Project Insight

Project Insight was a project orchestrated by Hydra of Earth-199999 to identify and kill potential threats to their authority. It was derived from an algorithm developed by Arnim Zola, which analyzed data on virtually all of Earth's population to determine their supposed threat level. Alexander Pierce initiated Project Insight shortly after the Battle of New York, presenting it to non-Hydra agents as a S.H.I.E.L.D. peacekeeping effort. Zola's algorithm would be enacted by three helicarriers coordinated with targeting satellites, killing millions of "threats" in moments. Proposed targets of the algorithm included Tony Stark, Matthew Ellis, and Stephen Strange.

In early 2014, Nick Fury sought information on Project Insight by sending Black Widow to the Lemurian Star, a satellite launching craft for the project. Widow recovered some data there, but Fury found that he was denied access to it—suspicious, given that he had the highest level of clearance. He suggested Pierce should delay the project, but, through a combination of Pierce's veiled obstinance and the World Security Council's own relatively uninformed concerns, this did not occur. Eventually, Fury, Widow, and Captain America became fugitives of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and more correctly, Hydra), and took it upon themselves to learn the truth about Project Insight. They and their new ally Falcon abducted Jasper Sitwell, who told them everything.

Pierce hosted the other members of the World Security Council at the Triskelion to observe the launching of Project Insight, but one of them was actually Black Widow in disguise. She and the soon-to-arrive Nick Fury confronted Pierce—he killed the rest of the Council, but Widow and Fury forced him to decrypt S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files, allowing Widow to release them all to the public and effectively put an end to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra's power on the global stage. Meanwhile, Captain America and Falcon hijacked Project Insight's helicarriers, fighting through the Winter Soldier and other Hydra forces to reprogram the targeting systems and make them destroy each other. Fury killed Pierce and he and Widow escaped by helicopter as a damaged helicarrier crashed into the Triskelion, effectively destroying it and ending Project Insight.