If Sombra were to reincarnate again in a physical form, what actions should he take, assuming he'd just started to act as rationally and logically as possible?

That is: given his starting capabilities, reputation and so, what would he do, if he were to act in an enlightened and self-interested way?

First order of business: hide. Get away from the Crystal Empire where he is far too well known, perhaps tone down the appearance if he can to look like a normal unicorn, or just avoid civilization entirely.

Establish basic survival concerns: shelter, food, water.

From there, plan out his power base. Whether he is in or hiding near a civilization center, he might enslave individuals as quietly as possible, working his way through targets of importance until he could have control over the area. This route assumes he wants to return to his former ways.

If he wants to seek some sort of redemption, he'd probably just try to mask who he is and try to blend in and try to live a normal life or something.

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If he wants to seek some sort of redemption, he'd probably just try to mask who he is and try to blend in and try to live a normal life or something.

I don't think he'd need to do this in this case. In researching present Equestrian history he'd learn of both Luna and Discord being pardoned, and thus become aware that Celestia is pretty forgiving of former enemies as long as they show actual willingness to change their ways. He'd evidently want to become very sure of this at first, but once assured enough he could arrange to contact Canterlot and follow the procedure of submitting to arrest. The four princesses would evaluate the matter and things would proceed more or less smoothly from then onwards.

But this brings other questions: How can the princesses know for sure he's being truthful? How would they test him? How should he respond so as to gain their confidence?

My guess is that he probably has several secrets, magical or otherwise, hidden in or around the Crystal Empire. So a very first step would be to reveal them all, not holding anything back. And proceed from there, providing them all his knowledge of dark crystal magic and answering with accurate information about all his many secret acts of government.

Eventually the princesses would feel assured he's being truthful, and extend to him the same benefit Discord, by all accounts someone originally many orders of magnitude worse than him, received: supervised freedom.

And then he would finally be able to start applying himself to what matters: advancing the study of dark crystal magic, to his and others' benefit. Working with other unicorn researchers in Canterlot he'd slowly gain acceptance, and eventually become directly favored by the crown.

This is all quite unrealistic by real world standards, but given Equestria is far from realistic it seems to me to be realistic enough.

As for the real world version, if, say, Hitler got reincarnated, no matter what his new moral compass the only reasonable answer would be hide, hide, hide, plastic surgery, hide, hide...

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As for the real world version, if, say, Hitler got reincarnated, no matter what his new moral compass the only reasonable answer would be hide, hide, hide, plastic surgery, hide, hide...

Well, keep in mind that King Sombra is a master of Dark Crystal Magic and whatever magic that let him escape death by becoming a living shadow. He is (at first glance) living proof that mortal unicorns can become immortal spirits of some kind.

In the real world, the Japanese had Unit 731 perform blatantly immoral human experiments on Chinese prisoners in an attempt to create biological weapons. Everything from testing the effects and infectiousness of various diseases, to using them as living targets to test firearms, explosives, and other weapons.

When Japan finally surrendered to to US involvement, the United States granted immunity to the scientists working on the project in return for all their research and findings from their human experimentation. Even though their scientific methods were atrocious and repeatedly involved things like sewing dead rats inside a still living victim. Personally, I doubt their research provided less insight into making biological weapons, but more insight on how to get a whole team of scientists to torture and incinerate live humans as a form of busy work.

I mean, really. When you're working on a team where otherwise intelligent professionals repeatedly torture people and kill them while pretending it's all for scientific curiosity, I imagine the people who disagree with this turn of events either learn to live with it or become the next 'test subject'. Frankly, that thought has stuck with me and it's a reason why I can't enjoy the Cave Johnson character from Portal 2 and to an extent about 80% of all the so-called "Rationalist" heroes that get written up in fanfiction.

But anyway, one of the Synopsis for an upcoming episode of MLP involves Celestia wanting Discord to fight the next villain. Sounds pretty similar to the above, a leader or government forgiving a former Complete Monster in order to get resources to presumably protect their nation. Happens in Real Life all the time. So, I figure that someone like King Sombra has a good 50/50 chance at least of getting forgiven in the real world so long as he can sell his magical powers to the people who can 'pardon' him.

Anyway, I doubt I could understand how Sombra would really act in the circumstances (what with his lack of characterization) but if I was in his position... I'd probably try to lay low, live something like a normal life, gather information, gather power, and then either show up to save the Princesses the next time a Big Bad tries to conquer Equestria (thus giving me instant hero points to increase my odds of being accepted), or see about conquering some other nation that doesn't have the Crystal Heart protecting it.

Or hell, they appear to have a Reform Spell in canon. Assuming I didn't mind tampering with my own brain, I could research that spell, possibly 'save' my Evil personality in a fob watch or something, and then either live a normal life or present myself as a reformed villain-turned-hero.

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Well, keep in mind that King Sombra is a master of Dark Crystal Magic and whatever magic that let him escape death by becoming a living shadow.

If I remember right, Celestia and Luna where the ones who turned him into a shadow. My own interpretation of this is that the authors didn't want to say "killed him", and so they went with the old Greek way of referring to the ghost of the dead: shadows. And hence that Sombra is a ghost. This is also a nice way to explain away why he was so utterly braindead in the episode. Ghosts of old thought were usually thought about as quite unconscious and set in their ways, repeating the same sequence of acts over and over and over and over. That fits well with his (non-)characterization, doesn't it?

But this month the MLP comics is providing some more development for him, or at least for an alternate-reality good version of him. I haven't read it yet though. However, I've seen a few pictures of it floating around, and among them there's this:

As for the remaining, it makes sense.

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That is: given his starting capabilities, reputation and so, what would he do, if he were to act in an enlightened and self-interested way?

Personally, I wonder if these qualities do not already define Sombra. I mean, the Athens of Pericles, supposedly the most enlightened society of Antiquity, was built on a social and economic foundation of slave workforce. The Aztecs, who had one of the most equalitarian legal systems on record, practiced daily human sacrifice. And the Illustration also brought new forms of government, such as Illustrated Tyranny and Demagogy.