So I’ve been pondering this since Reunion, but I’m unsure of where Echo’s misunderstanding about Winston being referenced by McCree came from.
If we assume Echo is intimately familiar with Overwatch as an organization, then surely she knew Winston is not Human. Especially McCree saying that Overwatch (in a sense) is reforming.
There are 3 conclusions I can infer from Echo’s response:
As an AI, she views sentient life as generalized in terms of what they are. Winston/Humans/Omnics are equal and the same in her eyes. (Inferred from McCree calling Winston “monkey” and then scientist, using specific but general terms to describe what he is, but not who he is. Echo calling McCree by ‘cowboy’ when first reawakened)
Echo is unfamiliar with Winston (the ape), maybe deactivated well before Winston crashed to Earth from Horizon Lunar Colony. (Maybe understand who Dr. Harold Winston was, but didn’t recognize Winston the ape.[Side bar, could Winston have been implanted with Harold Winston’s personality or brain somehow and this is what Echo sees? Theory for another time])
Echo simply misunderstood McCree’s terminology used, “monkey”, because she’s a literal being and recognizes Winston as what he is, a great ape. (Monkeys have tails, Apes don’t).
Echo is familiar with Winston and his dislike of being called a monkey. McCree should know better, so she calls him on it, prompting McCree to correct himself and say “scientist”.
I’m favoring theory #2 when Echo did not know of Winston but I can see other sides of the theories being correct. My only reasoning is that writers and stories (in my opinion) usually would go for the more obvious approach (which I see as Echo not knowing Winston) to portray the narrative whereas if we are left guessing and reading too much into things, writers would appear to not communicate the story clearly.
In the french Reunion short (it’s called “Retrouvailles”), the translators made an interesting choice of words for McCree/Echo dialogue :
In th original version, he says :
“Scientist… whatever”
but in french, he says :
“Le scientifique… enfin tu verras”… and enfin tu verras, means “Well, you’ll see”… So far only the french version has this choice of wording that differs from the original dialogue (German and Spanish have the same meaning of “whatever”) They could have used something like “peu importe”. But they chose “you’ll see”
And that’s why i’m sticking to the theory that Echo was shutdown before Winston came to Earth.
HOWEVER, I think that there are quite several misleading interactions in “Reunion”, so I woudn’t read too much into it.
I’d rather just wait for the next bit of lore to be released, and hopefully this time it will be better executed.
I’ve thought of it in that she understands beings through their purpose or function rather than their physical make-up, having been an AI that hasn’t always been confined to a physical body.
So she sees Winston as a scientist rather than a monkey, & McCree as a cowboy rather than a man.
Sort of just an expansion on your initial point
I doubt the Harold Winston cross-over, especially as him & Winston existed simultaneously, but it’s a cool idea ha!
Your final point is actually pretty clever xD but I assume McCree’s response is made understanding Echo’s behaviour & so he particularly chose scientist in order to clarify particularly to her what he meant.
If she had meant ape, I imagine he would’ve changed his answer knowing her particularities, or she would’ve said something like “Don’t you mean the ape/gorilla?”
& if she knew Winston’s dislike of monkey, it’s pretty clear McCree didn’t mean it harmfully or she would’ve been more antagonistic in her tone, rather than confused.
Although I do now like the idea, especially given the French translation, that she was deactivated before Winston joined OW; which could mean she was only active (& important) during the Omnic Crisis maybe?
(I missed that point in my initial read xD)
If she was only active during the Omnic Crisis, she would not know McCree - he joined Overwatch ~5 years after the Omnic Crisis ended, and he was a child during the crisis.
Is it confirmed anywhere that echo is indeed an omnic Ai and not something else.
I (seemingly controversially) definitly get the transfered consciousness vibe from her.
I saw a tinfoil hat post elsewhere saying how she could be remnants of Amelie and that part of the brainwashing proceedure was to extract her conciousness and put it in an omnic (very obscure I know) but it got me thinking of so many possiblities that they could go with regarding echo. We dont fully know the extent of what happens in the Overwatch universe or if they even have technology capable of doing such a thing.
But a dead persons ‘soul’ transfered and implanted into an omnic sounds interesting to me
I think her intonation on the word is important to understanding what she means by it - the inflection goes down at the end, rather than going up like you might expect when someone is confused. She also wasn’t confused by any other part of McCree’s dialogue - she didn’t need clarification on who “the band” is, or why they would want her, which indicates she knows he’s talking about Overwatch and she knows they were shut down. She also asked what Jesse was going to do, since it didn’t seem like he was going back with her - this indicates she knows he was an Overwatch member.
I think she was deactivated/put away as part of the Overwatch shut down (which is also reinforced by her not knowing how McCree lost his arm, which happened after he left Overwatch).
Very possible! I doubt it’s Amelie though (more likely she’s been repressed rather than removed).
I think it’s more likely someone more focal from the far-reaching history of OW & in a situation where the outcome would’ve been affected by OW (not Talon); Liao perhaps?
I dunno, try saying “Monkey?” with an upward leaning inflection…it’s personally way easier to say it with the intonation she used to sound questioning or confused. Tbh, both versions sound confused, the upward inflection sounds super cartoony to me though xD
