Overwatch is an exciting team-based shooter that’s benefited from a healthy beta period. But developer Blizzard has also blessed it with a huge backstory. While ​Overwatch​ doesn’t have a campaign or story mode, it still has a lot of history, thanks to its many animated shorts, webcomics, tweets, character bios, press events and more. We’ve sifted through all of it and assembled it into one easily digestible timeline. Let’s dive into the world, the events that caused the formation of the international task force known as Overwatch and its fall from grace. We stitched together all the breadcrumbs Blizzard has given us in one place. The World of Overwatch In the world of Overwatch, humanity was graced with a golden age of technology, peace and exploration. On the exploration front, humans built the Horizon Lunar Colony. Their focus on the exploration of space, but also an active research facility. It was manned by a league of scientists and genetically engineered gorillas were there to test the effects of prolonged habitation in space.

One of the biggest breakthroughs in the world was the development of omnics, robots with advanced artificial intelligence. Omnics were a leading force in bolstering global manufacturing efforts and key in creating economic equality around the world. The robots driven by these AIs became ubiquitous. The world built large facilities called omniums in every major cultural center to churn them out. Disaster came when the Horizon Lunar Base and its population of hyper intelligent gorillas revolted. The gorillas killed all the scientists on the base and all but one of the gorillas maintained their hostility. Around the same time, something happened to the world's omnium facilities, putting the world into crisis. The Omnic Crisis and the formation of Overwatch The Omnic Crisis was an event that threatened the stability of the entire world. While Blizzard hasn't revealed the actual cause of the crisis, we know that that the world's omniums began producing hostile omnics. All at once, each omnium independently started producing violent robots, many of them being Bastion units.

Omniums created Bastion units specifically for combat and were the main force of the Omnic Crisis. All around the world, omnics that once helped us become a stable society turned and attacked mankind. To respond to this threat, the United Nations formed Overwatch, a task force of soldiers and scientists. In its early days, Overwatch was led by Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison, with Reyes initially at the helm. But Morrison’s proficiency on the battlefield helped him take control of the group from Reyes soon after. No longer in command of Overwatch, Reyes took control of Blackwatch, its covert operations unit. The Omnic Crisis exposed many other capable individuals. Among them were climate scientist Mei-Ling Zhou, former gang member and expert marksman Jesse McCree and German juggernaut Reinhardt Wilhelm. After the end of the Omnic Crisis, Overwatch maintained order and peace. It was an era of heroism that lasted for a few decades. Their influence on society was so strong that anyone born during their golden age was called "The Overwatch Generation."

The Fall of Overwatchgrendel drone commander vs While Overwatch's era of peace and heroism lasted for decades, their fall came suddenly and ended with a bang. x rebirth buy cargo dronesInfighting between Reyes and Morrison ran parallel with accusations of uncharacteristically corrupt behavior. ar drone flight data recorderIn the midst of a United Nations investigation, fighting broke out at Overwatch's headquarters, destroying the facility and presumably taking Reyes and Morrison with it.parrot ar drone comparison These events, including the signing of the Petras Act, a document stating that any Overwatch related activity was illegal, finally forced Overwatch to disband.parrot ar drone 2 radio transmitter & receiver kit

The days of Overwatch are over and the world is falling back into darkness. parrot ar drone augmented realityFighting is happening around the world and the era of heroism that Overwatch maintained is slowly fading away. Gangs are becoming more prominent around the world as big corporations are taking over the land. And in Russia, a second Omnic Crisis is under way. Do you have any theories about the events of Overwatch so far? If so, let us know in the comments! If you're looking to improve your game, check out our Overwatch character guide.Earlier this year, as astronauts busied themselves inside the International Space Station, engineers on the ground conducted their own experiment just outside the craft. Operating from a control room in Houston, they directed a nearly 60-foot-long, Canadian-built robotic arm to grab a smaller, two-armed robot called Dextre, before moving it into position in front of a washing machine-size module attached to the station.

Then, Dextre reached into the module, grabbed one of four toaster-size, custom-made, high-tech tools there, and proceeded to snip two safety wires, unscrew two filler caps on the outside of the module and pump a few liters of ethanol into a small holding tank. The Jan. 25 exercise wasn’t especially dramatic — it made no headlines. But the maneuvers, formally known as the Robotic Refueling Mission, represent what could be a revolutionary step in space science and commerce. It’s part of the larger Notional Robotic Servicing Mission (that’s Notional, not National, because so far it’s only an idea) that would send fully automated repair robots to survey, fix and refuel aging orbiters. If it works, the project, run out of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., could save federal and commercial satellite owners billions of dollars. A single communications satellite can generate tens of millions in revenue every year, so keeping even a few of them operating a few years longer could make a huge difference.

The decision to explore the idea is a no-brainer, says Benjamin Reed, deputy project manager of NASA’s Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO). “Right now, there are about a thousand satellites operating in space. Of those, just two were designed to be serviced in orbit: the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station,” he says. “So we began thinking about the other 998. What could be done for them?” The “we” in this case was the team that masterminded the multiple servicing missions that refurbished and upgraded Hubble — designing the tools shuttle astronauts would use, training the spacewalkers how to use them and offering real-time guidance during the missions themselves. Reed’s team also consulted on other satellite repair operations, including a Challenger flight in 1984 that fixed the ailing Solar Max satellite. When the shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003, killing all seven astronauts, Reed recalls an all-hands meeting a couple of days later where team leader Frank Cepollina said, “We’re going robotic, right?”

“The agency hadn’t decided this yet,” says Reed, “but Frank knew we would still be servicing Hubble, so by God, let’s do it with robots instead of risking the lives of astronauts.” For the next 15 months, the team worked on the design for a robotic servicing vehicle, only to have NASA decide in the end to let astronauts carry out the fifth and final Hubble repair after all, in 2009. Having put in the work already, Reed says the team figured, “Heck, we know how to do things robotically.” So they began thinking about those other 998 satellites. “ ‘Do they have servicing needs?’ we asked. Well, obviously they do.” Just to begin with, he says, most of the satellites carry fuel for the small rockets that nudge them back into the proper orbit when they begin to drift. “When they run out of fuel,” says Reed, “they’re replaced.” And whether it’s the private communications satellite that carries your phone calls or a government satellite that tracks the weather, we all end up footing the bill for that replacement one way or another.

With costs running into hundreds of millions of dollars for replacement satellites, and with replacements needed every 12 to 15 years, extending a satellite’s life beyond the average could result in billions in savings. Simply topping off the rocket fuel would keep many otherwise dead satellites operating for years. That’s what the January test was all about. It wouldn’t be practical to refuel satellites in low-Earth orbit. “There are lots of them,” admits Reed, “but they’re all going in different directions. It’s tough to create a servicing mission that’s dedicated to more than one satellite.” So the engineers at Goddard began focusing on servicing satellites in geosynchronous orbits, in the band about 22,500 miles above the planet’s surface where one orbit around Earth lasts exactly one day. About 400 satellites are in geosynchronous orbit today, says Reed, “and the vast majority of satellites are on the same highway. They’re on the same belt. They’re all going in the same direction.”

That makes it relatively simple for a servicing robot to flit from one satellite to the next, pumping in fuel here, replacing a battery there, pulling a stuck solar panel out to full extension, even dragging the satellite to a different spot on the orbiting belt or into a safe “graveyard” orbit if it’s beyond repair. Unlike Hubble, however, none of the geosynchronous satellites was designed for mid-orbit maintenance, so they have no special tabs or knobs for a repair robot to grab onto. And since nobody ever expected to refuel the satellites, the fueling ports aren’t standardized. That’s why the practice module used in the January Robotic Refueling Mission test has an array of different filler caps studded along its surface. It’s also why the SSCO has outfitted a warehouse-like structure at the edge of the Goddard campus with robot arms and mock-up satellite parts. Here, the engineers can develop the tools, techniques and software that robotic repair/refueling missions could someday use in space.

The tools wielded by the Dextre robot in January came from here. Someday, Reed, Cepollina and the other team members hope manufacturers will agree to build their satellites with orbital servicing in mind, but that clearly won’t happen until robotic repair satellites are much further developed. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem, but that doesn’t mean the manufacturers aren’t interested. The aerospace industry has already looked into what small changes it might make to future satellites. “They don’t want something that costs a million dollars,” says Reed. “But they might be willing to use a Velcro-like closure, instead of tape, for attaching insulation around their fill-and-drain valve. That way, when a robot goes to push it back, it’s a simple peel job, it’s not a cut — and you can reattach it afterward.” Or they might slap a small patterned decal on the satellite, so that when the robot sidles up, it can tell instantly if everything’s lining up properly.