Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. kicked off season 5 by separating Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team from everyone and everything they know - except the Framework. Season 5 kicked off with the Agents being launched into not just outer space but the future. It's an entirely new scenario rife with numerous mysteries - the foremost being How was the Earth destroyed in the future? and How will the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. get back to the present? The Framework could be the key everything.

The Framework is one of the most versatile concepts Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever introduced and it's telling that it has been imported into the new season while almost everything else has been jettisoned. The Agents are now an untold number of years in the future where the Earth has been destroyed, humanity's history and records are gone, and what's left of the human race is huddled in a space station called the Lighthouse under the dominion of the Kree. Yet, miraculously, the Framework remains.

Related: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: How Was Earth Destroyed?

WHAT IS THE FRAMEWORK?

Agents of SHIELD Framework Phil Coulson

The focal point of the third pod of season 4, the Framework was the virtual reality world controlled by HYDRA that AIDA (Mallory Jansen) tried to use as a way to ultimately create a human body for herself in the real world and the replace our reality with the Framework's HYDRA-controlled reality. Originally, however, it was a simulation program designed by Leopold Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) for the use of training S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in a safe virtual reality environment.

Dr. Holden Radcliffe (John Hannah) used the Framework technology to imprison Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) when he and AIDA replaced her with a Life Model Decoy to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. and spy on them. May's consciousness rebelled against the simplistic virtual reality loop she was trapped in, which allowed her to escape the Framework. Radcliffe then redesigned the Framework with the supernatural elements of the Darkhold into a more sophisticated alternative digital reality that would address and correct the user's greatest regret. For May, it was the incident in Bahrain where she gained the nickname 'the Cavalry.'

When AIDA captured Agents Phil Coulson, Fitz, Mac Mackenzie (Henry Simmons), and Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara), she uploaded their consciousnesses into the Framework, which then corrected their biggest regret and remapped its virtual reality in response. The result was an alternate reality where HYDRA gained domination of the world, which Agents Simmons and Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennet) discovered when they uploaded themselves into the Framework to rescue their teammates.

They found Fitz became the Doctor, the malevolent second in command of HYDRA and the lover of its leader AIDA, now styled as Madame Hydra. Coulson was a history teacher who instructed on the dangers of Inhumans, while Mace led a Resistance that counted Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) among its ranks. Other long dead former Agents like Antoine Triplett (B.J. Britt) were alive and well. Mace was later killed in the Framework; if a person dies while in the Framework, their physical body in the real world also dies.

AIDA's plan was to use Fitz to fulfill Project Looking Glass and create a machine that would give her a human body in the real world. She would then delete the Framework, killing the Agents still trapped inside it. Ultimately, the Agents were able to escape the Framework before the entire virtual reality was deleted, and Coulson made a deal to use the supernatural power of Ghost Rider to destroy AIDA. The virtual reality of the Framework ceased to be, and our reality was saved.

THE FRAMEWORK RELOADED

After arriving in the future and meeting Deke (Jeff Ward), an opportunistic scavenger, Daisy Johnson discovered Deke ran a business where people in the Lighthouse could pay to escape into the virtual reality of the Framework. This was looked upon favorably by their Kree masters as it allowed the humans a fantasy world which would help keep them docile.

Related: Avengers: Infinity War Probably Won't Affect Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

When Daisy entered this rebooted version of the Framework (a name that Deke hadn't heard before but instantly adopted), she learned from Deke that his hardware interface is based on the original Framework tech. Deke rebuilt the software from scratch because the Kree had Earth's historical archives erased, but Deke managed to get ahold of the Framework's servers and pieced his imperfect simulation of 21st century Los Angeles bit by bit, though he admittedly used a lot of guesswork to fill in the blanks. (For instance, there's beer in the Framework but he had no idea what actual beer tasted like.)

However, the survival of the Framework into this apocalyptic future may be the key to how the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can ultimately save the world...

HOW THE FRAMEWORK COULD SAVE THE WORLD

Despite Deke claiming he pieced together enough information to determine that it was Daisy's Inhuman Quake powers that destroyed the world, and the Agents comically rejecting the very idea of the Framework at the beginning of the season 5 premiere episode, this miraculously persistent virtual reality program could be the show's deus ex machina.

As Deke and another survivor who befriended the Agents, Tess (Eve Harlow), explained, when the world was destroyed, the Kree arrived to restore order and brought the surviving humans to the Lighthouse. They deleted all historical records, data and media, leaving generations who were born and grew up in the Lighthouse without much more than fleeting knowledge of human history. However, there is still the Framework, which contains multitudes of data in its servers about the Earth's history, culture, geography, etc., albeit incomplete.

Related: Quake Is The Most Powerful Inhuman

Still, the Framework becomes the obvious tool by which the Agents can piece together what actually happened to the Earth and how it was destroyed. The Framework contains the most accurate information about the Earth available, which can be put to better use than a mere Star Trek holodeck for people in the Lighthouse to live out their fantasies of what Earth was like in the distant past. The Framework contains forbidden knowledge (which makes it surprising and curious that the Kree are so nonchalant about humans having access to it).

Chloe Bennet as Daisy Quake Johnson, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson and Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons in Agents of SHIELD

According to the True Believers on the Lighthouse, somehow the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would come to save humanity. Their very arrival in the future via a Kree Monolith is already curious. They were mysteriously abducted by someone who looked like a Kree in posing as a human who headed up an unnamed group of agents. It's possible there are rogue elements of the Kree in 2017 who are 'working the problem' of the destroyed world in the future and using our heroes as pawns in their plan. But why send the Agents to the future unawares and unarmed?

There's also the matter of Fitz, who was "not on the list" of Agents to be sent to the future and was left behind in 2017. When they first arrived in the Lighthouse, the Agents found an ancient postcard from Fitz among the corpses in the lower decks. The inscription on the postcard? Working the problem - Fitz

Knowing Fitz, he didn't take the disappearance of Jemma and his friends lying down and he is no doubt actively trying to help find the Agents from his end in the past. (We know he'll even recruit old allies like Lance Hunter.) For Fitz, the way to reach Jemma and his team in the future would be through the Framework, which somehow survived the cataclysm and remains functional. Though separated by untold centuries, Fitz could appear in the future in virtual form via the Framework. Fitz could also possibly find a way to communicate with his team through the Framework from 2017. Either method could bring the missing Fitz to join the action with his friends in the future.

Related: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Cast Don't Believe FitzSimmsons is Cursed

The Framework technology has also been previously enhanced through supernatural means by the Darkhold. Even if that ancient evil book is currently in the nether realms thanks to Ghost Rider, Coulson may still maintain a connection to the Rider and the ability to summon him. The Ghost Rider could bring the Darkhold back into play to enhance the Framework Deke cobbled together. Also, Kree technology seems to be more and more prevalent in the series. A Kree Monolith sent the Agents to the future just as a different Monolith previously sent Simmons light years across space to another planet. Could another Kree Monolith somehow interface with the Framework and bring forth answers to season 5's mysteries?

With season 5 just begun, there's no telling where this story will take the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is a huge part of the fun of this outer space future scenario. However, there are certainly clues to be found for what could happen, not just with whom the Agents involuntarily left behind, but with what they found somehow survived to greet them in the future - the Framework. The answers to the biggest questions of the season are somewhere in its data servers, waiting to be discovered.

NEXT: SEASON 5 SUCCESSFULLY SOFT REBOOTS AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Fridays @ 9pm on ABC.