While this almost certainly isn’t the case, after talking with my brother and rewatching “The Last Bastion” and rereading “Binary” there are some rather interesting things I’ve noticed about our favorite E54 and its avian companion
First off, Ganymede is HIGHLY intelligent. He woke Bastion up, taught it how to offer signs of peace (sticks and a flower were given to Torbjorn after he ventured to Sweden, we know Bastion has learned from this exchange and integrated this behavior into his personality). He also was smart enough to tamper with Torbjorn’s specialized trap and protect Bastion, often calling out to it to alert the Omnic of any potential threats. They seem capable of conversing to a degree, or at least have their own special form of communication.
Second, while it is impressive that Ganymede is so intelligent that it followed Bastion as he walked under the sea from Germany to Sweden, he must also be pretty darn strong to make it all the way there. The air time “as the bird flies”, aka the shortest distance from Germany to Sweden, is a whopping 697 miles. The on foot travel time on this route (were it possible) is calculated to be 265 hours, or just over 11 days, assuming Bastion wasn’t slowed down much by being underwater (though I’d assume it would have taken a while considering how often it stops to interact with wildlife). But even at a conservative estimate of 11 days to keep pace with Bastion, Ganymede must have INCREDIBLE endurance. Even stopping on passing boats and stealing food and water, this would be immensely impressive for a tiny bird.
Finally, there’s the issue of what Ganymede is. His species is… Not exactly real, but the closest things to him would be a Northern Cardinal, a bird native to North America, or a white-eyes bird, native to Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeastern Asia. He resembles a cardinal due to his songs and head crest, and a white-eyes bird for his coloration. But for the sake of providing an answer, I’m gonna say that he’s a xanthochroic, or yellow mutant, cardinal. Think albino animals but yellow. Regardless, neither of these birds are native to Germany OR Sweden. So… What’s the deal here? Why is Ganymede such an anomaly?
My theory is that Ganymede is, in fact, an animal experiment. Possibly even from the Horizon Lunar Colony, if he somehow hitched a ride with Hammond, though not likely the case. Perhaps there were other experiments with gene therapy to make animals smarter in this universe. But think about it. Winston’s genetic therapy made him highly intelligent, capable of understanding and speaking human language, and gave him his “Primal RAAAAAGE” transformation. Hammond’s genetic therapy made him, again, highly intelligent, and also much larger and gave him a longer lifespan than other hamsters. Perhaps Ganymede is oddly colored due to genetic therapy altering his body’s pigmentation, and this would explain his abnormally high intelligence. I mean, it turned a gorilla into the Hulk and made a hamster giant with Torbjorn eyebrows. In this universe, it’s not outside the realm of possibilities. It might even give us a reason Ganymede HAS a name, which, by the way, is shared by a character from Greek mythology and ALSO the largest MOON of Jupiter. Space. Theme.
As for Bastion, we only see Ganymede just about finishing his nest before waking Bastion up. Birds often very carefully choose their nesting spots so they can be protected, and Ganymede chose to build it on a battle Omnic. Not much more protection than that. He also just happened to FIND a Bastion that wasn’t completely murderous? No no. I think it’s possible Ganymede actually could have tampered with Bastion prior to waking it up, wiping some of its programming and opening up a capacity to learn, which Torbjorn seems to think is impossible for an E54. Well, maybe this is the explanation. Ganymede is yet another hyper intelligent mutant animal with an understanding of engineering. Ganymede is the mastermind behind Bastion becoming peaceful. It’s why he stays by him with such loyalty, why he communicates so well with Bastion, why he’s so different from regular songbirds. Or, it could be that he’s just there to add to Bastion’s cute factor… But I find this crazy explanation to be much more interesting, and in this universe, it’s plausible.