kerrigore:

So everyone is freaking out about this. I want to point out that the only thing this video actually does is show that Moira is responsible for Gabriel’s shadowy Reaper powers. It says nothing as to the reason.

At the Whats New in Overwatch panel, where Moira’s origin video was shown, Michael Chu said this: “Reyes wanted someone who could help advise him on some matters of genetics that he was interested in, shall we say.”

To me, this implies one of two things:

1. Gabriel recruited Moira in order to perfect his body and gain more power.
2. There was something wrong with him, and he went to Moira because she was his best chance at getting help.

Based on current characterization of Gabriel Reyes (and Reaper to an extent), I don’t see where option one actually works (though I concede it’s a possibility) on the sole footing that “he was evil”. 

While he’s absolutely a grey character, I don’t see any motivation in current lore for him wanting to simply become more powerful. That’s been done already in Overwatch lore. That’s Doomfist’s character. That’s “I want to start another Omnic Crisis to purge the world of the weak and become strong”. That’s not what we’ve seen of Gabriel Reyes.

In Uprising Gabriel is shown to be snarky, sneaky, and have a different moral view than Ana and Jack in terms of what’s necessary to get things done, but, he’s still on good terms with them both (he and Jack especially seem close), and he’s the entire reason Overwatch ends up intervening in London (not to mention he leads part of the mission). 

He’s also written as a sympathetic character, as the lore he’s in focuses on his relationships with his friends in order to show how human he once was before his plight is revealed. In Old Soldiers, this scene in particular seems to be meant to sway the reader in his favor:

Reaper refers to himself as ‘this thing’, and as he’s clearly reviled with what he is, he runs. He hates himself and what he looks like, and he hates Jack (presumably the “he”) and Overwatch (presumably the “they”). 

When I was looking at Moira’s bio I saw this:

“Over a decade ago, O’Deorain made waves when she published a controversial paper detailing a methodology for creating custom genetic programs that could alter DNA at a cellular level. It seemed like a promising step toward overcoming diseases and disorders and maximizing human potential.”

So it got me thinking… what if something was happening to Gabriel’s body due to the modifications he received during the SEP? What if they were imperfect? What if he was sick or dying? What if he went to Overwatch for help and they either wouldn’t or couldn’t give it? What if the treatment that might work was experimental, unethical and he was outright refused? 

It’s been shown that Gabriel doesn’t share the same morals as the rest of Overwatch, so it would make sense that he’d ask Moira, a publicly known geneticist with “ethical shortfalls”, for help. Moira would do what was necessary, even if it wasn’t conventional.

It also would explain his resentment for Overwatch as a whole. Their methods already didn’t match with how he liked to operate in Blackwatch, so if they didn’t want to help him when he needed it most… I wonder what that might do to a man?

Anyway, it’s just a theory trying to fill in the holes based on the facts so far. I have no idea how the state of his body was affected by the Swiss Base explosion incident. More information is needed.