The idea of Omnics dying is stupid

I’ve seen all sorts of lore explanations here regarding Overwatch and a lot of it seems like people just trying to grasp at any straw to make things make sense. Weird way to start I know, and I also understand that people don’t have a lot to work with really regarding this multiplayer fps games universe.

Mondatta could’ve just been repaired. Don’t give me any unique bull, don’t give me any “essential processor broken” bull, his death would have literally no meaning in a world even like ours today. He would just be repaired and you’d have the same guy. Just one of a million things. He was shot by a regular rifle, they could’ve just fixed him. Probably not even hard for the massive brains we have in the OW roster.

4 Likes

He lost his Windows XP system due to an emergency update so his hard drive could be saved in a cloud.

23 Likes

You’re missing the part where he was a religious leader of an order that believes in and preaches the existence of omnic souls.

Could he be rebuilt? Probably, but the Shambali likely wouldn’t, because by their beliefs, it wouldn’t be him or have the same soul. And by doing so, they’d be publicly undermining themselves.

Although…Technically he was an announcer for Toronto in old OW2 footage and you never know what direction they may go with omnics and the Iris in the story. So, prehaps this will directly come up.

17 Likes

Oh yeah just repair the brain of the guy who gets shot, he’ll be fine. Why do people die of a heart attacks? Just repair their heart.

… Actually Mercy probably could just repair someone’s heart, maybe you have a point.

7 Likes

It’s a robot. Once again, trying to grasp for straws. But I do understand, it’s all that can be done. Their brain can be replaced.

Unlike mine if my head was blasted off.

2 Likes

Omnic souls are a thing in the Overwatch universe.

2 Likes

A processor is still a physical object that can be destroyed. Once you break it, that data’s gone. The data in mondottas processor would be gone. Putting a new one in him would be just as effective as trying to restore files on your old broken computer by just buying a new one.

8 Likes

You’re using ordinary logic for extraordinary circumstances. We don’t know how robots were able to develop sentience. It likely involves machine learning and quantum computing. “Learning” being the key word. If we cloned you, though your DNA would be an exact match, the person, experiences, thought processes, all the things that make you, you… those would not be imparted on that clone.

6 Likes

It’s a bit weird that such an important omnic wouldn’t backup his brain somewhere. Probably cheaper than all the security he had protecting him.

2 Likes

It is stupid that they keep dying, but those humans keep killing them. Not their fault. #robotlivesmatter

It doesn’t really feel weird or grasping at straws to me. Plenty of games have already explored the concept of what is a soul, or rather, is a person more than just their collective memories and their personality. Soma did a great job, hell, even cyberpunk did a pretty good job if you really look into the worldbuilding and sidequests. I don’t think they necessarily need to make a big deal out of it beyond just “hey, this is what they believe” and a bit of exposition if there’s a greater narrative they want to touch on. Who knows, maybe they do exactly that in ow2. I’m not counting on a great story though, lol

I mean, try repairing a PC that has been shot

1 Like

honestly, the lore never made much sense, for we still don’t know exactly what makes an omnic an “omnic”.
there’s some mentioning of omnium factories and that’s it. There used to be god programs but i think they were retconned. The lore in this game never went anywhere and we still don’t know exactly why the omnic crisis happened or what talon’s endgoal actually is and how it relates with omnics.

also, i hate how they just went with a boring “racism” allegory, considering we see things like omnics being hijacked in pharah’s comic and the entire “omnic crisis” thing. At that point it’s not mere xenophobia. Reminds me of BNA where the beastmen are discriminated against… except any beastman can randomly go berserk and slaughter everything nearby, which is something ingrained in their dna.

i can believe mondatta being dead tho, especially if he comes from a religion where omnics consider themselves to have “true souls”. Even if they could repair him 1:1 the “new” mondatta wouldn’t feel like he’s the real one

1 Like

Can you imagine the security/privacy risk of having your brain in the cloud while Sombra exists? Heck, she could implant Talon malware in it so that if he ever uses his backup cloud save he becomes evil. I wouldn’t do it.

Death means nothing in the Overwatch universe. Everybody dies multiple times per day. If Mondatta never comes back, it’s because he quit the game.

1 Like

That isn’t what I mean at ALL. You’d literally just take the broken parts he has and…replace them.

Like others have said, his brain should be backed up or something. They undoubtedly have the capability to do that considering all of the technology in the Overwatch universe, y’know…chronal accelerator or whatever lmao.

I get that sci-fi doesn’t entirely have to make sense but this is beyond dumb. Omnics would be able to be rebuilt and powered back up. If wherever their storage is wasn’t destroyed, they would probably be the same.

You can fix a PC that’s been shot, it’s just a matter of replacing what was damaged and destroyed with new pieces. Hard to do that with people.

That’s why we have hard drives. Why would that be in his face?? He should have an SSD anyways, so it isn’t too slow.

What about if his storage data is broken and cannot be recovered.

Major design flaw in these non human, human built entities.

Since we can’t prove that consciousness even exists in anything besides oneself, and that it even has anything to do with a physical body, I don’t find anything wrong with the idea of machines having consciousness, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. He (I think Mondatta is a he, but let’s just say they/them) is (was) alive, not a computer, not a thing that can be repaired once dead. Omnics are a sentient species, not robots following programming (as far as Overwatch is concerned so far, anyways). It would probably be as difficult to back up an Omnic like them as it would be a human. Would they be the same? That’s up to the story writers, since not a person alive or dead truly knows. Is a computer that’s destroyed and rebuilt truly the same as the original? Are the electrons in the exact same place, bits in the exact same positions, all of the chips and circuitry identical to the previous (the answer to this is no; they can be close, but likely never actually identical, our machinery isn’t that precise)? Honestly, for all we know our computers ARE conscious we just don’t have a way to recognize it. And we’ll likely never know if we are interacting with a conscious machine or not, even if they acted identical to what we understand consciousness to be from a human standpoint. At some point humans will likely have to accept the fact that from a moral point of view, we’ll have to treat computers/ai like we would anyone else, that they’re alive and having their own experience, as we won’t be able to tell the difference.

1 Like

Maybe having the storage space to back up what was supposed to be an army of servants was considered an unnecessary cost? So they never bothered backing up any Omnics.