Moira’s place in the lore

Story Discussion
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What I love to focus on in terms of lore is what Moira as a character has to offer for us, so this is a massive post about what we currently know about her and what could possibly be revealed in the future

  1. What we know about her now

Moira is one of the inner council members of talon and a former member of the covert ops division of overwatch - Blackwatch. She mainly works as a scientist in most of her areas of focus, but will occasionally participate in missions such as “Retribution”. Her career as a scientist had a very controversial start. She had published a paper on custom genetic modification. This was what seemed like the first step into curing a mass amount of major genetic diseases. However, it was later realised that Moira’s methods of research were very suspicious, as no scientists had managed to replicate her data findings. This lead to Moira’s reputation taking serious damage. This also raised questions about her research, since it was believed to be very dangerous and Unethical. She eventually found a place where she could continue her research from an unlikely source - Blackwatch. Overwatch never knew that Moira had been working for Blackwatch until the Venice incident occurred. It is believed that she is responsible for Gabriel Reyes’ current state, in which he has ghost-like abilities. She is also the minister of Genetics at Oasis, which she turned to for funding after Overwatch shut down. Although, it was whispered by many at Oasis that she already was being supported by talon for many years. Possibly during her time as a Blackwatch member.

  1. What this could mean/reveal

The main thing I noticed is that if it is confirmed that Moira WAS being supported by talon during her time as a Blackwatch member, then she definitely could have had a role in the downfall of Overwatch. We also know she modified Reyes’ genes to such a mysterious extent. Which brings me to wonder- What else did she do in her time as a Blackwatch agent. I feel like there is a possibility that Moira has done a lot more work in terms of modifying genetics. She may have even gone on to create a “Super soldier” , or something similar. I believe she did more than just what she did to Reyes. We know how far she will go when she isn’t held back, but what could she possibly do with the knowledge she has? Maybe a future hero will reveal more of Moira’s experiments. I’d also like to know a tiny bit more about her relationship with Mercy. The two are very clear opposites of each other, so i’d love to see if the two possibly clashed with each other at a point in time.

What do you think? What could Moira have possibly done with her research that we might not know about? Did she have a playing factor in the downfall of overwatch? How will she play her part in the future?

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To be honest, I doubt Moira was involved directly with the downfall of Overwatch. Everything we’ve seen of her doesn’t point to her caring about organizations themselves. All she seems to want is to be able to do her experiments and work, and whoever funds her has her loyalty.

I am also curious about her other work, too though - in Blackwatch, Talon, Oasis … everything, really. She’s got a hand in pretty much every major section of OW lore in that regard, and I would love to see that used in the plot.

Definitely agree on wanting to see more with Mercy, too! Especially with her research paper being found in Oasis - there are ties there ( I hope ) that could be interesting to reveal.

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A lot of good points there. One question raised is that if Moira wasn’t involved with overwatch being destroyed, where do you think she actually was when it collapsed? Since she had been revealed to the public after the Venice incident, I most likely think she went into hiding. Possibly talon?

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I am not really sure — assuming that blackwatch disbanded completely after the Venice incident, I would guess Oasis or Talon would be suitable guesses ? Somewhere far away from Overwatch, that’s for sure.

I do wonder how she viewed the fall of Overwatch, though. She doesn’t seem like she would hold them in a very high regard, but I am curious anyway.

Really hope to see her in comics / shorts / any form that plot comes in.

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They were not suspicious. Other scientists could not repeat its result due to the fact that Moira is extremely talented and knows his field very well. The claims of the scientific community are caused precisely by the moral side of its research.

This is the official version, but it may not be entirely accurate. In any case, this impression is created from its interactions with Morrison.

This has never been confirmed. Moreover, she goes on a suicide mission in Rialto and almost dies there. Her employers would not allow this.

She was a small child in SEP times.

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imo she 's clearly the real alchemist, male+female,sun/moon, the research of immortality,if u read the wikipedia page u can refer everything to her.

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I honestly feel like it was Moira’s research which made those talon troops, such as assassin, sniper and other soilders. I mean,I have a reason - who can totally deform there body and kinda “fade” from places? Of course its: reaper, Moira herself, assassin, sniper. Moira either made them by herself, or her research chemicals/data got leaked or stolen which was used to create them.

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Why do you think that such a “feature” is the development of Moira herself? It seems to me quite probable that the “fade” could have arisen as a result of the continuation of work on research from the SEP.

It may well be that someone from there is working or working on Talon. For example, “the boss, who believed that there was no luck, but only a good genome,” mentioned by Morrison.

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Could be a thing as well, but the considering Moira’s reputation was damaged makes me think that she was responsible for Reaper’s state and talon specials

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Moira reputation was killed by the very “eugenic essence” of her research, which could scare the public after SEP and Horizon. In our world there are even certain legal restrictions on working with the human genome. As I understand it, Reyes became the first Moira’s experimental patient. Before that, she set up experiments only on animals and on herself.

If Moira had created a much more advanced assassin and sniper, would she have gone to Rialto with an unstable Reyes and a pair of his operatives? In this case, she would be fully aware of the suicidality of such a mission, and the leadership of the Talon would not allow her to do so too.

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This actually makes a lot more sense, The thing is, Moira went with the blackwatch because they had a plan but due to Reaper/Gabe killing that boss, they had to abandon it which lead them to an unexpected situation, Moira may have not expected this but decided to play it cool without expressing her fear against the assassin/sniper?

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During the mission, Reyes complains a lot about the fact that intelligence provided to them was extremely inaccurate and this greatly complicated the escape. If Moira was creating Talon operatives, she should have been perfectly aware of the danger and fact, that mission is extremly dangerous.

And what was even the reason for her to cooperate with Reyes and risk her life in Rialto, if Talon could offer her research on the level of assassins and snipers?

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I am a bit torn on the whole ideal on this: tl;dr

On one end, the funny thing is that they are simply “rumors” about her working for Talon at the time. Who and what proof I wonder did anyone have against her to subject this into existence? There has to be proof or Overwatch would just be getting rid of her without factual evidence, and it would make OW look even more terrible of all they do is bias everything on speculation and rumor. I understand they can’t “take risks” but that is there job to find out if or if not a person is guilty. If anything, it was Gabriel that had hired her, and Jack should have been on this knowing the freedom he gave Gabe. Unless someone outed her (which I feel may be the case) or they simply dug around and found that her science was “unethical” (Still no reason so dismiss her as OW was already in hot water as it was) I feel that her “dismissal” was not justified in any way considering she was keeping Blackwatch alive the whole time being the healer and that without her, might have had a harder time an/or they could have died (Again, not sure how long she has been in Blackwatch. It seems she did join later as can be seen from Moira’s video) OW should have taken into consideration Gabe’s choices. They seem to not trust him as Jack and Gabe have been on the fence recently, with Ana, somewhere caught in the middle.

We know Gabe had originally hired her for her expertise in the genetic field as well as being able to “think outside the box” as he does. He wanted her to help him, but at the same time, brought her on missions. Moira had only wanted to pursue a career in science to help further the world of it’s incredible knowledge regarding genetics and to help shape the future for everyone on Earth and was not interested at all in anything OW or BW did. Now, if she was say, a spy, then Gabe clearly would have known this without a doubt as he never misses a beat. This often leads people to believe that Gabe is a traitor for knowing who she was, but, is that really case?

She is indifferent to anything other than science itself. I feel that it is only fear that people have stopping her, and while I feel she should use some caution (If she accidentally kills herself, well, that would be a waste) as her mind is one that is exceedingly brilliant. Brilliant enough for Oasis to notice her. She is smart, she just is careless and does not fear. That causes people to fear. Overwatch of course, had no knowing of her so keeping her a “secret” would need to be done considering OW “plays by the rules”

Now, I personally think Moira played a part with the downfall of Overwatch during Retribution in a way, however, it could be she took the blame instead of having Gabriel do it as I feel she was playing a double agent for BW along with Gabe, since, as you know, he was still around in BW afterward. Gabriel had a line in Retribution that I found very interesting. He said something along the lines of “always getting blamed” for things. If Gabriel is always the person to be blamed, and Moira knew, perhaps it was her that took the blame for him. Now, the question is, was Gabe actually a part of Talon at this time too, playing double agent for BW along with her? If Gabe was kicked from BW, he couldn’t get the intel he wanted as easily, so keeping himself inside was needed. I wouldn’t put it past him if Gabe was with Talon being a double agent for BW as he likes to do things “his way” and could be the reason Jack was always so skeptical of him. Moira might have just needed to take the blame, because Moira did say Gabe was going to get pretty nailed. He did but he was still kept even after that.

Moira is no fool. She needs income. She wants money and she knows she needs it to survive. She would always have a backup plan I feel and Talon might have been her “safe haven” but she may still be playing tight with Gabe as I feel she cares for Gabe and will help his cause among anything else, so he could easily persuade her if he needed, ontop of her being a doctor for him.

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This is the same if the United Nations hired Dr. Mengele as a health consultant. They can afford something like this unofficially, but Moira had time to light up in the press during Rialto, and officials had to publicly pretend that they knew nothing about her.

So far, there is no indication that she was their full-fledged medic, and not Reyes’s personal doctor. Moira, in fact, not even a field agent, she likes to talk about it.

There is a rigid hierarchy in military organizations. Reyes is the commander, and even if Moira was interested in his work problems (which I doubt a little), he will always be blamed for this outing because he is the commander and he initiated this mission. There is no way for Moira to take the blame.

God, how much is it far-fetched. The entire Retribution comic is dedicated to Reyes’s revenge for his people, his base, his friend, to organization which he fights with and hates. He was nearly killed by Talon in Rome!

Talon and BW are the two opposing sides and this is not the case when she could abstract and choose both. In addition, she is not so idealistic as to help her employers fight among themselves.

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You misunderstood. I mean, he joined Talon to take them down from the inside out all the while working for Blackwatch. I meant to say a Talon double agent then lol Not that he works for Talon to take down Blackwatch.

Right, but apparently, all of them lit up the press and not just her. Mccree, Genji AND Gabe were all caught as well, yet the one that got the axe was Moira. My reasoning is, why get rid of her? They are “supposed” rumors, nothing to base anything off of and OW didn’t really do their research then if these are “still rumors” Of course, she is working for Talon now, but that is now. Sure, she could have been in Talon, but to point the finger without evidence? Not likley here. Genji was a legit assassin whose killed people, yet he is ok to have in still? They could have convinced her otherwise to stay if they wanted. I am HOPING they had facts before her dismissal. I am thinking otherwise.

Can’t really say so. Moira’s intentions are clear that she does things for science however, it was also mentioned that she and Gabe have a professional friendship to which, she helps him for her science and if he constructs her to do something, she most likely will. He retrieved her again for a reason after all. I feel that she would be IF the employer is her subject, hence Gabriel.

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Reyes hired her because he already had problems with the genome. [quote=“Chiron-11341, post:17, topic:231947”]
You misunderstood. I mean, he joined Talon to take them down from the inside out all the while working for Blackwatch.
[/quote]
So they tried to kill him, their “double agent” in Rome and in Rialto? The comic makes it clear that at that time Reyes had nothing to do with the Talon. Totally.

BW was under investigation after this mission, and at the time of Uprising it was no longer functioning. So everyone in this group received a certain punishment.

What makes you think that Moira was punished somehow separately? Re-read her biography.

After Overwatch was disbanded, O’Deorain was forced to turn to unconventional sources of funding.

Nobody even kicked her out.

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Most do set ups. Whose to say iot wasn’t? Their mission was to turn in Antonio, not kill him. Nobody was attacking them also. they crept in to kill the guards iirc to get to Antonio. They were only attacked once Antonio was killed, maybe because that wasn’t supposed to happen? This could be far fetched. Anything is a possibility though.

Welp, my bad xD You are right lol I dunno why I thought they kicked her out. That’s kind of contradictory though because Moira said OW “tried to silence her”. So, she made it until OW disbanded? Then she should have no ill will towards them? Seems she ran full term? That doesn’t add up to me.

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We are shown how they kill people in order to break through to Antonio. They were not attacked, because they … Attacked first? Besides, why would Reyes kill Antonio at all if they are colleagues? Why would Antonio annoy and provoke him?

They tried to limit her research, but it was before she met Reyes.

You know, the UN has such a department, the Bureau of Ethics. It seems to me that Overwatch has partially adopted this function.

Even if she doesn’t like the main Overwatch, Moira is not like a vindictive shrew. BW gave her the opportunity to work with an interesting patient and sponsored her. Why should she wish them something evil?