Overwatch: A Story Guide to Moira
Moira O’Deorain is an Irish national and a master geneticist.
Moira was a brilliant yet extremely controversial geneticist in her youth. She sought to figure out the secret to rewriting the fundamental building blocks upon which life is built.
She is willing to take any measure to achieve this goal, abandoning all ethics in the pursuit of power and truth.
Moira’s single goal is the advancement of science. It is this objective that led her to holding a poor view of Overwatch, believing they were responsible for halting the march of progress.
With this in mind, Moira has been open to working with evil, world-dominating organizations despite having no ambition for it herself. As long as they back her work unreservedly, then she has no quarrels.
O’Deorain made a strong impression after publishing a paper detailing a method for creating programs that could rewrite DNA at a cellular level. Despite being a possible cure for all human diseases, the research caused a split among her peers.
Some viewed the work as dangerous and unethical. While others supported it. Regardless, the paper ended up seriously damaging her career and reputation, drawing the backlash of many groups, including Overwatch.
However, she was contacted by Blackwatch commander Gabriel Reyes (Reaper) and offered a position within the shadowy organization. She accepted and took up an advisory role on matters related to genetics for the commander.
During this time, she furthered her research and developed new technologies and weapons for Blackwatch.
Without the ethical restrictions of conventional study, her research progressed rapidly. At some point, she experimented on Reyes himself, the result giving him superhuman abilities. This caused his cells to decay and reproduce at an extremely fast rate. Her employment with Blackwatch was kept strictly confidential, and only fellow members McCree and Genji knew about it.
Moira was involved with the infamous Blackwatch mission in Rialto, where the objective was to apprehend Talon businessman Antonio Bartalotti.
Herself, McCree, Genji, and Reyes made their way to his Venice safe house, where they found the grounds swarming with Talon soldiers. Waiting for dark, the group infiltrated the safehouse and found Bartalotti in his office.
Bartalotti was very confident in saying that this Blackwatch operation would be fruitless. He believed that Overwatch apprehending a respected businessman would be a disaster for PR, and that his powerful friends would have him out of custody in no time.
Giving this some thought, Reyes agreed. Blasting a hole in his chest, Reyes sent the man flying out of his office window with the force of the shoot, leaving the group to fight their way out.
Afterward, Moira expressed how she agreed with what he had done. Regardless, this led to the existence of Blackwatch being revealed to the world, and eventually, the downfall of Overwatch.
After the groups disbanding Moira had to seek out alternative funding. She was invited to become Minister of Genetics in Oasis and readily agreed.
During this time, there were rumors circulating that she was actually, in fact, being backed by Talon for some time now. These turned out to be accurate, having earned herself a seat on the ruling council by the time Doomfirst returned.