Angela Ziegler
Aliases: Mercy
Gender: Female
Pronouns: She/her
Birthday: unknown
First appeared: June 2016
Relationship Status: Single
Canon: Overwatch
Species: Human
Leadership positions: None
Guild Membership: Caretaker
Brief Overview
Angela is a field medic and medical researcher in her mid-40s from the near future, and a member of the Starfall Collective. She does not tend to believe in things that are overly-spiritual, although she dislikes thinking of herself as a psychological construction. She prefers to think of her memories as real.
Early Life
Angela was born in Switzerland sometime in the very near future (from the point of view of 2023 as of this time of writing) and grew up during the Omnic Crisis, a global conflict wherein synthetic beings went rogue and attempted to end their human creators. This conflict was considered to be the greatest conflict since World War II, and many died in the ensuing destruction, including Angela's parents. They were volunteering at a Swiss hospital when they were killed by an air strike when Angela was a pre-teen. Angela took this event as motivation to learn medicine and save people, preventing more tragedies like the one she had experienced.
Angela started learning medicine as a teen, and evidently had a talent for it; She would have interactions with the Overwatch team while she was attending college. After she graduated with her MD and PhD in Medicine in Switzerland, she became head of surgery at a hospital. While working there, she pioneered her nanobiology technology, which caught the attention of Overwatch, who recruited her.
Throughout her early career in Overwatch, she attempted to guide the organization away from militaristic tactics and into more peaceful strategies; while she made friends with many in Overwatch, she was concerned with Overwatch's Black Ops team, for which she would unfortunately later come to be vindicated.
Eventually, after disastrous events that had Angela being questioned by agents of the United Nations, she left Overwatch, which shortly thereafter fell apart. She decided to travel the world and help in areas that were still suffering the aftermath of wars and destabilization caused by the Omnic Crisis, occasionally going back to Switzerland to work in her lab and improve her medical technology.
Divergence from canon
Although it is suggested in canon that Angela has made changes to her physiology with her nanotech, the changes to this Angela are explicit, including implants to help sync with her field suit.
Our Angela also enjoys coffee, which she canonically doesn't enjoy.
System Life
Angela is part of the caretaker guild and in the years since she has been here has been involved in trying to manage the body's physical health. Although she would love to learn more medical science, she is more interested in making sure we have sufficient nutrition and exercise as of now.