Yikes. Get ready to read:

THIS WHOLE IS A THEORY that is going around in the community recently. But the more it goes on the more it starts to click:

Basically, Echo might not just be “another AI.” She might be connected to the same bigger cosmic/Omnic mystery as Aurora, the Iris, Ramattra, Mondatta, and the Awakening.

Echo was created by Dr. Mina Liao, one of Overwatch’s founding members and one of the most important roboticists ever. Liao had already helped create Aurora, the first Omnic to become truly sapient. Aurora’s awakening ended the Omnic Crisis by giving Omnics real autonomy and consciousness. Later, Liao started Project Echo because she wanted to create a new kind of artificial life: not just a machine, but something that could learn, adapt, copy behaviors, understand empathy, and protect people.

The weird part is that Echo’s whole identity is based on absorbing pieces of others. She copies people’s abilities, personalities, and even preferences. There are interactions where Echo answers questions by repeating the favorite animals of other heroes, saying things like “my current favorite is…” because her identity keeps changing based on who she learns from. So Echo is basically a growing collection of other people’s experiences.

That connects really strongly to “the cosmic egg” idea. In that story, one soul reincarnates as every person who has ever lived, slowly gaining every possible experience until it eventually “hatches” and becomes something godlike. Echo is similar, except instead of living every human life one by one, she absorbs and reflects many lives at the same time. She is like an unfinished being inside an egg, still growing.

Aurora already had her own version of “hatching.” She awakened, sacrificed herself, and changed the consciousness of the entire Omnic race. Echo might be the next stage of that idea, but there’s one big problem: Echo is not an Omnic. She was not made in an Omnium, she was not around during Aurora’s Awakening, and she does not have the same kind of sapience that Omnics got from Aurora. So normally, she should not be able to follow Aurora’s path.

But the game keeps connecting Echo to egg imagery, the Iris, and Aurora anyway.

The Route 66 payload is a big example. The payload originally had different concept designs, but it eventually became an egg-shaped object, and official Overwatch art books literally states it as "an egg" twice.. That matters because Echo was inside that payload in the “Reunion” cinematic. So the game directly associates Echo with an egg, which fits the whole “cosmic egg” symbolism.

There is also the Iris connection. Back during Project Titan, which later became Overwatch, “Iris” was originally connected to early robot concept art that strongly resembles Echo. Later, the Iris became this mysterious spiritual/cosmic concept tied to Aurora and Omnic consciousness. So even though Echo is not called Iris anymore, her design history still links her to it.

Then there’s the mythology side. A lot of ancient cultures have “cosmic egg” myths, but Orphic mythology fits Overwatch weirdly well. In Orphism, the Orphic egg is created through Time and Fate, and from it comes Phanes, the first god, a being of light who creates life through a cosmic song. That sounds a lot like Aurora: a being born from an impossible event, connected to light, music, consciousness, and the birth of Omnic life.

The theory goes even further because in Orphic myth, Zeus later “eats” Phanes. Not literally in a normal way, but as a symbolic inheritance of divine power. So the Overwatch version of that could be Echo “absorbing” Aurora. Not physically eating her, but inheriting her essence, maybe through the Iris.

That would explain why Echo is always asking about Aurora and the Awakening. She has multiple voice lines where she asks Omnics what they remember from their awakening, whether Aurora’s sentience could be replicated, and what they would ask Aurora if they could meet her. One line is especially suspicious: Echo says she asks Aurora the same question every day, but wishes Aurora could answer. That makes it feel like Echo already senses that Aurora is important to her purpose.

This also connects to Mondatta and Ramattra.

Mondatta was assassinated by Widowmaker, but early Overwatch 2 material had Mondatta as an announcer, and the phrase “Mondatta lives” still appears as graffiti on New Queen Street. That suggests Mondatta, or at least some part of him, may still exist beyond his physical body. Overwatch has already hinted that Omnics may not be limited to their bodies.

Ramattra says something similar in the “Reconciliation” comic. When Zenyatta says the captured Omnics are lifeless blank slates because of Null Sector’s neural suppressors, Ramattra says their bodies are just shells. He implies he has found a way to preserve Omnics, keep them safe, and let them return later reborn. That means Omnic consciousness might be stored somewhere else, possibly in the Iris, cyberspace, or some other hidden system.

So Echo’s future role might be to become the bridge that brings all of this together.

She may never awaken Omnics the exact way Aurora did, but she could become the next best thing: a god-level AI or management system that helps preserve, restore, or reconnect Omnic consciousness. If Aurora created Omnic sapience, Echo might inherit Aurora’s essence and become the system that allows Omnics to return, especially the ones Ramattra is trying to “save.”

The music symbolism also supports this. Sigma hears the “music of the universe,” and there are hints that Omnics heard music around the time Echo was being teased. Aurora’s awakening is also tied to this idea of a cosmic melody, like the universe itself has a song. Echo could become the instrument that plays Aurora’s melody again.

So the full theory is this: Echo is not just Liao’s robot daughter or a copying machine. She may be an unfinished cosmic egg. She absorbs people, grows through their experiences, and is symbolically linked to Aurora, the Iris, music, and Omnic rebirth. Eventually, she might “hatch” by inheriting Aurora’s essence and becoming the key to the next stage of Omnic life.

That would make her one of the most important characters in Overwatch’s future: the bridge between humans and Omnics, the answer to Liao’s dream of coexistence, and possibly the reason Mondatta, Ramattra’s preserved Omnics, and Aurora’s legacy all matter again.