#this bad boy has been rotting in my drafts since july

[nex-kyit]

I've been having a lot of thoughts about Varic's and Omega's relationship in the life vs. Solstice.

An overview on what we know for sure:

Varic knows about Omega's assasination on that Galactic Union president, something that presumably very few or no one else knows about, considering how Omega was uncertain how Varic knew.

Varic knows more about Omega than the Vallenar Corporation's file on him.

The Vallenar Corporation hired Omega in every one of Varic's lifes, but he never knew Omega as well as Raion or Sola, or worked too closely with him in any of his lives*

Varic has never been targeted by him until his current one

Varic knows that Omega is, atleast partially, forcing on a chaotic persona, and that there is a person behind it.

Varic doesn't know much about Omega**

Varic has seen Omega fight to protect the helpless.

Though Varic distrusts Omega's character, he does trust his abilities and "his commitment to certain rules only he understood." Varic doesn't think Omega is an indiscriminate murderer.

The current Varic isn't scared of him.

Things we can put together:

*This could mean that the relationship between Varic and Omega could be anywhere from having only worked with or seen eachother very briefly (likely in most of his lives) to being coworkers. IIRC this line is in comparison to how he worked with Raion and Sola, both of whom Varic was practically living with and was very close too. So theoretically, his working relationship with Omega could be up to a few steps below Raion and Sola (but probably not lol).

**I want to point out that despite this, Varic seems to be the most knowledgeable on Omega, from his abilities to his past. The things Varic doesn't know about Omega, ex. the rules he follows and the person behind the mask, seem to be things the Omega would never let anyone know. Then again, its possible that theres characters we don't yet that do know these things.

Personally, I do think Varic worked, at least occasionally, with Omega, at least enough to get a good sense of his abilities.

Anyway the main point of this post is to theorize why Omega is a bit of an outlier compared to how close Varic's relationships were with the other crew members.

Theory A: The thing connecting Varic with the rest of the crew is how they trusted each other. Which means:

Varic *did* trust Omega in the Solstice life and is either in denial over it or his current perception has been tainted by Omega's actions in other lives. (There is some evidence for this if you squint and realize that either Varic was really impressed by Omega's abilities or that he on some level does think Omega was/could be a good person. Omega nearly killed Mariala and Varic has seemingly forgiven him. Seriously compare how Varic treats Omega vs someone Varic actually dislikes like Starhammer or Steel Avalanche or even Benri. Then again, Varic has explicitly mentioned that he does't trust really trust Omega's character, so this bit of theory is very unlikey)

It actually goes the opposite way, and the reason why crew was chosen was because of *their* trust in Varic rather than Varic's trust in them. In this case, Omega actually trusted MoS!Varic, and Varic never realized/reciprocated.

Theory B:

It has less to do with the relationship Varic has with the crew member, but rather how they inspired Varic. Mell hired Varic to fight the Advocates, Sola inspired him to join the fight against the Iron Legion, and Varic was apart of Shyrax's royal guard so he was kinda obligated to fight the Perfected. In this case, Omega had a key role in inspiring Varic to fight against Solstice. The only problem with this is in the Titan Knights life, where Raion wasn't really the reason why Varic was fighting D'niss and Varic didn't give up his life for the cause either. Which leads into my final theory:

Theory C:

Every crew member is an outlier in some way, this is just how Omega is unique. Raion for the aforementioned reasons and because he died before Varic did, Mell's request wasn't a galactic threat, Sola not having a request yet, and Shyrax for reasons we might not know yet. In this case, Omega isn't an outlier and all the characters were written like this intentionally. A win for Occam's razor! Ahah this one is probably the most likely.