A certain American comic book's secondary profession master

Chapter 172 Steel Legion
“Alexander Pierce, I think you need to give us an explanation regarding the launch of the spaceship!” At this moment, the other four members of the Security Council at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters also initiated a remote meeting to question Alexander Pierce about the launch of the spaceship.

For a global intelligence agency like S.H.I.E.L.D. with such extensive authority and high degree of freedom.

The operation of the five major mobile vendors is strictly regulated.

This is why there are repeated scenes in the movie where the four board members boss around S.H.I.E.L.D.

As for why there are only four council members among the five major vendors.

Of course, it's because the remaining one is the representative from the United States, who is also a minister of the council—Alexander Pierce.

Before he revealed his identity as the head of Hydra, he was in cahoots with Director Nick Fury.

Now, the supervisory and oversight agency above S.H.I.E.L.D. has suddenly discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s latest major weapon project, the Space Battleship, has been launched.

They would naturally want to know.

“Explanation? Does this even need an explanation? The director of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been attacked by an unknown force, and several high-ranking agents have defected. S.H.I.E.L.D. is currently facing a crisis. In order to prevent the situation from deteriorating further, I think it is absolutely necessary to activate the space battleship. Besides, new weapons always need to be tested, don’t they?” Alexander Pierce explained calmly to the board members.

"Is that so? But before the attack, we received a warning from Maria Hill, the deputy director of S.H.I.E.L.D., indicating the presence of Hydra within S.H.I.E.L.D. And the attack on Nick Fury happened almost simultaneously. I don't think that's a coincidence, is it?" the representative from the East questioned.

“A lie, a complete lie. On the contrary, my intelligence indicates that there are no Hydra remnants. The prime suspect in Nick Fury’s attack is Maria Hill, who has now defected. I urge the board members not to be misled by their lies,” Alexander Pierce said calmly.

Anyway, Nick Fury is dead now.

Maria Hill and a few other former Fury agents have been listed as defectors and are wanted by the authorities.

The main relevant evidence was also recovered.

Now he has the final say in everything at S.H.I.E.L.D.

Therefore, they are not afraid of these council members investigating and pursuing the matter thoroughly.

The problem now is with Tony Stark and Peggy Carter...

Nick Fury's unusual behavior began after his meeting with Tony Stark during the Hand's attack on Carter's Group.

Therefore, Alexander Pierce suspected that Tony Stark and Peggy Carter might know something.

After all, it was these two that cooperated to destroy their two bases in Austria and Sokovia.

Although based on the intelligence we received at the time, Strucker and Whitehall should have been dead, and the main related information should not have been leaked.

Theoretically, he shouldn't be involved.

But there's always the risk of an unexpected event.

However, due to Tony Stark's special status, he couldn't take action openly.

Therefore, the only option is to target Peggy Carter first.

Sending the spaceship into the air was also largely a safeguard—Alexander Pierce wasn't sure if Tony Stark would defy public opinion and directly attack S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

"Sir, news from the hospital is that Chief Nick Fury's body is missing." Just then, Alexander Pierce's secretary rushed into the office and whispered in his ear.

“What’s going on?” Alexander Pierce asked, frowning.

"I don't know. There were people guarding the hospital the whole time, but the body just vanished into thin air," the secretary replied helplessly.

“…Alright, everyone, I have some trouble to deal with, so I'll have to excuse myself!” Alexander Pierce forced a smile at the board members, then prepared to end the video call before they could reply.

But at that moment, the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. was broadcasting, and Tony's voice came through.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Tony Stark."

“You’ve probably heard a lot in the last few days, including the assassination of Director Nick Fury and the defection of Deputy Director Maria Hill, Phil Collison, and other senior agents.”

"But I'm telling you, all of this is a Hydra conspiracy!"

"Hydra has been hiding inside S.H.I.E.L.D., and Alexander Pierce, the Secretary of Security, is their leader." "Nick Fury discovered their plot, which is why he was assassinated."

At that moment, the remote meeting in Alexander Pierce's office was still in progress, and several board members all looked at him.

Alexander Pierce, not wanting to waste any more words with them, decisively ended the remote meeting.

Then, operational orders were issued to the special forces and aerospace warships.

“Nick Fury discovered their plot, which is why he was assassinated.”

"To prevent the situation from escalating, I will take over all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s affairs on behalf of the superhero organization, the League. Please do not resist."

And that accompanied his speech.

Large numbers of steel soldiers began to descend from the distant clouds.

There are tens of thousands of them, densely packed together.

In the original timeline, Tony's Iron Man soldiers were limited in number, not because of insufficient production speed—this can be seen in Iron Man 2, where the Hammer Corporation was able to produce so many Iron Man soldiers in a short period of time.

The real limitation on the Steel Legion is that Jarvis, the artificial intelligence controlling the Steel Legion, lacks sufficient computing power to control too many Steel Soldiers.

Hammer Corporation's steel soldiers can only be controlled by humans via computers, performing monotonous operations according to relatively simple programs.

Therefore, if we want the steel soldiers to perform more precise tasks, the best option is to let artificial intelligence control them.

However, Jarvis at that time obviously could not achieve Tony's goal of creating a massive steel army to protect the entire Earth—his idea was actually similar to the Chitauri army model.

In the Avengers, the Chitauri army that invaded Earth was actually mainly composed of omnic forces, controlled by the core of the mothership.

So once the mothership was destroyed, all the Chitauri troops that had entered Earth were rendered inoperable.

This is why Tony wanted to create Ultron—due to the limitations of technology and materials at the time, Tony couldn't optimize Jarvis from a hardware perspective, so he could only find solutions from a software perspective.

But now the situation is different. By studying the master control program of the spaceship purchased from the raiders, and by acquiring various new materials from the Wildlands and a large amount of vibranium ahead of time, Tony's research on artificial intelligence is progressing quite rapidly.

Vibranium is not only incredibly powerful as a weapon, but it also excels in information storage—a fact evident in the Chimoyu Beads of Wakanda in the movie.

However, in the original timeline, due to Wakanda's strict control over vibranium, Tony's understanding of vibranium was almost entirely limited to Captain America's shield.

Now, with Levi's guidance, Tony naturally wouldn't overlook the benefits of vibranium in this regard.

With the addition of brand-new materials and alien technology.

Jarvis and Friday, while not yet at the level of the Chitauri Mothership Core capable of controlling an army of millions, are still quite powerful.

However, controlling tens of thousands of steel soldiers at once is no longer a major problem.

However, the tens of thousands of Iron Soldiers that have appeared at S.H.I.E.L.D. are only a small part of the Iron Legion that the Alliance possesses.

Many more steel soldiers are actually in the wilderness, and not as soldiers, but as engineering robots, carrying out various engineering construction tasks day and night.

More than six months ago, when Tony and Nick Fury confronted each other, Tony and Levi had already realized that the league, and even some of Stark Industries' industrial production, was no longer suitable to be outsourced.

So from that time onwards, the league began a major relocation operation.

The production lines for the Iron Soldiers have all been relocated to the wilderness.

It's not just about the production line for steel soldiers.

Levi and Tony even planned to establish a complete industrial system in the wilderness to minimize the alliance's reliance on the outside world and avoid being constrained by any national power.

In this way, even if the entire alliance leaves Earth, they don't have to worry about being "robbed" by these old sixes on Earth.

(End of this chapter)