#sorry for the incoherent rant.... i haven't slept and it's 7 am but i kept thinking about him....

[non-operator]

I feel like Sova's dislike of Cypher reveals something interesting about his character, though I haven't figured out what exactly the angle is.

Overall, Sova (and the other VP agents) keeps Omega agents distinct from his actual teammates.

When referring to Omega, he usually goes with "their [agent name]"; ie "Their Breach has no patience at all..." or "Their Jett is fast!..."

He seems to blur the line when it comes to three agents: Brimstone, Breach, and Cypher.

Out of these three, Breach is the least notable. Sova's only lapse in distinction only comes when he kills Omega Breach and calls him "Thug". Otherwise, his voice line regarding Omega Breach remains fairly analytical--he points out a weakness and warns his team to watch out.

With Brimstone, both Sova's interactions are somewhat sentimental: "Captain killed" and "Be at peace, my friend". I doubt Sova's actually friends with Omega Brimstone, so this feels more of a projection onto Omega Brimstone. This feels reasonable as it seems Sova is close with Brimstone.

With Cypher, it just feels like there's a lot of strong emotions there. Even compared to how Sova talks about other Omega agents, his voice lines regarding Omega Cypher are actually pretty harsh? Or petty? Only one of his lines is dedicated towards being tactical and helpful, the others just reflect Sova's personal feelings (being fed up with secrets etc). For Sova to project so heavily onto Cypher, it feels like there's more to the rivalry than simple annoyance.

The only interpretations I have is either:

The devs already stated that their work ethics clash, with Sova valuing honesty and transparency and Cypher being shifty as hell. It could be that Sova does place a fair amount of effort and value into forging mutual trust, and takes Cypher's continued lack of honesty very personally.

We know that Sova isn't always antagonistic towards Cypher, in his commend line. So it seems that Sova might be willing to extend good will to Cypher.

OR

Sova genuinely distrusts Cypher's goals/believes Cypher's objective ultimately does not align with the Protocol's. Considering he doesn't have as strong a reaction with working with Reyna or Breach, it seems strange that he'd be so adamant about staying suspicious of Cypher. This seems to imply that he, at the very least, trusts Reyna and Breach to work with VP to save Earth/not betray VP while dealing with the Omega threat--but he does not share the same assurance with Cypher. Does he know something about Cypher we don't to hold such strong sentiments?

I don't think he's the type to purposefully try and dig into someone's trauma--like dead family and such. I think he knows enough nuance to understand that's not something you share with anyone. I do think Sova is looking for something with more ramifications than that.

(Though, whether he knows he's looking for trauma or not is debatable. Perhaps he's thinking Cypher's hiding a deep dark secret about a past business deal or whatever and it turns out it's all just dead loved ones hiding in the closet. If that happens, I don't think Sova can make a friendship from that, much less recover a relationship as coworkers... invasion of privacy and for what? to re-traumatize a man and make him go through a second maybe third mid-life crisis?)

OR

(somewhat related to the above speculation) This might take a while to build up, so bear with me.

Sova is the 6th the join the Protocol; he's joined fairly early. Considering how it was only him and Cypher who did investigative work before Fade, it seems likely that he would have been involved in checking the backgrounds of new agents--or at least, would be privy to the (whole or partial) results of Cypher's investigation of them. In any case, he would know enough about their history and motives for joining VP.

Similarly, it seems he's familiar enough with Viper's background and motives--he knows she wants revenge and that she used to be a scientist; he knows her tragic backstory well enough to hold sympathy for her. Whether he knows the details or not is unimportant; he knows enough to form an opinion.

Omen doesn't know his past, so there's nothing to dig up.

Sova seems close to Brimstone, and it seems he actively asks Brimstone to share more of his past--and Brimstone willingly does so.

However, Cypher is the only one who he has nothing on (presumably, we don't actually know if Sova's hunt for secrets actually yielded anything).

It could be that Sova doesn't actually extend trust to someone until he knows enough about them. Which I find kind of surprising, seeing how open and optimistic people write him and how friendly his voice lines are to his allies; you would think that he'd be all accepting, but this might actually establish him as a person who is a lot more strict in his conduct. He doesn't give chances until his conditions of honesty and transparency are met.

(on a somewhat related but also off-topic note, considering how Sova's went through multiple rifts--not just one, but rifts plural like who does that.... even if all of them led to omega earth and not some dangerous other dimension, omega earth is supposedly devastated by climate crisis and is uninhabitable in some areas to the point that its people have to live in geo-domes--and how excited he sounds when he says "come, into the unknown", maybe he's just a really nosy person and he can't help himself trying to tear open the pile of secrets wrapped in a trench coat that is Cypher. Cypher's just like, a special interest pet project to him)