Overwatch Potential Crossover #6: Sombra · 7:36pm Nov 29th, 2016
I just wanted to hurry and get this out while some of the Sombra hype was still going on. I’ll touch this up later so it looks and reads better. As for why it’s number 6 and not number 5, it is because number 5 is reserved for Reaper.
Let’s take a looks at Overwatch’s newest hero: Sombra.
Official What We Know:
Yup. This is another mystery character that Blizzard has released. Her real name is a mystery due to an incident in her past that we are aware of.
The Omnic Crisis left a lot of devastation in its wake, one of the symptoms of which was thousands of children left homeless and orphaned. Sombra was able to survive by utilizing her natural skills with computers and hacking.
She was picked up by the Los Muertos gang, who strove to rebel against the government, whom they believed was rebuilding Mexico in a way that helped the rich and influential while leaving those who really needed help to lay in the dirt.
During this, Sombra became virtually unparalleled in hacking. In fact, hacking became an addiction for her. She kept on hacking and hacking until she stumbled upon what appeared to be a global conspiracy… which noticed her.
Following this incident, Sombra went completely underground, cutting off previous contacts, burning identities, and went into hiding. During this time, she got an upgrade in her tech, integrating it into herself directly in a way that was kinda similarly to getting a tattoo, only with a high-tech computer input device (like a keyboard, mouse, microphone, or anything else that allows you interact with a computer).
After a time, Sombra reemerged, this time officially as Sombra rather than who she previously was before. This time, she was determined to find out more about the conspiracy she had encountered. Her string of cyber attacks garnered her a plethora of admirers and the recruitment of Talon.
It is believed that, following joining Talon’s ranks, she contributed to the cyber attacks against numerous corporations that possessed strong ties to governments like LumériCo (a Mexican power {as in energy} company) and Volskaya Industries (the company responsible for manufacturing Russia’s anti-Omnic defenses).
Sources…
Official Sombra backstory
Sombra Origin Story
Abilities
Machine Pistol: A 60 round SMG (Sub-Machine Gun) with each round capable of dealing 1-8 in-game damage (depending on where the shots land) to allow one magazine to deal anywhere between 60 to 480 damage, and firing at 15 rounds per second (meaning non-stop firing can unload a whole magazine in 4 seconds). This has a bit of a wide spread in terms of weapon accuracy but is still decently accurate at what I’d guess to be a maximum of 15 yards before Sombra would want to close the distance to ensure she isn’t wasting her ammo.
Nothing special is noted about this weapon, so feel free to assume that it’s nothing more than a sub-machine gun that Sombra can wield one-handed for literary purposes (though she is hopefully smart enough to know that both hands would ensure greater accuracy and control).
Hack: This is an ability that helps to really set Sombra apart from the other characters of the game. In-game, Sombra is able to restrict specific health packs she hacks to be usable only by her and her team for a whole minute and shut down manually activated abilities of heroes for 6 seconds (once the hero is hacked, Sombra can also see if his/her ultimate ability is available). Either of these actions requires only a single second to accomplish, and require line-of-sight.
In literary terms, however, just assume that if a computer can interact with it in some manner, Sombra can hack it. The real debate is just how Sombra is able to do this.
In the Sombra’s origin story video, specifically at the 0:50 mark, Sombra is seen getting tech being attached to her specifically. Here’s where I share my personal theory: while some computer processing components would definitely be included with the new tech, I don’t think a whole computer was installed into Sombra. I believe what Sombra has is more of an input device that would allow Sombra to interact with computers just as one would with a mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, and even a microphone. This means that no matter how advanced or primitive the computer, Sombra can still interface with it since it wouldn’t be a matter of computer talking to another computer (if that makes sense).
Thermoptic Camo: An invisibility ability that, in-game, boosts Sombra’s movement speed by 50% and will last for 6 seconds.
In literary terms, a few assumptions will have to be taken. The very name of the ability, Thermoptic Camo, suggests that Sombra is not only invisible to the naked eye but is also able to hide her body heat from anything that picks up on heat signatures. The speed boost is likely Sombra throwing caution to the wind a bit since she doesn’t have to worry about anyone visibly noticing her.
Sombra also clearly possesses natural stealth abilities since no one can hear her when she’s moving around (as shown in the animated short Infiltration).
Translocator: A very simple and straightforward ability. Sombra tosses a beacon that she can teleport to. The beacon can bounce off of walls but not stick to them. Unfortunately, I am unsure of how far she can throw that thing, so it’s up in the air for the author to guess until someone can peg a precise, in-game distance. Just remember that she is NOT a baseball player and would thus NOT have the throwing arm of a pitcher.
Another bit of interesting info is the fact that Sombra actually swiped this from Winston’s Chrono Accelerator tech, as can be seen between voice interactions between her, Tracer, and Winston to a bit of an extent.
EMP: Sombra’s ultimate ability which, in-game, works just like her hacking ability but in a wide radius around her visible area.
In literary terms, however, its effect is obvious: anything electronic caught in its blast that is being used (aside from Sombra’s personal tech) is fried.
Par Core?: While not a monkey like we might be able to assume Genji is, Sombra does seem to possess a tiny bit of skills in Par Core (as can be noticed at 2:28 of Infiltration), which I personally assume she picked up from her time with Los Muertos, and kept up since those abilities would really come in handy for her. This isn’t a major game changer, but it does mean that she has a bit more options to move up and down in locations that most people would.
Sources:
Overwatch Infinity
Hammeh
Important Character Notes
Motivation is important in understanding how to write a character. If we don’t know the character’s motivation, we really have nothing we can do with the character. Sombra’s motivation seems to stem from a thirst for knowledge, an addiction to hacking, or something we just don’t really know about.
The support for the addiction theory comes from her official lore video. Before Sombra went underground, she readily admits that her hacking was an addiction. The question is whether this was her simply describing her passion for hacking or if she was being literal.
If it was her being literal, then any story involving her is going to require her hacking in some way. If it was a description, then Sombra can live without it (probably drive her absolutely crazy, though).
Sombra’s motivation being a thirst for knowledge has much more support, however. She originally started hacking because of the power she found in knowledge. Because of that power, she kept on hacking bigger and bigger targets. No sign of a power craze, though, as her being detected, which is what caused her to go underground to begin with, gave her and her thirst for knowledge a different avenue than simply power: Sombra now hacks to find out who it was that almost caught her.
Sombra’s personality is a confident, though not quite arrogant, playful one. If she can throw out fun jabs, she will. If she can get away with some mocking, she’ll mock. If handed an opportunity to brag about her skills, she’ll take it almost purring.
She is a very independent woman, as can be seen from the fact that, while she’s willing to work with big groups like Los Muertos and Talon, she is willing to go against what they want for her own interests and goals.
Whether she has a soft side or not is not really shown, so it’s really up to the fanfiction authors to decide until Blizzard announces or shows insight into this. Sombra was raised in a “survival of the fittest” mentality, so it’s very possible that she’ll see struggling as a sign of weakness. Her struggles as a poor orphan on the streets of a war-torn Mexico could also be a source of empathy for her if she were to see others in situations that she would feel she could identify with.
She doesn’t seem to really care about morals, following her own path and interests wherever she goes. Referencing the DnD alignment chart, this would land her in the neutral row, and her personality and disregard for common morals landing her in the chaotic column. She plays by her own rules and will do things on her own whims. Nothing but a desire for stealth and secrecy will tie her down.
Lastly, brush up on your Mexican Spanish, or let your readers know that you’re going to be using Google Translate because Sombra is Mexican and thus. Speaks. Spanish! Throw some phrases in her text, and even spend a bit of time looking up a few common Spanish phrases, particularly those that would be used in Mexico. It’ll really help bring out a part of Sombra, and it will really make your readers get into your portrayal of her.
Sources:
Sombra Origin Story
Infiltration
Character Interaction Possibilities:
Since this blog is primarily targeted towards bronies, though I will try to be updating these posts to make them much more “Overwatch only” friendly, I’m going to start by stating that nearly any story involving Sombra is going to need to allow her to implement her hacking abilities in some way. This means that unless some sort of shenanigans are involved that allow her to hack magic, Sombra can only be implemented in the Equestria Girls universe (which actually has some form of computer technology).
A few ideas of how to get Sombra involved in the characters of this story are as follows:
1) Sunset needs or needed someone to get her into the system so that she could attend school or have a life beyond it after graduation, and is/was somehow able to provide Sombra with something she felt was worthwhile in exchange for it.
2) Sombra is very curious about the weird energy phenomena that seem to follow the humane7 (that’s what they’re being called now, right?), and goes to investigate while also dealing with government agents (because Sombra needs someone to go up against).
3) Sombra is curious about Sunset Shimmer who seems to have absolutely no past prior to high school and possesses quite a colorful present that is being kept a very tight secret.
These are by no means the only plot ideas to bring Sombra into MLP, but they’re a few that seem to have the most potential at the moment.
Conclusion:
Sombra is a hacker whose motivation is a thirst for knowledge (most likely), and a playful personality to really make us love her. Remember to watch your back, or you she may just get ya.
My next post will on the formerly famed gunslinger of Overwatch turned outlaw: Jesse McCree.
In the meantime… Oh… I still haven’t posted my breakdown of Reaper. Have a picture anyways!
Thank you for reading to the end. I'm Little Voice, and if there’s something that you think I got wrong or something important that I missed, please let me know in the comments section below. If you liked this and look forward to more, then please follow me here on fimfiction.net and on my Tumblr blog. If you do reply with something that I might need to change, please include your reasoning and (if you can) source material so that I can update this post to be accurate as possible. I will also give you credit if help to correct my post, so don’t worry about me plagiarizing you.
