Hm, @blackspidey2099 you're probably planning on taking a more obscure approach than a standard military attack, if so, would you mind going first? If you're unable to I can open though.
"If you want to stay ahead of me, you need to keep both eyes open."
I. Opening Notes.
I'm not going to bore everyone with introductions to my team; I'll redirect you to my opening post for the first round if you are looking for that. Two important notes though: as per Geek, S.H.I.E.L.D. is composite for the purposes of this tournament, meaning I have access to all their resources and technology of the main MCU timeline, regardless of the organisation not existing anymore in that. Second, Corvus Glaive is not a true part of the team. He will be on our side, and he will not actively attack us, but he will also not fully cooperate. His sole purpose here is his weapon. Beyond that, my agents will subdue him so he'll stay out of the way.
Now, the most likely strategy BS' Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. team is going to follow is readying an aircraft with any weapons they could possibly gather in that time or something to that effect, so I'm going to write with that basis in mind. Of course I don't know exactly what my opponent is planning to argue for this round, so I'm not going to refer to his team much as early as this. I'm only going to give a quick run-down of how we are going to approach this battle.
II. Strategy.
For the location of prep time, my team is going to drop off in the Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s primary HQ, in Washington D.C. There, Director Fury will order the launch of a Helicarrier, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.s mobile bases of operations, fully armed with Quinjets, UAVs, all manners of weapons, and any other piece of technology deemed useful.
Overview of Helicarrier No.64 (Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary -- 2018), Insight Helicarriers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- 2014)
The Helicarrier was already technology well more advanced than what our world knows today before the Avengers, and it advanced further upon Tony Stark's upgrades in 2013. The Helicarriers could now stay in the air indefinitely, target and kill thousands of people in a minute, and were now presenting even more advanced cloaking capabilities through completely untrackable stealth technology. From altitudes up to 30,000 feet (9+ km), Fury can map the entire planet with direct access to every satellite on both hemispheres and control all weapons and vehicles in storage. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s targetting satellites can precisely target individuals anywhere in the world -- ie. Project Insight targetting Maria Hill inside the Triskelion, Tony Stark in Stark Tower, and the U.S. President inside the White House -- and lock in on them even in motion. Finally, since the Helicarriers are S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ themselves, you can tell they are massive in size -- any other of the organization's vehicles is an insect by comparison; the destruction of the Insight Helicarriers is a good display of both the firepower and the resilience of the aircrafts.
Nick Fuy also has "eyes and ears everywhere", in an almost literal fashion, as in his resources when it comes to tracking down anyone or anything are unmatched; access to all cameras and appliances worldwide, infrared, radio signals, global facial recognition, all types of radiation, energy signatures: they can track it all. It is how Fury and Hill were aware of Thanos' airships arriving above Wakanda while driving an SUV in New York, how they located Loki and the Tesseract to arrest him within minutes. If your team attempts to stay safe behind S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cloaking capabilities, it is obviously not going to work. Fury pretty clearly implied in Age of Ultron that Stark's stealth tech was what was keeping him from locating the Hulk in the Avengers' Quinjet. Of course, it'd make sense that Tony would implement the same kind of technology on this next generation of Helicarriers, but in any case, all of the vehicles your team has access to are built using the same technology Fury oversaw as S.H.I.E.L.D. Director, so tracking you won't be an issue -- whereas it's unlikely that you will be able to track the Helicarrier, lined with retro-reflectors and concealed from radar tracking, at stealth mode. Even beyond that, however, Agent Weaver herself had built a device that could trace the quantum bridge signatures Gordon of Afterlife emmited upon teleporting, based on Doctor List's work on enhanced individuals; AIDA, one of your characters, in her final form had inherited that exact same kind of teleportation from Gordon after having some of his DNA transferred into her. Essentially, if AIDA uses her teleportation at all, during prep time or in battle, we can trace the quantum energy signatures she will leave behind back to her, pretty much like GPS tracking on her body, revealing your team's location.
For the battle itself, everyone will remain on the cloaked Helicarrier at top altitudes, for a start. My agents know they're facing a teleporter, so everyone, primarily Natasha, will be on full alert, armed and ready to eliminate AIDA and whomever else attempts to step foot on the Helicarrier, in the unlikely scenario that your team will be able to pinpoint our location. If AIDA chooses to teleport inside the control room to take out my agents, Natasha will simply shoot her: she is powerful, but she is also a deranged, unstable, bloodlusted lady who believes herself invincible, and all this amounted to rando's like Piper and Davis dropping her with bullets before she regenerated and got back-up after -- and she knew guns were dangerous even to her, given she explicitly chose to "tele-blitz" the military squads sent after her in the dark beforehand. Here are the couple of showings for Widow I want to refer to to ensure we realize that she will fill AIDA's head with bullets if she gets abroad our base:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) -- descriptions below from right to left
1. In the flashbacks from Age of Ultron, we see a young Natasha training at shooting range in the Red Room. Take note because it's difficult to catch what she does without going over it again. She lands 2 headshots, she then switches arm and goes for a '10' and a '9' shot. The second quick switch between her arms is not a continuing part of the same sequence -- it's a new shooting range with a new target, another piece of the montage showing her progress, where in less than a single second she replicates the 4 shots we see her landing beforehand (2 headshots + a '9' and a '10') plus an additional fifth one on the '9 points' range. So not only did she land 5 shots in brief moments/a split second, they were also extremely precise shots, 4 of them actually hitting the exact same spots of the previous shooting range sequences.
GIF of her drawing the pistol and shooting 5 times, with the Gfycat timer (you can also watch it at 0.125x speed to better see what I described above [2].
2. This is a fairly straightforward showing; Natasha targets Sitwell's tie from a few streets away, an unspecified distance from which she is not visible.
In another case, in which AIDA teleports somewhere else on the Helicarrier, like on the deck to try and shut down the repulsor engines or something, we will know, and Natasha can simply move up (there's immediate access to the deck from the control room) and take her out with a custom sniper. Or we can simply use one of our mounted cannons, or UAVs. Of course this last paragraph is all assuming your team will even be able to track us down, and, hell, even do so before we kill you with our satellite weapons, which we can do in about two seconds no matter where you are.
III. Conclusion.
I'm not going to say anything more yet, seeing as you haven't presented your own prep strategy, but the way I think of this match-up is that you are painfully outmatched in terms of resources, technology, and everything relevant. The moment the battle starts, we will take you out, no matter how your team decides to approach this. I'm interested in how you're going to argue this moving forward, though, so I'll eagerly await your response.
@anthp2000: Nice post, I’ll try to respond as soon as I can. I just have one clarification though, if you don’t mind - by the “completely untrackable stealth technology“ did you mean the retroreflective panels which were mentioned in the Visual Dictionary page you posted, or were you referring to something else?
@blackspidey2099: It was a pretty general statement, in part covering the possibility of Stark tech too, but the Helicarriers have radar cloaking as well, they mentioned it in AoS.
@blackspidey2099 has issues reposting this with the edits, none of this is my work. He gets all the credit:
Team SHIELD
AIDA, Fitzsimmons, Ward
Alright, I'm not going to waste any time here with the fluff and just get on with this. Before getting into the meat of my post though, there are a couple things I want to make clear:
Similar to how ANTHP gets access to all of SHIELD's resources and technology of the main MCU timeline, I talked with Geek and he clarified that the rule would work in my favor as well. Essentially, Fitzsimmons will have access to the resources of a composite SHIELD, Ward would have access to the resources of a composite HYDRA, and AIDA would have access to the resources of the Watchdogs. The limit here was that I'd only have access to stuff from the show. I'll also only be arguing resources that Fitzsimmons could actually use/would have been able to access.
For one of my opening strategies, I'm also going to be assuming that both of our teams, even if we're cloaked, will spawn within a certain small-ish distance from one another.
Prep:
The first, and most important, piece of my plan is that our base for prepping will be the Zephyr One - SHIELD's next-gen aircraft/spacecraft designed by none other than Leopold Fitz himself. One of the resources on this composite Zephyr is the copy of the timestream made by Enoch, which, in combination with the apparatus Fitz designed (which is on the Zephyr), allows Fitz to view both the past as well as read the future.
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This will give my team the ability to know exactly what your team's strategy is, what your team is planning to do, and where the Helicarrier is located. In the meantime, some of the items that Simmons would have access to, in bases like The Playground (which AIDA can teleport and get) include:
Terrigen Crystals: These crystals can release a mist that instantly kills any human.
Overkill Device: This is a device that can detonate any weapons within range (ex. the nukes on ANTHP's Helicarrier). They can connect it to a sufficient power source to amplify the range.
Full Spectrum Goggles: These sensors can view the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Cloaked Guns: These are regular guns designed by Fitz to be invisible to the human eye.
Backscatter Glasses: These are glasses that can see through walls, as well as transmit a video feed.
Director's Toolbox: An independent computer system only accessible to the Director of SHIELD, which can access all SHIELD Classified Information and basically do anything the Director of SHIELD would be able to do.
ICERs: Non lethal weaponry with multiple times the stopping power of regular guns.
After getting all that stuff, Simmons can also build an EMP Generator, like she did within minutes here:
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In the scene, she does start off with a prototype but Simmons says it's designed all wrong so I doubt that helped at all. It might have even hindered her efforts, so she could do an even better version from scratch in this instance.
Fitz will open the Director's Toolbox, as he did here in a literal restaurant washroom:
This will give my team access to all the resources, knowledge, and permissions that a Director of SHIELD would have.
AIDA can also gather some Watchdogs Resources, namely:
Judas Rifle: A rifle designed to kill Luke Cage, this gun fires rounds that can penetrate through bulletproof material before exploding.
LMDs: AIDA had created tons of LMDs, including tons of Ivanov LMDs. She can use their services during this battle.
Ward will also use his HYDRA Connections to gain some HYDRA resources:
Hijacker: A device that can be physically planted and instantly hack any systems.
Centipede Serum: A serum that grants enhanced physicals to its recipient; it can also heavily amp Inhuman powers.
Let me know if you want more specific gifs/videos for anything I brought up, I brought up a lot of stuff so I was a bit too lazy to make gifs for all of it.
Opening Strategy:
There are 4 major ways in which we can locate your Helicarrier (plus one bonus):
Fitz has the timestream, so he can just locate the Helicarrier and Insight satellite by surveying the timestream.
Fitz will open the Director's toolbox, giving my team the full capabilities of the Director of SHIELD. This would include the location of all SHIELD assets, such as the Helicarrier and Insight satellite. It's also very possible that my team could just disable your satellite and Helicarrier with this item, and instantly take you down.
Although the Helicarrier is cloaked from radar and visible eyesight, there's nothing suggesting that the cloaking would work against Full Spectrum Goggles which can survey the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Based on your Visual Dictionary page, it appears that the retroreflective coating is only applied on the hull of the Helicarrier when viewed from below. Since the Zephyr is a literal spaceship, my team can just start at a high enough altitude to the point that they can see the upper body of the helicarrier.
Based on my assumption that the spawning points of our 2 teams won't be too far, my team doesn't even need to find your helicarrier at all. They can just activate the Overkill device, which would result in the nukes on your Helicarrier going off and killing your entire team.
For any of the first 4 options, my team will start in space, and proceed to blow up the Insight satellite, and then teleport into your Helicarrier. They know that Weaver can track AIDA, so they'll teleport using the Zephyr's jump drive instead. Once they're on the ship, with none of your team aware of that, the real battle begins.
Combat:
Ward will exit the Zephyr, armed with dual ICERs, cloaked guns, Backscatter glasses, and a Judas Rifle just in case. Fitz can tell him where your team is using the timestream, but even without that, Ward can stealthily find them using the backscatter glasses. Using his acclaimed marksmanship skills, tactical combat ability, and martial arts training, he will singlehandedly take your team down.
What exactly can Agent Ward do? Well, let's get into that:
Initially, Ward was broke out of imprisonment by John Garrett and was thrown into the middle of a forest with no food or supplies. He was forced to raid a weapons storage, train himself in armed skill and self defence and hunt for his survival. Alongside Buddy, he made it through and learned how to be resourceful enough to make anything into his own territory. At that point, the final test was a test of sheer ruthlessness. He killed his trusty dog, Buddy, and was sent to train in SHIELD as an undercover Agent.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy of Operations
Ward's more formal training occured after he joined SHIELD. He was trained to become a Field Agent (such as Fury or Coulson), and later a Specialist (such as Barton or Morse). By Ward's own word, Operations was the most aggressive of the SHIELD programs, with more wash outs than any other. Only the finest of prodigies and soldiers were allowed to even go through the door, much less begin their training and even less completed it. Grant Ward graduated as one of their most accomplished operatives.
Gear / Weaponry Breakdown
Besides the standard Kevlar Vest of a soldier, Ward is armed with traditional assassination tools and the finest combat-related inventions of FitzSimmons, posessing advanced tech that rivals that of Batman.
A Wenoka Squeeze Lock tactical knife and an average, polyfiber garrotte with metalic handles were some of Ward's concealed weapons found when Deathlok scanned him before his meeting with Agent Coulson. The garrotte can be used both for constriction to knock people out non-lethally and outright murder, penetrating the skin and cutting down carotid arteries, causing the victim to quickly bleed out - the outcome depends on how the tool is used. The tactical knife has a 6.7 cm long blade and a small enough handle that it makes for swift hand movements and slashes if need be.
The Smith & Wesson M&P is Ward's sidearm of choice, used by most SHIELD Agents. It's considered one of the most practical handguns ever designed, due its strategic weight and trigger placement.
Then, there's the I.C.E.R. This weapon requires additional introduction and analysis; Agents Fitz and Simmons have designed the 'miracle of engineering and biochemistry' known as the I.C.E.R. (Incapacitating Cartridge Emitting Railgun), coming in many forms and sized ie. glocks and assault riffles. Specialists like Ward carry the regular version to conceal for operations. Basically, this gun shoots bullets filled with powerful dendrotoxin, used to incapacitate targets without killing them - the earliest version of the device was the "Night-Night-gun", which was upgraded twice later on to keep up with the elevated threats Coulson's Team had been encountering. First, after they went up against Deathlok and the Centipede Soldiers - for reference, the Centipede formula is a composite consisting of a varyiant of the Super Soldier Serum, Gamma Radiation and even a dose of the Extermis Virus, allowing the Soldiers to tank direct shotgun blasts and high falls with no real trouble - the damage was enough to knock them down for about 5 seconds before they were up on their feet. With that in mind, Agent Fitz tripled the stopping power to something "stronger, better", in order to face the Asgardian Lorelei. Finaly, Agent Simmons worked on a more concentrated version of the dendrotoxin formula to develop a more powerful version, right before the Team's encounter with the Kree Vin Tak. This finalised version is the one Ward is armed with here, and I'd say it's more than enough to put down Bruce the instant it touches him. Worth noting that the I.C.E.R. bullets have bypassed Kevlar more than once too, so it's of almost no question that it can go through Batman's suit.
Last but not least, Ward carries here a standard high end SHIELD Flashbang; keep in mind that this messes up with practically every human sense, including sight, hearing and sometimes smell, while throwing the opponent off balance. This can prove fatal if used properly.
Given his well decorated arsenal, Ward is an exceptionally dangerous force to be reckoned with, because he's highily skilled and tactical in the use of them, we'll get to that in the categories below.
Close Quarters Combat
Agent Ward is undeniably an expert in hand to hand confrontations. He has a very unique way of skillfuly abusing his raw size and physicality to swiftly overwhelm an opponent - if I could compare his fighting style to anyone else's, it'd be Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier. He's far from a brawler, but he's also not particularly fluid. He's very direct, brutals and knows how to make the best of it.
S2E6: A Fractured House
In order to escape custody while been moved from the Playground to the FBI HQ, Ward had to initially take out the 2 Agents escorting him. He breaks his wrist, takes the handcuffs off, elbows one of them, disarms the other and uses a leg lock while switching position and using his gun to take out the other. That's a pretty nice demonstration of Ward's technical abilities, given he can control and execute very complex movements and takedowns in such an enclosed space against highily trained soldiers.
Besides that, Ward has also taken on 2 of SHIELD's finest martial artists - Melinda May and Bobbi Morse, the Cavalry and Mockingbird respectively. During Coulson's Team's first run, him and Agent May were the only combat-ready Specialists on the ship, and they often sparred with one another (amongst other things). On their first time, Ward actually managed to outpace all of May's attempts, block her kick and even grab her and knock her back as sign of superiority. Now, it's true that May quickly outmaneuvered and knocked him down the moment she got serious, but outpacing what's even a May testing you (esspecially when she knows how good Ward is on paper) is impressive.
More on Melinda in the final section, but for now I'll say that she's an incredibly skilled martial artist, she's been stated to possess more black belts than the Black Widow, someone well above Bruce's paygrade in terms of martial arts, and accomplishing inhuman feats of fighting ability such as overcoming raw telepathy and precognition from a trained warrior to counter about half his attempts, land clean hits and even disarm him from one of his bladed weapons - all while suffering from been crippled by a Kree Warrior wrecking her body to capture her, suffering from a tear of the bilateral quadricep and basically barely being able to walk upon entering Kassius' Arena. Again, Ward doesn't really scale to such credentials, but if he can keep up with Agent May even under the conditions of a spar, he can certainly keep up with Batman from a technical standpoint.
S2E21: S.O.S. I
One of Ward's greatest accomplishments in his time as a rival to Coulson's Team is kidnapping Agent Morse alongside Agent 33. Bobbi managed to overcome the torture she had endured, break out of her restraints and attempt an escape. Ward got in a prolonged fight with her, and don't get me wrong, she undoubtely comes off as noticably better, esspecially given the context of her fatigue. However, it's worth noting that Ward kept up with her and even matched her at several points. Above, for instance, we see him getting cornered by Bobbi but powering right through by raw physicality and knocking her down. She gets back up, but he manages to land an efficient takedown and slam her on a door, throwing her off again.
Again, Ward doesn't really scale to Bobbi all that well, and I'll be the first person to say so, however even a tortured and broken down Bobbi is just as good as Bruce Wayne, given what she can do at full health. Bobbi has managed to grapple with, outmaneuver, defend against and affect with her hits Vin Tak, a skilled Kree Warrior capable of matching Lady Sif of Asgard in combat. Below I'm quoting my analysis on her fight with Vin Tak from another recent CaV;
Vin Tak is a Kree Warrior who came to Earth in search of dangerous metahumans, specifically Skye/Quake to eliminate her. Seeing a Kree arriving to Earth as an action of hostility, Sif was sent by Heimdall through the Bifrost to secure him and protect the human population.
The two fought, and Vin Tak tricked his way into victory, pretending to be fatally damage to surprise her and take her down using his Truncheon, a specialised Kree hammer-like weapon that can wipe out people's memories upon conduct and successfuly clash with Sif's double bladed sword, a weapon that went through the Destroyer like butter.
Breaking down the fight, they fought for about 40 seconds - that's only the recorded part though - and Vin Tak looked like her equal. They're exchanging blows evenly until Vin Tak lands the first hit and sends Sif flying 25 ft. away crushing onto a wooden structure. Then they enter a strength contest, and Vin Tak manages to overpower her and push her back, before Sif dodges one of his attempts and kicks him away - notice the difference between him landing a hit and her landing a hit, he comes off as noticably stronger and/or more durable. He dodges her attempts again until she gets him into position to end the fight, but pretending as if he was damaged by her slash, he tricked her in letting her guard down and managed to finish her off.
Fighting Sif on equal terms like this puts Vin Tak well past any Super Soldier, she's widely regarded as 'one of the fiercest warriors in the Nine Realms' trained and experienced in combat for thousands of years, her skills have been complimented by Thor, Lorelei and Agent May and according to the Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary,
"In time, her martial prowess rises above the ranks of Odin's own Einherjar warriors and she is considered second in battle only to Thor."
Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary
referring to the period after the Valkyries had gone extinct and Hela had been imprisoned. Her reputation speaks for itself, esspecially considering people like Loki and Heimdall were around at the time (I will be able to provide a scan of the quote in a few days). Additionally, Sif's Asgardian physiology grants her striking and lifting strength of multiple tons, with I've already coveredin the physical section, superhuman durability and a low level healing factor compared to humans (according to Coulson) - imagine that a generic Asgardian could stop a knife with no injury and bend it effortlessly with 1 arm.
Basically, Sif is not only a more than decent fighter, she's way outside Slade or Bucky's weight class, and Vin Tak arguably outperformed her in their exchange, with Coulson and May repeatedly commenting on his threat level and even assuming he's a dangerous Asgardian based on his performance against Sif, comparing him to Lorelei. Additionally, Vin Tak's level is evident by his skillful and swift use of his weapon of choice, as well as his physiology, being able to take a direct blast from the Destroyer, a weapon that could blast Loki through a wall and hurt him, and still be mildly conscious. The last time a Super Soldier fought someone remotely comparable to Sif (Loki), it did not end well for them.
Later on however, Bobbi is forced to fight Vin Tak head on to protect Skye, and her performance here is the epitome of what I mentioned in the skill section regarding the practical fighting ability of a combatant.
S2E12: Who You Really Are
Bobbi fought him for the final time on the lab of the SHIELD HQ, he jumped on the table in front of her and attacked, she stopped the attempt by forming her Staves into one for stronger defence. He then blocks her next attempt and grabs her Staves but she successfuly breaks out of it, dodges his next attempt to bash her head in with the Truncheon, and pressing her advantage, she lands a very quick hit that manages to stagger him and force him back.
S2E12: Who You Really Are
They fight for about a minute, with part of it occuring off-screen, and Vin Tak eventually manages to overwhelm her through sheer strength, force her on the defensive, with Bobbi blocking repeated attempts and parrying his final one before she's cornered against the wall. At that point, she lets him know that she had held her own long enough for Fitz to bring in the Destroyer's blaster, and proceeds to break out of his hold - this is a very notable moment in their fight, Bobbi did not just overcome an insane strength dfference, she outright turned the tables and overpowered and outmaneuvered him through sheer skill. It's also noteworthy that Bobbi never lost, she was fine and could've kept fighting him if required.
Now I know the above feat was accomplished with the help of a weapon, but Bobbi's armed style of fighting has a unique attribute of translating well between armed and unarmed combat due to nature of eskrima stick combat - besides, it's a general showing of the ability to grapple with and/or circumvent a physical disadvantage. Bobbi's also proven what's almost a dead even peer to Agent May's technical skill on more than occasion. Legitimately, a healthy Bobbi is well past Batman's level, at least based on what we've seen, so even if Ward fought and matched her with significant context, it still suggests he is on level with Bruce.
Ward's also fought a Centipede Soldier 1 on 1, during one of the Team's first encounters with them. The aforementioned Soldiers are durable enough to take shotgun blasts right in the chest, get dropped from over 50 ft. height and get up immediately with no injury, strong enough to launch away the steel doorts of a giant container and then push it away in good speeds with 1 arm, and are operatives trained for Black Ops.
Like any elite fighter and similar to Batman himself, Ward can ragdoll trained average operatives like nothing.
Scan 1: He throws off one of Bakshi's security guards before punching him so hard he makes a full spin in the air to land in the water.
Scan 2: He knees a personal operative away, sending him flying and landing on a hurled sofa with enough force to turn it right back in its regular position.
Regarding the previously mentioned practical skill of fighters, something Ward excells in, he can use very advanced techniques to a great effect. This showing in particular is quite impressive, he gets Mike Peterson, a Centipede Soldier, on a prolonged submission hold, for about 8 whole seconds before he manages to break out and knock down Ward. Ward had good leverage, getting a distracted Mike from behind, and positioning, but this is an incredibly inhuman feat to accomplish regardless. I actually can't see Bruce doing this, and it gives a good idea of how good Ward is in direct physical contests.
Gallery
S3E10: Maveth, S2E21: S.O.S. I, S1E10: The Bridge
By Ward's own word, "Any agent worth their salt adjusts to pain. Can push it away.", and he himself is a primary example of this;
Scan 1: A little prior to his death, Coulson had captured Ward, and while the latter attempted to manipulate him, Coulson shot him after taking off his Vest. Ward barely shows pain, flinches and keeps standing and talking like nothing happened.
Scan 2: Initially, Bobbi breaks out of her cuffs and catches Ward off-guard, getting the needles off of her fingernails and pushing them right through Ward's neck after slamming him on the table. He gets them right off a moment later and keeps going like a tank.
Scan 3: While May was fighting a Centipede Soldier in their first encounter with them, Ward intercepted a punch meant to hit her, got hit right in the face and sent flying several feet away, getting back on his feet about 15 seconds later.
I know Bruce's suit in particular grants him insane levels of durability, but Ward's no slouch either.
The thing with Batman is, while he might be more technically gifted in unarmed combat, I wouldn't say he's actually as skilled as Ward in overall hand to hand. Abusing momentum, fighting smart, grappling, balance and brain-muscle coordination, those all go to Ward, who also happens to be at least as strong and durable as Bruce, if not moreso.
Marksmanship
Ward is a very accomplished marksman, one of the best in the world. As a 17-year old, he was said to have off the charts hand-eye coordination, and while undercover, he was famous within SHIELD for having made shots from over a thousand or 2 yards away, fitting his status as a master soldier and assassin.
Gallery
S4E16: What If..., S2E20: Scars
Scan 1: Ward quickscopes a HYDRA Agent from a few yards away, while in a position below him and at night time. An interesting thing to note here is that the Agent was in full kit, body armor and protection head to toe, meaning Ward would have to shoot him in the only exposed part of him, the face.
Scan 2: Here he lands a headshot on Bobbi with an ICER from a good distance away. While we don't get to see how far that is exactly, keep in mind that Bobbi (even though not at her finest) did not spot him looking around, even though he was somewhere in front of her position.
S1E13: T.R.A.C.K.S.
Dual wielding ICERs, Ward burst into a room full of Sunil Bakshi's Security Team and cleared every single one of them with perfect shots. Dueal wielding firearms is a whole other skill than simply aiming, it takes much more coordination and a special kind of gun kata, practically splitting your precision in half, esspecially when it's firing to opposite angles. I highlighted this showing cause it's important to note that Ward can dual wield his weapons here for maximum efficiency.
S3E9: Closure
Ward is also an expert Sniper, as demonstrated in particular in the assassination of Rosalind Price, where he shot her right in the neck while she was getting ready for dinner with Coulson, to make him watch her bleed out in front of him. The precise shot was made from a massive distance, practically on another part of the city:
S3E9: Closure
I cannot even count the number of city blocks in between Ward and Rosalind's appartment here, but his location is clearly not visible to the blind eye from the target's position, at all. I think the aforementioned 2-thousand yards shot is probably not even the best he can do.
Lastly, I want to note Ward's draw speed/fire rate with a gun, nothing sort of excellent; here he guns down 2 police officers practically simultaneously.
Stealth & Awareness
Through his honed survival instinct, training as an assassin and his status as one of the world's best spies, more than likely only second to the Black Widow, Ward's senses, tactical skills, awareness and stealthy movement are closing in top notch. While he was in custody in the Playground, he woke up every day, the very moment the clock hit 5 A.M., without any possible sign besides his own mentality and raw instinct.
After escaping from the FBI, Ward was personally hunt down by Coulson's elite team of operatives. Mockingbird had positioned a tactical team of agents to surround Ward's area, and Tripplet, a younger Specialist in training, was placed inside to watch over Ward's movements and take him out. This all went to hell when Ward revealed that, without even looking at his general direction, Ward realised he was been followed and decorated himself being ready to pull a Crossbones. SHIELD's spies, let alone their Specialists are trained in going undercover, in disguise and keeping it under the radar. Ward is such an expert that without batting an eye, he noticed Trip from yards away.
In the next phase, Ward came across Bobbi in a bus station - and keep in mind here that he had never met her before either. Bobbi is such a good spy that she could tell Bakshi's entire life story just by looking into his expressions and asking the most common, basic questions. She has successfuly infiltrated HYDRA more than once and yet Ward dismantled her espionage skills in minutes, through sheer studying of her behavior, body language and raw awareness.
When Ward first came across Gideon Malick, one of the Heads of HYDRA, "on top of the food chain" in the organisation, Malick tried to have him killed, as Ward wasn't part of his plans at the time. He sent in 4 trained HYDRA Assassins to take him out, and Ward cut through them like cake in a matter of seconds.
Grant is still finishing his drink while the assassins walk into the room, they start drawing their weapons, he throws the glass onto one of them, grabs the plate behind him and blocks a barrage of bullets coming his way while descending on the back, disarming another one without looking, using a takedown on him and gunning down another one. He rolls over the other side of the table to avoid incoming gunfire and retaliates with his own, shooting down another, disarming the other one in such a precise fashion that he knocks the gun off of his hand without killing him, and takes out another one.
This kind of tactical fighting and combat awareness is something we haven't seen from Bruce, Ward made the best out his surroundings all the while demonstrating just how fast he can progress these situations and react accordingly to opponents armed with a variety of weapons and objects he can utilise all around him, as well as use firearms in close range and while keeping up with groups of trained operatives.
During the Fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., Ward kept on playing double agent, acting as a member of Coulson's Team during their time in the Hub. Victoria Hand was convinced Coulson was an undercover HYDRA Agent, and she ordered several tactical teams to capture or eliminate him. Ward and Skye came across one of the 2 Lv5 S.T.R.I.K.E. Teams in the Hub - STRIKE Agents are basically the Spec Ops of SHIELD/HYDRA, basically only a step below the personal agents Brock Rumlow led in TWS, and it was confirmed both by Agents Hand and May that they were after them.
He fights off 3 more in an efficient manner and grabs a knife off of one of their kits and throws it to kill someone through his kevlar vest and uses a clothesline punch on another incoming one, forcing him to make a full flip in mid-air before finally been dropped. Ward then struggles with someone and eventually gets overpowered and thrown on the floor, with 5 Agents charging at him and stomping his body to the ground. He remains perfectly conscious and notices a knife thrown on the floor beside him, grabs it and slaughters all of them in a matter of seconds - I count about 6 seconds.
I feel like what's interesting about this scene is that it's a good means of comparison between Bruce and Ward, as the sequence is similar to the Warehouse sequence. Now, I consider this one of Ward's most impressive showings by far, so I need to note here that;
Ward was fighting some of SHIELD's finest Agents besides the Specialists and the elite Field Agents - basically the named characters - he had to take out an entire dozen of them in a tight hallway, while he had nothing but 2 I.C.E.R.s to aid him in the beginning, and they were fully armored head to toe and armed with knives, assault riffles and concealed batons. And the moment Ward picked up a knife, one of his primary weapons of choice, he didn't even face problems with them. This scene is basically one of the reasons I think he can take the Batman down, it demonstrates exceptional quickdraw skills to fit his skill in marksmanship as well as close quarters combat and armed melee skill that I'd argue is more impressive than what we've seen from Bruce.
Finally, before he got captured and put in custody by Coulson's Team, Ward went toe to toe with Melinda May for the last time. Now, I'm not going to argue that he is as good as her in unarmed combat or anything, because this fight was much more than a hand to hand encounter. They were both unarmed but they tried their best to kill each other with whatever they could grab, they abused the environment an insane amount - however, I think it's clear that Ward is more or less a match for the Cavalry in most situations, and the parts that involved hand to hand combat and/or taditional-like weapon usage are particularly impressive showings for Ward.
May initiates the fight by charging at Ward from behind, disarming him and getting him out of Skye's way and into a neighboring construction zone. Ward tanks everyone of her attempts to throws her aside, demonstrating a clear physical difference between them.
They exchange some hits and May immediately attempts to grab a nearby small thresher to attack Ward, but he manages to catch up to her and they grapple for the nailgun. This is a very impressive and relevant showing for Ward here, as he manages to outgrapple her, which is far from just strength, it's the practical type of skill I mentioned above. He manages to overcome her grip and use the wire of the machinery to wrap it around her neck and almost choke her out. Keep in mind that such attempt can be replicated here with the use of Ward's fiber wire for garrotting.
To give you an idea of how good May is at grappling, here she takes on 3 of Hive's Primitives, breaks out of a hold while kicking another one down and then remains untagged for the rest of the fight, using advanced takedows and grappling techniques to throw them around and put them down - the Primitives are not only highily skilled, being ex-operatives within the organisation, they're also enhansed by andrenaline to practically superhuman levels, granting them enough strength to stun a being about as physically imposing as the likes of Super Soldiers in Lash with their strikes, as well as take hits from him and keep fighting.
Ward is clearly a match for May in such a contest, abusing his strength and own technique to overpower her and get her in an advantageous position. Of course May also outgrapples him and performs a takedown through a wall moments afterwards - but Bruce isn't May, keep that in mind.
May keeps tagging Ward, constantly kicking him down, performing takedowns and hitting him with nearby objects - but he keeps powering through. At this point May has Ward floored and kicked down repeatedly, but he just keeps taking it, and dominating her physically, he overpowers her entire body strength and pins her down. I really fail to see Bruce throwing around May like a ragdoll in such way, let alone borderline no-selling hits from her like this - May can hit hard enough to launch superhuman opponents, such as LMDs built of hard metal and Kree Warriorsaway. Despite her small size, her hits' output is very comparable to Bruce's.
The last phase of the fight pretty much starts with Ward blocking and shrugging off May's attempts once again, overpowering her, grabbing her by the hair and throwing her through a wooden wall like a ragdoll to overpower her until she picks up a nearby nailgun to nail his foot and take him out. Again, that might not show superiority in unarmed combat, but I think it's worth noting that Ward is more than capable of giving May hell in hand to hand, despite her striking, grappling, impressive damage soak which I'll get to if needed, and technical skill.
Agent Ward is so skilled at so many areas, that he is literally compared to the entirety of SEAL Team Six, an organization comprising of thousands of members:
Gallery
Agents of SHIELD 1x05
In fact, in his own words, he is literally "trained to be the whole solution", as stated in Agents of SHIELD 1x02.
I don't think you can really argue that your team has a chance of taking down Ward here, especially with the element of surprise.
Even if you somehow do, my team has a plethora of ways to win. They can shut down the Helicarrier with the Overkill device, Director's Toolbox, EMPs, Hijacker device, or AIDA's electric powers. They can physically beat down your team with an army of LMDs, amped Centipede AIDA, or by firing the Zephyr's missiles inside the Helicarrier. They can even release terrigen crystals into the air supply of the Helicarrier, and then leave while your team turns into stone. Overall, I don't really see a win condition for you here, in this match-up.
Counters:
Nick Fuy also has "eyes and ears everywhere", in an almost literal fashion, as in his resources when it comes to tracking down anyone or anything are unmatched; access to all cameras and appliances worldwide, infrared, radio signals, global facial recognition, all types of radiation, energy signatures: they can track it all. It is how Fury and Hill were aware of Thanos' airships arriving above Wakanda while driving an SUV in New York, how they located Loki and the Tesseract to arrest him within minutes. If your team attempts to stay safe behind S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cloaking capabilities, it is obviously not going to work. Fury pretty clearly implied in Age of Ultron that Stark's stealth tech was what was keeping him from locating the Hulk in the Avengers' Quinjet. Of course, it'd make sense that Tony would implement the same kind of technology on this next generation of Helicarriers, but in any case, all of the vehicles your team has access to are built using the same technology Fury oversaw as S.H.I.E.L.D. Director, so tracking you won't be an issue -- whereas it's unlikely that you will be able to track the Helicarrier, lined with retro-reflectors and concealed from radar tracking, at stealth mode.
I actually think your point works in favor of my team rather than your own. Post-TWS, SHIELD's stealth tech was reverse engineered from the Quinjet stealth tech which was stolen by Coulson's team. I'm pretty sure Quinjets didn't have any sort of cloaking before Stark upgrades (as mentioned in the screenshot you posted fromAgents of SHIELD 1x18), so it stands to reason that the cloaking they stole would have been based on the same stealth tech that Fury's resources couldn't crack. And of course, Fitz and Simmons may have upgraded it even further.
On the other hand, the Helicarriers clearly had cloaking tech even before then (as seen in the screenshot you posted) - meaning that the cloaking tech on the Helicarrier may not be the same as the Stark Quinjet cloaking tech. Especially since we know that the Quinjet cloaking tech makes the entire vehicle invisible, while the cloaking tech mentioned for the Helicarrier only obfuscates the hull of the ship.
Of course, it'd make sense that Tony would implement the same kind of technology on this next generation of Helicarriers, but in any case, all of the vehicles your team has access to are built using the same technology Fury oversaw as S.H.I.E.L.D. Director, so tracking you won't be an issue -- whereas it's unlikely that you will be able to track the Helicarrier, lined with retro-reflectors and concealed from radar tracking, at stealth mode.
I don't think you posted anything that shows the Helicarrier is concealed from radar tracking? I'm also not sure why you think Fury can track the Zephyr, even if the cloaking is based on prior SHIELD tech created during Fury's tenure as director. AFAIK, there's nothing suggesting that high ranking agents of SHIELD, or even the Director, could override other vehicles stealth tech. If the Zephyr was connected to Fury's SHIELD system like The Bus was, you could argue that Fury could override its controls, but it clearly isn't connected to Fury's stuff since it was only built months after Fury left SHIELD.
This doesn't really matter much though, since I've already explained other ways in which we can track you down.
Of course this last paragraph is all assuming your team will even be able to track us down, and, hell, even do so before we kill you with our satellite weapons, which we can do in about two seconds no matter where you are.
There's nothing suggesting that the Insight satellites can break cloaking technology, even if Fury can access other devices which can. In the movie, they just pin-pointed people on the ground. Furthermore, the satellite didn't have weapons itself, the Helicarriers were responsible for actually shooting down the targets. So since the Helicarrier can't detect the Zephyr, this is useless, even if the satellite can detect the Zephyr.
Even beyond that, however, Agent Weaver herself had built a device that could trace the quantum bridge signatures Gordon of Afterlife emmited upon teleporting, based on Doctor List's work on enhanced individuals; AIDA, one of your characters, in her final form had inherited that exact same kind of teleportation from Gordon after having some of his DNA transferred into her. Essentially, if AIDA uses her teleportation at all, during prep time or in battle, we can trace the quantum energy signatures she will leave behind back to her, pretty much like GPS tracking on her body, revealing your team's location.
This is fair enough. I'm not sure whether the rules would allow you to track AIDA's movements during prep time, but during battle it should work. However, Fitzsimmons know about this device so they can just use the Zephyr's teleportation instead.
If AIDA chooses to teleport inside the control room to take out my agents, Natasha will simply shoot her: she is powerful, but she is also a deranged, unstable, bloodlusted lady who believes herself invincible, and all this amounted to rando's like Piper and Davis dropping her with bullets before she regenerated and got back-up after
and she knew guns were dangerous even to her, given she explicitly chose to "tele-blitz" the military squads sent after her in the dark beforehand.
AIDA can still feel pain, so it's obvious she wouldn't want to be shot. However, guns absolutely are not dangerous to her whatsoever, and Nat will run out of ammo before doing any permanent damage to AIDA. She even literally says that SHIELD's weapons can't stop her, and that they can't kill her.
First things first, I wanted to ask for clarification from @geekryan, because you opened with this:
I'll also only be arguing resources that Fitzsimmons could actually use/would have been able to access.
But then you went ahead and said this:
In the meantime, some of the items that Simmons would have access to, in bases like The Playground (which AIDA can teleport and get) include: An independent computer system only accessible to the Director of SHIELD, which can access all SHIELD Classified Information and basically do anything the Director of SHIELD would be able to do.
which is both extremely contradictory, and it defeats the entire purpose of characters like Coulson being here -- and actually being worth more points than lower ranking agents with better personal combat/prep capabilities, because of authorized knowledge and resources. So Geek said that you cannot, in fact, access Fury's toolbox simply because Fitz stole it once in S2 (when it had already been stolen by Gonzales mind you).
There are quite a few things that could have also been mentioned here, like the fact that it took Fitz about half an hour to crack the toolbox open last time, and he has barely had an image of what is in there, so you wouldn't be able to do much within an hour anyway. Also the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s satellites were non-operational, with the Insight ones likely taken down, long before Coulson got the toolbox, so it's questionable what it would do for you even with more time to research. But in any case, you cannot access the item in the first place, so there is no point in arguing this one further. Let's get into the juicy parts.
The first, and most important, piece of my plan is that our base for prepping will be the Zephyr One - SHIELD's next-gen aircraft/spacecraft designed by none other than Leopold Fitz himself. One of the resources on this composite Zephyr is the copy of the timestream made by Enoch, which, in combination with the apparatus Fitz designed (which is on the Zephyr), allows Fitz to view both the past as well as read the future.
This will give my team the ability to know exactly what your team's strategy is, what your team is planning to do, and where the Helicarrier is located.
I think this "time stream" needs to be demystified a bit, it is not the Time Stone or anything. Fitz cannot actually see what will happen in the future, he can see possible versions of the future based on probabilities in virtual reality, and choose the most low-risk course of action based on those probabilities.
Really, the only difference between this and a "tactical genius" who can "always think 5 steps ahead of his enemies" is that the latter has to use his brain to come up with those probabilities and predictions, whereas the time stream can do the work for you, and show you how you might fail or succeed, from your point of view. You won't be seeing any of our prep time, or any satellites in space, or anything of the sort; you can see rough courses of action and the result of the battle from where the real you would be in each scenario, I guess, that's it. You also haven't shown any of this, this is just my generous interpretation of how much Fitz can see.
And because the time stream is probability-based prediction, it is very much worth noting that it is not always correct and reliable, nor can it save you by itself in the long run. Sybil used it a lot and did not make it; for instance, she and Malick tried to find out the best ways to locate Fitz using Jemma's memories, she predicted that she could take that info out of Jemma, but she did not predict that the others could prevent her from doing so. She did not predict that Coulson would trick her and the team would shut down her army. In fact, she lost a lot of battles in S6, and she also lost the war. Hell, all Fitz knew in the finale from the time stream is that they needed Kora to win, he didn't actually come up with what everyone had to do himself, nor did he see what would happen in detail throughout the course of the mission.
What I'm saying is, there's several issues with arguing the "time stream" in a scenario such as this and saying that Fitz would know "exactly what my team's strategy is and what they're planning to do" or that he'd just...
Fitz has the timestream, so he can just locate the Helicarrier and Insight satellite by surveying the timestream.
Like, what? How does that even work? This is not just conjecture, it's an actual questionable argument filled with holes. I have to ask for elaboration.
I don't think you posted anything that shows the Helicarrier is concealed from radar tracking? I'm also not sure why you think Fury can track the Zephyr, even if the cloaking is based on prior SHIELD tech created during Fury's tenure as director. AFAIK, there's nothing suggesting that high ranking agents of SHIELD, or even the Director, could override other vehicles stealth tech. If the Zephyr was connected to Fury's SHIELD system like The Bus was, you could argue that Fury could override its controls, but it clearly isn't connected to Fury's stuff since it was only built months after Fury left SHIELD.
I actually think your point works in favor of my team rather than your own. Post-TWS, SHIELD's stealth tech was reverse engineered from the Quinjet stealth tech which was stolen by Coulson's team. I'm pretty sure Quinjets didn't have any sort of cloaking before Stark upgrades (as mentioned in the screenshot you posted fromAgents of SHIELD 1x18), so it stands to reason that the cloaking they stole would have been based on the same stealth tech that Fury's resources couldn't crack. And of course, Fitz and Simmons may have upgraded it even further.
On the other hand, the Helicarriers clearly had cloaking tech even before then (as seen in the screenshot you posted) - meaning that the cloaking tech on the Helicarrier may not be the same as the Stark Quinjet cloaking tech. Especially since we know that the Quinjet cloaking tech makes the entire vehicle invisible, while the cloaking tech mentioned for the Helicarrier only obfuscates the hull of the ship.
I think there's some major misconceptions here, so let's go at it from scratch; cloaking technology, the way they use the term in the show, refers to both retroreflective panels, and radar cloaking. The "Bus", Coulson's team's first aircraft, is a mobile base that was used back in the 80s - 90s as part of a series of specialized planes, before the Helicarriers were built and replaced them. As Hill explains in the pilot episode, they never truly wanted to greenlight Coulson's team running international missions, so they entrusted them with this older mobile base for smaller scale ops. These planes, like the Bus, are outdated mobile HQ (not even HQ anymore), and did not have cloaking technology, so in the context of S.H.I.E.L.D. mobile bases, only the Helicarriers did.
The Quinjets were the most advanced aircrafts in the organization outside of the Helicarriers, and they were only used by S.T.R.I.K.E. teams and special agents like Hawkeye, Mockingbird and Widow who answered directly to Nick Fury. The Quinjets have always had cloaking technology, ever since we first saw them in 2012's The Avengers:
Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary (2018)
In case you are wondering, this section of the guidebook is dedicated to S.H.I.E.L.D. technology as seen in that film, and the example Quinjet next to the description is taken from that as well (I added the screenshot in the scan to make that clear). Now, after the fall of the organization, Coulson needed cloaking technology for the Bus, they needed to move in the shadows, so they stole a Quinjet from a Government facility; the Quinjet they stole is of the same model as the Quinjets shown in the first Avengers film, so they reverse engineered the cloaking technology from that version of the Quinjet into their aircrafts (FitzSimmons further upgrading it has never even been implied, by the way, it is baseless -- Mack is the one who did most of the work on that particular area anyway).
Now the most advanced Quinjets were shown in The Winter Soldier, as part of Project Insight. Along with the next-gen Helicarriers, the upgraded versions of the Quinjets were modeled differently, with much heavier arms, better aerial maneuverability and Stark Industries technology. Here's some insight (heh) from the VFX team that created the aircrafts alongside the Russo brothers:
"The story goes, in fact, that Tony Stark was so tired of getting roughed up in The Avengers that he offered his tech to S.H.I.E.L.D."
For what it is worth, the new Quinjets also remained undetected by the Lemurian Star, a S.H.I.E.L.D. ship from which the Insight satellites would be launched, which reinforces the idea that Stark stealth technology was implemented into Project Insight. So no, clearly, you are the one with the outdated tech. Regarding the Helicarrier, indeed, I'd assume that because it has a deck acting as a platform for other ships, only the hull is physically "invisible" due to the holographic technology, so you'd see it from above if you're at a good enough distance, but this hardly matters for reasons I'll talk about below.
In regards to Stark stealth tech, the Avengers' Quinjet has holographic technology like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, but what makes it untrackable is the incredibly advanced radar-satellite cloaking. When Banner left on the Quinjet, the retroreflective panels were not active, but as Natasha said, he was in stealth mode regardless, and they could not track him.
In short, your aircrafts absolutely do not involve Stark technology at all, while our Helicarrier does. And clearly, you think "near-ultraviolet", which is what the page you linked for Jemma's "Full Spectrum Goggles" mentions as the cap for you, is enough to see through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cloaking technology, so satellites, that can detect wavelengths as much as in the ultraviolet range, should have no issue tracking the Zephyr.
"Humans cannot see light past the visible spectrum, but satellites are able to detect wavelengths into the ultraviolet and infrared. Satellites, like Landsat 7, fly high above the earth, using instruments to collect data at specific wavelengths. These data can then be used to build an image. Satellite instruments are able to obtain many images of the same location, at the same time. Each image highlights a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum."
Beyond that, I feel the need to point out something that isn't exactly relevant, but a bit eye-popping:
They know that Weaver can track AIDA, so they'll teleport using the Zephyr's jump drive instead. Once they're on the ship, with none of your team aware of that, the real battle begins.
There are 4 major ways in which we can locate your Helicarrier (plus one bonus):
Fitz has the timestream, so he can just locate the Helicarrier and Insight satellite by surveying the timestream.
Fitz will open the Director's toolbox, giving my team the full capabilities of the Director of SHIELD. This would include the location of all SHIELD assets, such as the Helicarrier and Insight satellite. It's also very possible that my team could just disable your satellite and Helicarrier with this item, and instantly take you down.
Although the Helicarrier is cloaked from radar and visible eyesight, there's nothing suggesting that the cloaking would work against Full Spectrum Goggles which can survey the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Based on your Visual Dictionary page, it appears that the retroreflective coating is only applied on the hull of the Helicarrier when viewed from below. Since the Zephyr is a literal spaceship, my team can just start at a high enough altitude to the point that they can see the upper body of the helicarrier.
Based on my assumption that the spawning points of our 2 teams won't be too far, my team doesn't even need to find your helicarrier at all. They can just activate the Overkill device, which would result in the nukes on your Helicarrier going off and killing your entire team.
For any of the first 4 options, my team will start in space, and proceed to blow up the Insight satellite, and then teleport into your Helicarrier.
Regarding the first point, I don't understand how you think the time stream is going to help with locating anything, and we've already been through the second point. The third and fourth points don't even make sense if you are going with the "my team will start in space" unless you think anyone of your squad has a good enough eyesight to see 90 km down from space. Also, if Fury could not track Stark's stealth tech, there is no reason to believe your team would, goggles or not -- provided that our Helicarrier does have Stark tech implemented of course, a reasonable but not confirmed assumption, to be fair.
Your fifth statement is also contradicting the whole "start in space" thing, like the previous ones, and besides, I specifically did not mention nuclear weapons in my post; the Overkill device was a mission carried out under Fury's directorship, and my team has the knowledge that two genius-scientists could try and use it against us -- that said, I also doubt you'd be able to use the device in any meaningful way regardless. It was disabled before S.H.I.E.L.D. took it in, and has been disabled every since. Agents only used toned down versions in the shape and form of guns that shoot close to mid-range rays to take out individual weapons, not even trigger them. Finally, Fitz and Simmons are leading a team against the man who took them in, gave them a new family, and personally saved them after Ward dropped them in the bottom the pacific ocean with no oxygen supply, their good friend and teacher who taught and groomed them in the Science Academy, and an Avenger. If you want to argue that they'd cold-bloodedly murder them as their first option, the burden of proof is on you. Of course, opposite to that, my team are trained assassins who have shown time and again that they have no issue at all going for the kill against co-workers and friends if they have to do their job as government agents. Fury and Hill were genuinely trying to execute a mind-controlled Barton in The Avengers as soon as the opening scene.
As for blowing up the satellite, there is an entire network of Insight satellites as stated -- in that three-second shot alone we see there's at least 9 of them -- what they mentioned is that they only needed one operational to eliminate targets. There is no reason to believe you could locate them, especially amongst the thousands of satellites orbiting the earth, and even if you did, you do not have space weapons, or ASAT weapons. The Zephyr was upgraded in order to successfully fly through space as far as I'm aware, but the weapon systems were never redesigned to properly function in zero gravity and under the physical conditions of space orbit or vacuum. And even ignoring all this, I doubt Fitz and Simmons would be willing to risk the dire consequences of several satellites just being shot down one day.
So all this does not work on a physical, logical, or character level.
There's nothing suggesting that the Insight satellites can break cloaking technology, even if Fury can access other devices which can. In the movie, they just pin-pointed people on the ground. Furthermore, the satellite didn't have weapons itself, the Helicarriers were responsible for actually shooting down the targets. So since the Helicarrier can't detect the Zephyr, this is useless, even if the satellite can detect the Zephyr.
I'm sorry, but you should understand that this truly makes no sense. We know that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s targetting satellites can detect the Zephyr (as all random satellites can, we even see them use different wavelengths while targetting the people for Zola's algorithm) and that's all that matters. The satellites are controlling the Helicarrier weapons through the targetting cards on each system. It is how Maria just locked in on the Helicarriers themselves and had them shoot each other down all the way from the Triskelion. If the satellites can see your team, which they can, they are as good as dead.
Once they're on the ship, with none of your team aware of that, the real battle begins.
Now I've established my agents will, in fact, know. Through satellite tracking, Aida's energy signatures, the energy readings of a giant wormhole opening on the deck right above us, and so on. This wouldn't be much of a fight. Ward can bring in whatever vague items he wants from his Hydra connections, AIDA can bring in all the metallic LMDs she wants, it is not going to matter. The targetting satellites will lock in on the Zephyr or in every single person on your team individually and end you -- in case it wasn't clear, the biggest, armored cannons of the Helicarriers are spread around the 1,400 ft. long deck itself, so it's not like coming from above is going to help you. The targetting satellites have a global scope of course, so it doesn't matter where you are, but since your plan of attack is to land directly on the Helicarrier, it's only making it easier. There's also the UAVs I brought up in my opening post, that can also shoot you down, but I don't think they're going to be needed either. Now, a few secondary things to finish the post;
After getting all that stuff, Simmons can also build an EMP Generator, like she did within minutes here: In the scene, she does start off with a prototype but Simmons says it's designed all wrong so I doubt that helped at all. It might have even hindered her efforts, so she could do an even better version from scratch in this instance.
No, it would not have hindered her efforts. A poorly designed prototype is still the basis for something, saying that starting from thin air and tools is going to make it easier for her is illogical to me. That said, I want to be clear that I don't doubt Simmons' ability to build an EMP in minutes. It simply isn't going to matter. The U.S. military Air Force use tested radiation hardening on the regular, to assume that a "technological marvel and the ultimate super-weapon", the next generation science miracle of the government's apex international agency, a moving HQ meant to ensure worldwide safety, does not use anti-EMP defences would not be just unreasonable, it'd be silly. Even Hawkeye carried EMPs made by S.H.I.E.L.D. in his quiver, if it would've worked he wouldn't go through all the trouble he did to take down the Helicarrier in A1.
Clint also used specialized tech to hack into the Helicarrier's systems and shut them down, which did nothing but slow them down for about 5 minutes before they shook it off, so the hijacker is not a threat. Of course it's irrelevant in the first place because it also needs to be planted directly onto a computer system for it to work, which is why Agent 33 had to trick Coulson into getting her inside the Bus and sneak it in there.
I think you're clearly misrepresenting what happened there. AIDA instantly healed and got right back up in seconds. Sure, Nat can do the same, but having AIDA on the ground for a couple seconds isn't a win. AIDA can still feel pain, so it's obvious she wouldn't want to be shot. However, guns absolutely are not dangerous to her whatsoever, and Nat will run out of ammo before doing any permanent damage to AIDA. She even literally says that SHIELD's weapons can't stop her, and that they can't kill her.
First of all, your gif cuts off an entire conversation that occured between AIDA being dropped and healing. Second of all, there is no reason to believe AIDA can survive headshots, like at all. AIDA was not enhanced physically after getting a human body, she just gained these rather limited regenerative abilities. Yo-yo legitimately asked why they couldn't just chop her head off again, and Coulson's sole response was that she had feelings and free will now so they should give her a chance. Then again, Natasha is merely there to protect the rest of the team (all of whom are competent marksmen themselves mind you) in the control room. Given the strategy you chose, not trying to pinpoint my agents' exact location in the Helicarrier and teleporting in there, it is not going to come to that whatsoever.
These last three points are secondary though, like I said, since you won't even be in the vicinity to successfully utilize EMPs, malwares, or AIDAs. But I felt the need to cover them nonetheless.
II. Conclusion.
I'm actually not sure there is something new to say, so I'll only summarize what I've said so far:
Fury's toolbox is out of the equation.
The time frame is not a reliable, consistent, explicit tactic; it is certainly of decent help, and can give you a rough idea of what we might do, don't get me wrong, but it's not giving you footage of our prep time and positions.
Even if it did give you such detailed knowledge, it is not like you have the resources or the power to do something with it. You don't have space weapons, the location of the satellites, you have absolutely no way of surviving the Helicarriers' global radius simply shooting you down. And we have more than one ways to track and kill you as soon as the battle starts. Or when you decide to enter the atompshere in case you want to start in space.
Overkill devices, EMPs, hijackers, LMDs, they are all functionally useless.
It is very likely that you won't be able to track us given Stark's technology combined with the next generation of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best, but even if you do, it doesn't matter. It might make it easier if you can come to us.
You've not exactly made your starting position clear either, not even as a rough idea. First you say that you will start in space, then you say we will spawn close to one another, then you say you will start right above us. Granted this does not exactly change anything; at the end of the day, we're the predator, and you're the prey.
In case you are wondering, this section of the guidebook is dedicated to S.H.I.E.L.D. technology as seen in that film, and the example Quinjet next to the description is taken from that as well (I added the screenshot in the scan to make that clear).
IIRC they never used cloaking tech in the film, but I assume this is like a retroactive retcon or whatever. So cool.
Now, after the fall of the organization, Coulson needed cloaking technology for the Bus, they needed to move in the shadows, so they stole a Quinjet from a Government facility; the Quinjet they stole is of the same model as the Quinjets shown in the first Avengers film, so they reverse engineered the cloaking technology from that version of the Quinjet into their aircrafts (FitzSimmons further upgrading it has never even been implied, by the way, it is baseless -- Mack is the one who did most of the work on that particular area anyway).
Yes, Mack reverse-engineered the cloaking for The Bus from the Quinjet. The Zephyr, however, is an altogether different aircraft designed by Fitz, after he had recovered from his brain damage. While it's possible the cloaking tech is the same, it's also possible that Fitzsimmons upgraded the cloaking systems - especially since it was heavily implied that Fitz could have easily solved the cloaking problem had he been at his full mental capacity. I did specifically say that this was a maybe though, and not a sure fact.
Now the most advanced Quinjets were shown in The Winter Soldier, as part of Project Insight. Along with the next-gen Helicarriers, the upgraded versions of the Quinjets were modeled differently, with much heavier arms, better aerial maneuverability and Stark Industries technology.
See, this is completely baseless speculation. You haven't showed any evidence for them having better aerial maneuverability and Stark Industries tech.
"The story goes, in fact, that Tony Stark was so tired of getting roughed up in The Avengers that he offered his tech to S.H.I.E.L.D."
This quote you provided is taken out of context. Here's the full thing:
The helicarrier is about a quarter larger than its predecessor: 1,400-feet-long, and designed with more powerful Phalanx guns (14 scattered around the deck with 70-foot barrels and 2-foot shells) along with a nifty surveillance dome. It's like a modern version of a broadside pirate ship, only they replaced the turbines with a more powerful Stark Repulsor engine.
The story goes, in fact, that Tony Stark was so tired of getting roughed up in The Avengers that he offered his tech to S.H.I.E.L.D. "It's got the big guns on the deck, the super weapon, and the underbelly surveillance hub, where the Cap and Winter Soldier fight takes place," explains ILM VFX supervisor Russell Earl. The brothers wanted everything to be grounded in a reality even if it was technology that we don't necessarily have. We did 90% modern and 10% World War II."
They are explicitly only referring to the upgraded repulsor turbines on the Helicarrier - not even the Quinjets at all. In fact, they mention they wanted the tech to be "grounded in reality" which would mean that they aren't going to be using any of the crazy sci-fi cloaking tech you mention.
For what it is worth, the new Quinjets also remained undetected by the Lemurian Star, a S.H.I.E.L.D. ship from which the Insight satellites would be launched, which reinforces the idea that Stark stealth technology was implemented into Project Insight.
Batroc doesn't even try to scan for attackers, and I doubt he even knew how to use the ship's systems at all. It certainly didn't seem like he (or anyone else on his crew) even tried to use any sort of systems onboard. So this is less of a "remained undetected" and more of a "they weren't even trying to detect it". Especially since Fury hired them and wanted the Quinjet to successfully take them down.
Regarding the Helicarrier, indeed, I'd assume that because it has a deck acting as a platform for other ships, only the hull is physically "invisible" due to the holographic technology, so you'd see it from above
In regards to Stark stealth tech, the Avengers' Quinjet has holographic technology like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, but what makes it untrackable is the incredibly advanced radar-satellite cloaking. When Banner left on the Quinjet, the retroreflective panels were not active, but as Natasha said, he was in stealth mode regardless, and they could not track him.
Okay, nice clip. But it doesn't prove anything about Stark having shared that technology with SHIELD? These Avengers Quinjets were only made after SHIELD fell, so there's absolutely nothing suggesting that Stark even had this stealth tech at the time of TWS, let alone shared it with SHIELD for all their Insight aircraft. Even if you can prove that the Insight Quinjets have it, there's nothing suggesting it's on the Helicarrier itself - after all, it's much harder to cloak/hide objects the larger they are.
If anything, this means that the earlier Quinjets which Coulson stole actually have feats for their stealth tech, while your Insight Helicarrier and Quinjets don't have any. I know this is technically a tie-in, but you've been using them a lot so I think using a single tie-in feat is fine for me. Also IIRC, no one could track Cap and his team down while they were using this Quinjet, and they used it for probably like a couple years in between Civil War and Infinity War. So it's backed up based on what happened on screen as well.
In short, your aircrafts absolutely do not involve Stark technology at all, while our Helicarrier does.
The likelihood of the regular Quinjets having Stark stealth tech is approximately equal to the likelihood of your Helicarrier having Stark stealth tech - ie. approximately none. Even if Stark shared stealth tech (that may not have even been invented till after the fall of SHIELD) with SHIELD, there's no reason why it would have only been used on Insight aircraft and not the regular Quinjets which would also be in use (since Insight had not been launched yet).
And clearly, you think "near-ultraviolet", which is what the page you linked for Jemma's "Full Spectrum Goggles" mentions as the cap for you, is enough to see through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cloaking technology, so satellites, that can detect wavelengths as much as in the ultraviolet range, should have no issue tracking the Zephyr.
Also, the only cloaking you've mentioned for Helicarriers is that one quote from AOS where Fitz implies Helicarriers are cloaked against radar. Radar is a detection system which solely relies on radio waves. Between radar cloaking and retroreflective panels, the Helicarrier would be cloaked from visible light and radio waves - but there's nothing mentioned about being cloaked from infrared or ultraviolet rays anyways.
Also, this does lead me to a good point. The stealth tech on your Insight Helicarriers is absolutely featless. Even if we do scale it to Stark's tech that was only ever seen after SHIELD fell, the best feat you brought up is that Fury (who was no longer the Director of SHIELD and presumably had little to no resources beyond whatever Phil Coulson and possibly other unknown people gave him) couldn't track it down within the timespan of like a day, which isn't any better than the Mark I Quinjets as seen in Civil War. And the Zephyr has even better feats than either.
My final point here is that based on the actual movie/Live Action feats, there is nothing to remotely suggest that Insight Helicarriers and/or Quinjets have any sort of stealth tech at all, AFAIK. Your entire argument for this section hinges on a statement/scan from the Visual Dictionary, which is disallowed as evidence for this tournament. On the other hand, the stealth feats for the Zephyr are absolutely 100% permissible for this tourney. So if we were to sum up this cloaking argument - the Zephyr is going to be undetectable for your team, while your Helicarrier has a grand total of 0 stealth tech whatsoever.
I'd even say that an argument that it has stealth tech cause earlier Helicarriers (ie. the one from The Avengers) have stealth tech doesn't make too much sense based on the purpose of the Insight Helicarriers as airborne weapons (as compared to the regular Helicarriers which were used for espionage). They were literally planning to shoot people all around the world from the Insight Helicarriers - even if the Insight Helicarriers themselves were undetectable, their location would be completely given away via tracking the trajectories of the fired missiles/bullets/whatever. So stealth tech would be useless for the intended purpose of Insight Helicarriers. As such, there's really no reason to argue that they have stealth tech just cause the earlier Helicarrier did. I mean, if they did have stealth tech, why didn't they activate it as soon as they launched the Insight Helicarriers into the air - the same way SHIELD did for the older Helicarrier?
Hacking
which is both extremely contradictory, and it defeats the entire purpose of characters like Coulson being here -- and actually being worth more points than lower ranking agents with better personal combat/prep capabilities, because of authorized knowledge and resources. So Geek said that you cannot, in fact, access Fury's toolbox simply because Fitz stole it once in S2 (when it had already been stolen by Gonzales mind you).
My argument was that Fitzsimmons know where it is, can access the place where it's kept, steal it and can easily hack it. There was no contradiction. Only the Director of SHIELD could access it legally. But since Geek ruled that I can't steal items, I won't argue this any more - not that I need it at all.
So, even without the Toolbox, we can still get all the information and access we need. And this was okayed by Geek FYI:
Project Insight
So, just like I wasn't allowed to argue Fitzsimmons steal the Director's Toolbox, you're not allowed to argue that your team steals resource that they didn't control/which didn't belong to them - Geek confirmed this:
Well, I'd argue that this would prevent your team from taking and using Project Insight at all. Fury never had full access to Project Insight (and especially not the satellites), even when he was Director of SHIELD. This was the whole reason why he had to resort to plotting to hire Batroc's crew to hijack the Lemurian Star, and then get Natasha to steal the data from the Lemurian Star (notice the bolded word there) for him. Heck, even when he did have the USB with the Project Insight information, it was encrypted (presumably by Pierce using Fury's name) and he couldn't access any of the Insight files/algorithms/whatever. I can't find a good video of that scene, but here's the screenshot of the script where it happened:
I don't actually own the movie so I can't make a gif of this scene, I'll try to figure out how if you really want one though
He didn't even have any authority over Project Insight - he had to beg Pierce to delay the project when he was suspicious. And since he was "dead" when Insight was launched, he never had any sort of authority over Project Insight. And Hill wasn't director after Fury "died" - based on the deleted scenes it was likely Pierce. Essentially, no one on your team ever had any sort of authority over Project Insight, it was Pierce's project the whole way through. That's why Fury + Cap and co. had to hijack the Helicarriers at the end of the movie, rather than just walking in and turning them off like they could have if Project Insight were theirs to do with as they pleased. Project Insight was always under Alexander Pierce/HYDRA's purview - Pierce just let Fury think he knew what Project Insight was about, while secretly keeping him completely clueless about its real purpose. I don't see how you can possibly argue that Fury/Hill owned Project Insight rather than Pierce. And if Pierce/HYDRA owns Project Insight, that would mean by definition that Fury/Hill would have to steal it from him - since there's no way that Pierce would have allowed Fury to use it. It's more likely that Coulson/Mack would give Fitzsimmons the toolbox than it is for Pierce to allow Fury to use Insight.
Even plot-wise, it makes sense that Fury would never have had access/control over Project Insight. Pierce's plan was to use the Algorithm to kill the likes of Tony Stark, Maria Hill, and even the President of the US as soon as the Helicarriers launched. If Fury had authorization over Project Insight, that plan would have completely failed since Fury could have just stopped it by using his own authorization. And remember, Pierce didn't originally plan on trying to kill Fury - he only did so since Fury started investigating and tried to postpone/cancel Project Insight's launch. If not for that, Fury would have been alive for the launch of Project Insight - so he wouldn't have been allowed access/authority over it since that would have completely destroyed Pierce's plan if Fury cancelled the satellite targeting system as soon as it targeted guys like Tony Stark.
The funniest part is that my team would likely have more authority over Project Insight than your team would. Level 7 HYDRA infiltrators within SHIELD (such as Jasper Sitwell) had much more authority and information on Project Insight than Nick Fury did. And guess who's on my team? That's right, Grant Ward - a HYDRA Infiltrator within SHIELD, who had a clearance level of Level 7 before the events of TWS (as of the AOS pilot).
So, just like Sitwell, Ward would likely have more authority over Project Insight than Fury did.
The final issue with your plan to use Project Insight is that it was made clear that just launching a Helicarrier requires an entire crew. So even if you can prove that Project Insight belongs to Fury, launching and actually operating the Helicarriers in the air from the Triskelion with just Fury, Hill, Romanoff, and Weaver is going to be an impossible task. We already know that each Helicarrier required a crew of like at least 10 people, based on this video and the number of Hydra goons we see rushing to enter the Helicarrier to prep it for launch and then to man it. Heck, would anyone on your team even know the launch codes for the Helicarriers, since they weren't a part of the Insight crew/HYDRA? That video also shows just how many people were involved on the actual Helicarriers themselves, as well as even more who were responsible for opening the bay doors and whatnot. I don't think a Helicarrier has ever been shown to be operable by a team as small as the one you have - there's always tons of grunts responsible for keeping it running. So, even if you prove that Project Insight belongs to Fury/Hill, you'd be unable to even launch a Helicarrier, let alone operate it in the air. Essentially, there's no way your Insight plan works at all. Your team would be left grounded without any sort of aircraft - at best, you can amend your argument and say that they'll use a Quinjet instead.
Timestream
I think this "time stream" needs to be demystified a bit, it is not the Time Stone or anything. Fitz cannot actually see what will happen in the future, he can see possible versions of the future based on probabilities in virtual reality,
Really, the only difference between this and a "tactical genius" who can "always think 5 steps ahead of his enemies" is that the latter has to use his brain to come up with those probabilities and predictions, whereas the time stream can do the work for you, and show you how you might fail or succeed, from your point of view. You won't be seeing any of our prep time, or any satellites in space, or anything of the sort; you can see rough courses of action and the result of the battle from where the real you would be in each scenario, I guess, that's it.
Bruh, you're literally just making shit up at this point. If you were confused, you could have just asked me to provide some more details/gifs instead of just making up blatantly incorrect information. Users of the timestream are able to view events from the entire timestream, both the past and future. They can see events during which they weren't present themselves (ie. it's not just looking from their own point of view) and even see events as they unfolded in complete alternate timelines:
Sybil used it a lot and did not make it; for instance, she and Malick tried to find out the best ways to locate Fitz using Jemma's memories, she predicted that she could take that info out of Jemma, but she did not predict that the others could prevent her from doing so.
In fact, she lost a lot of battles in S6, and she also lost the war.
Again, there's context regarding the events of S7 that is not relevant here. First of all, one of the major aspects was that both Fitz and Sibyl were able to read the timestream and as such outplay each other. This is why the Chronicoms said that the outcomes in which they lose were the ones in which Fitz interferes. Another important aspect that would obviously mess with Sibyl's ability to predict the timestream was the fact that both the Chronicoms and SHIELD had access to time travel tech which allowed them to rewrite the past which would then retroactively change the future that was predicted. Towards the end of the season, they had caused/created a branched timeline which invalidated at least some of the prior timestream predictions. There's also the fact that the war was going on throughout literal decades, which would obviously create far more possible futures and make predictions much less certain - for this battle, we'd only need to look ahead a couple hours at most. The final aspect is that while Fitz and Sibyl were the ones who actually read the timestream, neither could actually execute the plans they came up with - they had to rely on others to execute the plans correctly. As Sibyl herself said, she came up with a foolproof plan that would workif executed correctly. However, in this case, Fitz can actually help his team execute rather than being hidden away in time and unable to communicate with his friends.
As such, none of the limiting factors are relevant for this battle, and usage of the timestream will work just as planned.
What I'm saying is, there's several issues with arguing the "time stream" in a scenario such as this and saying that Fitz would know "exactly what my team's strategy is and what they're planning to do"
While I have proved that, in this battle, Fitz will be able to read the future accurately, my strategy doesn't even require for him to read the future. All he needs to do is survey the past (ie. what already has happened) and that will be enough to see what your team did with their prep, as well as actually see where they flew their Helicarrier to (assuming you argue that they can get one). I'm not sure what exactly your argument that Fitz can't see the past with the timestream is, but I've shown multiple examples where people have used the timestream to look at the past - and it was clearly accurate. So there should be no issues here.
That conversation was a different scene, which could have taken place at least partly concurrently as Davis kept shooting AIDA. You also conveniently cut the audio of Fitz yelling that AIDA can't be stopped (and May even agrees with him later in the gif once she remembers the Inhuman powers AIDA has), lol. As for headshots, in your gif Davis walks right above her body and shoots her point blank, presumably at her head. So I don't see why she can't survive that.
In fact, arguing that AIDA would die to a headshot is complete intent butchery. Yoyo asked that question before anyone knew what powers she had, while Fitz literally later says he doesn't know how to kill AIDA. If it really was so easy to kill her as to just shoot her in the head, he could have mentioned that... and they had plenty of opportunities to headshot her - such as when Simmons shoots her from behind. Instead, they were forced to team up with Ghost Rider since he was the only thing that could destroy her body, created by the Darkhold's dark magic. And just to clarify, I'm not trying to argue some sort of NLF that AIDA can only be killed by Ghost Rider. I wouldn't even argue against an assertion that the Insight Helicarriers could kill her, or any other sort of notably powerful/different attack. But arguing that she'd die from a headshot is just clear intent butchery based on how we're repeatedly told that SHIELD's weapons can't harm her.
So yeah, you can't take down AIDA with regular guns.
Also, I do want to note that AIDA was physically enhanced - she was easily overpowering Ivanov LMDs and also had enhanced speed courtesy of Vijay Nadeer's powers. Plus, she's gonna be enhanced with Centipede serum here, so she's going to be even more powerful in every way (stats + powers wise).
I specifically did not mention nuclear weapons in my post; the Overkill device was a mission carried out under Fury's directorship, and my team has the knowledge that two genius-scientists could try and use it against us -- that said, I also doubt you'd be able to use the device in any meaningful way regardless.
Nuclear weapons or not, the device could destroy all the Helicarriers weapons and make them go off inside the Helicarrier, destroying it. Fury may know about the Overkill device, but he has no way of knowing that my team is planning to use it. And he has no way of countering it regardless.
Yeah, Fitz was the guy who disabled it in under 10 minutes. Fitz also created the toned down version himself in even less time with 0 resources - and we can see that it did trigger the weapons. Finally, Fitz said that the only thing that was important was the core, which was in the toned down version - the rest of it just served to amplify the sonic vibrations before emitting them. I see no reason why Fitz can't join a bunch of metal pipes around his smaller version in order to amplify the sonic vibrations, before firing. Especially since he was able to the arguably more difficult job of modifying it into a standalone weapon within literal minutes and all by himself. With help from AIDA + LMDs + Simmons, it should be even easier to just add some piping around the weapon, LOL.
Finally, Fitz and Simmons are leading a team against the man who took them in, gave them a new family, and personally saved them after Ward dropped them in the bottom the pacific ocean with no oxygen supply, their good friend and teacher who taught and groomed them in the Science Academy, and an Avenger. If you want to argue that they'd cold-bloodedly murder them as their first option, the burden of proof is on you.
Of course, opposite to that, my team are trained assassins who have shown time and again that they have no issue at all going for the kill against co-workers and friends if they have to do their job as government agents. Fury and Hill were genuinely trying to execute a mind-controlled Barton in The Avengers as soon as the opening scene.
I'd also argue that this isn't true anymore after the events of The Winter Soldier, where Cap showed Fury, Hill, and Romanoff that their old spy ways weren't the way to live life. Romanoff even went out by sacrificing herself to spare Clint. And Fury and Hill took a lot of inspiration from Cap's moral code as well, by taking SHIELD down and destroying the Helicarriers instead of just stealing them for their own purposes as Fury originally planned. So no, I don't think Fury, Hill, and Nat would kill loyal SHIELD agents like Fitzsimmons after the events of The Winter Soldier. Agent Weaver certainly wouldn't help them kill Fitzsimmons either, lol. In which case she wouldn't help your team track AIDA. So this in-character argument just hurts your team more than it does mine.
That said, I want to be clear that I don't doubt Simmons' ability to build an EMP in minutes. It simply isn't going to matter. The U.S. military Air Force use tested radiation hardening on the regular, to assume that a "technological marvel and the ultimate super-weapon", the next generation science miracle of the government's apex international agency, a moving HQ meant to ensure worldwide safety, does not use anti-EMP defences would not be just unreasonable, it'd be silly. Even Hawkeye carried EMPs made by S.H.I.E.L.D. in his quiver, if it would've worked he wouldn't go through all the trouble he did to take down the Helicarrier in A1.
Comparing Hawkeye's tiny ass EMP arrow to Simmons' EMP that took out all tech in like a mile radius is borderline a NLF.
I don't think that there are any defenses that exist against EMPs that powerful, so assuming that the Helicarriers have tech that doesn't exist is even sillier. Your argument is fine if you can actually prove that there does exist tech that could reasonably defend against an EMP directed at the Helicarrier. All the EMP Shielding defenses I could find on the internet were basically just surge protectors which you plug into the electrical grid and then your computer connects to the grid through the surge protector instead of directly. This means that an EMP which affects the grid would burn out the surge protector but not your device. The Helicarrier obviously doesn't plug into the grid, and the EMP will be directed directly at the Helicarrier itself rather than an outside power source. So if you can prove that there exists tech which could be used to shield vehicles like aircraft carriers or whatever from an EMP, then yeah, this is a fair argument. If not, you're basically making up sci-fi tech which doesn't exist either IRL or in the MCU.
Clint also used specialized tech to hack into the Helicarrier's systems and shut them down, which did nothing but slow them down for about 5 minutes before they shook it off, so the hijacker is not a threat. Of course it's irrelevant in the first place because it also needs to be planted directly onto a computer system for it to work, which is why Agent 33 had to trick Coulson into getting her inside the Bus and sneak it in there.
Clint did not use "specialized tech to hack into the Helicarrier's systems"... he just used what appeared to be a pretty standard hacking arrow to shut down one of the rotors, and it instantly worked. The Helicarrier showed no resistance to the hack, it's only cause Tony fixed the Helicarrier up that the Helicarrier didn't crash. The Hijacker on the other hand, doesn't just shut down all of the plane's systems, it also destroys them. Since the Helicarrier showed no resistance to being hacked, this tech will work just fine. It just needs to be planted on the ship by someone like AIDA, who can then teleport out as the Helicarrier blows itself up.
Strategy:
During prep:
AIDA teleports a bunch of LMD bots and the Judas Rifle to help us.
Ward brings the Hijacker device and Centipede Serum for AIDA.
Simmons builds a powerful EMP within like 5 minutes.
Fitz connects the Overkill device to some piping so it can be as powerful (if not moreso) than it originally was.
LMDs + AIDA can help with those bottom 2 tasks to make them even better.This should all take under like 20 minutes.
After that, AIDA juices herself up with Centipede serum, and Fitz hacks into Fury's SHIELD Network while Simmons preps the other tech.
During the actual battle:
Right before the battle begins, the Zephyr cloaks up and flies out into space. In space, we're completely untouchable since even if you do have Insight satellites, they aren't pointing into space. Plus, you can't break the Zephyr's cloaking. While in space, Fitz reads the past to see what your team did during prep plus observe your team's location. Once that's done, my team uses the Zephyr's jump drive to teleport into (not on) the Helicarrier (if you have one) and then I can just carry out the same strategy I explained in my opener which you didn't counter - ie. Ward solos. If you have a Helicarrier but we can't determine the exact location, then Fitz just either hacks into your systems remotely and takes control/shuts it down, or just activates the Overkill device (which was left on the ground) and blows up the Helicarrier. Even in your best case scenario where you have Insight Helicarriers + satellite, you have no way of detecting my team or attacking us in space. The more likely scenario is that you don't have anything from Insight, in which case AIDA teleports Ward onto the ground where your team spawns and he solos your team from there. Either way, my team wins.
Live action feats only; no tie-in material from other mediums will be allowed
Since I'm seeing tie-in comics, guidebooks, VFX statements, etc.
I won't have you guys edit your existing posts, but for your last two posts, please do not make use of anything except live action feats or on-screen statements.
@geekryan: Fair. I considered things like guidebooks to not fall under that rule, since they're expositions of the films, not tie-ins, like comics. I actually only considered comics to be literal tie-ins for the MCU, hence why I used that guidebook scan for the Helicarrier in my first match as well. It's a bit too late to change the entire course of the debate as it is now, but I will not use any new scans moving forward.
I'm glad you finally cleared up what your actual strategy is, because frankly, your first post was a bit of a mess of points you were trying to get across. That said, this is my final post for the debate, and I won't be able to respond to anything else you say after that, so I'll try to be as explicit as possible and predict any possible arguments you might come up with in advance. First things first, however:
Well, I'd argue that this would prevent your team from taking and using Project Insight at all.
Maybe I phrased myself poorly before; I don't necessarily disagree with anything you presented as evidence. What I'm disagreeing with is you simplifying the time frame into something as consistent, explicit and reliable as the Time Stone -- no, they do not work the same way at all. With the Time Stone, the user can interact with and manipulate actual time as a force of the universe, through magic, sorcery if you will (which is just magic without a hat after-all). The time stream is alien technology that lets people predict the future through possibilities and percentages. Even in those examples you brought up, this is very clear. Nathaniel knowing where Coulson would teleport for instance, this is the dialogue for context:
"You knew we were coming."
"To this very spot. Well, if you want to get technical, I knew there was a ninety four percent chance."
"Because you have the Time Stream."
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S7E10, "Stolen".
Sybil explains that exactly in her own poetic way, and that is the way Fitz used the time stream to help the team in the end -- not by looking at the past or whatever, but we'll get to that in a minute. What I'm questioning is your utmost certainty that something that works on patterns, probabilities and percentages is the most reliable, consistent, sure thing that will give you full knowledge of everything relevant here. In any case though, you said this:
While I have proved that, in this battle, Fitz will be able to read the future accurately, my strategy doesn't even require for him to read the future. All he needs to do is survey the past (ie. what already has happened) and that will be enough to see what your team did with their prep, as well as actually see where they flew their Helicarrier to (assuming you argue that they can get one). I'm not sure what exactly your argument that Fitz can't see the past with the timestream is, but I've shown multiple examples where people have used the timestream to look at the past - and it was clearly accurate. So there should be no issues here.
There's also the fact that the war was going on throughout literal decades, which would obviously create far more possible futures and make predictions much less certain - for this battle, we'd only need to look ahead a couple hours at most.
I have absolutely no issue based on what you said here. I've underlined your final, and most important, statement. As I'll explain below, I honestly could not care less at this point wether your can track the Helicarrier or not. But it's a good thing you've conceded that you won't be doing anything to touch our targetting satellite systems in space. Looking at what we're doing with two hours beforehand is not going to help you with locating any already existing S.H.I.E.L.D. satellites out of the thousands in space, and even if you did, you don't have the necessary space weapons to take them down, as -- I'm assuming -- you also agree with given you had no response to that. So with that in mind, our satellites are safe, moving on.
II. Tracking you down.
I'll open this first section by saying that I honestly don't even care wether you can track us down or not. You cannot actually do anything to us, so I'm not going to discuss this further. I'm only going to shut down the -- still apparent -- misconceptions in your post about us being able to detect and target you. First and foremost;
Your entire argument for this section hinges on a statement/scan from the Visual Dictionary, which is disallowed as evidence for this tournament.
With all due respect, this is extremely desperate grasping at straws if I've seen one. First of all, I considered the guidebooks are expositions of the films, not secondary canon events between films and tie-ins: tie ins, which is what was disallowed here, are comics -- a scan of which you had the audacity to use below right after saying this, and one I'm going to respond to nonetheless. That said, Geek let us know today that none of this should have been used, but it's too late to change the entire course of the debate now, so let's leave it at that. Second of all, it's interesting that you only remembered to argue I cannot use my guidebook scans only before my final post in the debate. Third, I gave you very clear facts regarding S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vehicles, the Helicarriers, the planes, the Quinjets, the second line of Quinjets, using statements and evidence we've received from the films, from a guidebook signed by the heads of Marvel Studios, and from the show. And I did that because you were clearly misinformed on what kind of vehicles those were and their history and capabilities. I urge everyone reading this who has doubts to go through my break-down again, below:
I think there's some major misconceptions here, so let's go at it from scratch; cloaking technology, the way they use the term in the show, refers to both retroreflective panels, and radar cloaking. The "Bus", Coulson's team's first aircraft, is a mobile base that was used back in the 90s as part of a series of specialized planes, before the Helicarriers were built and replaced them. As Hill explains in the pilot episode, they never truly wanted to greenlight Coulson's team running international missions, so they entrusted them with this older mobile base for smaller scale ops. These planes, like the Bus, are outdated mobile HQ (not even HQ anymore), and did not have cloaking technology, so in the context of S.H.I.E.L.D. mobile bases, only the Helicarriers and the Quinjets they carried did.
The Quinjets were the most advanced aircrafts in the organization outside of the Helicarriers, and they were only used by S.T.R.I.K.E. teams and special agents like Hawkeye, Mockingbird and Widow who answered directly to Nick Fury. The Quinjets have always had cloaking technology, ever since we first saw them in 2012's The Avengers.
In case you are wondering, this section of the guidebook is dedicated to S.H.I.E.L.D. technology as seen in that film, and the example Quinjet next to the description is taken from that as well (I added the screenshot in the scan to make that clear). Now, after the fall of the organization, Coulson needed cloaking technology for the Bus, they needed to move in the shadows, so they stole a Quinjet from a Government facility; the Quinjet they stole is of the same model as the Quinjets shown in the first Avengers film, so they reverse engineered the cloaking technology from that version of the Quinjet into their aircrafts (FitzSimmons further upgrading it has never even been implied, by the way, it is baseless -- Mack is the one who did most of the work on that particular area anyway).
This break-down takes into account every canonical source, in the form of text or visual evidence, as well as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and it's consistent with everything stated and seen. It's genuine. I'm sorry to say this but the fact that you're only now trying to say that the guidebook should not have been used, even though it helps make things consistent and give everyone a clear view of what the hell it is we've been discussing here, only shows you're willing to be dishonest with your arguments for the sake of helping your case.
IIRC they never used cloaking tech in the film, but I assume this is like a retroactive retcon or whatever. So cool.
I don't remember if they did, but it doesn't matter because the info is still there. The Visual Dictionary is practically notes from the film-makers. Which is why AoS also showed those same Quinjets from A1 having stealth technology. They didn't pull this stuff out of their arses and decided to give those Quinjets cloaking tech all of sudden.
The funny thing is, Fury couldn't track the Quinjet Bucky and Cap stole in Civil War either - and it appeared to most likely be one of the Quinjets from the Avengers/AoS since it had foldable wings, not like the ones you have from TWS. If anything, this means that the earlier Quinjets which Coulson stole actually have feats for their stealth tech, while your Insight Helicarrier and Quinjets don't have any. IIRC, no one could track Cap and his team down while they were using this Quinjet, and they used it for probably like a couple years in between Civil War and Infinity War.
Incorrect. Tony made multiple Quinjets for the Avengers, as we see in Age of Ultron, it is not just the one Banner took and got lost with. The Quinjet in the airport is one of those Quinjets from the Avengers HQ that Team Iron Man came to the airport with. You can just look at its design. There's even a personal weapons vault for Widow in there, from which Bucky took the firearm he carried in the next films. So Fury being unable to pinpoint the location of that Avengers' Quinjet and Black Panther's own aircraft, does nothing for you. I myself made it clear from the beginning that Stark's (and later on, Shuri's as well) stealth tech was the only thing keeping him from tracking anyone in the world down.
Just to make sure everyone understands this by now, these are the three versions of the Quinjet shown in the films:
S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjet from The Avengers (2012), Insight Quinjet from The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers Quinjet from Infinity War (2018)
And Coulson's team stole that first, early version shown in The Avengers, as I already showed, and reverse-engineered that cloaking technology for their own aircrafts. Fury said that Stark's stealth tech in the Avengers' Quinjet was why he couldn't track down Banner. The Zephyr does not have stealth technology Fury could not see through.
This is hardly a feat. There's so much wrong with this. First of all, the U.S. Air Force does not have access to "better satellites" than Fury. I literally mentioned as soon as my opening post and then repeated that Fury and Hill have access to every single satellite orbiting the earth from inside their SUV in the streets of New York. Second, you're giving Talbot way too much credit to make this impressive. Let's revisit S1, right after the show's connection with The Winter Soldier, where this exact same thing happened with the U.S. Air Force and the team. The events I'll explain below all take place in the show, and chronologically, right after the end of the film. Keep in mind that, by that point, there is no "S.H.I.E.L.D." anymore. I will provide as much visual evidence as possible, I cannot possibly ask everyone to watch all these episodes. Now:
Season 1, Episode 18: Providence.
Coulson's team has successfully retaken the Hub, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s smaller HQ, and Talbot contacts the base to let Coulson know that he's coming for some "questions" for all the remaining agents after S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fall. Coulson agrees, but when Talbot dismisses him, he says that he knows the government is up to no good for them, so he instead takes his team, Agent May, FitzSimmons, Skye and Tripplet on the run abroad the Bus. This little dialogue between Fitz and Coulson I brought up earlier in the debate takes place at that time, when they're preparing to leave, as you'll see in the video. Source: [1], [2].
After arriving on the Hub and seeing they're not there, Talbot declares them fugitives and starts hunting them down.
Coulson's team flies to Canada after learning of a secret base Fury had on the mountains codenamed "Providence". They arrive there successfully, and Coulson says they need to travel on foot to locate the base when they reach the general vicinity, as a NATO satellite is going to pass above their location and track the Bus within the next hours, so the government will know they're there. Fortunately, they manage to get in, and also hide the Bus.
Season 1, Episode 19: The Only Light in the Darkness.
Grant Ward arrives in Providence with another plane, with Coulson's team still unaware that he's Hydra. Coulson wants to start securing powered-inviduals that were under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watch that would now go wild, and he starts by one in Portland. He takes FitzSimmons and Tripp with him and they leave on the plane Ward brought.
After May leaves Providence, Ward finds himself free to kill Agent Koenig, the one who ran the base, and take Skye abroad the Bus to leave. Before that though, Skye leaves a message behind to let Coulson know that Ward is Hydra.
Season 1, Episode 20: Nothing Personal.
Coulson's team returns to Providence, and they find out Ward is Hydra and that he's with her on the Bus. Coulson has FitzSimmons repair the communication systems to track down the Bus. They do, and the Providence's systems -- as in Fury's resources, by the way -- track the plane down in Los Angeles.
Talbot and his forces arrive in Providence to arrest Coulson and the team ("chasing four agents in the damn tundra"). Coulson asks how they tracked them down, and it is revealed that Maria Hill did, and led the military there. Source: [1], [2]. Talbot talks about how they're fugitives and not agents anymore because S.H.I.E.L.D. does not exist, and Hill tells Coulson that Talbot will let them off the hook if he gives him some superficial intel for the government. However, Coulson convinces her to help him get out of this mess, and they escape the base to go find Ward and Skye.
So yeah, this is how good Talbot is at tracking down aircrafts. These outdated S.H.I.E.L.D. planes with absolutely no stealth technology of note, were able to evade his resources for days travelling great distances by "flying under radar" whatever that means. The Zephyr evading Talbot and his Air Force is not impressive for cloaking technology. He's a joke next to Fury. The fact that your own video has Yo-yo saying that they were lucky the government hadn't shot them out of the sky means that someone more capable with their resources could have tracked them down. Now, for a little sum-up since this is my last post: we've already established Fury has access to all satellites, we've already established that our Helicarrier's targetting satellites can also pinpoint targets using advanced wavelengths like infrared and UV, and we've established that my team can run automated research on targets using these satellite systems to find your location. None of which you've tried to counter, so I'm fairly sure I don't need to say more on that.
I'll also remind everyone that you confirmed AIDA will teleport from the Zephyr to the Playground/theWatchdogs/whatever and back on your ship, which means her energy/quantum bridge signatures will act as a tracking system, kind of like GPS, for the Zephyr from the moment the battle starts, and Weaver will have knowledge of the vicinity of the Zephyr; this makes our already-easy tracking job through satellites easier, because we can just look at a specific location instead of covering the entire planet. Of course, you chose to teleport in/on (we'll get to that later) the Helicarrier, with off-charts energy teleportation technology, so we'll get another good idea of your general location to focus our tracking and targetting systems on. This last paragraph is not too important, as you'll be tracked down either way, but it's worth noting that you're making it easier with your teleportation stuff. At the end of the day it's also just common sense that you'll approach us though I guess.
I'm not the one who brought up that wiki page. I assumed that since you linked it, you had checked what it said and agreed with it. I just want to be clear on three things here: (1), and this one is for the readers, BS edited the text on the wiki page a day after my post. I did not make up the "near-ultraviolet" cap I mentioned. I just want to be clear on that. (2) you yourself said that those goggles are enough to see through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s strictly own cloaking technology, which is what your team reverse-engineered into their vehicles, and satellites can also see X-ray anyway, they are what X-ray astronomy is based on, and (3) the goggles won't help you anyway now that you've made it clear you start in space. Not that it matters wether or not you can track our Helicarrier down, but just to be clear.
Yeah, no, not even close. Fitz is not the hacker Daisy is, he is a gifted tech guy, you're not going to convince me with vague "hacker scaling"; May explains it in your own video, they were playing defence. Fitz enhancing the security of the base to make it harder for her to break in and retrieve more intel is of no relevance when your argument is that Fitz is going to remotely hack into our next-gen Helicarrier and shut off its systems himself or whatever. This is such an enormous stretch that it borders on illogical.
Even the stuff you showed for Daisy are not all that. That "beat them from a van with a shitty laptop" comment needs to be put in context. She could hack into one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secondary bases and view files for projects Coulson didn't know of because he did not have clearance, hence she "beat" Coulson by knowing about them when he didn't. And in the very beginning of the Pilot, the whole point is that Skye and the Rising Tide could hack into S.H.I.E.L.D. to read some files and send messages to them, but the moment the organization decided to take a course of action for the first time, they found and stopped Skye in minutes. As for her hacking in the Hub's systems, Black Widow could hack into the database of the Triskelion, disable all security protocols, view all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files regardless of clearance levels and only needed omega-level access to release them on the internet. In a few minutes. And remote controlling Quinjets is something Tony Stark can do for fun. S.H.I.E.L.D. and our Helicarriers have more than enough defensive systems against any attempts like those:
You are incorrect again. You can just watch the scene: parts 1, 2 and 3. Hawkeye took out Engine 3 using explosives, and Fury sent Cap and Tony to fix it. Clint then planted those hacking devices inside the control systems and they briefly shut them down alongside Engine 1. Now that two engines were down, the Helicarrier could not stay up in the air, so Tony and Cap hurried to fix Engine 3 like they were supposed to. Tony did nothing to fix Engine 1 or the copmuter systems inside, S.H.I.E.L.D. fixed those and they were fully operational, ready to launch aircrafts, nuclear weapons, access satellites and monitor the Battle of New York without issue minutes later. And the Insight Helicarriers have repulsor engines, designed by Stark specifically so stuff like this would not happen again, so it's not like you can do anything on the area either.
Fitz does not come close to being good enough to break through these defensive measures and take remote control of the systems simply because he could keep Daisy at bay with the security of one of Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. bases. Offensive hacking is not even comparable to what he did there, I don't even recall him ever doing something like that, and even the old Helicarrier had systems that could detect and hold J.A.R.V.I.S. off, after Tony manually planted a device to connect, something he had to do to get access, not even the remote stuff you want Fitz to do. (And you want to do it from space no less?) -- and that was merely to access files, not shutting down entire systems like you want to achieve. We've even got a master hacker on the team with resources that allow us to deal with much more advanced malware and security systems than what you can dish out.
The same applies to your hijacker device, just because it worked on the Bus, an outdated plane from the 90s, it doesn't mean it's going to do anything to us. And you keep ignoring that someone needs to plant it onto the actual computer systems. The only way you could get inside to try and do that would be having AIDA teleport, and I established as soon as the first post that if she approaches the control room she's gonna get her head filled with bullets. Not that it matters, the hijacker is doing nothing to us.
IV. Your plan of attack // General counters.
Keep in mind that most of the below are secondary counters, in that your team will not ever get the chance to use the tactics presented in this section. We'll know where you are the moment this battle starts -- or the moment you are on earth, I guess -- and we'll kill you that moment too. There is, however, one crucial point I've highlighted in the end, because your entire gameplan cannot function in practice.
That conversation was a different scene, which could have taken place at least partly concurrently as Davis kept shooting AIDA. You also conveniently cut the audio of Fitz yelling that AIDA can't be stopped (and May even agrees with him later in the gif once she remembers the Inhuman powers AIDA has), lol. As for headshots, in your gif Davis walks right above her body and shoots her point blank, presumably at her head. So I don't see why she can't survive that.
I apologise, I don't know why the audio was off, I have everything uploaded on Gfycat with audio on automatically, for some reason it did not happen with the last two gifs -- I can assure you and everyone it was not deliberate or "convenient" as the video I linked where Yo-Yo asks why they can't cut off her head required audio to make my point, and it didn't have it either. What's convenient for sure is you cutting off that entire conversation between AIDA going down and healing again -- no, Davis clearly did not shoot her in the head, we see her healing her wounds as she gets back up and it's all in her torso and chest. And the conversation did not take place concurrently, because Piper straight up says that "Davis put her down". She was already down by the time they were talking.
I could not care less if you think she could heal from a headshot, or "intent butcheries". You keep mentioning that you are against no limit falacies but using that statement from a panicked Fitz is exactly that. They did not show her getting shot in the head once -- same deal with many of the enhanced they fight in AoS for some reason, May tried to shoot down LMDs but wouldn't go for the head, and they didn't even try against Hive. Maybe they want to study their brains or whatever next, maybe it's just to be family friendly, or maybe there's no real logic behind it. It's not my issue. They showed her going down to regular bullets shot at her body. The burden of proof is on you since you're suggesting she could possibly take Natasha filling her head with bullets that could penetrate Chitauri metal armor and shatter parts of it enough that little bits and pieces pop off. Because she can fire a handful of those in less than a second using a single handgun, as I showed in my opening post. And even if you somehow proved she could survive that, they could always just behead her with the Glaive or any basic bladed weapon while she's down. No one is stepping on that control room and getting out.
Yeah, Fitz was the guy who disabled it in under 10 minutes. Fitz also created the toned down version himself in even less time with 0 resources - and we can see that it did trigger the weapons. Finally, Fitz said that the only thing that was important was the core, which was in the toned down version - the rest of it just served to amplify the sonic vibrations before emitting them. I see no reason why Fitz can't join a bunch of metal pipes around his smaller version in order to amplify the sonic vibrations, before firing. Especially since he was able to the arguably more difficult job of modifying it into a standalone weapon within literal minutes and all by himself. With help from AIDA + LMDs + Simmons, it should be even easier to just add some piping around the weapon, LOL.
Relax, he did not "create" or "modify" anything. He disabled it, as in separated it from that large power source without activating it, and used it without that source amplifying its radius. S.H.I.E.L.D. later just designed more devices based on that. You're going to have to prove a lot of things here for the Overkill device to be of use in this battle: (1) that you can find or build a power source great enough to amplify the radius and use it effectively, "adding some piping" is not going to cut it. And you need to prove that they can do that within 60 minutes along with all the other absurd things you want them to do, as well as form a plan of attack and actually think of using all these things you want them to in that time. (2) you're going to have to give a quantifiable measure for the radius of the weapon. We never saw it in action beyond its basic function of single-target weapons. You're basing your argument that you can somehow trigger or disable every weapon on a 1,400 ft. long Helicarrier on a single vague statement by Victoria Hand that "We believe it can trigger weapons from a great distance". (3) lastly, you're going to have to prove that the Overkill device is also not going to trigger the weapons on the Zephyr and kill you if they use it with a power source amplifying its radius, because it was made clear in the episode that it was going to release sonic vibrations at 360 degrees for a terrorist attack when activated remotely, nothing like the focused base version of the device that works like a gun.
The fate of humanity is not at stake here. And this is contradicting your point: if they programmed Enoch to kill themselves (apologies: is that even a gramatically correct phrase?) they obviously don't put each other's lives above all. Not that you will get the chance to use the things you want to use successfully, but you're not making any convincing argument that their very first course of action of all things would be to go for the kill without qualms. I shouldn't even dignify what you said about my team's morals with a response. Cap's "inspiring moral code" isn't doing anything to trained killers. Fury legitimately shoots down pilots for not obeying his orders, and he and Hill did not think a second before trying to murder Clint, one of their oldest, most loyal friends and agents, mind controlled. Natasha was raised to kill without remorse since she was a child. None of this remotely implies they won't use lethal means to shoot down rogue agents working alongside a super-powered, psychopathic robot and a well known Hydra low-life. And none of them gave up "spy life" after the film anyway, literally the first thing everyone did was disappear to form new identities and prioritize global security from the shadows.
I don't think that there are any defenses that exist against EMPs that powerful, so assuming that the Helicarriers have tech that doesn't exist is even sillier. Your argument is fine if you can actually prove that there does exist tech that could reasonably defend against an EMP directed at the Helicarrier. All the EMP Shielding defenses I could find on the internet were basically just surge protectors which you plug into the electrical grid and then your computer connects to the grid through the surge protector instead of directly. This means that an EMP which affects the grid would burn out the surge protector but not your device. The Helicarrier obviously doesn't plug into the grid, and the EMP will be directed directly at the Helicarrier itself rather than an outside power source. So if you can prove that there exists tech which could be used to shield vehicles like aircraft carriers or whatever from an EMP, then yeah, this is a fair argument. If not, you're basically making up sci-fi tech which doesn't exist either IRL or in the MCU.
So you did not read the article I linked? Even if I assume Simmons could replicate such an EMP from scratch within an hour, what you're describing is EMP shielding used at home when a storm hits or something. The government, military, nuclear power plants and so on use actual radiation hardening. They design and build electronics that can resist extreme levels of all types of radiation, including electromagnetic radiation, such as the electromagnetic pulse resulting from a nuclear blast, which can shut down or destroy electronics within miles worth of radius.
"Radiation hardening involves designing radiation-tolerant electronics and components that are tolerant of the massive levels of ionizing radiation, such as cosmic outer space radiation and high energy radiation within nuclear power plants. In order to test these components and determine whether they are sufficiently hardened, radiation hardened electronics manufacturers perform rigorous testing as part of their manufacturing processes. Components which pass these tests go into production and can be described as “radiation hardened”; components which do not go back to design.
Radiation hardening and survivability testing is primarily a need of the aerospace and defense sectors. Defense systems and infrastructure which are expected to remain functioning in the vicinity of a nuclear detonation must be tolerant of large amounts of radiation produced by the explosion, meaning they rely on radiation-hardened electronics. In addition, these systems must be able to remain functional in the event of secondary radiation effects, such as an electromagnetic pulse. For that functionality to be maintained through an event where these systems are exposed to high levels of radiation, we require radiation-hardened electronics to be used in the design."
So since you agreed that my argument is fair as long as these defences do exist and are actively used by the government, it should end the discussion here.
Once that's done, my team uses the Zephyr's jump drive to teleport into (not on) the Helicarrier
Of all the bizarre things you've said so far... right. I assumed you meant you're going to teleport on the deck when you mentioned the Zephyr's teleportation, because what you're trying to do here is impossible. The Zephyr cannot teleport inside the Helicarrier. The Zephyr cannot even fit inside the Helicarrier. Here's what the inside of an Insight Helicarrier looks like:
Insight Helicarrier Concept Art from Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: S6E01: Missing Pieces (2019), S7E13: What We're Fighting For (2020)
A literal space-time portal that's 10 times bigger than the Zephyr itself, which is already far too big to fit inside the Helicarrier, sucks it in and launches it out at speeds so high it looks like a deformed blur image as it jumps out. The actual function of the jump drive -- the teleportation device added to the Zephyr -- is to allow the team to travel through the cosmos in space vacuum to search for Fitz. There's a reason they're not using this stuff for stealth missions like you're trying to do. You try and teleport inside the Helicarrier, your team will immediately crush and kill themselves. This is a very poorly thought out strategy.
V. Closing Thoughts.
Nothing's actually changed for me. Except, I guess, I realized how unimportant it is wether you can track our Helicarrier or not.
You've not shown something to suggest we won't be able to see through your stealth technology. It should be of no issue whatsoever, especially when you add in the fact that your teleportation -- wether that's AIDA's or the Zephyr One's -- will give away your position to add. Trying to hack the Helicarrier is a terrible idea, for you. Not only would you be unable to accomplish anything, we can actually counter-attack, trace the signal back and take the Zephyr out ourselves if you do that.
You cannot actually teleport inside our Helicarrier with the Zephyr. This is by all means non-sensical. I mean, I guess you can, but it is an active suicide attempt. Best thing you can do is teleport anywhere around the Helicarrier, which will also get you killed, but A for effort.
LMDs, Overkill devices, EMPs, hijackers, other forms of hacking, they all remain useless at the end of the day.
At this point, it does not even matter, because you cannot touch us or save yourself regardless, but the time-stream is not as reliable and consistent as you seem to think it is.
@blackspidey2099 This got a tad bigger than I planned, but that's prep debates for you, lol. Anyway, I'll close with this once again, I truly think it's representative of the battle: we're the predator, and you the prey.
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