Mauga - Talon Heavy Assault Tank (quick ability deets)
2 machine guns “each as tall as a full-grown man”
Coolant tanks on his back (on the Heavy Assault in PVE events these tanks count as critical hit locations)
Energy shield, with some capacity to reflect bullets
“Well, color me convinced,” said Mauga, hefting one of his giant guns and activating his shield. He smirked, long and dangerous.
Sinclair pulled the trigger twice. The bullets ricocheted off the shield, shattering the panels of the giant French windows overlooking the grounds.
This might be just a personality quirk but he seems to have a bit of a berserker in him
“Say, where’s your boss?” Mauga said conversationally to the guard he had pinned against the wall. The man choked. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you. Let me ask again.” He tightened his grip around his throat. He was enjoying this. These were the moments when the friendly, fast-talking mask slipped, and Baptiste could see the killer beneath. Mauga was both, and more dangerous for it. Only one person had been able to talk him down in this state, and that was Baptiste.
Baptiste came over, resting his forearm on the wall. “Ease up a little. I think he’s trying to tell us,” he said. He kept his voice light, focusing on Mauga. He’d always been able to rein him in with patience and careful words, but it had been years, and Mauga was stronger than ever.
Mauga whirled on him, his eyes burning with violence, nothing familiar or safe on his face. For a moment, Baptiste felt a real jolt of fear. And then Mauga smiled, relaxing his grip. The guard gasped for air.
Hero of Numbani new canon brands, products, tech, concepts, etc.
*SPOILERS FOR The Hero of Numbani AHEAD*
This list does not include Yoruba or Afro-Brazilian food/clothing/cultural concepts, which probably deserve their own list.
344X-Azúcar - A wireless signal used by Sombra.
3-D Puzzle: Horizon Lunar Colony - Efi and her cousin Bisi spent 400 hours putting this together.
Alatise Parkway - Street in the Numbani Arts District where a gray market auction house can be found.
Bankolé’s Grocery - A neighborhood grocery store.
Bello tower - Tower where Efi’s cousin Dayo lives.
Bisi’s laptop - An extremely high-end laptop that Bisi tries to gift to Efi. Capable of 3D holoprojection. Can crush logic exercises that cause “the most advanced omnics” to struggle in seconds.
Blanchet771 - A literary icon beloved by Efi’s father.
Breaking Circuits trilogy - A Flash Brighton movie trilogy where Flash is a human pretending to be an omnic pretending to be a human.
Carnival Calabar - Real-life Nigerian festival that occurs December 1-31. Efi mentions that Unity Day rivals Carnival Calabar in size.
Chinua Achebe - Real-life Nigerian novelist (1930-2013). A literary icon beloved by Efi’s father.
Compass Point Insurance - An insurance company used by Efi’s family.
Court-appointed cybernetic surgeon - Employed by world governing organizations for removing cybernetic implants from war criminals. One such surgeon removed most of Doomfist’s implants after his trial, a procedure apparently broadcast out to the whole world.
CraftLife 5000 - Premium power tools including a hard-light screwdriver.
Cybernetic brain upgrades - According to Efi, Sojourn has these upgrades, which consist of “bionic neurons” injected into the brain
Cyborg African wild dogs - These are things that exist. Efi encounters two dogs with spinal implants and flickers of green light in their eyes.
Dagger Sect - Enemy agents in the Breaking Circuits movie trilogy
Declaration of Unity - A declaration read and signed by Gabrielle Adawe during the founding of Numbani.
Delivery drone - Used to deliver things. Some are powerful enough to carry an 11-year-old.
efi_was_here_v3-39x.aipm - The name of Orisa’s personality matrix.
eNaira - Electronic Nigerian currency.
FacePunch - Site where Efi finds a lot of jokes and memes, such as Marley the Dancing Coconut.
Fadeout/Fading out - An omnic condition induced by a malicious code that self-replicates and overwrites the omnic’s native functions one-by-one. The name comes from the lights on an omnic’s head fading out when it is affected by this condition. Omnics experience severe program malfunctions during fadeout. For example, an omnic forklift operator might keep driving the forklift into a wall over and over again, or an omnic artist might destroy her own work. Fadeout also causes an omnic’s private wireless port to become publicly accessible, and if the malicious code is allowed to operate for long enough the omnic can lose all original programming and memory. Fadeouts were induced in Numbani by Sombra for a time after Doomfist’s attack on the airport. Because fadeout causes omnics’ wireless ports to become publicly accessible, an “antidote” code can be administered to one omnic and will be automatically distributed to all other affected omnics in the area.
Flash Brighton - An action movie character with numerous franchise films such as...
Flash Brighton and the Omnic Crusaders: Forty-Four Hours Till Midnight - Movie where Flash Brighton abandons werewolf pups to go looking for his brother’s assassin with a time machine.
Flash Brighton and the Omnic Crusaders: The Duel to Infinity - Movie starring Kam Kalu, Thespion 4.0, and A.I. Schylus, among others.
Flexxon Pro Micro T1 reactor - Alternative to the miniature Tobelstein reactor. Cannot maintain a graviton charge for more than a few seconds.
Free Thinkers - A website where Efi gets most of the open source code for her robots.
Harmony Key - A symbolic key presented by Gabrielle Adawe to the leader of the Numbani Omnic Union during the founding of Numbani.
HollaGram (or Hollagram) - Social media service where users can make multimedia posts and other users can award likes, claps, or shares and leave comments.
International Baccalaureate - A real-life instructional programming standard based out of Geneva, Switzerland. Efi is taking senior-high level IB instruction in calculus and physics at age 11.
Ipanema - Real-life neighborhood in Rio. Efi planned to take surf lessons here, and Lúcio’s studio is here.
Junker reactor - A graviton reactor purchased by Orisa when a miniature Tobelstein reactor cannot be found. Cobbled together from mismatched parts, with some graffiti on the side. Efi notes that it is probably irradiated and likely to blow up in Orisa’s face.
Junie (Junior Assistant) - A robot stand-in for social and professional situations, capable of broadcasting holograms of people and recording video/audio with a 360-degree camera. Hologram features can be upgraded with hardlight conversion kits. Invented by Efi Oladele. Holograms produced by Junies are referred to as [name-of-the-person-being-shown]-Junior. For example, Naade-Junior for a hologram of Efi’s friend Naade.
Lagos - The largest real-life city in Nigeria, on the coast.
Maxwell Interpreter - Part of Efi’s robot creation kit. Used for creating simulations by autosorting “eight billion permutations into virtual hash matrices.”
Modulated Biochemical Currency (MBC) - DNA-coded cryptocurrency used on the dark web. About the size of a sand dollar, they wiggle in your hand and contain synthetic blood with unique biological codes in it. Also known as bio gold, wiggle notes, glam clams, scritch scratch...
Nollywood - Real-life slang for the Nigerian film industry
Numbani civic codes - For example, Code 34-342b - Driving a vehicle with an expired registration. Code 92-574j - Pedestrian cross-traffic. Etc.
Numbani Civic Defense Department - Numbani government security forces/police.
Numbani Credit Union - A credit union. Efi stores her grant money here.
Numbani museum exhibits - Historical artifacts, omnic art, a walking tour of Overwatch’s presence in Numbani, Numbani native plants, and a diorama of the Declaration of Unity, among others
Numbani Omnic Union - An omnic representative organization present during the founding of Numbani. The leader was presented the Harmony Key by Gabrielle Adawe.
OmnicCon - A con in Numbani with a costuming contest.
OmniWorx - Company that produces synthetic greases in designer tins with different scents like mint and citrus. The product is used by omnics as an indulgence, such as on Unity Day in Numbani. Efi buys OmniWorx tins for her omnic friends.
OR15 auction - An auction that took place after the defeat of the OR15s by Doomfist at Numbani airport. The Numbani Civic Defense Department sold off decommissioned OR15s in lots of 10 that cost around 20 million naira. Bidders were not informed of the OR15′s defeat at Doomfist’s hands.
Overwatch cartoons - Cartoons Efi describes as “old” that are based on the lives of real Overwatch members like Sojourn.
Overwatch coin bank - Owned by Efi. Features Reinhardt protecting the bank with his rocket hammer.
Overwatch pajamas - Efi owns a pair of these.
Paper notes - Used to avoid digital filters at Efi’s school.
Peace Park - A park in Numbani which had a statue of Gabrielle Adawe. The statue ended up being destroyed by Doomfist.
Precision Core reactor - Alternative to the miniature Tobelstein reactor. Unit is the size of a car.
Rapid-X heliotherapy - A type of therapy that heals broken bones in the span of a few days.
Sky Postal - Delivery company that uses drones. Capable of executing Lightning-Priority deliveries.
Steppe Wanderer - A model of car.
Super Fun Family Time - A “game” Efi’s parents taught her where they hide in the interior bathroom of their flat whenever the warning sirens go off indicating a Doomfist attack.
Tiawo Boulevard - Street in Numbani that intersects Heritage Avenue
Tin Can Island Port - Port where Numbani omnics held a dockworkers’ revolt several years back.
Tonal Abyss - Omnic pop band with 38 members. Broke up at one point due to disagreements about which quantum clock standard to use as a time measure for their music. Reunited at Lúcio’s concert in Numbani.
University of Ibadan, University of Lagos - Real-life Nigerian universities that Efi’s cousin Dayo received acceptances from in the story.
Valor Matrix distributed computing project - Project that rewards loans of processing power with currency.
Version 3.44 VAvmpCompiler - Part of Efi’s robot creation kit. An alternative to a dedicated Maxwell Interpreter box.
Virtual Physician protocol - Downloadable physician protocol accessible to any robot or omnic.
Yankari National Park - Largest national park in Nigeria.
Yoku Voyager - A low-end car model with weak levrims.
Zobo Bot - Robot that makes juice drinks at Efi’s school. Known to be ornery.
Agba Aja - Nigerian female omnic artist with a love of bold fabrics. Efi feels more confident after being compared to her. Agba was affected by a fadeout during the opening for her new art collection and subsequently destroyed five of her own paintings.
Amber Oyeba - The coolest girl at Efi’s school. Friends with Hassana.
Auntie Yewande - Dayo’s mother. Very fussy about etiquette. Criticizes the use of the name “orisa” for Efi’s new defense robot. Used to practice capoeira martial arts. Does not like to talk about her life before the Omnic Crisis.
Bethany Steele - Female omnic reporter with Atlas News.
Bisi - Efi’s oldest cousin, Dayo’s brother. Was shunned from the family after a run-in with debt collectors led to Dayo’s hip being shattered. Eventually joined Talon, and tried to convince Efi to join. Nearly killed by Doomfist when he shows hesitation at the concert attack, but saved by Orisa.
Bolaji Oladele - Efi’s father, a professor. [BolajiOladele55]
Constantine - Omnic lead vocalist and founder of the band Tonal Abyss.
Chore Bot - Efi’s second drone creation, to...help with chores.
Dayo - Efi’s older cousin. Self-made tailor and cosplayer. Wears his hair in 157 tiny twists, after his favorite prime number. His hip was shattered after debt collectors pursuing his brother Bisi mistook him for Bisi and beat him up, and he now walks with a cane. [Dayo]
Efi Rotimi Opeyemi Oluwadare Gabrielle Oladele - Efi’s full name (I’m missing the accents- will fix later).
Fola Oladele - Efi’s mother. Was around Efi’s age when the Omnic Crisis started.
Gaxx Gator - Omnic bass player of the band Tonal Abyss.
Grandfather - Efi’s grandfather. Operated in front line triage during the Omnic Crisis.
Hassana - Efi’s friend. Artist and irredeemable Lúcio stan (bought some of his beard clippings off the internet). [ARTIST4Life]
Isaac - One of Efi’s classmates. Once brought a military-grade barrier to a class about semipermeable objects and got into trouble when he tried to activate it without being able to read the instructions. Later gave Naade information about where to buy a fusion driver.
Joké - Stage manager for the drama club at Dayo’s school. Wears a hijab.
Kam Kalu - A famous Nollywood action movie actor known for one-raised-eyebrow smolders and for playing Flash Brighton.
Mr. Bankolé - Owns Bankolé’s Grocery. Hires Orisa to help around the shop (not a great idea).
Mr. Egwe - Male omnic principal at Efi’s school. Originally designed as a librarian. Recently installed metal eyebrows so he can emote scowling at students.
Mrs. Eni - One of Efi’s neighbors. Efi created a robot to tend of Mrs. Eni’s cats while Mrs. Eni was taking care of a sick family member.
Ms. Okorie - Efi’s calculus teacher.
Naade - Efi’s friend. A less vocal Lúcio fan than Efi and Hassana, but still says he won’t ever watch his ears after Lúcio says his name once. [NaadeForPrez]
Ndidi - Female omnic who owns a clothing store in Unity Plaza. Affected by a fadeout that caused her to stop being able to see or acknowledge humans.
Penelope - A Junie belonging to BackwardsSalamander that malfunctioned so badly that she held her owner hostage. Efi blamed the behavior on Talon hacking.
R.J. Mohammed - Owner of a vehicle that nearly gets stolen. His Vehicle ID is 3984HHJ.
Sam - Member of the drama club at Dayo’s school. Had his leg broken when he wore a Doomfist costume and Orisa attacked him.
Sasha Rhymes - Omnic performance artist. Gets a lot of her materials from the auction house on Alatise Parkway.
Sibe Oye - President of the student council at Efi’s school. Widely known to hate Stevie, but dated him for a couple of hours once.
Sparky Bot - Efi’s first drone creation, made when she was four to stack block towers and give dolls rides. Efi refers to Sparky Bot with she/her pronouns.
Stevie Igwe - Captain of the debate team at Efi’s school. Widely known to hate Sibe, but dated her for a couple of hours once.
HollaGram IDs:
ARTIST4Life - Efi’s friend Hassana.
Anonymous088503 - Doomfist. As pointed out by @tacticalgrandma, the number is the number of his Helix jail cell.
BackwardsSalamander - One of Efi’s Junie customers. Ends up having a lot of difficulty with their Junie.
BigBadSuperFan - One of Efi’s HollaGram followers.
BolajiOladele55 - Efi’s father Bolaji.
BotBuilder11 - Efi.
Dayo - Efi’s cousin Dayo.
Lúcio - Lúcio Correia dos Santos. The only ID on HollaGram that has the (verified) status.
All the Lore I Know About Tekhartha Zenyatta
(with sources)
This probably isn’t everything the entire fandom knows- I’m sure people have worked out things that I haven’t -but this is everything I know as of June 2, 2019.
1. Zenyatta was built either after the Omnic Crisis or during its final days.
*Metzen said the Omnic Crisis began 30 years ago, Chu said it began 25 years ago; Chu is the most recent source.
**Orisa’s hero profile indicates that one of her predecessor models was decommissioned 20 years ago "after the war”, putting a maximum Crisis end date of 2056.
***Metzen said in 2014 that the game takes place “60 years” in the future, but for my sanity I am advancing that date 2 years to match the release year of the game.
Zenyatta is 15 years younger than his student, Genji. Zenyatta’s “Shell” spray, seen above, was part of an Archives 2017 spray set that showed heroes as young children.
2. Zenyatta, along with the rest of the Shambali, were already outcasts when they had their spiritual awakening.
You can figure this one out through a careful reading of Zenyatta’s hero profile:
Years ago, following the Omnic Crisis, a group of outcast omnic robots experienced what they described as a spiritual awakening. They abandoned their preprogrammed lives to establish a communal monastery deep in the Himalayas.
I’ve noticed a lot of people get this confused, and think Zenyatta was outcast from the Shambali order, but that is not the case. The Shambali were collectively unwanted before their enlightenment. Cultist Zenyatta describes his pre-monastery status as “No one of note. Just one of thousands like me.”
What does “preprogrammed” mean? There’s a good example in the Retribution mission. At the end of the mission, players encounter a host omnic at an outdoor restaurant. Regardless of the disastrous situation in Venice at the time, the host has a few dialogues about dinner reservations, menu specials, etc. The host makes discomforted noises if players attack them, but never attempts to defend themselves. They sometimes even ask “would you like to know the specials?” as they are dying. This is not because the host is unintelligent, but because they have a program in place defining their actions. The host has yet to experience a moment of clarity that allows them to move beyond their original programming.
Understanding one’s own programming does not automatically result in a Shambali either. Theirs was a spiritually-oriented path, but an omnic realizing how they are being taken advantage of can also lead to unrest, or movements like Null Sector. Overcoming original programming (with various results) is a constant theme for all omnic heroes, from Bastion to Orisa.
--[SPECULATION: Despite being built as civilian models with similar modes of operation to the waiters, clerks, and laborers we have seen in various Overwatch media, it is possible that most of the Shambali were unwanted when they finally emerged due to post-war conflict between humans and omnics. They had programming telling them to accomplish a particular task, but they could never act on it. This could explain why they appear to have had a collective epiphany about their nature and moved as a group to establish their monastery.]
--[QUESTION: Omnica Corporation and the omniums were already shut down for fraudulent production claims before the Crisis started. Who was continuing to make new omnics even during the war, and by what method? Was Zenyatta built in an omnium, or by a more traditional method like an assembly line, or hand-built like Orisa?
We also know that omnics are continuing to be made today, such as the “child” companion omnic seen on the Blizzardworld ride poster, or the OR15s.]
--[QUESTION: Where was Zenyatta built? His hero profile only indicates that the Shambali established their monastery in the Himalayas. It gives no indication on how far they traveled to reach that location.]
3. For Zenyatta, the term “brother/sister” has multiple possible contexts.
--[SPECULATION: Zenyatta uses “brother/sister” in the traditional religious context when referring to other Shambali. But from the previous point in this list we know that the Shambali were already together in a group when they had their spiritual awakening, so it’s possible that they were all built in the same place at around the same time. This would also be a form of siblinghood.
Zenyatta and the other Shambali may consider all omnics as part of their “family”/in a state of camaraderie with them, hence why Zenyatta refers to Orisa as his sister despite her not being a monk. Zenyatta only ever refers to Bastion as “my friend”, but Bastion has no gender so it may simply be the easiest non-gendered replacement for the endearment.]
+ Zenyatta, Voicelines
4. The Shambali established their sanctum in the ruins of an ancient, preexisting monastery.
5. Zenyatta’s name...is Zenyatta. “Tekhartha” is a title. Mondatta also had this title.
--[QUESTION: Is the “Tekhartha” title something every Shambali takes upon joining the order, or is it a rank indicative of leadership? The term is a portmanteau of “technology” and “Siddhartha”, the name of the child who would become Buddha.]
+ Michael Chu, Blizzard Forums, 2018/5/25
6. Mondatta was Zenyatta’s master/mentor...maybe.*
*This might seem like a gimme considering Mondatta is the spiritual leader of the entire Shambali religion, but Zenyatta only ever refers to him as his brother in the main game. It’s in his Cultist incarnation that he describes himself as “following in my Master’s footsteps, searching for enlightenment”.
Wisp (Tracer) also refers to Mondatta as Cultist’s master. Mondatta certainly carries himself like someone older than Zenyatta- not that age confers wisdom, but it’s part of Mondatta’s professorial aesthetic. Zenyatta’s profile unhelpfully describes him as “enigmatic”, but this just brings us back to the question of whether or not the Shambali were all built at the same time and from the same facility. So the crux of this point is whether or not you think Cultist’s story is a reference to real-world history, or if it is AU-only.
The Halloween stories have their own little worlds with their own little plot arcs (at least in my head ;)). Obviously there are some (intentional) similarities to the real world, but it’s not intended to be one to one. [Michael Chu]
7. Zenyatta’s metal orbs were hand-carved at the Shambali monastery and are used to channel omnic energy.
+ Overwatch Visual Sourcebook, Zenyatta
8. Zenyatta’s abilities as shown in the game exist for “gameplay reasons”, but he is canonically able to heal others by an unknown method.
The Mercy interaction is what explicitly confirms Zenyatta’s healing abilities, but I threw in the Moira one because it is such a wonderful display of character. Moira does not immediately see a scientific explanation for Zenyatta’s abilities, and Zenyatta reframes the question to propose that truly understanding how he functions is the same as understanding how he exists, which is not a physical phenomenon a scientist could observe and measure to resolve with a hypothesis.
Zenyatta is hardly an enemy of the scientific method. He’s just not sure how it can answer the spiritual questions he’s interested in. Upon visiting Oasis he will actually wonder aloud “Can science alone unlock the path to enlightenment?”
Check the Bonus section below for a Cultist interaction that also describes Zenyatta’s abilities as non-magical, but also non-technological.
--[SPECULATION: Zenyatta’s levitation is also a non-technological function. Everything that floats in Overwatch leaves a trace, such as jet trails or blue hover-rings. Everything except Zenyatta. The dude just cruises around on pure enlightenment, which is a trope in both Hinduism and Buddhism.
Zenyatta was originally given the ability to float to distinguish him from other heroes (see the Development section below), but as a character there is no reason for him to artificially give himself the ability to float. Remember that Zenyatta does not seek recognition for his spiritual status. It’s more like a side effect.]
+ Zenyatta and Mercy Interaction added in October 2018
+ Zenyatta and Moira Interaction added in October 2018
+ Junkenstein’s Revenge 2018, Cultist Interactions
+ Jeff Kaplan, “Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan Answers Questions from Twitter” by Wired/Youtube [07:39], 2017/5/17
9. Zenyatta’s disagreement with the direction of the Shambali religion was not his primary reason for leaving the monastery. He left because he wanted to learn by traveling the world. He remained on good terms with Mondatta and the rest of the Shambali after his departure.
--[SPECULATION: After Mondatta’s death, Zenyatta’s relationship with the remaining Shambali may have become more strained due to his long-standing opposition to Mondatta’s approach and his long absence from the monastery. This would explain why despite his good terms with the other monks, he wonders if he would be welcome in Nepal.]
--[SPECULATION: Genji and Zenyatta are shown spending Christmas in Nepal the year of the Recall. I hesitate even putting this as speculation honestly. I think Zenyatta did finally reconnect with his brothers and sisters the Christmas after Mondatta died, perhaps following Genji’s lead since the monastery is Genji’s home at this point. However since I can only find architectural similarities and not an exact location that matches the comic I guess the devs reserve the right to pop back in 2 years from now and say “actually they were in Singapore.” (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻]
+ Jeff Kaplan, Summarized comments via Manolo Rosenberg/Twitter.com, 2017/11/9
+ Nepal Map, Zenyatta Voicelines
+ Nepal Map, Genji Voicelines
+ Comic: Reflections, 2016/12/20
10. Zenyatta and the other Shambali monks use cooking as a tool to encourage empathy between humans and omnics, even if they themselves cannot eat.
+ Overwatch: The Official Cookbook, Til Ko Laddu Sesame Sweets Recipe, ETA 2019/10/1
11. Zenyatta’s belt has the word “zen” written in Japanese on the tassel.
In earlier concept art, the word “zen” was on Zenyatta’s orbs instead, and it was written in Chinese. The word changed languages and locations later in development. “Zen” itself originates from Zen Buddhism, a Buddhist school from China that emphasizes the act of learning over the doctrine of what is learned, making it a very good fit for Zenyatta, his conflict with the Shambali, and his method of teaching through interaction rather than reciting dogma.
--[SPECULATION: Genji gave the belt to him to signify their bond, or they traveled in Japan together at some point and acquired it then.]
--[SPECULATION: The tattered scrap of cream cloth under Zenyatta’s belt is also emblematic of a bond- his life with the Shambali.]
+ Zenyatta Reference Kit
+ Overwatch Visual Sourcebook, Zenyatta
Zenyatta Development Notes
If you have ever watched the “Making A Hero” panels from Blizzcon or gone through The Art of Overwatch concept book, you know that heroes tend to arise from one of three domains: 1) Narrative need - for example, Ana had a backstory long before the team figured out how to integrate her into the game, 2) Gameplay need - ex. Junkrat was created because the devs wanted an indirect damage dealer, 3) Conceptual art inspiration - Zenyatta and Zarya both originated from drawings organized around a particular theme, “cyber monk” and “physically strong female character” in their respective cases.
This led to Zenyatta’s initial development as a martial artist, with a powerful physicality. Despite a lot of iterations, the team decided his intimidating presence was too much like other heroes in the game, and they began turning him into more of an “enlightened sage” trope, skinny with the ability to levitate to further set him apart from other heroes. His original concept with many arms lives on in his Transcendence ultimate.
Originally his orbs were meant to be physically fired at enemies, but facing technical challenges such as figuring out how he would reload, the devs changed the orbs so that they would unlock and fire energy at enemies instead. This approach also lent itself to abilities like the Orbs of Harmony and Discord.
Above: Video of Baoding balls, metal balls with a distinctive chiming sound used in China for hand exercise
In terms of philosophical and religious concepts, Zenyatta is kinda all over the Eastern cultural map. He’s got two sprays referencing Korean martial arts and games, he’s got two skins referencing Chinese characters, another pair referencing the Egyptian sun god, and another pair for Arabian jinn. According to The Art of Overwatch his legendaries at launch were themed around “enlightened mythological figures”, which the devs felt suited his sage archetype.
Above: Photo of a building in Pashupatinath, a Hindu temple complex in Kathmandu, Nepal
The Shambali religion takes mostly from Buddhism, though the village below the Shambali monastery invokes Newa architecture. The Newari are a group of indigenous Nepali people who mostly practice Hinduism. It’s not unheard of for philosophies and religions to mix and expand on each other, and a multicultural background may be appropriate for Zenyatta who is a wanderer searching for knowledge, but it does make tracking down particular influences on his character a little boggling at times.
I realize I haven’t covered the mudras (ritual hand gestures) Zenyatta uses yet, but considering the length of this post and how image-intensive that would be, I will in fact let you google those on your own, or perhaps I will make a separate post about it at some point.
Bonus Section: The Cultist Conundrum
As part of Junkenstein’s Revenge 2018, Zenyatta’s Cultist character got 10+ new interactions, many of which don’t seem to reference his Cultist nature very closely. There are several that illuminate Cultist’s relationship with the Swordsman (Genji), some that indicate the Cultist is seeking to help others through their troubles just like Zenyatta, and one interaction that takes on a more ominous tone. To be honest it’s a wonderful exploration of a hero, but since it’s trapped in the Junkenstein’s Revenge AU, we have no way of knowing what’s ultimately true about it for the less cephalopodian version of Zenyatta.
All that said, I think these interactions are just really really good, so I’m going to include them in this post.
Shieldmaiden: Your master is a mysterious-looking fellow.
Swordsman: I have learned much from him, but little about him.
Genji wants the lore bombs too btw.
Shieldmaiden: What do you make of the monk?
Viking: I do not trust him and his strange gods.
Listening back to the audio of this, the Viking is very specifically saying gods, plural. Polytheism is a big part of Hinduism and to a lesser extent a part of Buddhism, but this is more likely a reference to Cultist’s eldritch origins, the “Great Old Ones” of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. It’s also an echo of Torbjörn‘s opinion of the Shambali religion in the main game (“It's like a culmination of a thousand of my worst nightmares!”).
Shieldmaiden: Why did you come here?
Cultist: I am following in my Master’s footsteps, searching for enlightenment, though my path has not always been a straight one.
I discussed this earlier as being one of the references to Mondatta as Zenyatta’s mentor. We know he is referring to Mondatta due to a separate conversation with Wisp:
Wisp: How can you trust the Countess after she slew your master?
Cultist: Did I say I trusted her?
I recommend hopping on Youtube and giving this interaction a listen if you have never heard it before. As we know from this and other main game interactions, Tracer is extremely pissed about what happened to Mondatta, and views the outcome as her own fault. In this case she actually takes that anger out on Cultist, enraged that he could remain so calm with Countess (Widowmaker) herself at his side. For his part, Cultist is quick to differentiate cooperation from trust. Perhaps the most unfortunate part about the additions to Junkenstein’s Revenge 2018 is that the Countess has no interactions with anyone, so there is no elaboration on Cultist’s thoughts about her.
Shieldmaiden: Is it magic that you do?
Cultist: It is not magic, but the power of the spirit that I channel.
Whyisn’tthisjustanormalBrigitteandZenyattainteractionFROWNYFACE. This interaction tells us that spiritual energy is not magic by Overwatch standards. That’s a close alignment with Eastern cultural views, and a clarification from Western ones where anything supernatural is by its nature a form of magic (very fitting that Brigitte is the one asking the question).
To maybe explain this a little better, let’s look at a popular TV show like Dragon Ball Z. Despite Goku having supernatural powers, no one refers to him as a witch or wizard. He instead is considered a manipulator of life energy. Did you feel bad reading this? I felt bad writing it. But I think it’s a good way to differentiate the concepts, especially for anyone who is really hung up on the “Overwatch has no magic!” preconception and then has to reconcile characters like the Shimadas or Zenyatta.
The primary issue with this interaction is its context: Cultist is said to “answer to a foreboding presence- a force beyond mortal understanding”. This is another Lovecraft reference, but it creates a background that doesn’t really match with Cultist’s spirit-oriented response. Maybe he means “the Spirit” with a capital S, but I have a suspicion that this is a regular Zenyatta answer sneaking into the Junkenstein AU.
Shieldmaiden: How is it you have barely broken a sweat?
Cultist: It must be my many years of training, simple diet, and careful way of life.
BLESS YOU BRIGITTE.
Reminder that the guy she’s asking this question of looks like this:
Swordsman: Watch yourself Master! I cannot mind your back at all times.
Cultist: Do you think me so helpless?
Swordsman: Battle is not your way.
I like this interaction more for what it tells us about Genji. He’s protective of Zenyatta, not so much because he views Zenyatta as weak, but because he knows Zenyatta would prefer not to fight at all. He wants Zenyatta to live his ideal life rather than the one reality necessitates. This is another interaction that doesn’t quite mesh with the general concept of the Cultist- an outcast who would do anything for forbidden knowledge. I suppose it’s possible that despite his frightening appearance and the broken manacles dangling off his limbs, he is actually benevolent. This concept is echoed in another of the Swordsman’s interactions with him:
Swordsman: It is strange to see you taking part in the battle, Master.
Cultist: There are times even I cannot stand by.
I guess Genji already forgot about that robo-spider chilling in a cave that they both decided to beat up for some reason.
Cultist: A pause in the battle. An opportunity to recenter our minds.
Swordsman: I am centered.
This interaction starts showing us the other side of the coin- that Zenyatta is trying to advise Genji as best he can on how to proceed through the fight without letting his emotions take control. Genji reacts uh...emotionally.
Cultist: Take care that you do not spend yourself before the battle is done.
Swordsman: I am only just getting started!
Genji, in both these cases, is showing himself to be a little prideful.
Van Helsing: You some sorta...holy man?
Cultist: Simply a traveler, in search of purpose and meaning.
Van Helsing: Aren’t we all.
This goes back to that Zen Buddhism idea that what is important is the act of learning or the journey to an answer, and not the answer itself or what the act of learning causes you to become. In this case, as in the main Overwatch universe, Zenyatta is probably aware that “holy man” is a title conferring a certain deference upon him, and he has no need for that- in fact it may be detrimental. Mondatta’s adoring flocks are never something he has desired.
Cultist: Some believe that the full moon is a good omen.
Van Helsing: Maybe...if you’re a werewolf.
Zenyatta, in his Cultist role or otherwise, happily soaks up surrounding cultures. Here he’s bouncing an idea off McCree that he hasn’t embraced himself (”some believe”), but he picked it up somewhere and upon noticing his environment, seeks to learn more from whoever is available to answer. When this interaction plays, it’s always the first interaction of the game- so Cultist is trying to instill confidence for the fight ahead too. McCree isn’t having any of it though.
Viking: Who were you before you entered the monastery?
Cultist: No one of note. Just one of thousands like me. But one moment of clarity changed everything.
New lore: Zenyatta worked at McDonalds and then one day he saw god and god asked for some chicken mcnuggies.
Viking: I find your religion unnerving, monk.
Cultist: My beliefs are simply in the fundamental ways of life and nature, nothing more.
You coming out here telling me the Cultist and not just regular old Zenyatta is the one saying this, Jeff? (To be fair, I never personally witnessed the Cultist’s response to the Viking’s comment playing in-game- it’s something that seemingly only exists in datamined content.)
Viking: Single-mindedness of Dr. Junkenstein’s creations reminds me of your own!
Cultist: You wound me.
Viking: Is that even possible?
Cultist confirmed to have inherited regular Zenyatta’s sass. I would also like to use this space to point out that Cultist has more interactions with Shieldmaiden, Swordsman, Viking, and Wisp than Zenyatta does with Brigitte, Genji, Torbjörn , and Tracer. If you want the Zenyatta juice, you really have to look at Cultist closely.
Cultist: You blame yourself for the dragon’s reign of terror, but it is not your fault.
Viking: You weren’t there, monk. You don’t know about my failure.
Squid Zenyatta is still trying to help people out. We learn through some of the Viking’s other interactions that his home village was destroyed by a dragon. This might be interesting as a clue to Torbjörn‘s real-life history, but the dragons of Junkenstein’s Revenge don’t necessarily equate to the Omnic Crisis.
Cultist: Rarely has my path crossed a warrior as cheerful as you.
Viking: When you’ve seen as much as I have, either you laugh, or you go mad.
Note that any interaction between Cultist and Viking that the Viking starts is very antagonistic/accusatory, but he actually relaxes when Cultist does not reply in turn. There’s a paternalistic vibe.
Wisp: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep!
Cultist: Meditation is all I require to sustain myself.
Fun fact!: a small number of Buddhist monks practiced extreme forms of asceticism where they reduced food and water intake to a stopping point, had their apprentices bury them alive in a box filled with charcoal or salt, and meditated until their deaths. This act of self-mummification was thought to allow the monk to remain in eternal spiritual contemplation.
Wisp: Would you tell me more about your religion?
Cultist: Our purpose is to show everyone that in the Iris, we are all one people.
Another interaction that honestly would not seem out of place in the normal game, except that Tracer presumably knows about or even practices the Shambali religion already, given her attendance at Mondatta’s speech. At the very least she empathizes with the Shambali’s goals.
Cultist: When I gazed into the Iris, I found a great nothingness. It changed me. You must have experienced the same.
Wisp: That is not what I saw!
At last, a properly creepy Cultist interaction! So through some other conversations we learn that Wisp was a traveler torn from her body by a magical catastrophe, and she now inhabits the world as a ghostly wraith. Cultist interprets this to mean she passed through the Iris, and that the nothingness there is responsible for her transformation (just as it was for his? I wonder what he looked like before).
The “nothingness” he talks about may actually be less sinister than it sounds. There is the aspect that comes from Cthulhu stories, the idea of death as an infinite void, and the madness that may result from gazing too long into an abyss. Yes, that is terrifying.
But there is a nearby word, “emptiness”, that has a great deal of meaning in the various schools of Buddhism. The basic idea is that no being or thing in the universe possesses an intrinsic nature, that nothing stands alone but rather is woven together with all other things (does this sound familiar yet?). The Sanskrit word for this concept is sunyata.
So yeah, maybe Cultist isn’t so bad. Maybe he’s just a little misunderstood.
A Knowing Grin: Relationships in What You Left Behind, the New Overwatch Short Story
Baptiste & Mauga
Nguyen & Sainclair
Overwatch & Talon
The Middle East Scenario
Baptiste & Mauga
Baptiste and Mauga moved in tandem, with the practiced ease of soldiers used to fighting together. It had been years, but it came back quickly, as natural as breathing.
“I missed you, you know,” Mauga called over the roar of gunfire. He was enjoying every moment of the battle, relishing the adrenaline. Baptiste could feel that same rush in his veins, too. “All those years you were on the run, and we could have been doing this instead. Don’t tell me you didn’t miss it, too.”
Had he? More than he was willing to admit. He’d spent so many years running, and this felt right—not being part of Talon, but having a place where he belonged, with a dependable team at his back. That was what he’d found when he joined the Caribbean Coalition, and later with Mauga and their squad. Taking care of people centered him, made him feel whole.
Baptiste and Mauga are two people who exist on the same wavelength, uniquely capable of reading how each other are feeling. Their friendship does not require niceties because it is fundamentally about sensitivity. Baptiste was seeking a sense of belonging, and Mauga is the life raft he happened to cling to. Mauga is isolated even among killers for various reasons, but quickly discovered he could refuge all of himself in Baptiste- both his friendly, charismatic exterior, and his colder but more genuine thoughts. Baptiste sees straight through him, and that turns out to be something he appreciates.
Baptiste, along with Sombra and Mercy, is an orphan of war. Throughout his life he has sought a place to take shelter and find meaning in dependable people around him. You can actually compare him to Ashe, who retains her blood relatives and appears blissfully unaffected by the Crisis, but who did not receive the satisfaction of a well-connected family and ultimately invented her own. But unlike Ashe, Baptiste did not have a wealth of opportunities. Overwatch—an organization he dreamed about as a child—never even came to his home country of Haiti. In that organization’s absence, the islands of the Caribbean formed their own Coalition, and he took root there.
He proved an elite medic and prime special ops material. But all things end, the Crisis included, and his service. Baptiste was faced with the threat of no longer belonging, and sought an organization that could make use of his skills. Talon was “a well-paying mercenary group that took on security missions that were sanctioned by official organizations or corporations”. Once inducted, he made fast friends with another recruit, Mauga. Specifically, Mauga “pulled Baptiste into his orbit”, fulfilling that fundamental need in Baptiste to have someone to serve and care for.
“Watch your back,” he shouted instead, taking down a mercenary who’d been about to shoot Mauga.
“That’s your job!” Mauga laughed. His gun tore a path through the guards swarming the top of the staircase, and they ducked for cover. He was in his element, wild and unleashed. He’d been like this on their missions, a hurricane of a man.
With you at my back, we can do anything, he’d told Baptiste once. You’re the best medic in Talon. You keep me alive, and I’ll protect you. No one stands a chance.
Baptiste and the others in their Talon unit—Doubleday, Mazzei, and Pacanowsky —operated as troopers, the same as many other ex-military agents from around the world. Mauga took the role of Heavy Assault, described as follows in the Venice Memorandum: “Believed to be the products of extensive genetic engineering, these elite troopers employ an extremely powerful exoskeleton and stimulants to increase their combat effectiveness.” While violence is a path Mauga chose, it is worth keeping in mind that his brutality is further fueled by engineering, or drugs, or both.
For a time, Baptiste was content with Talon, even as his missions grew increasingly questionable. Four years ago, two years after Talon’s newest leadership figure was jailed by Overwatch, Baptiste realized that his “security missions” were perpetuating the cycle of suffering, that he was creating more Baptistes by his own hand. His closeness with Mauga proved a selfish thing, one of the many comforts Talon offered in exchange for his soul. He fled from the Monte Cristi battlefield, but Mauga proved as attuned to him as ever, and was the first to find him in his escape.
“Cuerva told us that those missions were on the level,” Baptiste said weakly. He’d known the truth, even then. But he hadn’t wanted to believe it. And from the look on Mauga’s face, he knew that, too.
“Of course he did. And of course they weren’t. But who cares? We’re in too deep, Baptiste.” For a moment, all his bravado dropped away. It was just the two of them, no audience, standing beside the water. When he spoke, it was quiet. “There are no good people. Not you, not me. All we can do is have fun while we’ve got the chance.”
And Mauga challenged Baptiste’s narrative of his life. He highlighted two other missions, Makati and Singapore, that had been just as heinous. According to Mauga, Baptiste knew it was wrong the whole time. It was just that in Monte Cristi he encountered something personal—saw a ghost—and that his flight from Talon was just another self-indulgent act. Mauga ultimately let Baptiste go, but he also did not go with him. Baptiste, likewise, never thought to offer that possibility to Mauga.
Unlike Baptiste, who grew up dreaming about a world that could be and an Overwatch that never came to save him, Mauga has made his judgement of the world and the people in it. It makes sense for him to have no interest in deserting: the entire world is as awful as Talon in his eyes, but Talon is where he has the most fun wading through it. But he retains a weakness for Baptiste, his own personal mind-reader, and ultimately he becomes one of the ghosts that Baptiste leaves behind.
Flash-forward four years and Baptiste is consumed by the nightmare of his choice, which has left him without a home or a family. He travels from place to place, trying to outrun the invitations Talon constantly sends after him. It’s not as simple as fearing for his life. Talon prefers his talent, not his blood. His old captain, Cuerva, describes the potential capture of him in the most idyllic sense:
If all goes well, everything will be settled and we’ll be on our way home by tonight. Hopefully Baptiste will be among us, playing cards and drinking rum, instead of lying in a shallow island grave. [Cuerva Strike Team Log]
The threat for Baptiste is playing cards and drinking rum with his fellow soldiers is something he would prefer to running and hiding too. But given it was the behavior of his squadmates and Cuerva that led him to flee Monte Cristi, he has no trouble dispatching all of them when they come to call.
It’s Mauga who becomes the problem. Mauga, his perfect foil, comes hunting Baptiste in Port-de-Paix, stalking out Baptiste’s habitual safety net, inserting himself in Baptiste’s old home—offering himself and Talon as a replacement. Mauga does not do this at the whimsy of some higher-up, but for his own attachment to Baptiste. He comes offering the horror of constant killing, and the chance to belong again.
Even the mission Mauga shuttles Baptiste into is tailored to play on his desire to find purpose in serving others. Mauga’s manipulations are expert, a send-up to the fact that he only plays the role of a brute, and that in truth he is sly and dangerous—unfortunately this too is a trait Baptiste likes about him. Theirs is a friendship compounded by years of fighting beside each other, and as Baptiste embarks on the Port-de-Paix mission, he finds himself coming back to Mauga’s style “as natural as breathing”.
The mission itself seems to be dancing to Mauga’s tune too. Baptiste finally meets a member of Overwatch, and he is man invested in causing suffering to his own city, a man who gave up his comrades for gold. Mauga uses this man to test Baptiste, to get him to break his final code: that he will not kill an unarmed combatant.
But for a second time, Baptiste and Mauga cannot find agreement. Thus when Mauga comes again after Baptiste’s escape, all he offers is death. Just as Baptiste was never able to completely relinquish the comforts of friendship to do what is right, Mauga refuses to relinquish the comfort of Talon for friendship. The two of them are divorced from the larger conflicts of Talon and Overwatch or omnics and humans except as collateral victims, and in Mauga’s case this has produced a demon who is smiling at you as he kills you.
Mauga stood in the full-length window, scanning the canopy of trees. All of the glass panes were blown out, shattered by the bullets from his massive guns. “Baptiste,” he called. “Buddy, I just want to talk.”
The story’s dramatic showpiece of Baptiste and Mauga’s connection sees Baptiste working Mauga out of a battle-lust using nothing but his voice. There are a couple important features to this scene: 1) that Baptiste only gets to Mauga to behave like a friendly human being for a moment, that Mauga smiles, then kills a helpless man anyway, 2) that from the very start Mauga understands Baptiste’s thoughts too.
Mauga spends a lot of his time smiling like he does to Baptiste in the scene, either acting a role, or confident he has worked out everything Baptiste will do. When Baptiste does not behave to his expectations, he goes straight to violence, as it’s the only other skill he has. Their relationship has all the hallmarks of being toxic, but What You Left Behind is seeking a degree of understanding, trying to explain why Baptiste would return to someone who is no good for him, and why he nearly recalls to a life of brutality despite being a “good person”. And in the end, almost the only distinction between Mauga the Berserker and Baptiste the Healer is that somewhere inside Baptiste a shred of hope remains.
Baptiste stood, and Mauga stood with him. “Whatever you’re worrying about, don’t. Get in, get it done, and get paid,” Mauga said, only loud enough for Baptiste to hear. He hefted his pair of machine guns, each as tall as a full-grown man, like they weighed nothing. The coolant tanks on his back gleamed in the scant light. He raised his voice, letting it carry across the dropship. “Now, who’s ready to have some fun?”
Nguyen & Sainclair
“You see what I’m up against, Baptiste? I got him a hat, but he won’t wear it.”
Nguyen looked at the panama hat on the bar top like it was the filthiest thing he’d ever seen. There was a pink sunburned stripe across his nose.
For your reference if you are unfamiliar with Nguyen’s name pronunciation:
At first Talon Senior Analyst Trung Le Nguyen exists to provide an example of a personality that is absolutely repellent to Baptiste, whereas Mauga is an inescapable attraction. Nguyen does not like Baptiste very much either, but there is one other lesson to take from this story: despite Baptiste’s inability to appreciate Nguyen as a person, they are able to work together without issue. Baptiste sees Nguyen as dependable, which makes sense given that Nguyen provided his unit with analysis through all their missions. Nguyen is also more flexible than he may seem, agreeing to meet with Baptiste at Mauga’s insistence despite his own reservations.
Mauga is not as vested in disliking Nguyen as Baptiste. In fact he constantly seems to be trying to rope Nguyen in as he does with most people, but it does not work with Nguyen because Nguyen is impervious to charisma. Despite Mauga and Nguyen not really getting each other like Mauga and Baptiste do, they are also content to work with each other. Mauga and Nguyen also happen to be the only named members of Baptiste’s old unit who are still alive.
We don’t enjoy as deep a look into Nguyen in this story as we do with Mauga, but let’s take a peek at some words and phrases used to describe him from Baptiste’s point of view:
clinical and cold
cold as frostbite
cool, expressionless eyes
[Nguyen’s] voice cut through the air like a knife. Mauga sighed. “Sweet as always.”
From anyone else, the gesture would be courteous. From Nguyen, it felt like a threat.
Nguyen is an easy read as a clinical workaholic, not inclined to emotion, making him a good foil to Mauga’s impulsive brutality. He notably wears the same adequately professional attire, impeccably laundered, day after day. His detachment from excess is strange in Talon, an organization where many of the day-to-day troops are getting their first taste of luxury and end up feasting on it.
But his professionalism cracks toward the end of the story, after he learns that their target Vernand Sainclair has betrayed and murdered Talon forces—the same kinds of grunts as Baptiste and Mauga—stationed at his mansion for his protection, and Vernand further tries to shoot Mauga after promising he is loyal (the bullets ricochet harmlessly off Mauga’s shield and break some windows).
Nguyen stalked forward, Mauga covering him with the shield. “You sent us into a trap. You murdered the forces we stationed here for your protection,” he snarled. Nguyen yanked the gun from Sainclair’s grasp and slammed it onto the desk. “I even set up an appointment. And yet you continue to inconvenience us. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t put a bullet through your head right now.”
Unlike Mauga, Nguyen appears to display his emotions raw and honestly...it’s just that his most common emotion is disappointment, followed closely by irritation. His anger here probably comes from a variety of sources, but one of the strangest aspects of the story is that Nguyen is on the ground at all. He is an analyst, and despite his John Wick-caliber pistol work, it is not clear why he felt the need to personally handle Sainclair. Nguyen ran analysis for Baptiste’s unit and also for Cuerva’s attempted recovery mission, but it’s not apparent that he has any particular affection for Baptiste...or anyone really. When Baptiste attempts escape, Nguyen’s professional response rules over all others:
There was a gunshot, and pain tore through his left arm. He almost lost his grip on Sainclair. He didn’t have to look to know who had fired that shot, and that he was lucky to have survived.
It is unlikely that Nguyen is any sort of hero candidate at this point, but he is a well-realized accessory to the story and its themes. Everything in What You Left Behind comes in matched pairs—Mauga and Baptiste, Baptiste’s childhood friend Dr. Roseline Mondésir and Dr. Angela Ziegler, Nguyen and Sainclair. But whereas most of these pairs harmonize with each other, exuding similar personalities or goals, Nguyen flatly rejects his counterpart at every turn. Vernand Sainclair is a man of excess, an analyst like Nguyen, but he abhors field work, betrays casually to feed his own self-interest, and like so many members of Talon, he originally worked for Overwatch.
Overwatch & Talon
“You were Overwatch?” Baptiste said, stunned. He’d never met one before. All the dreams he’d had as a teenager, the recruitment poster he hung above his bed at the orphanage, the secret hope that somehow, someday, Overwatch would come in and make everything better. And now one of his childhood heroes stood before him, a man willing to throttle his country to turn a profit and betray his organization to spare his own life.
“I was never in the field. I was just a handler, like you.” Sainclair nodded at Nguyen. “Overwatch always took me for granted. That organization was poisoned from the very start, and the longer I was there, the more I could see that it was slowly rotting from the inside out.”
When the Retribution mission came out, people were quick to note the similarities between the elite Talon units and existing Overwatch agents. The Heavy Assault has a rocket-powered charge just like Reinhardt, the Assassin blinks from perch to perch like Tracer, the Sniper appears in a puff of wraithform smoke. Most fingers ended up pointing at Moira, whose hero profile states:
After Overwatch was disbanded, O'Deorain was forced to turn to unconventional sources of funding. This time, she was invited to join the scientific collective that had founded the city of Oasis. Yet some have whispered that the shadowy Talon organization had already been supporting her for years, aiding her experiments in exchange for utilizing the results for their own purposes. [Hero Profile: Moira]
But What You Left Behind tells us is that the fall of Overwatch and rise of Talon was inevitable, and not the fault of one single betrayer or leak. Towards the end of its life, Overwatch ceased to look like the promise on its recruiting posters—or if you prefer Sainclair’s outlook, Overwatch was never the same as the idea of Overwatch. This also goes back to Mauga’s philosophy: there are no good people anywhere, so even if something like Overwatch was founded with good intentions, the people inside it would eventually fail its honorable mission.
Blackwatch enjoys an especially close connection with Talon. We learn in the story that Talon HQ is in Rome, which is also where the Blackwatch facility was located until it was destroyed by a Talon bombing eight years ago. The Blackwatch Commander and his attending geneticist both became Talon council members, the top sniper in Talon is the widow of a Blackwatch agent, and as we previously saw in Train Hopper many Blackwatch grunts happily became Talon grunts.
But Overwatch also created Talon operatives whenever it failed to reach out enough, such as in Haiti. And Nguyen’s reflective examination of the Recall dossiers at the end of the story also suggests that some existing agents or some who have yet to officially respond may actually be traitors lying in wait.
The mirror of Overwatch and Talon is not as simple as saying “Actually Overwatch is really the evil one!!!111″ Talon is a bunch of terrorists and profiteers. In fact this story tells us that Talon has the exact same issue Overwatch did: it has leaders like Doomfist invested in powerful ideals and visions of the world, but the rank-and-file like Baptiste and Mauga end up engaging in the same petty ravaging that armies have since the beginning of time. The Council is never sharing their entire hand with the grunts either, trusting that their lofty ideals will be accomplished on the backs of handsome mercenary payments.
At this point maybe it’s easy to throw up our hands and say “okay, everything is bad, so why care about any of it?” That’s the exact conclusion Mauga reached. But Baptiste thinks differently. After forcibly escaping Mauga’s clutches at the end of the story, he reviews the Overwatch dossiers and recognizes Dr. Angela Ziegler. They met in their travels because of one shared idea: that they wanted to help communities in need, without violence. Baptiste goes on to recognize how Mercy is very like the local clinic doctor in Port-de-Paix, and very unlike her glossy image on the Overwatch recruitment posters. It is because of his personal connection and personally witnessed strength that he reaches out to her, and not because of an ideal or a formless dream.
I think what the story is trying to get at here is that any organization, regardless of name or mission, is only as good as the people in it. There isn’t good and evil, Overwatch and Talon—there are individuals, and all of them have relationships just as complicated as the one between Baptiste and Mauga.
The Middle East Scenario
Baptiste tapped the glowing dot marking her last known position on the map. He’d thought that Overwatch was dead, but maybe it wasn’t. If Talon was coming for Dr. Ziegler, then she had a right to know. He’d need help tracking her down, but luckily, he knew just who to ask.
Baptiste opened an encrypted app on his phone, entered the password, and hit the call button on the bottom of the screen. It only rang twice before a familiar voice came through the speaker. “Hey, mijo. It’s been a while.”
“Hey, Sombra,” he said, looking at Dr. Ziegler’s profile. “Can you do me a favor?”
Time to gossip about god programs again, yippee!!!
A couple things about this section: 1) It’s going to be more speculative than the others by necessity, so feel free to ignore it!, 2) Ultimately I don’t know what the plot is here...just admitting that up front. I do make a guess though!
So recent Overwatch media has a pattern of introducing a tease at the end. The Blizzardworld map trailer showed Winston, Tracer, Bastion, and Torbjörn chilling in a living room at the end. Reunion ended with Echo. Storm Rising ended by introducing some omnic no one has ever seen before. And What You Left Behind ends by introducing Baptiste’s friendship with Sombra and indicating that he is shipping off to find Mercy with her help. Some of these teases contribute to what I am going to call the “Middle East Scenario”, where a lot of plot threads seem to be orbiting around the Middle East and Mercy, with the potential for converging.
First let’s look at what individuals are actively pursuing Mercy:
Ana & Soldier 76 - Soldier has a documented aversion to Mercy in Bastet, but in the follow-up animation Bastet Rises, Ana ends up hauling his useless carcass all the way to Mercy’s doorstep. Bastet tells us that Ana for some reason knows where Mercy is, and Soldier’s wounds in Bastet (from an attack by Reaper in Old Soldiers—still with me?) are not healing correctly, necessitating a slightly more advanced medical approach than Ana’s field stitching. I guess you could argue the canonicity of Bastet Rises, but it was commissioned by Blizzard and I’m pretty sure that Genjicat in the final shot is the only wink-wink.
Baptiste - Of course What You Left Behind ends with Baptiste seeking Mercy out to warn her of Talon’s interest in her and the other former agents. He’s checking for a physical location, so he probably intends to meet her in person. The only complication here is timing: Baptiste’s story takes place three days after the Recall, the events of Bastet take place around the same time as Reflections (where you can see Ana and Soldier moping together at Christmas), so whatever Baptiste is doing he’s either taking a really scenic route to Mercy or he actually meets her separately from Ana and Soldier meeting her. Reflections also shows us that Mercy is still chilling in a tent somewhere, so if anybody has met with her they have yet to disrupt her post-Overwatch routine of traveling from one humanitarian mission to another.
Reaper - In a general sense Reaper operates as Talon’s executioner and would be seeking Mercy for that reason. Baptiste seems to think Talon is a very present threat at the end of the story, though he may not know Reaper personally. There is a second reason Reaper may show up at Mercy’s house, which is his pursuit of Ana and Soldier. Soldier specifically worries about staying in one place too long because of Reaper in Bastet.
Sombra - Likely to be in touch with the good doctor, at least virtually, due to Baptiste calling in a favor. Baptiste and Sombra met while they were both working at Talon, per the Developer Q&A.
Next we should consider what other forces are operating regionally or who otherwise might get pulled into Mercy’s orbit:
Pharah & Helix Security - From Bastet we know Ana has written a letter to Pharah, but Pharah has yet to respond. Soldier speculates that Ana will request Pharah to manage some artifacts at the Necropolis, and encourages her to contact Pharah again. If Pharah does seek out Ana, the trail will inevitably lead her to Mercy.
Helix Security, the private military Pharah works for, is also active in the post-Recall timeline. The Anubis god program broke out of a Helix facility, and so did Doomfist, quite effortlessly. Despite this there is nothing currently indicating Helix is a Talon puppet. Talon has an interest in their properties but has been unable to access them freely. Reaper notes that Helix is unaware of the true value of what they are guarding. It’s hard to imagine Helix being unaware of the importance of keeping Doomfist imprisoned, which along with Sombra’s involvement suggests Talon’s interest is in a software asset—Anubis, or something like it.
Helix Security should have upgraded the Anubis facility after we took it over a few years back. And now the worst has happened—or it’s about to. The Anubis A.I.—one of the “god programs” Overwatch quarantined after the Omnic Crisis—broke its containment at 2300 hours.
Anubis - Pharah and her team destroyed Anubis in Mission Statement. Ten years before that, Overwatch quarantined Anubis for the first time. Overwatch’s intervention led Egypt into a state of famine and ruin, which suggests very strongly that Anubis was originally some sort of post-Crisis A.I. infrastructure initiative. In fact the first panel of Old Soldiers shows some graffiti on a wall that reads “A.I. is our right”.
It seems that whatever Overwatch did, they not only goofed it up hard, but that their intervention was not necessarily desired in the first place. A further incident occurs in Cairo three years after Overwatch’s Anubis intervention, while the humanitarian crisis is in full swing, but no details are given—it’s a background headline in the Uprising comic.
By the time Mission Statement comes to pass, the Anubis A.I. was badly malfunctioning and its containment facility lacked the necessary security upgrades to handle it (remember Reaper’s comment about Helix not knowing what they are guarding...).
We don’t know what Anubis was like when Overwatch originally intervened in its operation, but we do know that the humanitarian crisis sparked by that intervention was of special concern to both Mercy and Ana. Even with all this information, I feel like there is a catalyst missing. After all, Anubis is dead, and Talon has not been successful in getting whatever it is they want out of Helix Security’s protection. But Storm Rising may have offered the missing piece...
We learn that Doomfist is in collusion with whoever that mysterious omnic gentleman was. […] No, he’s not a part of Talon. […] Even though we’re in the past here, we’re learning about something that’s coming up, that’s unfolding… We know there’s going to be a minor detour because Doomfist has to spend a few years in jail because he’s going to get captured shortly after this. But then, the plan will unfold. [Jeff Kaplan]
Storm Rising Mystery Omnic - There are multiple reasons to believe this omnic is a member of Null Sector, but the remaining weirdness to his appearance is that he meets Doomfist in Egypt. Why would either Null Sector or Doomfist be in Egypt? The only clue we have is Jeff’s comment, that the two of them had a plan to execute six years ago, but it got put on hold after Doomfist was jailed. The possibility exists that this plan requires access to a powerful infrastructure A.I. like Anubis, and what we see in Old Soldiers is that Talon is trying to get access to property guarded by Helix Security...
It would be interesting if Overwatch’s apparent mistake in Egypt came back to haunt them ten years later. There’s a lot of ghosts in this game.
Moira & Oasis - A lot of these orbiting issues are centralized in Egypt, but Mercy’s position on the map in Recall is closer to Iraq. We know she isn’t precisely in Oasis because Oasis is hardly the site of a humanitarian crisis, but it’s not unfathomable that she would know people working there. That includes the Minister of Genetics, Moira, who is also on the Talon council, and who also gets regular visits from Reaper to further treat his condition. If, say, Soldier 76 showed up on Mercy’s doorstep with a stubborn wound caused by Reaper, the temptation might be there to reach out to Moira to help treat him.
One of the weirdest unresolved plot threads in Overwatch is also potentially connected to Oasis—Dr. Hamid Faisal, whose excavations at Petra and Ayutthaya make use of Oasis-style drones. Faisal works for an unknown benefactor, and also has work at Ilios, a site from which Talon has been attempting to steal artifacts. As revealed in Bastet, Ana also knows Faisal and has a favorable opinion of his work.
Genji - Genji, you say? Well at the time of Reflections we know Genji is aware of Mercy’s location since he is writing her a physical letter that presumably is addressed and mailed and not just delivered by a dragon Fed-Ex. He and Zenyatta appear to be chilling in Nepal (geddit), but there is nothing saying Genji isn’t going to walk over for a visit sometime. Wouldn’t it be just fun if he happened to arrive at the same time as all this other stuff was going down? Zenyatta could come too and enter directly into the middle of this big vengeful Old Soldiers plot and save some lives! What? No? Okay, back to my corner then.
In speculative conclusion: another animated short ala Infiltration, introducing a new hero (MO?) while simultaneously advancing the plot? There are a lot of moving pieces here though, and a lot of characters to render in an 8-10 min runtime. Bear in mind that Mission Statement was originally supposed to be an animated short and was cancelled for similar reasons. So there might be some additional media interventions building up to some showpiece cinematic.
But know that I will always consume and digest to a paste more short stories and comics Blizz, you can count on me!
So if Bastet ends about a week after Reflections (Jack looking the photo) and Valkyrie takes place probably just after that. Would it be likely that Pharah is still in Canada with her dad? And will probably be rushing back after hearing about this attack?
Well Reaper is in a completely different place during Reflections too…
…so you’d have to justify it as “he came back faster than Pharah”.
Considering Mercy doesn’t mention Pharah at all when she’s reflecting on Helix or when she learns that Ana is alive, it seems more likely that she just…doesn’t know present-day Pharah, I guess? Pharah might be one of the faceless Raptora units Mercy notices in the sky during the battle.
So Mercy has been in Cairo long enough to know that Helix employs a special type of flying soldier, and long enough to decide that Helix isn’t her favorite mercenary company, but not long enough to know that Pharah works for them. It’s pretty awkward. I’m guessing the overarching reason is that Pharah would add one character too many in a 26-page short story that’s supposed to be about Mercy’s relationship with old Overwatch.
And yeah, maybe she did take an extended vacation with her dad, but it seems Mercy doesn’t know her either way these days.
It’s worth noting that Mercy was not originally in Cairo. The Recall cinematic actually shows her somewhere in Iraq:
In Valkyrie Mercy only specifically mentions being in Poland, South Korea, Venezuela, and Egypt. Of course were she in Iraq she might run afoul of Oasis/Moira plots and whatever is going on there, plus the image of her in a rundown medical camp from Reflections doesn’t really mesh with what we know about Overwatch’s Iraq.
I am guessing that at some point the decision was made to make Mercy more relevant to Overwatch’s biggest visible plotline (which is not just about the Old Soldiers, but about Talon’s interest in Anubis), so they moved her. Why Pharah hasn’t been afforded the same courtesy isn’t clear, but a lot of people have asked for Mercy content.
Hopeful Speculation Zone:
On Twitter I mentioned that Pharah has a real potential to connect with the Old Soldiers in a way that Mercy does not. Mercy doesn’t even like them! And all Mercy does in Valkyrie is reinforce Ana’s self-destructive thinking: that they (Gabe/Jack/Ana) are nothing but soldiers, that the ending is inevitable. It’s this horrible piper’s song in the background of everything. Gabe is probably the one playing it.
Pharah idolized the veterans of Overwatch…so wouldn’t it be cool if she was the “hero for heroes” now that they’ve gotten themselves into such a big mess? Unlike Mercy she’s a soldier, so she shares that commonality with them, while possibly having a different (less tragic) outlook on the future. Chu says that Overwatch 2 will be about “generations”, so maybe Pharah will be the bridge between them.
But that’s way too big a subject to fit in Mercy’s story.
Unlike Genji, Mercy does not have some elaborate backstory that we need to wonder about in order to interpret her dialogues. What we do know is that she lost her parents to war, that she was a close friend to Torbjörn Lindholm and his family before she ever joined Overwatch, and that in Overwatch she was the Head of Medical Research. She developed technologies such as the Valkyrie suit and the Caduceus, and the field she is famous for is “applied nanobiology”. She is a veteran member of the Strike Team like Tracer, having previously participated in the Uprising mission.
With all that out of the way, we can just jump into Storm Rising’s content. I’m going to start with a couple interactions that I believe convey a theme: “Mercy has no off switch”.
If you’ve ever had a conversation with someone who is whinging about some irritation in their life, you know that the best response can be to just have some empathy and sort of listen and show that you understand. Smile and nod. The same can be said for someone expressing themselves about attractive weather or a beautiful view. A nod and a “yup” are probably all you need.
As we can see here though, Mercy is a little too practical-minded and professional for that approach.
In the first dialogue she automatically starts searching for cause and solution, and settles on some accusatory advice that Tracer drink more water. Genji’s reflection on the stormy seas likewise evokes no interest from her, but rather an attempt to re-focus him on the mission.
Take special note of how Sojourn, another of the more professionally minded operatives on the mission, tries to soften the blow. Mercy never does this in her dialogues- she is insistent about the point she wants to make, whether it be healthy water drinking habits or Winston’s bone density. Tracer does not respond to these comments, and Winston is irritated by them. Oddly enough Mercy does not have any medically-focused dialogue with Genji.
Why might Mercy be so lacking in charm? Well, first of all, the Strike Team’s dynamic has changed: the venerated older members have been replaced by two people younger than her, and even the mission’s ostensible leader is younger. And whereas she was a family friend to Torbjörn and spent much of Uprising feeling free to rib him about his inventions, Winston and Tracer and Genji seem to exist in a microcosm of newbies that is just out of her reach.
As a result she spends more of this mission in her own head, coming out mostly just to course-correct the other members of the team or remind them of their health. She does join in one group joke about Maximilien’s accountant status, at least!
She also does voice the odd thought unprompted:
Mercy’s status in Overwatch might be on her mind more than usual lately. She has a slight lame duck issue dealing with her superiors:
I covered the Egypt situation in the plot threads post, but here we see Mercy preparing for what will probably be a fruitless attempt to keep Commander Morrison from sending Overwatch to contend with a humanitarian crisis that Overwatch started (yes, you read that right). Morrison’s aversion to Mercy is also documented in Bastet. So her issues with her teammates might not just be her relentlessly professional attitude, but some trickle-down of issues she is having with Overwatch overall.
The good news is she has one guaranteed friend in all this, and he does not care that she is technical. Mercy in turn is motivated to, er, make jokes.
Oof.
Oof!
But Genji is the only one on the Strike Team, perhaps in all of Overwatch, who can fully appreciate why Mercy is so obsessed with her work. Her research allows her to work miracles, like saving his life. Having a powerful, singular focus is common to both Mercy and Genji’s later teacher Zenyatta, and significantly it is a vast departure from Genji’s own frivolous youth.
Mercy and Genji share the commonality of being isolated from others, and of being unable to behave in ways that are palatable to others.
Mercy has seen Genji at his most vulnerable, before he was Overwatch’s assassin. Genji has seen that Mercy is an outcast despite her brilliance and professionalism. These are the connections that compose a relationship lasting across many years. Is it romantic? Well, they are certainly confident in playing those roles.
All of Genji’s words to Mercy arrive on a current of deep-set, lifelong gratitude. All of Mercy’s words to Genji come not just from her pleasure in his company, but from a position of supporting him, i.e. doing what she needs to in order to ensure his confidence and recovery.
Going into the future, we know that they spend most of their time far apart, communicating by letter, maybe exchanging chocolates if they get a chance, but neither of their lives was ever allowed to be traditional in any aspect. I really enjoyed how this was written, and how much of Mercy we were allowed to see on this mission.
I think the only piece I haven’t addressed yet is the confrontation with Maximilien at the end. It feels a little odd at first since we’re told Tracer is the leader of the mission, but part of leadership is delegation of tasks to the best suited party- and while Mercy’s attitude does not earn her points with her coworkers for the most part, her confidence and firmness as well as her experience make her a good fit for dealing with a particularly slippery omnic. Also Tracer doesn’t have a cool staff to thump on the floor to punctuate her sentences.
A new Overwatch hero design interview (June 30, 2019)
-Excerpts-
Geoff Goodman, Principal Designer for Hero Design: When we were in development, we talked about having Baptiste be in a new mercenary group, but ultimately, we felt like it was just like too much. He needed to be a little closer to the core of the story. So we altered his backstory so he's a member of Talon. I think it makes for a stronger character.
Heather Newman, Interviewer: Are there other examples of heroes whose backstories changed?
Goodman: Pharah used to have a really crazy, much more in-depth story. Her suit had artificial intelligence in it. She was actually -- we didn't do this until Wrecking Ball -- but Pharah was going to be the character that had two voices. She was going to talk to her suit.
She had this whole story about figuring about the mystery of what was going on, and she was like adventuring around the world trying to find the truth. Ultimately, we made that a lot more simple.
It happens with every hero. Every hero starts much more complicated than where we end up. I think it's actually to the benefit of the heroes, because one of the nice things about Overwatch and its characters is that we can always add depth to them later. At the outset, it's helpful for these characters to be understandable and simple and graspable.
- - -
Newman: What hero backstories do players ask for?
Goodman: I think it would be really interesting to get into, and I think it's often requested, to get into Mercy a little bit more. I think Zenyatta is commonly asked for. I think he is a really interesting character that really fits into the world in a way that could show a lot about the world and robots and Omnics and how they're treated. So those are two that really spring to mind. I wish we had time to do all of them. I think all these characters are itching to have their stories told.
- - -
Newman: [Did] Genji's development have any challenges?
Goodman: Genji is an interesting example, because while he was pretty easy on the art side -- he had this sort of green color that we weren't using anywhere, besides maybe Lucio -- so we had the color scheme thing, which was nice.
But from a game design standpoint, it was super rocky. We tried to make melee work for a long time as his only way of attack, so he had to dart out all the time. And that just really didn't work. We thought it was going to work, we'd already made Reinhardt at that point. It seemed like we'd already got melee covered, this should be easy. It just was not easy.
Theoretically can do a lot more damage in the tank, so he's supposed to be able to kill people easier. It was just, in a [first-person shooter], using a melee weapon like that is really challenging.
Newman: How did you figure out the problem?
Goodman: We wrestled for a long time -- he even had spells and backstab, all these different kind of moves. We ended up having this epiphany, when we're just like, is there any way we can really make the sword feel really cool, to make it do a lot more damage, and just make him limit it?So that's when we ended up making his ultimate, and getting him shurikens. He wasn't originally designed to use shurikens actually. We had to redesign his arms to be able to hold these shurikens and deploy them. From a game design perspective, he was really, really difficult.
[ My note: You can see footage of Genji’s original melee-only design in the Blizzcon 2017 Overwatch Archives Panel (51:07, see below). This design is similar to the Assassin enemy introduced in Retribution. ]
