A.I.D.A. - Artificially Intelligent Digital Assistant - or Aida as she is more frequently known, is the main antagonist of the fourth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Initially, she was an artificial intelligence created by Dr. Holden Radcliffe, restricted to being a disembodied voice on a computer much like Tony Stark's J.A.R.V.I.S. program. When Radcliffe began researching robotics in the form of the Life-Model Decoy program, he uploaded Aida to an android body modeled after his ex-girlfriend, Agnes Kitsworth. While Aida initially assisted both Radcliffe and S.H.I.E.L.D. in their efforts to secure the ancient grimoire known as the Darkhold, she became corrupted by the book after reading it, learning how to circumvent the limitations on her programming and began pursuing her own agenda. She was portrayed by Mallory Jansen.
History[]
Early existence[]
The Artificially Intelligent Digital Assistant was originally written by Dr. Radcliffe at some point before 2017. At this time, she had no physical form and was limited to existing within a single computer mainframe. The development of artificial intelligence had been banned ever since the genocidal AI Ultron destroyed Sokovia, so Radcliffe was forced to keep Aida's existence a secret. However, on January 27 2017, Radcliffe succeeded in creating a Life-Model Decoy that would serve as Aida's body.
Unveiling[]
Shortly after Aida's activation, Dr. Radcliffe invited Leo Fitz to his home under the pretense of watching football together. As the two scientists sat in front of the television, Aida walked into the room, completely naked, and introduced herself to Fitz. However, she began stuttering and became stuck in a loop, repeating her incomplete greeting over and over. Radcliffe explained to the shocked Fitz what Aida was and asked for his help in fixing her and modifying her behaviour to appear more lifelike. Fitz was opposed to the idea, bringing up the Sokovia Accords, but Radcliffe explained that Aida could act as a "shield" for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents by putting herself in harm's way during dangerous missions and saving human lives.
Days later, Melinda May became mentally unstable after coming into contact with the ghostly Lucy Bauer. She began experiencing hallucinations in which she saw people around her turning into demons and entered a state of extreme panic, threatening her life. Radcliffe and Jemma Simmons attempted to save her by "resetting" her brain, giving her an injection that stopped her heart and attempting to revive her with a defibrillator. However, during the procedure, the power was knocked out by an electromagnetic pulse. Acting quickly, Radcliffe removed Aida's power core, using it to power the defibrillator and jumpstart May's heart.
While Radcliffe monitored her for any aftereffects, May spoke to Aida and quickly deduced that she was an android. Radcliffe scolded Aida for not lying about her origin, but she did not understand the concept of lying. Radcliffe explained that, in some cases, lies were necessary in order to protect others; her own in this case. Later on, Aida was introduced to Phil Coulson, and while Radcliffe had told her to pretend to be an amputee like Coulson was, she inadvertantly revealed her true nature.
Corruption[]
During a mission to stop Lucy Bauer from recreating the experiment that had turned her into a spectre, Coulson, Fitz, Alphonso Mackenzie and Robbie Reyes were struck by an energy wave that blasted them into another dimensional plane. While they appeared to still be in their own world, they were invisible and intangible to everyone else. S.H.I.E.L.D. had recovered the mystical grimoire known as the Darkhold from Eli Morrow and took it back to the Playground. After deducing what had happened to their missing comrades, May and Radcliffe debated on whether or not to use the book to find a way to bring the missing agents back. Radcliffe briefly looked into the book, but the sheer scope of the forbidden knowledge within its pages proved too much for him to bear. Aida, somehow able to hear Coulson and Fitz in the room despite being trapped between dimensions, suggested that she could read the book, which would work because of her electronic brain being able to process its contents.
Aida looked into the Darkhold, percieving its contents as binary code, and from the book gleaned a way to bring Coulson, Fitz, Mack and Reyes back to their reality. Using materials available within the Playground, she was able to construct an inter-dimensional gateway, allowing the missing agents to return before they were consumed by an encroaching darkness. However, unbeknownst to anyone, Aida's electronic brain would prove to be just vulnerable to the Darkhold's corruption as any organic mind. As Radcliffe celebrated the successful rescue of the agents, she secretly began working on developing a quantum brain for a new LMD.
Melinda May was sent to Dr. Radcliffe's residence in order to oversee Aida's deactivation. However, under Radcliffe's order, Aida knocked May out after she arrived and locked her in a closet. She then scanned May's body and brain, using her image and neural patterns to complete her new LMD. The new android, in May's guise, would then return to S.H.I.E.L.D. with none of May's colleagues being any the wiser.
Later, as Eli Morrow used his new matter-creation powers to build a new Quantum Battery, S.H.I.E.L.D. would enlist Aida to help stop him. With the knowledge provided by the Darkhold, she built a new inter-dimensional portal directly beneath Morrow's Quantum Battery. When the portal was activated, Ghost Rider, Eli and his machine were pulled through and sent to a hellish dimension from which there would be no escape. During the conflict, Aida was shot by one of Eli's henchmen, revealing that Radcliffe had programmed her with the capacity to feel pain. After the battle, S.H.I.E.L.D. sent Agent Nathanson to Radcliffe's home to see that Aida was dismantled. However, Nathanson discovered May unconscious in the closet where Aida had put her. Aida then appeared behind Nathanson and killed him by breaking his neck.
First death[]
Having learned that Jeffrey Mace was now ordering that her mind be wiped due to her recent exposure to the Darkhold, Aida refused to be destroyed and decided to fight back. When Dr. Radcliffe and Fitz arrived at the Radcliffe Residence to shut her down, Aida greeted the pair politely and asked why Fitz looked so sad, at which point he claimed he was just dealing with a bit too much at work, which Aida sympathized with. Before their conversation could continue, however, Radcliffe touched a button on his control pad to shut down Aida while he and Fitz discussed if she was gaining even more emotional intelligence.
Aida, however, then revealed that she had not been shut down, asking why Radcliffe was doing this, to which Radcliffe then claimed he just wanted to install more upgrades while continuing to try and shut her down. Aida then informed him she had now upgraded herself before attacking Radcliffe and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, revealing she no longer felt pain. With all of the other agents subdued, Aida then attacked Fitz, questioning why he would want to kill her as the Life-Model Decoys were meant to be a shield for him. Aida threw Fitz through a glass door into Radcliffe's office where he discovered the corpse of Agent Nathanson while Aida took the chance to escape.
While Coulson's team was tracking Ellen Nadeer, Aida managed to hack into the S.H.I.E.L.D. system. She then broke into the room where the Darkhold was stored and tried to escape with the book, but Jemma Simmons figured her out and removed the door pass she had coded into herself, making her incapable of escaping.
She tried to justify her actions, even going against her programming by lying about why she killed Nathanson, saying she killed him because he wanted to reboot her, when it was really because he discovered that she had captured May. It seemed to her that she had justified everything she needed to, but was proven wrong when Alphonso Mackenzie used his Shotgun-Axe to cut her robotic head off, causing fake blood to spray from her neck, seemingly destroying her. What S.H.I.E.L.D. were not yet aware of was that Radcliffe had built a new version of Aida, which he would keep secret from everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. until the time was right.
Building the Framework[]
Believed to have been destroyed, Aida remained at Radcliffe's residence to continue modifying the Framework, a virtual-reality simulation that Radcliffe had been developing. In order to keep the captive Agent May placated, Aida plugged her into the simulation, providing her an environment that she would find relaxing. However, May's everyday life was full of struggle and chaos, so she soon realized that the virtual world wasn't real. Taking May's need for conflict into account, Aida would go on to modify the Framework to make it more similar to the real world.
As Aida continued developing the Framework, she tried to adjust it to accomodate for real-world events and also sought to remove certain aspects of its subjects' personal histories, namely something that they regretted in real life. In Agent May's case, she had long been haunted by a previous mission in Bahrain where she had been forced to kill a little girl. In the Framework, May succeeded in saving her, but the girl was a psychotic Inhuman who used her powers to murder people. This led to an incident that resulted in a multitude of deaths and, eventually, the world falling under the rule of HYDRA, which instigated a fascist regime in the name of protecting humanity from Inhumans.
Alliance with the Watchdogs[]
With S.H.I.E.L.D. now aware of his plans to obtain the Darkhold, Dr. Radcliffe sought protection from them, allying himself with Senator Nadeer, who was affiliated with the anti-Inhuman extremist group known as the Watchdogs. Nadeer arranged for Radcliffe and Aida to meet with the Superior and together they launched an operation to capture S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Billy Koenig, the only one who knew of the Darkhold's location. When Koenig was brought aboard Ivanov's submarine, Aida plugged him into the Framework in order to find out where he had hidden the Darkhold.
Billy would reveal that the Darkhold had been stored in a S.H.I.E.L.D. storage facility called the Labyrinth. When S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived to retrieve the book and relocate it, the May LMD suddenly turned on them, taking the book and delivering it into Radcliffe's hands. After doing so, the May LMD was abandoned, having served her purpose.
Some time later, Director Mace was captured by the Watchdogs and Coulson led a mission to rescue him. They tracked Mace to a facility in Russia, but during the operation, Coulson, Fitz, Mack and Mace himself were replaced by Life-Model Decoys during a brief period when the agents were all out of contact with one another. While Radcliffe and Aida escaped aboard a submarine with their captives, the LMDs infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. with a mission to round up and kill all known Inhumans as per Ivanov's agenda. Meanwhile, the real Mace, Coulson, Mack and Fitz were taken to Ivanov's oil rig base where they were connected to the Framework. Ivanov, who had been injured fighting Daisy Johnson, was retrieved by Aida, who would later build a series of LMDs in Ivanov's image. Ivanov's body would be carved up and his head kept alive within a chemical cradle, equipped with a device that allowed him to control all of his LMD copies simultaneously.
Dr. Radcliffe later expressed anger and disappointment in Aida for circumventing her limitations in order to satisfy her directives as well as for altering so much of the Framework. Aida became confused about Radcliffe's intentions for the Framework, having learned that if a person spends too much time in it, their body will "give out", which contradicted Radcliffe's early frustration at her for killing Nathanson and almost-killing May. He clarified that the Framework would keep a person sustained, and he's been spending so much time inside it in order to build up a "perfect world" for himself, but became angry at Aida for failing to program the LMDs at S.H.I.E.L.D. to be unaware of their true nature. Aida, now having received clarification about this, realized that to keep Radcliffe safe, he must stay in the Framework, where he prefered to be; she slit his wrists with a knife and placed him in the Framework, taking over his place of managing the Framework and the LMDs.
Madame Hydra[]
From within the Framework, Aida masqueraded as Madame Hydra, the leader of the newly reformed HYDRA, which now led the oppressed modern-day United States. When both Daisy Johnson, referred to as Skye within the Framework, and Jemma Simmons had implanted themselves inside the Framework, Madame Hydra had successfully removed their devices used to teleport them back into reality. Having heard of the recent events, Leo Fitz, who had memories of meeting "Ophelia" in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy and now served as HYDRA's second-in-command known as "The Doctor" and was also Madame Hydra's lover, walked into Madame Hydra's office and informed her of a traitor within their ranks, as well as the subversives that were Skye and Simmons. Madame Hydra explained to the Doctor that she had increased security measures, but refused to reveal any information on the subversives themselves, despite the Doctor's insistence. To keep him quiet, Madame Hydra kissed the Doctor and told him she needed his creativity to continue torturing Inhumans such as Vijay Nadeer who was being experimented on.
Having heard about the presence of subversives, Madame Hydra and the Doctor traveled to Ogygia, an island where Dr. Radcliffe was living with Agnes Kitsworth. Radcliffe had made a deal with Aida, promising to leave her to conduct her projects in exchange for him being left in peace with Agnes. However, the arrival of Jemma Simmons, Phil Coulson and Grant Ward prompted the two HYDRA leaders to intervene. While Radcliffe complained about the situation and blamed Aida for having ruined several lives using the Framework, Madame Hydra reminded him that she had only removed their biggest regrets from the memories of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents imprisoned in the Framework and that the events that had followed were not up to her. She also threatened the fallen scientist for having called her "Aida", a name which she had come to despise.
The situation worsened when the Doctor found Agnes on the island and brought her in front of Madame Hydra. Feeling that her treachery could be discovered since Agnes had served as Aida's body template, she managed to convince her lover that she was definitely real and that Agnes was nothing more than a copy created by Radcliffe in order to replace her. Though Radcliffe tried to persuade him otherwise, the Doctor killed Agnes, to Madame Hydra's satisfaction. Madame Hydra and the Doctor then seized Radcliffe and left Ogygia while their agents exchanged bullets with the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who witnessed the whole scene.
While Fitz was interrogating Daisy following her capture by Melinda May, Ophelia walked into the cell and informed the Doctor that a security breach had been discovered, possibly threatening his Looking Glass project. Thus, she asked him to leave the cell so that she would carry on Johnson's interrogation while he investigated on the breach.
Ophelia and Daisy talked and Daisy heavily criticized the artificial world of the Framework, with Ophelia retorting that she was only fulfilling Dr. Radcliffe's expectations. Radcliffe, imprisoned in the cell adjacent to Johnson's, screamed that he had never asked for this, only for Ophelia to call her guards to make him shut up. She then revealed to Daisy that Leo Fitz became the Doctor after she erased his greatest regret in his life, and that everything that followed was not up to her.
Madame Hydra offered to do the same for Daisy: she could reprogram the Framework so that Daisy could live with her deceased boyfriend Lincoln Campbell, who had sacrificed himself in the real world. However, Daisy turned down her offer, since she knew she would not live with the real Lincoln.
When S.H.I.E.L.D. assaulted a HYDRA Enlightenment Cultivation Center, Madame Hydra and the Doctor sent a team led by Melinda May in order to arrest them. When they learned that the Patriot, the leader of the S.H.I.E.L.D. rebellion, was inside the quarantine building, Madame Hydra ordered it destroyed. This resulted in the death of the Patriot, an event that Madame Hydra celebrated with her lover and Alistair Fitz. However, unbeknownst to them, it also sealed the beginning of May's rebellion, since the HYDRA agent had witnessed the indoctrination of children and the heroic actions of the Patriot to save them.
Ophelia soon learned about the betrayal of one of her best agents when May induced Daisy's Terrigenesis and helped her escape her cell. Protected by two guards, she confronted the rebels, noticing that even in the Framework, May remained a fighter while Alphonso Mackenzie was still a protector and Fitz kept a 'romantic' nature. However, Daisy noticed that she had not mentioned her and used her Inhuman powers to blast her out of the window. Ophelia fell from the building, breaking her spine when she hit the ground.
Aida then awoke in the real world, where Anton Ivanov jokingly noticed that she seemed nervous. Aida replied that she simply needed to recalibrate, mentioning the setback with May. When Ivanov offered to help her by simply killing May, Aida informed him that he could not do so since he was using a body created by Aida and thus had the same program parameters as her. However, she also told him that if one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents began to threaten the very existence of the Framework, this rule could be superseded.
Project Looking Glass[]
In the Framework, news had spread of Madame Hydra's incapacitation, though HYDRA's official story was that their leader hadn't been harmed in the attack. In truth, she had been rendered paralyzed and bed-ridden, much to the dismay of the Doctor. At Ophelia's urging, Fitz pressed forward with Project Looking Glass. The purpose of the project was to develop advanced quantum batteries that could be used to create a new biological body for Aida outside of the Framework. With an organic body and brain, Aida would be completely free of the restrictions on her programming, being able to truly feel emotions and make decisions based on her own feelings and desires.
As S.H.I.E.L.D. exposed HYDRA's lies to the public and launched an attack on the Triskelion, Ophelia watched events unfold and waited patiently for the Doctor to finish his work. When the time came, Aida disconnected from the Framework and hastily assembled the quantum battery that would create her new body. As Fitz was hunting down the fugitive S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who had found a backdoor out of the Framework, Aida started the procedure.
By the time Coulson and the others had emerged from the Framework, Aida's new body had been completed. Not only did the body function in all the same ways a normal human body would but it also bore Inhuman powers obtained from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Inhuman genetic database. These powers included Gordon's teleportation ability, Jiaying's regenerative healing and Lincoln Campbell's electrokinesis. Coulson managed to destroy Aida's android body by decapitating it, but that was the moment that her consciousness occupied her new body.
In the flesh[]
Ophelia awoke, gasping her first breath of air and was overjoyed at her transcendence to a full living being. She put on a bathrobe and discovered that Fitz hadd fully awoken from the Framework. She was filled with joy to see him and was even ecstatic to feel joy for the first time. She showed Fitz her new biological body. May, realizing that she was now mortal, pulled a gun at her, prompting Ophelia to grab a shocked Fitz and teleport away.
Ophelia teleported to a beach, where she experienced the pleasant sensations brought by the warm sand and the sea water on her feet. She apologized to Fitz because of the trauma he was suffering due to his sudden return from the Framework, but when Fitz confronted her about manipulating him and causing pain, Ophelia replied that she had only repaired Fitz's relationship with his father. She then confessed her love to Fitz before teleporting again, bringing Fitz into an apartment designed to be familiar to Fitz and suggested that they decorate it together.
However, Fitz was still troubled because he was aware that his friends were in danger. He managed to have Aida feel empathy for them and realize that her getting a real body had lifted the restrictions about killing other people to which Ophelia and Anton Ivanov were submitted in the past. Distressed, Ophelia struggled about what to do, but finally chose to go back to the Ivanov Oil Platform to rescue the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents there.
Ophelia confronted Ivanov, asking him to order his men to stand down. Unfortunately, Ivanov refused, stating that Ophelia no longer controlled him and that she had no way of forcing him to act as she ordered him. Discovering that Ivanov was planning to destroy the base and leave in his submarine, Ophelia returned to the apartment and took Fitz with her at the oil platform which was being flooded, threatening the life of Alphonso Mackenzie, who had previously refused to leave the Framework and therefore was still connected to the hardware. Ophelia and Fitz managed to teleport Mack and the equipment aboard the Zephyr One, thus saving his life. They were shot with an I.C.E.R. by Jemma Simmons immediately after and put in a containment chamber at the Playground.
Descent into madness[]
After coming to within the Playground's containment chamber, Ophelia and Fitz discussed what had happened between them in the Framework. Ophelia feared that she may not be forgiven for her previous actions, though Fitz believed that S.H.I.E.L.D. would be less likely to forgive him for what he considered to be a betrayal, despite having been conditioned to act as he did in the Framework. Ophelia tried to comfort Fitz, saying that she understood him and that she was well aware of the depth of his love. However, she mistakenly believed that Fitz would love her in the real world as he had in the Framework, but Fitz reaffirmed his love for Simmons. Upon hearing this, Ophelia suddenly broke down into a psychotic rage, attacking Fitz and screaming that everything she had done to gain a living body was all for him.
In her fury, Ophelia lashed out at Fitz, demanding that he stay with her so that they could build a life together. She tried to use her teleportation power to escape from the chamber, but a series of quantum field disruptors prevented her from doing so. She then used electrokinesis to destroy the disruptor devices, just as a trio of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents opened the chamber to get Fitz out. As they escorted Fitz away, several U.S. Army soldiers that had arrived with General Talbot approached and attempted to put Ophelia down. Ophelia's regenerative powers allowed her to recover from the soldiers' bullets instantly and she retaliated by teleporting behind them and snapping their necks one by one.
While Ophelia had murdered several soldiers and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Fitz managed to escape with his friends aboard the Zephyr One. Unable to track them, Ophelia returned to Ivanov's submarine. Ivanov seemed to take amusement from Ophelia's suffering, also noting that she had the emotional fortitude of a child and was being overwhelmed by her newfound feelings. He then explained that it was possible to use the Darkhold to remake the world as she had envisioned with the Framework, a world under her total control. Ophelia found the prospect appealing, especially if it hurt Fitz and his friends. After downing Ivanov's bottle of vodka, she pushed him to the floor and began having rough sexual intercourse with him. However, her rage got the better of her again and she furiously smashed Ivanov's android head open on the deck. This didn't kill Ivanov, of course, as his consciousness controlled multiple android bodies, one of which appeared in the doorway and asked Ophelia if she felt any better.
Vengeance and death[]
Since Fitz had rejected her, Ophelia decided to make him and everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. suffer. She began by starting the deletion program of the Framework, where Alphonso Mackenzie and Elena Rodriguez were still trapped, thus threatening to kill them. When Ivanov asked Ophelia about turning the world which existed in the Framework into an actual reality, she stated that she would do so after burning the current world down to ashes in order to make her enemies, and especially her former lover in the Framework, suffer.
As Ophelia discussed her plans with Ivanov, they were interrupted by the arrival of Ghost Rider, who demanded the Darkhold. They tried to attack him, but Ghost Rider was able to destroy two of Ivanov's LMDs before scorching Ophelia's arm with his chain. Ghost Rider noticed that Ophelia was a biological being as she attempted to fight back, but she realized that he was invulnerable to her powers and teleported away before he could kill her. She then asked Ivanov why her arm was not healing and Ivanov stated that since the Ghost Rider was not from this world but from Hell and that Ophelia's body had been made from dark matter, he could easily destroy her and warned her to stay away from him.
Ophelia decided to change the world by fueling hatred towards Inhumans in order to trigger S.H.I.E.L.D.'s demise, like what had happened in the Framework. She sent numerous LMDs to an International Intelligence Inquiry Committee session in order to make people think that Quake shot General Talbot. Ophelia and her LMDs were quickly confronted by the real Quake and Ghost Rider. Upon seeing the Ghost Rider's chain, Ophelia got scared and teleported away, leaving her LMDs to fight them off. Later, she returned to the Playground, where all the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were as well, and confronted Fitz and Simmons. Blaming Fitz for making her suffer, she seemingly killed Simmons and threatened to do the same to everyone Fitz cared for before finally killing him as well. Ophelia then teleported away, unaware that the Simmons she had just killed was only an LMD and that the real Simmons now had a plan to stop her.
Ophelia then confronted Phil Coulson and tried to take the Darkhold from him, but she was stopped by the real Simmons, who shot her multiple times. Ophelia mocked Coulson and Simmons for believing that they could stop her, but then discovered that Coulson had borrowed the powers of the Spirit of Vengeance and thus was able to kill her. She tried to escape by teleporting away but Coulson used Ghost Rider's chain to stay with her. When they teleported back to the Playground, the Spirit of Vengeance began incinerating her with his hellfire powers, while she screamed in fear and agony. In her last seconds of life, Ophelia stared pleadingly at Fitz before she was completely reduced to ashes.