Marvel StudiosWho created AI in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? When it comes to J.A.R.V.I.S., Vision, and Ultron, the short answer is Tony Stark, with a little help from Bruce Banner. But in the new MCU TV series VisionQuest, the origin of various AI tech — or as it's called in this show, “Artificial General Intelligence” — now has a new wrinkle. In Episodes 3 and 4 of VisionQuest, we learn a lot more about the organization and the people behind the foundation of Stark’s AI, and within this retcon, there’s an interesting Easter egg that spans two other sci-fi franchises.Here’s the meaning of the AI canon change in VisionQuest and how it connects to the universe of both Star Trek: Picard and 12 Monkeys. Spoilers ahead.Stark bought AI tech from Markridge Biotech Emily Hampshire as the AI E.D.I.T.H. in VisionQuest. | Marvel StudiosEpisode 4 of VisionQuest firmly establishes that prior to the events of Iron Man, and certainly before the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the science firm of Markridge included Katarina Wells (Mary McDonnell) and Jo Carrington (T'nia Miller). In Episode 4, it’s clear that the foundation of this work comes from Dr. Horton, who created the first mechanical man, which, in Marvel canon, is the first “Human Torch,” also known as “Jim.” But the biggest detail here is that Wells and Carrington were the people who created the foundation for this tech, and then Stark built his AI tech from that work. So, there’s now a new, retroactive lineage of Vision’s programming that goes back through Wells and Carrington, and into the past with the mysterious Dr. Horton.Markridge comes from 12 Monkeys, and showed up in Picard, tooEmily Hampshire, as Jennifer, heiress to the Markridge fortune in 12 Monkeys Season 1 (2015). | Ken Woroner/Atlas/Kobal/ShutterstockFor fans of VisionQuest showrunner Terry Matalas, the name “Markridge” should be very familiar. In the Syfy reboot series, which Matalas co-created, the Markridge Group is a biotech company that creates a massive plague that, in most timelines, wipes out a huge portion of the human population on Earth. In 12 Monkeys, Jennifer Goines — played by Emily Hampshire — had connections to the Markridge Group because her father, Leland Goines, was the CEO. So, now both the MCU timeline and the 12 Monkeys timeline have a Markridge Group that develops biotech, which makes you wonder if, maybe, we could consider the 12 Monkeys timeline a deep-cut MCU world, retroactively. (And would this make Emily Hampshire and Todd Stashwick variants of themselves, since they appear in both series?)Additionally, the “Markridge Tower” was mentioned in Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, which existed in a version of the 21st century, which could lead us to conclude that this company exists in the Trek timeline, too. Does a Next Generation and Marvel crossover sound bonkers? It shouldn’t! Back in 1998, Marvel Comics published the one-shot issue Second Contact, in which the TNG crew ended up in the X-Men dimension via a bit of time travel and universe-crossing.The Easter eggs in VisionQuest get even deeper than that, though: Vision and Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica) are staying at a motel chain called “Emerson,” which references the Emerson Hotel in 12 Monkeys. And the new character of Katarina Wells could be a reference to the time-travel inventor Katarina Jones (Barbara Sukowa) in 12 Monkeys, too.The fact that the enemy of the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, President Lara Roslin herself, is present here with Mary McDonnell as Wells just makes the sci-fi Easter eggs even deeper and nerdier. VisionQuest may be rewriting some MCU backstories, but it’s also using cool sci-fi lore from the recent past to do it.VisionQuest streams on Disney+.