Spider-Man: Far From Home - How Long Has Nick Fury Kept His Secret?

SPOILERS FOR SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME INCOMING!

Now that Spider-Man: Far From Home is out of the way, we can start to unpick the revelations of its ending a little more and now with actual added input from the creators. Or at least some vague nods to them, since they're still trying to protect spoilers as much as possible.

In the final post-credits scene, we see that there are still Skrulls on Earth, with Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) and Soren (Sharon Blynn) standing in for Nick Fury and Maria Hill, which explains why both of them are so different to how you'd expect them to act. It's then revealed that Fury is off-planet and working with the Skrulls on a mysterious project.

That's inspired some suggestions that they're building SWORD - the intergalactic alternative to SHIELD designed to guard the Earth from cosmic threats - and while Feige and director Jon Watts wouldn't confirm that element, Feige did confirm a little detail about Talos and Fury in the press junket (via ScreenRant):

Screen Rant: Sam Jackson plays Nick Fury, we all know that. The way he plays him was a little bit different. I was able to catch a couple Easter Eggs, but I didn’t know what was going to happen. Does that set up a bigger picture type of thing? I wouldn’t say Secret Invasion so much, but maybe SWORD?
Kevin Feige: I think the fun of it, without talking about anything specific that’s to come because we are still holding off on that until this movie comes out, is it does bring up a lot of interesting things. The most basic of which is Talos and Nick have stayed in contact over the years and clearly have some sort of tit for tat going. How often have they done that?
Screen Rant: That’s the first question I had when I walked out.
Kevin Feige: How often have they done that, and why are they doing that? Where’s Nick, and what is that thing?

That question of how long it's been going on is the most interesting one, certainly - beyond what they're actually doing in space, obviously.

When Captain Marvel ends, Talos is heading out into space with Carol Danvers as they look for other Skrull pods to bring out of their exile, so it's intriguing that he ends up back on Earth without Marvel. Perhaps it has something to do with the mention of Kree sleeper cells that is dropped almost in passing at one point in Far From Home?

Samuel L Jackson recently revealed in conversation with CinemaBlend that there's a new threat coming, so presumably his new station in space has something to do with how he finds that out:

“I always think that there’s room for every kind of story to be told. And at some point, they’re going to have to put together another Avengers group of some sorts to deal with whatever’s coming next.

“Nick [Fury] knows something is coming, the same way he found out in Captain Marvel that there are other things that need to be dealt with that I didn’t know about. This is moving us to another place.”

Could it be that Fury has known about this threat for some time and felt that he had to leave Earth, but continue to operate there sometimes so sent Talos and Soren in his place? If so, when did that happen? Let's hope we get some actual answers to that one, as Kevin Feige seems to be hinting we will.