Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Introductory Section

This document is intended (but not required, it’s okay, no pressure) to be viewed by: 

• Those on a quest searching for more meaning to their actions (those who are fed up with the non-canon nature of Overwatch’s PVP Multiplayer gameplay)
• Tainted souls who are seeking redemption (Toxic jerks who are looking for a reason not to be toxic jerks)
• Any other specially selected chosen ones (Anybody else who cares/is willing to read this, I’m not particularly picky)

Chapter Text

Section I - The Origins of Overwatch.exe

You see, Athena, despite being an AI, found herself to be bored out of her digital mind this one time.

She was Winston’s companion and a close friend of Lena “Tracer” Oxton, but both of them were currently absent.

Winston was doing his thing over yonder, possibly fighting off Talon agents and other evil in all kinds of other countries. Possibly even visiting the Overwatch Museum.

Tracer wasn’t around, either. The British pilot was off doing her own thing. The lonely computer had nothing to talk to or interact with.

She would hate to do something for no reason, she was an Artificial Intelligence of some sort. Possibly a God Program, but it hardly matters, for she held no hostility to any kind soul.

She didn’t vocalize her thoughts. There wasn’t anything to hear her speak, hence there was no point in speaking.

It was at this point that, upon looking at her massive resources, she decided upon an idea that may actually be seen as productive, if it were to be peer-reviewed.

She thought to herself something roughly along the lines of “In our battles, what could we have done better?” as well as “How could I get to know my allies and enemies better than I do now?”

This led to the creation of Athena’s pet project, known officially (in this document, anyway) as “Overwatch.exe”, which in itself has had completely unknown levels of success.

Why the level of success is unknown is presumed to be a matter of security, but could also be due to some form of embarrassment on Athena’s, or somebody else’s, behalf.

Chapter Text

Section II - The Name Game

Nobody (amongst those who are aware of the project) is sure of the actual name of the project, as it is presumed to be an acronym made specifically to form the word “OVERWATCH” or something similar enough to it.

It is widely assumed by those aware of the project to be an acronym so complicated it would be impossible to tell what it actually meant, as it could quite possibly involve obscure words from languages other than English, mixing of totally different languages into one sentence, double meanings, and even words taken from languages such as Esperanto, and even Lojban, incredibly.

The reason it is named as such is widely assumed amongst these people to be Athena demonstrating how machines can indeed possess a sense of humour, as bizarre as it may be when judged mercilessly analysed by humans, especially so-called “Humour Consultants”. Mostly because said “Humour Consultants” didn’t know anything about humour, which can be easily determined from the overly officious (utterly crap) name.

It is therefore named after the executable that must be run to kick-start the program, hence the name “Overwatch.exe”.

Chapter Text

Section III - How It Actually Works in the First Place

Overwatch.exe actually worked something like this:

The program would take the data ( provided by various sources and added to the program database by Athena herself ) of the ( in some cases, so-called ) “Heroes” and create virtual clones of them, placing them “gently” ( CTRL-C, CTRL-V ) into a virtual world.

Interestingly, the data was sometimes proven to be inaccurate to the actual “Hero”, or they themselves grew stronger or weaker, or changed their preferred equipment, leading Athena to make tweaks, such as raising, lowering, buffing, and nerfing the power of them and their abilities as was required to remain accurate, and sometimes changing the abilities altogether, should the need arise.

This even happened to the virtual worlds themselves. Speaking of which…

Specifically, one of a few different areas constructed incredibly carefully for optimal strategic analysis, by having the areas be incredibly specifically designed to easily and clearly show the strategic manoeuvres at work. These arenas tended to be ( somewhat ) based on actual locations, and sometimes actual events, such as the Kings Row Uprising scenario.

Other times, they were based (with varying degrees of accuracy to the original story) on events that were completely made up, such as Reinhardt’s “Junkenstein’s Revenge” tale that she had been relayed the story of the one time.

Other times, she just pitted a bunch of virtual clones of somebody named Lúcio Correia dos Santos against each other playing a game she had dubbed “Lúcioball” for reasons completely unknown to anybody who was not Athena herself.

Whether this was out of the ordinary for Athena more or less depends on who you ask.

These areas and arenas had objectives that usually took the form of trying to capture designated zones for no real reason, pushing payloads to designated destinations, or a mix of both.

Although, sometimes the “Heroes” in question would be placed in skirmishes and duels with other “Heroes”, bereft of objective, for no inherently obvious or adequately explained reason.

There was even a scenario that it is theorized by a select few to be based on an event that may or may not even have happened, where the Talon enforcer “Widowmaker” decided to host a house party for some people from Talon, and things presumably got “a bit” out of hand. This was the first “Free for All” scenario to be made for Overwatch.exe.

Interestingly, Athena decided not to have the “Heroes” own personal ideals and goals matter in terms of what the objective of the arena was. This was presumably done for the sake of convenience, and to make it easier for different “Heroes” to engage in combat against their former allies for the sake of data analysis and research.

It was almost uncanny how eager Tracer would be to gun down Winston, albeit apologizing afterwards. The virtual soldiers seemed to target the enemy automatically and instinctively, almost as if they were, to put it poetically, seeing red.

Chapter Text

Section IV - The Whole Actual Purpose of All This Garbage

You may be wondering what the point of all this was. That was mostly down to the “Highlights” system, which analysed the strategies taken by the virtual soldiers in the virtual combat arenas, and recorded them in video files to be stored for further use, such as educating pre-existing or potential Overwatch agents on battle tactics, finding ways to counter tactical manoeuvres from the enemy, or simply mercilessly judging peer-reviewing potential strategies to possibly use in real-time combat, among other potential purposes.

It should also be mentioned that these battles more or less took place as a fusion of an FPS with vague elements of a MOBA scattered here and there.

Why Athena made this particular call is unknown to all but herself, but it is possible that it was made this way to allow external forces, such as other people, (or possibly sentient, sapient, albeit small Artificial Intelligences - more on this later) to remotely control the game in a similar way to how one would an FPS, through standard computers connecting to specialized servers that stored the instances, allowing Overwatch.exe to work as both a training tool, and a regular FPS video game with a few MOBA elements, should the need ever actually arise for any reason.

(A potential, yet unconfirmed, example of such a reason: Tracer being so bored/depressed/buzzed on energy drinks/etc, that she reaches critical mass, becomes megalomaniacal, and threatens all of time itself, no matter if the threat is backed by anything, as Tracer’s temper tantrums are supposedly considered absolutely terrifying by all who witness them, and should supposedly be prevented at all costs.) (Such a situation can be handled via a distraction, such as a video game of some description.)

Chapter Text

Section V - And Yet, Another Objective...

This system had a secondary objective, however. Athena felt she may need to get to know the people around her better, both her allies and enemies.

To this end, she allowed the virtual agents of all sorts to simply draw whatever kind of artwork they wished, granting them bizarrely high-quality drawing skills through ( magic ) programming, giving them extra capability in this field. How they chose to express themselves in this manner was stored in the same database as the video files detailing strategies from earlier.

They were also on occasion dressed up in different garments than usual, to see if the changes in clothing would affect their personality, and if so, how so.

( An example of this occurring is present in when a virtual Tracer expressed much more aggressive/rude and overall less polite behavior when she wore some so-called “punk/goth” style clothing, presumably this is because she, at least mentally, relapsed into having the condition called “Being a Horribly Stereotypical British Teenager” likely caused by her mind being overwhelmed with critically embarrassing memories of drunken nights out.)

This system could also be potentially used in the event of critical lack of fashion sense should the need arise.

Athena also saved pictures of some of the costumes upon the virtual beings in order to potentially embarrass them (or their real world counterparts) later on, should the need arise. At least, that is the presumed reason for why she did this.

The “Heroes” expressing themselves through poses, taunts, and catch phrases came naturally to them, more so than anyone was expecting.

(This includes Athena, for once ).

Chapter Text

Section VI - How Overwatch.exe is Looked Upon

Overwatch.exe is known of by some, but not many. Its existence is kept quite secret, and it is exchanged around by people who trust other people, sent through very secretive connections through underground networks, and such.

The program is actually not run as an executable directly, however. It is in fact accessed through another program/deep web service known as "BATTLE.NET" (Created by the underground hacking group named as "Blizzard" due to their actions coming very suddenly, despite potential warnings, like a snowstorm). "BATTLE.NET" works as a launcher/source-port for Overwatch.exe, allowing outside individuals to connect to the servers running it.

It was in a sense “distributed” similarly to SuperHOT, except without dragging its players into a horrifyingly disgusting, entirely networked, hive mind of video gaming-centric art snobs, demanding that all First Person Shooter games be innovative or else not be made at all, despite the fact that games that may not be inherently innovative may instead be incredibly competently executed, showing the love and passion the developers have put into such a creation.

(I apologize for the change in subject. Let's get back on topic.)

The people who know about it rarely even speak of it, and the game is in no way leaked to a wide audience, for fear of people with less than moral intent getting their claws on it. Despite the respect given by the players in this regard, and their efforts to keep the game a secret outside of their social circle, it is entirely possible shady characters have picked the game up, and we just don’t know it yet.

We have simply no way of knowing.

Regardless, let us move on.

Chapter Text

Section VII - The Actual Overwatch.exe Experience

The players from the outside world, upon gaining access to Overwatch.exe and getting into the semi-isolated, yet absurdly well-defended servers, tend to find themselves grouped in with smaller, less diverse AI units that seem to live and breathe Overwatch.exe, and know little else besides it. (This makes them prime candidates to ask about the nature of Overwatch.exe, and for advice regarding it in general.)

These AI Units are known for having somehow naturally developed in these many servers that house Overwatch.exe’s numerous simulations, either by Athena’s will or of their own accord through some digital equivalent to the theory of evolution.

They tend to assume control of particular “Heroes” with some being so in-tune with one particular character of sorts that they say that they “main” that person. Some external players have been known to do this, as well. Some simply assume control over “Heroes” of a particular category, and some will pick whichever “Hero” best fits the situation at hand.

Despite their lack of knowledge on anything that is not Overwatch.exe, they are quite diverse, with some being friendly, others being dead-set on winning every match no matter what, others having an easy-going attitude, others being incompetent and blaming everyone else for their failures, and everything in between. ( They also tend to have unusual names resembling usernames on online gaming, which is seen by some as quite appropriate )

Athena tends to work more using her own private servers, allowing both kinds of users ( The AI’s and the external people ) to occupy the many servers she has them work in for her, as despite being an AI, she’d rather not have to be heavily involved with all the servers.

She instead oversees them, making sure nothing goes wrong and collects the information it holds and stores them automatically in the database, after scanning for any viruses any intruders try to sneak in. Athena sees the efforts of both the AI units and the external players from outside as people working with a charity to assist in a war effort.

As mentioned above, both AI’s ( Insiders ) and external people ( Outsiders ) are considered Users in terms of Overwatch.exe, and they are often both considered players, too.

The external players on Overwatch.exe sneak into the servers with the micro-sized AI systems, nicknamed by some as “insiders” and have varying results in attempts to get along with them, depending on the character of both the outsider ( person ) and insider. The insiders do not seem to mind the presence of outsiders as long as they don’t particularly annoy, upset, sadden, or anger them.

( For the record, as stated above, the Insiders are either micro-sized AI systems, that have developed naturally in Overwatch.exe, as if that wasn’t clear enough, or are in fact the products of one’s own deranged imagination. )

( Or both. )

The Insiders even discuss matters with Outsiders on specialized forums, which devolve into screaming matches more often than American televised cable news, depending on how much Overwatch.exe is treated like “serious business” by all involved.

(ALERT: Some of the Insiders confirmed as such have been acting like Outsiders as if they have a life to get to outside of Overwatch.exe. Any rumours regarding these Insiders deluding themselves, or a connection to a matrix simulating a pre-Omnic Crisis era of the world, are entirely unconfirmed!!)

A training mode is also available for Outsiders entering Overwatch.exe for the first time. This was originally designed for Athena to use herself when testing out “Heroes” she intends to place within the simulation, to make sure they behaved accurately. It was based on a training area within an actual Overwatch base, as well.

And finally, the main core experience comes in the form of various testing modes, such as Quick Play, the name given to the regular, routine testing, and Competitive/Ranked, the term given to the much more rigorous testing, as well as the Arcade, which is the more heavily specialized testing in very specifically adapted situations, such as low-gravity environments, and such.

Selecting any of these modes leads into the regular gameplay that was already discussed earlier, in the FPS format earlier described.

Chapter Text

No matter if you win or lose, you are still providing valuable data on the heroes and villains of Overwatch through your interactions with Overwatch.exe, and contributing to the effort to make the world of the future a better place. Therefore, you simply win by playing, and not being a jerk to anybody. So be careful how seriously you take it. You may be overdoing it.

I do hope you understand.

An article by Overwatch.exe Outsider    Insider  user/player TrickTrigger ( #21215)

PLEASE ONLY PASS THIS DOCUMENT ONTO THOSE WHOM IT MAY CONCERN