Athena

Voice | Evelyn Duah (English)

**Athena** is the narrator in *Overwatch*.

## Story

### Background

Athena was created by Dr. Mina Liao. The prototype version was deemed a success, which paved the way for approval of the Echo Project. Athena herself served as Overwatch's artificial intelligence, managing all internal security for the agency.

After Overwatch's disbandment, Athena remained with Winston, helping him with tests at Watchpoint: Gibraltar as well as monitoring his health.

### Recall

When Winston watched the worsening events of the world from the news reports, he was motivated to recall Overwatch agents to active duty. However, Athena stepped in before he could do it, reminding him of the Petras Act which made any Overwatch activity illegal.

The base was attacked by Talon agents, including Reaper. The agents immobilized Winston with taser cables while Reaper headed to another room and attached a device to machinery on the wall. Athena determined that the device was hacking into her systems to extract the database of Overwatch agents, and alerted Winston to it.

Winston managed to fight off the agents, but Reaper knocked him out. Athena's voice awakened Winston, warning him that Reaper was going to have all the Overwatch agents' locations. Winston managed to defeat Reaper and destroy the hacking device. From his terminal, he scrambled to stop the download and save Athena. To his shock, the screens went black and she became unresponsive. After a tense moment, Athena came back online and announced that the virus had been quarantined.

The agent recall screen reappeared before Winston, and he again considered the choice. This time Athena made no protest as Winston finally decided to activate the recall.

### Providing Wisdom

Athena advised Overwatch agents in their operations via the Orca, including Nepal, Lijiang Tower, and Ilios.

### Reflections

Athena celebrated Christmas together with Winston, Tracer and Emily, where she engaged her "party mode".

## Trivia

* Concept art for the cut hero Iris and the cut map The Iris feature Athena's "A" logo in their designs.
	+ This design appears to have been never been intended to be Athena. Rather, it was intended to be Echo, who appeared in *Reunion*. The logo was only added to fill in empty spaces on the design.
* Athena was the goddess of wisdom in Greek mythology.
* At one point, there was a screen on Watchpoint: Gibraltar that read, "Athena: Winston please respond..." which has since been removed.
* Athena serves as the map announcer of Hanamura in *Heroes of the Storm*.
* In interactions between Moira and Echo in *Overwatch 2*, Moira states that Liao appeared to have more affection for Athena than Echo. However, given the antagonism between the characters, the objectivity of this claim is dubious.

## References

1. ↑ 2017-02-16, Andrea Toyias *Twitter*. Accessed on 2017-02-16.
2. ↑ 2020-03-16, PlayOverwatch Twitter, *Twitter*. Accessed on 2020-03-16
3. ↑ *Overwatch: Declassified*
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 *Recall*
5. ↑ *Overwatch*
6. ↑ *Tracer: Reflections*
7. ↑ Fran's live Ashe gameplay stream with Jeff Kaplan, *Twitch*.
8. ↑ Screenshot of Athena's message before it was removed, *Imgur*. Accessed on 2020-05-24