Chapter 6: Genes, Memes, and Nuclear Machines
By fuzzysquash
2007.
After returning from the Alaskan archipelago, Snake and Otacon form a non-governmental, U.N.-sanctioned organization to stem the proliferation of Metal Gear technology, which they call "Philanthropy." Two years after Shadow Moses, Snake and Otacon receive word that the Marines have developed a new Metal Gear model, and are shipping it to an unknown location.
Snake infiltrates the en route Marine tanker by jumping down from the George Washington Bridge as the ship passes under, but shortly afterwards terrorists overrun the watch guard by propelling down from Kasatka helicopters and quietly knifing them. Snake sneaks past the newcomers and ventures deeper into the vessel in order to determine its destination. Along the way, he comes across Olgo Gurlukovich, the daughter of Sergei Gurlukovich (the man in charge of the terrorist assault team). Olga and Snake engage in a heated gunfight, and Snake tranquilizes her with his M9.
Click the spoiler tag to continue...
[spoiler] After sneaking past the terrorist guards, Snake slips into the main hull of the ship, where the remaining Marine units are gathered listening to a speech, oblivious of what has happened on the upper decks. There, Snake finds the new amphibious Metal Gear Ray model and takes several photographs of it in order to expose it to the public. All of a sudden, Sergei and Ocelot burst into the room with their terrorist comrades and declare a takeover. The Marines are caught off-guard, and Sergei gains control. But Ocelot turns on Sergei and kills him, along with the Marine commander giving the speech. Snake jumps out of hiding and aims his gun at Ocelot, calling his attention. Suddenly, Ocelot is seized with a panic attack and grips his right arm, which trembles violently and turns white. His voice abruptly changes and cries out in a familiar tone: "Brother!"
Snake discovers that Ocelot had grafted Liquid Snake's arm onto his body after his own had been sliced off by Gray Fox at Shadow Moses. Through this appendage, Liquid sporadically possesses Ocelot. Liquid Ocelot hops into Metal Gear Ray and uses it to sink the tanker, along with Solid Snake and the rest of the ship's crew.
Solid Snake and Metal Gear Ray
Two years later, U.S. President James Johnson is on a tour of an ocean-based environmental clean-up facility called the Big Shell when a rogue group kidnaps him and takes control of the structure. The Big Shell is made up of two large hexagon-shaped buildings surrounded by smaller connecting struts. From their new fortress, the terrorists threaten to conduct a nuclear strike against Manhattan if the U.S. government does not deliver $30 billion in ransom money. A young FOXHOUND member named Raiden is sent in to rescue the president and neutralize the renegade threat. Raiden's team consists of data analyst (and girlfriend) Rose and Snake's former commanding officer, Colonel Roy Campbell.
As Raiden infiltrates the base, he stumbles across a hallway splattered with blood and strewn with corpses. Inside the adjacent room Vamp, a vampire-like member of Dead Cell (the group that kidnapped the president), ambushes Seal Team 10 and quickly disposes of them. Just as Vamp jumps behind the unsuspecting Raiden, a lone Seal member bursts into the room, yells at him to get down, and unloads a clip at Vamp. Vamp gracefully spins his way clear of the gunfire, and grabs the Seal member, knocking his gun to the ground. Just as he is about to sink his teeth into his new victim, Vamp receives a call in his earpiece from a certain "Queen," and vanishes.
The lone Seal member introduces himself to Raiden as Iroquios Pliskin, and explains that he and his crew had fast-rope descended onto the Big Shell in effort to save the president. All of a sudden, cries for help ring out from Pliskin's speaker. Raiden rushes on ahead of the wounded Pliskin, and comes across a strange scene.
Raiden
Seal Team members have gathered on one side of a connecting bridge and are firing upon a lone female figure, who stands over the still and prone body of the president. But the bullets are flying around her, changing their direction before coming in contact with her body. Vamp appears and carries off the president's body, along with a black briefcase on the ground. As the Seals close in to stop him, the female warrior charges up her enormous weapon and fires an electric shockwave at the team, instantly sending their bodies flying through the air.
After the enigmatic female terrorist leaves, Raiden proceeds to Strut C, where he finds Pliskin and a bomb specialist named Peter Stillman. Stillman was sent in with the rest of the Seal team because one of his former students, Fatman, was a member of Dead Cell and had planted charges throughout the Big Shell. If sunk, the Big Shell would create an unprecedented environmental disaster of epic proportions. Pliskin and Raiden split ways to freeze the various C4 packages hidden in the two Shells' struts. Eventually, Stillman realizes that the bombs Pliskin and Raiden had been freezing were decoys. He and Raiden rush to diffuse the main explosives hidden in Struts A and H, but Stillman is unable to deactivate his target in time. The ensuing explosion kills Stillman and destroys half of the Big Shell.
Raiden successfully diffuses the other, preventing a complete collapse of the structure. As he heads back toward Pliskin, Raiden stumbles across the female warrior who had obliterated the Seal team earlier. She introduces herself as Fortune, the Dead Cell member who is incapable of dying, no matter how hard she tries. Raiden evades the mayhem of Fortune's wrath until Vamp arrives and offers to take care of the intruder for his Queen. Seeing his moment, Raiden pops out and shoots Vamp in the head, causing him to crumple instantly to the ground. As Fortune is distracted by her fallen comrade, Raiden slips into the elevator behind them and makes his getaway. But as Fortune weeps over Vamp's lifeless body, the blood-sucking Dead Cell member reopens his eyes...
Vamp
Raiden pushes toward Strut E on a tip that Fatman has specifically called him out. The two adversaries meet, and Raiden kills Fatman, ending the C4 threat to the Big Shell once and for all. He then proceeds to search out Richard Ames, an FBI agent with information about the president's whereabouts. As he heads toward Ames' location, Raiden encounters a mysterious cyborg ninja, who gives him some camouflage to help him blend in with the enemy. Upon finding Ames, Raiden learns that the Big Shell is merely a façade for the construction of a new Metal Gear model, and that the true objective of Dead Cell is a nuclear strike against the U.S., not a $30 billion ransom.
As the two talk, they spot Ocelot talking with a cloaked figure in the adjacent room who calls himself "Solid Snake." Olgo also appears and the three exchange some harsh words before disbanding. Ocelot enters the hostage holding area and spots a camouflaged Raiden kneeling next to Ames. Suddenly, Ames is arrested with a heart attack and dies, blowing Raiden's cover. The cyborg ninja appears and covers Raiden as he escapes.
Raiden then heads toward the President's location, but runs into the cloaked figure, who again identifies himself as "Solid Snake." Abruptly, Pliskin swings overhead on a helicopter and challenges the figure's identity. The mystery individual confesses that he's not Solid Snake, and reveals his true identity: he is Solidus Snake, the third survivor of the Les Enfant Terribles project that produced the clones of Big Boss. At this point, Raiden realizes that the Seal member who had been working with him was the legendary Solid Snake. Solidus boards a harrier jet and aims his sights at Raiden. With Snake's aid, Raiden takes down the harrier with stinger missiles.
Cyborg Ninja (Mr. X)
Raiden continues onward and finds President Johnson locked in a secluded room. The president tells Raiden about the existence of the Patriots, and reveals that the leader of Dead Cell (the man calling himself Solid Snake) intends to challenge their authority by taking over Arsenal Gear, a massive, mobile Metal Gear station underneath the Big Shell, designed by the Patriots to filter and control digital information In order to maintain their dominance over society. President Johnson directs Raiden to find Emma Emmerich, an information technology expert with the ability to disrupt GW, the artificial intelligence that controls Arsenal Gear.
After issuing his last executive order, the president grabs the barrel of Raiden's gun and demands that Raiden shoot him. The two struggle for a moment, but Ocelot walks in and shoots the president. Raiden obey's his executive order and moves on to search for Emma, whom he learns is the sister of Snake's mission partner, Otacon. Along the way, Raiden fights and defeats a resurrected Vamp and sinks him into a biochemically infected cesspool. Raiden discovers Emma hidden in a closet and leads her toward Snake and Otacon. When they come upon a thin walkway capable of supporting only one person, Raiden instructs Emma to make her way across as Snake and he cover her with sniper fire. At the last section, Vamp suddenly reappears and stabs Emma before Raiden can take him out.
After plugging Vamp with sniper fire, Raiden meets Snake, Otacon, and Emma in the computer room at Shell 1. Despite being heavily wounded, Emma had set up the necessary procedures to begin interference with the GW artificial intelligence system. As Otacon weeps over his barely conscious sister, Snake inputs a virus disc that the President had given to Raiden in order to disrupt Arsenal Gear's activation. But before it can upload completely, the virus is interrupted with an antibody system. Shortly afterward, Emma dies in Otacon's arms. Snake and Raiden resolve to take the matter into their own hands and infiltrate Arsenal Gear.
Emma Emmerich (E.E.)
Snake sends Otacon to save the remaining hostages while he and Raiden head for Arsenal. Without warning, the cyborg ninja reappears and brandishes his sword at Raiden. The ninja deactivates his face mask and unveils his true identity--not a "he" at all, but Olga Gurlukovich. Raiden stares at bewilderment at Snake, who stands behind Olga and declares that he had never said he was on Raiden's side. With that, Olga slashes Raiden and knocks him unconscious with her electric blade.
When he awakens, Raiden finds himself chained to an upright board and staring face to face with Ocelot and Solidus. Solidus reveals that he had raised Raiden as a child soldier, teaching him to fight and kill efficiently before he had reached his teens. After torturing him, the two leave the room. Olga enters and discloses that she and Snake had no choice but to stun Raiden in order to smuggle him into Arsenal Gear. She tells him to meet Snake further inside Arsenal's structure, and releases his bonds upon exiting the room.
At this point, Raiden receives a codec call from Rose, who tells him that she has been a spy for the Patriots all along, disclosing every piece of information about him to her superiors. Distraught at Raiden's reaction, she insists that the one thing that remains real is her love for him. Before her transmission is cut off, Rose reveals that she is pregnant with Raiden's child.
Raiden presses onward and finds Snake. The two battle Arsenal Gear guards as they make their way deeper inside Arsenal's structure. Meanwhile, Otacon discovers that the "Colonel Campbell" whom Raiden had been taking orders from during the entire mission was not the real Colonel at all--it was an AI generated by GW that had in part been created by Raiden's own imagination and expectations. After defeating the last batch of Arsenal Gear guards, Snake and Raiden are cut off by Fortune. Snake holds her off while Raiden heads up toward Arsenal's main platform.
Solidus Snake
There, Solidus awaits Raiden and tells him that the VR training program he had undergone prior to his mission was part of the S3 (Solid Snake Simulation) program in order to recreate the ideal soldier. He then directs the Metal Gear Rays guarding Arsenal to train their sights on Raiden. Raiden takes down a number of Ray's, before dropping his stinger launcher and conceding defeat. But just as a Metal Gear Ray raises its foot to crush Raiden, Olga jumps in to save him. Olga reveals that her child is being held hostage by the Patriots, and that she had been ordered by them to assist Raiden's mission. If Raiden dies, so does her child. After she exposes this truth, Solidus grabs Olga by the throat with one of his mechanical tentacles and shoots her in the head. Solidus orders the Rays to finish their job against Raiden, but the anti-GW virus takes effect and the Rays turn their sights on Solidus. Solidus returns fire against them, reducing them to heaps of defunct machinery.
Ocelot, Fortune, and Snake enter the platform area, with Snake in handcuffs. Ocelot divulges that Raiden's VR training is not the S3 program after all--the real training program is the Big Shell, and everyone in it is an unwitting participant. The entire incident had been orchestrated by the Patriots in order to obtain data regarding how to construct the perfect soldier. Everything that the present individuals possess was given to them by the Patriots, and Ocelot demonstrates this by shooting Fortune. He tells her that she is no Lady Luck, and that her prior invincibility was just a new invisible shield technology designed by the Patriots and installed onto her. As Fortune falls to the ground, Liquid Snake seizes control of Ocelot through his arm again.
Liquid declares that he is going to eliminate the Patriots, and jumps into the cockpit of the last remaining Metal Gear Ray. Before leaving, he unleashes Ray's full payload against the remaining group. But Fortune stumbles to her feet, and in one last effort stretches out her arms in the face of the oncoming missiles. The missiles deflect away from her and she saves the group, before collapsing with her last breath. She was Lady Luck after all.
Snake and Raiden
Liquid turns Ray around and dives overboard into the water, and Snake dives after him. Arsenal Gear crashes into Manhattan, with only Solidus and Raiden facing one another. An AI codenamed "JFK" contacts Raiden through codec and tells him that Ocelot was wrong--"S3" does not stand for "Solid Snake Simulation," it stands for "Selection for Societal Sanity." The program is designed to obtain information not only about how to create the perfect soldier, but how to control the flow of information and manipulate individuals' beliefs and subjective ideas as well.
JFK then tells Raiden that he must kill Solidus if he wants to save Olga's baby and Rose. Solidus reveals that he is the one who killed Raiden's parents, and the two battle it out with katanas atop the roof of the embanked Arsenal Gear. Raiden slays Solidus, and the body of the third Son of Big Boss falls down behind the statue of George Washington at Federal Hall.
In front of the building, Snake meets Raiden and tells him that he and Otacon are going to find the names of the Patriots through information gathered from Arsenal Gear. Raiden offers to help, but Snake tells him that he must settle some private matters first. Raiden meets Rose in the street where they originally met, and they promise to pass on the best of their cultural knowledge and philosophical beliefs to their child and to future generations in general.
In the epilogue of the game, Otacon contacts Snake and tells him that he has identified the names on the list of the twelve Patriots on the Wisemen's Committee. Problem is, they're all dead; and they've been buried for over a hundred years. What's more, one of the names on the list is one of Philanthropy's biggest donors...
To be continued in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
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