What if
After watching all seasons of Agents of Shield (Although I know it probably is not canon anymore, at least not on the current MCU timeline or multiverse), I am trying to connect the dots between AoS with MCU.
It is known that HYDRA was created as a religious group awaiting the return of its God or savior, Hive, from the alien planet where it is trapped. And according to Arnim Zola in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", from his perspective, "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For seventy years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed. " and "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise.".
So, there are total of three stage/version of HYDRA:
- Religious: to serve Hive, controlled by Malicks
- Scientific/Military: use technology to rule the world, controlled by Red Skull
- Parasite: use politics and fear to rule the world, controlled by Zola/Pierce
Since it was given that the religious version is more ancient, is it possible that their agents influenced Johann Schmidt to go to find the tesseract and try to use it to bring back Hive?
Also, Abraham Erskine (the person who invented the super soldier serum) said the Johann Schmidt "has become convinced that there is a great power. Hidden in the earth. Left here by the gods.", and that's why Red Skull want the serum. Would this be actually referring to aliens like Inhumans and Hive, instead of the tesseract?