to protect her.
 
Maybe I'm forgetting something, but I assumed the reason why Simmons was dead (and not in her happy place) was because the framework wasn't adapted for her. She and Daisy just took over their avatars, wherever they already happened to be. It's the other's who've had to world moved around to fix their "one regret" and the interactions of those alternate decisions has created this world. For May it was the girl, for Coulson it was joining SHIELD and presumably for Fitz it was having a closer relationship to his father. Simmons being dead and Daisy being an Agent of Hydra are just side effects of that.

One has to wonder about the larger implications of the MCU. Did 'The Incident' still occur? Was the Avengers Initiative still a thing? Is Rogers still on ice? I assume Project Insight went off without a hitch, so Fury, Stark, Strange and Banner etc. are probably all dead.
 
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I guess the HYDRA car didn't have GPS.
Remember that they are non player characters, lines of code and presumably Madam Hydra as the game's master wants Simmons to have a productive happy life in the framework.. With a Leopold story already running and having no opportunity to map Simmons or Daisy we get a turn coat Ward getting them to team Mace in the story.
 
I wonder if Framwork Ward is actually a good guy, or just his obsession with Daisy makes him want to protect her.

Ward always believed he was the good guy, or at least that he was doing the wrong things for the right reasons -- reasons that were mostly personal and driven by his need for approbation and love. When he was a Hydra mole within SHIELD, or a Hydra leader working against SHIELD, he still loved Skye/Daisy, wanted to protect her, and hoped he could convince her to see things his way. It's perfectly in character that, in a world where Hydra ran the show and SHIELD was a subversive group, Ward would still play both sides in the interest of protecting Skye. He hasn't changed, only his context has.


Maybe I'm forgetting something, but I assumed the reason why Simmons was dead (and not in her happy place) was because the framework wasn't adapted for her. She and Daisy just took over their avatars, wherever they already happened to be.

I'm not so sure. In the closing scene, Aida/Madame Hydra said that she'd closed off Simmons's avenue of escape, and in the earlier scene with Jemma and Daisy, Jemma said that the escape beacon didn't work because it was connected to them and her death in the simulation had changed the coding, or something like that. So it seems like something Aida did on purpose.


One has to wonder about the larger implications of the MCU. Did 'The Incident' still occur? Was the Avengers Initiative still a thing? Is Rogers still on ice? I assume Project Insight went off without a hitch, so Fury, Stark, Strange and Banner etc. are probably all dead.

If SHIELD was discredited and Hydra took over due to an incident in 2008, then Project Insight would not have been necessary in 2014. As for the Battle of New York, since the Framework is supposed to be a safe, idealized world, I'm guessing Aida programmed it to be free of alien threats.


Remember that they are non player characters, lines of code and presumably Madam Hydra as the game's master wants Simmons to have a productive happy life in the framework.

Again, the last scene gave the impression that Aida/Mme Hydra's goal is to keep Simmons and Daisy from endangering the Framework by escaping. She cares more about the survival of the Framework as a whole than she does about the well-being of individuals who are trying to destroy it. Your classic machine-logic optimization algorithm, aka "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
 
The dead Simmons was an NPC, if she had actually been captured, Aida probably would have changed the narrative to fit her regret

But since Simmons and Daisy came in from the outside, Aida probably doesn't know their regrets
 
Again, the last scene gave the impression that Aida/Mme Hydra's goal is to keep Simmons and Daisy from endangering the Framework by escaping. She cares more about the survival of the Framework as a whole than she does about the well-being of individuals who are trying to destroy it. Your classic machine-logic optimization algorithm, aka "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
Even as a machine is kill the first and only option? Or do you first try to save your ward and save the nuclear option for the last resort.
 
The dead Simmons was an NPC, if she had actually been captured, Aida probably would have changed the narrative to fit her regret

No, Radcliffe was the one who wanted to remove people's regrets. IIRC, Aida actually advised against that, because of the unpredictable disruptions it created in the Framework. It's pretty clear by now that Aida's agenda is not as benevolent as Radcliffe's. He wanted the Framework to be a means to the end of helping people, but Aida's priority seems to be protecting the Framework first, people second.

I mean, she made herself Madame Hydra. That's kind of a clue that she's not all that benevolent.
 
If there's anything like the distinguishing between player and non-player characters, then the complexity of the Framework is nowhere near the complexity of the actual universe. Not that it's surprising for it not to be....

Remember that they are non player characters, lines of code and presumably Madam Hydra as the game's master wants Simmons to have a productive happy life in the framework.. With a Leopold story already running and having no opportunity to map Simmons or Daisy we get a turn coat Ward getting them to team Mace in the story.
I really don't understand how your reply relates to the post of mine that you quoted.
 
If there's anything like the distinguishing between player and non-player characters, then the complexity of the Framework is nowhere near the complexity of the actual universe. Not that it's surprising for it not to be....


I really don't understand how your reply relates to the post of mine that you quoted.
You were asking why NPC Hydra agents didn't track their stolen car. With only Agnus, Radcliffe, Mace, May, Coulson, Mac and Leopold playing then once contact from the Coulson story ran it's course why continue?
 
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