I’m a nerd, a recognizer of patterns, and someone who’s constantly trying to predict the future. I just watched a clip on YouTube ‘What you need to know before watching Infinity Wars’. Pretty sure I’ve watched each marvel movie six or seven times leading up to this so I’m probably not missing anything.. so I was surprised to know that the location of the Soul Stone was still a mystery. Really?
I’m pretty sure the Soul Stone made its appearance in Black Panther. I actually thought it was pretty obvious. Unless I’m mistaken, it was the soul stone is what allowed T’Challa and Killmonger to visit the ancestral plane. The MCU is big on keeping things within the scientific realm, even explaining in Dr. Strange that magic is simply science that we don’t yet understand. As advanced as Wakanda is, I doubt that they would have been able to develop the technology necessary to visit the Ancestral Plane. I think the most likely source of that ability would be the soul stone.
The other part that stands out to me is the potential connection between vibranium and the soul stone. The infinity stones are demonstrated to be so powerful that they can’t be handled directly (for the most part). The power stone has that ball thingy, the mind stone had Loki’s staff, then Vision’s forehead, the space stone within the tesseract, and apparently the reality stone is somehow in that floaty liquid. So if the soul stone was in Wakanda, there had to be some protective casing: Enter vibranium
Once upon a time, vibranium was the metal that Cap’s shield was made from and what made it special was that it absorbed vibrations. In Wakanda, it’s reintroduced as perhaps one of the most versatile materials in the known MCU. What would be more fitting to contain an infinity stone? I’m pretty sure that at one point, the soul stone was contained within a large mass of vibranium and it’s this vibranium mass that crashed into Wakanda.
The last piece I’ll speculate on is what that mass was. The fact that it came from the cosmos aligns with it containing an infinity stone, but I’m curious about the origin of vibranium now. Every other infinity stone was contained within something small and highly portable. If I’m right, the soul stone was contained in something massive. Considering how durable and versatile vibranium is, it seems like containing an infinity stone in something that large would be overkill. If it wasn’t a natural rock formation and if it wasn’t a purpose built container for the infinity stone, what was it? My first thought would be a ship of some sort that experienced a crash landing in Wakanda. Reverse engineering of that ship could’ve led to the advanced technologies seen in Wakanda, but there wasn’t anything in Black Panther which would’ve indicated that. So if not a ship.. what else?
A Celestial
I’m going way out on a limb with this one, but assuming continuity, it’s my best guess. The events leading up to that crash landing are beyond me at this point, but I’m sure that if this is the case, it’ll be explained in Infinity War. We know that the infinity stones have a close connection to the celestials and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that a celestial’s body could’ve been made from Vibranium. In the first Guardians of the Galaxy, they’re introduced to Knowhere as the severed head of a celestial which has been harvested for all kinds of rare bio-organic material. Vibranium was never mentioned, but then again, vibranium is a term which was coined on earth. Who knows, maybe it’s the body of this celestial, containing the soul stone, which eventually crashed into earth. Wouldn’t that be neat.
My Mental Model 