Talon: Clawing to the Top

Alright, everyone, craziness went down today, but one of the things I’m most HYPED about is the confirmation that Talon is run by a council of leaders.



Most importantly, these leaders disagree with each other.

This is a big deal. We know so little about Talon’s structure that it’s great to finally get some news on the internal hierarchy of the organization. Some of the things I’ve pulled together are statements or implications made by Blizzard, some of it is just putting the pieces together, and a lot of it is pure speculation. I’ll try to keep it clear what’s what.

To start off with, I’m going to be dropping my main hypothesis:

[Main Hypothesis]: the “global conflict” that Doomfist’s faction within Talon has been trying to spread is the Second Omnic Crisis.

[Subset Hypothesis]: the group within Talon that is trying to prevent this is none other than Sombra and Reaper.

As a sort of guide, when I say [Factual Lore] these are things you can double-check in Overwatch dev interviews, Chu’s GDC talk, heroes’ biographies, etc. When I say [Implications], I’m talking about trying to read in between the lines, to assess what certain things are trying to hint at or indicate. When I say [Hypothesis] I’m just speculating and constructing a discussion point.

We’re gonna go way, way far back, all the way to the beginning:

The First Omnic Crisis

[Factual Lore]: As many OW fans know, in the universe of Overwatch, a major war occurs between humanity and robots called Omnics. This war occurs approximately 30 years from present time (2046-2047) or 30 years in the past from current Overwatch time (2076-2077). This war was a global near-apocalypse for humanity, called the Omnic Crisis, which was prevented by a task force of at least five people - Gabriel Reyes, Jack Morrison, Ana Amari, Reinhardt Wilhelm, and Torbjörn Lindholm - who conducted mainly small, infiltration missions to destroy Omnic bases or factories called Omniums. This task force was called Overwatch.

[Implications]: What you may not have realized is that the Crisis likely caused a massive shift in how many aspects of the world function. Blizzard - specifically lead writer Michael Chu - has called the genre that Overwatch dabbles in as “firm science fiction.” They describe this as being “between soft science fiction and hard science fiction,” with the former lacking explanations for how things operate or work, and the latter being too detailed in descriptions. The Overwatch development team opted for a middle ground where some things are explained or at least “feel natural” to the audience - London now has a massive skyscraper metropolis in it, there are robots working in various cities, the world has moved onto cleaner technologies, etc.

However, in doing so, there are some interesting subtleties that many Overwatch fans appear to have missed.

Primarily, the gasoline and oil industries - along with possibly “current auto makers” - appear to have died out.

Consider this:

The United States by and large lacks a consistent, cheap railway system for passengers. There are definitely a few passenger rails and certainly predominant subway systems in some major cities, but overall, almost no one travels cross-country by train. If you have time, driving by car is arguably “cheaper” and if you have money, picking a plane saves you on time.

But in Overwatch, almost nothing runs on gasoline, and while cars exist, they hover.

The most decrepit and underutilized building in the Route 66 map is the gas station, which is falling apart. Compared to the Diner, which is still being operated, and the other buildings (probably maintained by Deadlock), the gas station is in a wretched condition.

More than that, McCree’s comic gives us the implication that new passenger railways have been built in the United States.

It makes…some sense, especially if we consider that the world is shifting towards using fusion power in everything. LumériCo is a major example: the entire country of Mexico is in the process of switching over to making everything run on an electricity grid powered by LumériCo fusion cells. By the time the game takes place, the world of Overwatch has flying cars, express trains everywhere (including a not-train-friendly place like the U.S.), and fusion power. It doesn’t need gasoline or oil anymore, not in the same quantities is does in our world.

What we should probably question is how much of this is due to the Crisis. It’s extremely hard to say. We know that Mexico and parts of Centroamérica lost major sources of power in an event called La Medianoche - The Midnight - which LumériCo President Portero cites as a major motivating goal in moving Mexico towards a “sustainable” energy source. We don’t know much about other countries during the Crisis, but we know Australia lost a significant amount of land (which they eventually conceded to a surviving “Outback Omnium”), and we now know that Nigeria struggled with an Omnium and the OR-14’s.

Another thing to consider is how much of this was post-Crisis Overwatch’s involvement. If Mei is any indication, Overwatch was at one time committed to restoring various ecosystems, including melting ice caps and permafrost (which is part of what Mei was studying). If Overwatch is somehow enforcing sanctions on companies that damage environmental resources, it seems likely that they could’ve had a hand in “killing off” gasoline and oil companies.

So here’s the real question:

What kind of crazyass political and social power does it take to kill off whole technological industries?

Why do I bring this up?

Because some people will see war as the ability to advance human industry (spoiler alert: this character was released on the PTR today and his name starts with a D and rhymes with Boomfist), and other people will see war as a killer of older technologies. Some people profit in wartime, and other people profit in peacetime. One need only to look at the U.S.’s economic boom in World War II or the military-industrial complex to see how it works.

What better way to usher in another new technological era than to force the world to war?

[Implications]: We know that Blizzard has been touting the Post-Crisis Omnics as a cheap labor force in various parts of the world, specifically in the United Kingdom. Part of why Null Sector emerged was as an extremist reaction to the treatment of Omnic laborers.

Furthermore, these tensions between the humans enjoying Post-Crisis prosperity and the Omnics suffering as they work to support it have not subsided. In Alive, we see that Mondatta has returned to London to speak about encouraging harmony between humans and Omnics, and we know that tensions continue to sizzle in Australia, Russia, and Korea. Numbani is the deviation, not the new standard. All the Overwatch characters have varying reactions to places like the Shambali Monastery in Nepal and Numbani in Nigeria, ranging from outright disgust and hatred to acceptance and hope.

So tensions are not exactly smooth in the present Overwatch world - we have shifting technologies and a psuedo-class-based struggle with a new labor force that lacks rights.

The world is poised on the edge of something very, very big.

Something that has yet to be really, truly explored by Blizzard.

News Announcer in Recall: The Second Omnic Crisis continues to devastate Russia. The conflict between Omnics and humans has now claimed over fifteen-thousand lives. So far, the international community has been reluctant to intervene.

The Second Omnic Crisis

[Factual Lore]: What’s been quietly building in the background of all these lore drops is a new, Second Omnic Crisis. Currently, the only character directly engaged in the war is Zarya, who was stationed at the Siberian front against the revived Siberian Omnium, but D.Va also appears to be semi-engaged in a building battle, being drafted into MEKA to fight a monstrous Sea Titan that emerges from the ocean to wreck havoc on parts of Korea.

[Implications]: What gets really interesting is Talon’s role in this. Talon appears to be anti-Omnic, assassinating a major, peace-loving Omnic leader for seemingly no purpose. Perhaps they want the war to spread? Perhaps they want to fan the flames of discord and chaos?

Talon is also the organization that sets out to kill Katya Volskaya. At first glance, this seems like Talon is trying to aid the Omnic forces, but consider the scenario that results if they had actually killed her: with Katya’s death, the company is thrown into chaos. No one but Katya knows where they are getting their new technology from, so mech production stalls. The new mechs are not deployed to the Siberian front, resulting in a major technological weakness.

This would permit the Second Omnic Crisis to overwhelm the human forces there, and spread outwards to the rest of the world.

[Factual Lore]: Jeff Kaplan: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uKkAyLPJe0)

“One thing you may not have known is that Doomfist is a prominent member of the Talon leadership. So, contrary to popular belief, Reaper is not the sole leader of Talon - there’s actually a council of leaders who oversee Talon - and sometimes they agree with each other, and sometimes they disagree with each other. And Doomfist is a very important member of that Talon council. Now, Doomfist’s ideology is that he wants to see humankind become more powerful, and he thinks the way for that to happen is through conflict. So it’s kinda a harsh worldview, but he really believes that we as humans get stronger the more conflict that we endure.”

[Factual Lore]: Doomfist’s biography

“Recently freed from imprisonment, Doomfist is determined to plunge the world into a new conflict that he believes will make humanity stronger.” “As the new Doomfist, Ogundimu rose high in Talon and helped to orchestrate a conflict that the organization hoped would someday engulf the world. However, before their plan came to fruition, Ogundimu was defeated and captured by an Overwatch strike team that included Tracer, Winston, and Genji. He was imprisoned in a maximum-security facility for years, where he waited patiently for events he had incited to play out.” (Things that occurred while Doomfist was in prison: the collapse of Overwatch, the ‘return’ of the Siberian Omnium, the death of Mondatta, Anubis attempting to break out of confinement, Deadlock and Los Muertos expanding their power.) Finally, he sensed that the time had come for him to return. He broke out of his prison and recovered Doomfist’s gauntlet in a one-sided battle with Numbani’s newly unveiled OR15 defense robots. Now, he has retaken his place in Talon’s inner council, ready to spark a war that will consume the world once again.”

[Factual Lore]: Doomfist on King’s Row:

“Omnics will not be kept down forever. The ashes of the Crisis still smolder.”

[Hypothesis]: the conflict Doomfist wants to see expand to engulf the war is the Second Omnic Crisis.



Someone - whether Doomfist himself operating out of the Helix prison, or a follower of Doomfist within the Talon Council - approved the assassination of Mondatta, hoping this would incite more Omnic riots and encourage Omnics to engage in a large scale war once again. Someone else approved the assassination of Katya Volskaya.

Something that’s important to consider, however, is that Volskaya has a partnership with LumériCo, a company which is currently profiting off of the last major technological switch that occurred either due to, or in the wake of, the First Omnic Crisis. Furthermore, LumériCo has a partnership with Vishkar, which is also benefitting from doing construction projects in peacetime. And Volskaya itself is getting technology from Omnics in Numbani, a city that promotes peace.

Killing Katya Volskaya had the potential to set off a massive chain reaction in which all these corporate alliances fall apart, effectively breaking down the current technological and economical structures that maintain the present world of Overwatch. Furthermore, Katya Volskaya is seen as a hero to the Russians, and her death would have angered them and motivated them to fight further.

It seemed like a prime opportunity for the faction within Talon that wants to spread global conflict to make its move.

But the assassination failed.

Quite deliberately.

The One Who Pulls The Strings

In Infiltration, we reach the revelation that Sombra was actually the one who cause the assassination mission to fail, quite intentionally. Even though she had a major opportunity to kill Katya Volskaya, she chooses not to, and instead threatens to blackmail her with proof of her trading “with the enemy.” We end the scene with Sombra saying that she’ll “be in touch” with Katya over what exactly Sombra wants the CEO to do.

Alongside this, we’ve seen other “major Talon missions” fail - rather spectacularly. The biggest issues it that Sombra isn’t directly involved in at least two of them.

[Factual Lore]: Reaper is sent by Talon, along with a squad of “standard grunts” to steal the remaining Overwatch agent list from Athena in Recall. His team fails to subdue Winston, and Reaper fails to 1) gain the list and 2) stop Winston.

[Factual Lore]: Reaper and Widowmaker are sent to retrieve Doomfist’s Gauntlet sometime after Overwatch was Recalled. They encounter Winston and Tracer who try to stop them. They fail to retrieve the Gauntlet, and are forced to escape.

[Implications]: In BOTH shorts, Reaper has at least two opportunities to shoot Winston at point-blank range. In BOTH instances, Reaper chooses not to - in Recall, he briefly incapacitates Winston by…knocking part of a spaceship on his head, and in the Museum Heist, Reaper goes out of his way to step on Winston’s glasses, an act that pushes Winston into rage mode and effectively makes him and Widowmaker lose the battle.

This is combined with the fact that Reaper consistently “fails” missions - often acting completely “irrationally” for a man who has spent like 30 years knowing how to use dual shotguns and leading a major black ops division. In the Old Soldiers comic, Reaper has an opportunity to shoot Soldier: 76 in the head at point-blank range, and choose to attempt to incapacitate him instead (eventually, Reaper foregoes his shotguns altogether to fight hand-to-hand). In the same comic, he later rematerializes near Ana, and rather than shoot her, engages in hand-to-hand combat instead.

Reaper has failed to kill every ex-Overwatch agent he has come across in every canon material piece he has been in.

In Infiltration, Reaper chooses not to shoot at a Volskaya employee who knocks himself out on a mech. Rather than wraith after Katya, Reaper instead engages in a seemingly monumental task of fighting one-on-one with a goddamn battle mech.

So just to reiterate:

Reaper - a man skilled in black ops, stealth, and lethal close-range fighting - has consistently chosen to not use any of these abilities in several major Talon missions.

Why?

[Hypothesis]: Reaper and Sombra want to see the Talon leadership fail.

For Sombra, this is almost certainly the case. She actively undermines an assassination mission, and she states outright in her Origins video that she wants uncover the weaknesses of the people who “run the world.” As I suggested in my Doomfist essay, I think it is incredibly likely that Sombra believes assisting Doomfist in his freedom will cause possible leaks in at least two places: Helix in the Temple of Anubis, and the pro-Volskaya Omnic faction in Numbani.

With the newest information about Talon, I’d also say that Sombra anticipates there might be a third place for an information leak:

The Talon leadership.

We know that the Talon council members do not always agree with each other, possibly about missions, objectives, and ideologies. Doomfist may be able to rally a faction of the Talon leaders, but by critically undermining them in key missions, Sombra has put immense pressure on them to make hastier, more precarious moves.

Reaper is possibly a part of this.

Consider: Reaper not only failed to kill Winston in Recall, but by fighting him, actually encourages Winston to take the final step towards initiating Recall. We already know that the Talon leadership - and specifically Doomfist - found Overwatch to be a major roadblock to the conflict they wanted to achieve.

[Factual Lore]: Jeff Kaplan:

“Obviously Overwatch is a world group that is opposed to conflict and is trying to create peace throughout the world, so therefore it leads to Doomfist and Overwatch definitely being at odds with each other. You add to the fact that it was Winston who put Doomfist behind bars for many, many years, and Doomfist’s hatred of Overwatch is at an all-time high. Now that Doomfist is free, he plans to use Talon to implement his worldview on the rest of - not only Talon - but the rest of mankind altogether. So the story’s gonna get very interesting, now that Doomfist is in the mix. I think it’s gonna be awesome that we learn more about Talon through Doomfist and his interactions with heroes like Widowmaker and Reaper.”

Think about it like this:

Things Gabriel Reyes/Reaper knows roughly about the time of Recall:

Winston has been hanging out in Gibraltar being listless for awhile.

The Talon leadership has approved the assassination of Mondatta.

The Talon leadership is starting to make moves to put their plan towards global war into action.

Gabriel Reyes actually fought to prevent the First Omnic Crisis from resulting in the outright destruction of humanity.

Doomfist and Winston hate each other on a very personal level.

Doomfist hates Overwatch on a very personal level.

Winston is the main Overwatch agent to have stopped Doomfist in the past.



It took creating Overwatch to stop the First Omnic Crisis.

It might take recreating Overwatch to stop the Second.

Everything Reaper has done from Recall onwards (Old Soldiers, the Museum Heist, Infiltration) has arguably been “sloppy” to the point of being “suspicious.” If this hypothesis is true, he has managed to maintain some levels of plausible deniability - and more importantly, we should keep in mind that the only characters who canonically know Gabriel Reyes is Reaper are Soldier: 76 (Jack Morrison), the Shrike (Ana Amari), and Sombra.

[Implications]: Reaper is downplaying his true abilities to undermine Talon missions and weaken the Talon leadership’s unity and stronghold.

Once again, it seems like releasing Doomfist could be a great rallying force for the Talon leadership…except that now Winston and Tracer are putting the band back together on the other side of the Mediterranean. And oops, no one has managed to capture Soldier: 76 or the Shrike yet, so those two are still loose. And oops again, no one has managed to kill Katya Volskaya.

And oops again, new “heroes” like Lúcio and D.Va are starting to inspire people to believe in hope again.

And oops x10, releasing Doomfist caused child genius Efi Oladele to make a brand new, anti-Doomfist hero in Numbani - Orisa.

These are a lot of “pressures” Talon has to now face in their efforts to fan the flames of war.

And everyone knows that when you put more weight on things, you can eventually stress them to the point of cracking.

And then breaking.

If the Talon leadership is as disjointed as Jeff implies, and coups occur as frequently as Doomfist’s backstory implies, Talon is beginning to flounder. It seemingly had the run of the world in the wake of the Fall of Overwatch, but in the Post-Recall world, things are starting to get more complicated. The Second Omnic Crisis is not spreading - it is stagnating in Russia. Riots in London have not necessarily resulted in the return of Null Sector. The ex-Strike-Commander of Overwatch is still alive (and the ex-Strike-Lieutenant is too, although it is not known how many people within Talon are aware of this).

[Factual Lore]: Sombra:

“I’ll find out who really runs the world. I’ll find their weaknesses, and how to exploit them. And when I do - I’ll be the one pulling the strings.”

It is not entirely clear if Sombra is blackmailing Reaper into helping her. As Chu has stated, Sombra is one of three characters to know his true identity, and their in-game interactions certainly imply that they have an a tenuous alliance, with her teasing him about a personal nickname.

Sombra: What’s the plan today, Gabe? You don’t mind if I call you Gabe, do you?



Reaper: Stick to the mission.



But their other interactions also show a cautious trust with one another:

Sombra on Oasis: So what are we doing here, boss?



Reaper: I need to pay a visit to a friend.



—

Reaper: Try to stick to the plan, Sombra.



Sombra: Look, someone has to be ready when all your careful planning doesn’t pan out.



[Implications]: The last set of lines implies that - not only does Sombra know who Reaper really is - she also knows his personality. While Reaper plays the part of a seemingly arrogant Talon mercenary, Sombra is aware that underneath the mask, Gabriel Reyes is still a skilled tactician and careful planner. It is also implied that she is aware that these skills did not prevent Overwatch and Blackwatch from collapsing, and must consider making countermeasures in the event they “fail” again.

More importantly, the last set of lines imply that the two of them are collaborating on something - “a plan.”

What kind of plan?

It’s not clear, unfortunately, but it certainly is tantalizing to speculate over. Just hours ago, Michael Chu responded to a set of tweets asking if Reaper is part of the Talon leadership or if he is “just a nerd working for Talon.”

Chu’s wonderful response?

I’m desperately waiting to see what kind of interactions Reaper and Sombra will have with Doomfist, but we know there are at least two datamined lines:

Reaper: Why can’t Doomfist do his own dirty work? Reaper: what kinda name is Doomfist anyways?

Now, these lines might not make the cut. They’re pretty old and a lot of the story has been reworked since the game was released a year ago. Reaper in particular has undergone a number of big story shifts. What is interesting are the two potential hypotheses for this:

Reaper is working to undermine Talon to destroy it from the inside.

Reaper is working to undermine Talon’s leadership to orchestrate a coup.



Sombra’s goals seem to fall in-line with the latter moreso than the former, and I’m inclined to believe that Reaper - whether he’s being blackmailed or not - is also aiming for that. But in order to orchestrate a coup from the inside, you have to be willing to push boundaries and shake things up. Releasing Doomfist is an ideal trigger for that because:

Helix may attempt to reclaim him, and possibly send out the Raptora Squad (Pharah’s group) to arrest him. This leaves the Temple of Anubis unguarded - and Sombra wants to get access to that. The pro-Volskaya Omnic faction in Numbani might slip up, resulting in another information leak that Sombra can exploit. Doomfist is being pushed into a fight with Winston and/or Orisa, resulting in the Talon leadership either losing their rally point (Doomfist) or losing yet another “big mission.”

There is no situation where Sombra (and possibly Reaper) actually lose because - assuming they want to see Doomfist and the Talon leadership fail - every possible situation works out in their favor. They either gain information, or Doomfist is re-arrested, or the Talon leadership splinters and cracks. None of this actually outright harms Sombra or Reaper.

And all of this is because Reaper keeps “failing” his missions.

As Jeff said -

The story is going to get very interesting.