Line #190 Headscratchers/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty


1	* Rose gives information about every area in the big shell if you call the Colonel enough times and in her briefing about Strut D, she mentions that it's sediment pool no.1. In that case, what strut would feature sediment pool no.2 and just how many of these pools would there be?
2	** They don't need to mention the location of the other sediment pools if they aren't relevant to the plot and, specifically in-universe, to Raiden's mission. As to how many there are, well, however many there need to be to adequately meet the plant's main (ostensible) purpose of marine oil decontamination.
3	* President James Johnson tells us that Solidus was created after Solid and Liquid and was a "survivor" of the Les Enfantes Terrible project. So does this mean he is possibly a surviving fetus of one of the six that were "aborted", or was this just an oversight by the writers?
4	** He's part of a different batch of clones, as detailed in - ''I think'' - one of the numerous expository scenes from the fourth game.
5	* Stillman. Everything about him faking the injury makes zero sense. First off, if he pretended to have lost it, there's doctors and nurses in on it, along with paramedics. For some reason, all these people, therefore, were like "Hey, sure you killed a bunch of people due to your idiocy, but we'll help you fake injury in order to get sympathy". Secondly, he then needs to trick doctors and medics pretty much all the time, since he's working as an instructor and therefore likely had to do checkups in order to keep working. On top of this, he could never wear shorts or sandals or be seen barefoot by anyone, which is rather difficult, considering those are normal things normal people do. On top of this, he'd have to heavily refuse to ever let anyone see the prosthetic, which would get rather hard, since human nature dictates that just about everyone would be asking to see it. Sure, he has no kids, but let's all hope he's not married, because then either he'd have to somehow fool his wife or have her in on it. At this point, it's more likely that he was in on the Patriots' conspiracy too, because otherwise, he's just built his own conspiracy.
6	** Does he actually claim to have physically lost his leg? Or just the use of it?
7	** Whatever the case, he's trying to sound like a RetiredBadass to protect Raiden from his psychotic protege, Fatman.
8	** He explicitly retired and stopped teaching after the bomb he failed to defuse. He probably became a recluse afterwards. But yeah, would like to know how exactly he pulled some of this off.
9	** The thing you're overlooking is quite simple: Stillman didn't have to have doctors confirm his injury. He just had to show up at the occasional talk or in public with a walking cane and acting like he couldn't use his leg and let people draw their own conclusions. Most people will take that at face value. Just like when you were a kid and you pretended to be sick to get out of doing something you didn't want to do-- most people won't ask for a second opinion.
10	* This really could go for the first game as well, but the information that really makes it a headscratcher is given here, so I'm putting it here. Otacon and Emma talk about their family's dark history, starting with Otacon's grandfather working on the Manhattan Project. However, even here, the weight given to it implies they know about Otacon's father, Huey, and his work alongside Big Boss and MSF. However, this rips the entire plot asunder. Firstly, if they knew about Huey's work, there's no way Otacon would have been involved in Shadow Moses. Secondly, the moment the two of them started talking about their families, both of them would have had a collective "What the hell?" moment when they realized destiny basically forced them together. Of course, if Huey was extremely secretive about his past with Otacon, that also means he never left any notes, a journal or diary, and was somehow able to deflect questions from his genius son with the exact same interests as him, which is highly unlikely. And that's completely avoiding the theory that Strangelove was his mother, because then there'd be even more issues. Like, Otacon asking at one point "Hey dad, how did you and mom meet anyways?".
11	** It may be unlikely that Huey could avoid having his son Hal discover his past, but it's not impossible. It's not like Huey couldn't have fabricated a story or two so that Hal would not repeat the same mistakes he did. Maybe Huey would know how his son would think and took several steps to avoid issues. Of course, it didn't matter, thanks to the creation of the "Patriots" and those behind it. As for the mother of Hal, well... we will likely find out in Phantom Pain.
12	* Are there other members of Philanthropy besides Snake and Otacon? If there are, why the hell aren't they ever seen or mentioned? As badass as Snake is, he can't be two places at once. If he really wanted to shut down every Metal Gear on Earth, you'd think he'd look for some help. In any case, it seems like he'd need to get more members if he wanted to get recognition from the UN. To the UN, one field agent doesn't look like an organized group... it just looks like a lone terrorist. And if there are more members of Philanthropy, then what happened to the organization after Snake faked his death?
13	** It's just Snake and Otacon.
14	** No it's not. Snake makes it pretty clear that Nastasha Romanenko was involved with Philantrophy after the incident in a codec call in the Big Shell chapter, and Otacon heavily implies Mei Ling was involved in one way or another too.
15	* When Raiden sees Solidus for the first time, shouldn't he recognise him as the former president?
16	** You'd think he'd recognize him as his adoptive father as well?
17	** Did you forget that it's a huge major plot point that Raiden explicitly doesn't remember his past?
18	** That doesn't really answer the question about Raiden not recognising Solidus as the former president. In-universe, Solidus/George Sears resigned after Shadow Moses, 4 years before the Big Shell incident. I don't think Raiden's short-term memory is that bad.
19	** IIRC, Raiden always ''did'' remember his past, but tried to repress the memories and made it quite clear he didn't want to discuss the subject with Rose; he's able to recall with clarity what was done to him as a child soldier, but doesn't talk about it until forced. As for not recognizing Solidus as the former President, it could that he did but didn't say so out loud, but in flashbacks, Solidus was depicted without a beard as George Sears, and looked a ''lot'' different. It's not implausible that Raiden didn't make the connection between the Big Boss clone in an exoskeleton in front of him and vague recollections of yet another suit-wearing older politician, distinguished only by position, that he could have only seen on TV.
20	** Raiden is himself also under the influence of Patriot nanomachines. In terms of what the 'Selection for Societal Sanity' plan was trying to do (which is still unclear in some ways), it seems to at least put the subject through the wringer pretty hard. Chances are the Patriot nanomachines could have been suppressing Raiden's bad memories of Solidus right up until the point that it would hit the hardest.
21	** Plus, accelerated aging. Chances are, he looks several decades older.
22	** Could be a bit of FridgeBrilliance {{Foreshadowing}} here, with a slice of FridgeHorror. We find out later that Raiden was a child soldier in Africa in the 80s AND that his entire job was a lie, to the point that he never even met the "Colonel" who was giving him orders, and his training regime was completely virtual. AND we know that he is actually an UnwittingPawn of the Patriots all along, a test subject for how they plan to control and manipulate humanity. What if he legitimately ''doesn't know'' who President Sears was because the Patriots controlled almost everything he learned (and, perhaps, is a recent immigrant to the US who didn't exactly have a normal childhood)?
23	** Honestly, it doesn't seem like ''anybody'' recognises Solidus as the former President. Almost no character comments on it; all everyone cares about is whether or not he is Solid Snake- the hostage Richard Ames calls him "Snake" and neither Solid nor Otacon point out that this guy looks REALLY familiar. It isn't until we meet President Johnson that we learn the guy we've been fighting is his predecessor and even then, nobody seems surprised that they didn't recognise him all this time. To put this in perspective, the plot of the game is basically that George W. Bush has become a terrorist, seized control of a oil cleaning facility and taken Barack Obama and much of his staff hostage with the help of Russian mercenaries and a renegade US Special Forces team... and everyone just rolls with it. It's... more than a bit weird.
24	** It does differ significantly from real world presidents right off the bat in that he's a clone of the greatest soldier who ever lived, installed in place to help the Patriots maintain their deep state government. And subsequently he was alienated by their over-reaching control, much like his Dead Cell subordinates. Subsequent weirdness makes more sense from that initial context.
25	** Given that during his presidency, as George Sears, he didn't look anything like he does now. He was clean shaven, which, is actually a pretty solid distinction, pun not intended. Have you seen someone who has had a beard for quite a long time, and suddenly just shaves it off completely?? It's jarring. Add in the fact that many people here on the Big Shell probably didn't interact a lot with, or see a lot of Sears in his presidency. It really isn't surprising that people would have a hard time recognising him.
26	** Solidus is touted not only as a survivor of the project, but is a perfect clone of Big Boss. As in, not a Liquid, or Solid Snake, but, a 1 to 1 clone OF Big Boss, whereas Liquid was a dominant clone, with BB's dominant genes, and Solid Snake was, for lack of a better term, recessive clone, with the recessive genes of BB. That's also why Liquid and Solid Snake actually aren't completely identical; Liquid has blue eyes and blonde hair. Solid has brown eyes and brown hair. Big Boss actually has a greenish-blue hue colour in his eyes. It's not a stretch for Snake to not see either a similarity to himself, Liquid, or even Big Boss himself.
27	* Not about the story, but about the game itself: why can't I play half of the game (the Tanker chapter) if I haven't played the first MGS? Granted, it only depends on how you answer the question after selecting the New Game option and you can lie to the game if you want to, but why would they put that question in anyway? To avoid spoilers? I'm playing the sequel first, I think I'm already prepared for spoilers.
28	** It's all a part of the "Player = Raiden" idea. If you hadn't played [=MGS1=], you, ideally, wouldn't know who Snake was. So the whole [[ItWasHisSled Snake being Pliskin]] thing would be a reveal to both, not just to Raiden.
29	** Also, the first hour or so of the Plant chapter is a tutorial for new players, whereas the Tanker chapter only bothers teaching the player new moves debuting in this game, and assumes they know the basics of MGS gameplay. The plot does the same thing; there's none of the AsYouKnow that the Plant chapter has.
30	** Also, just to clarify, the Tanker isn't ''nearly'' half the game. It's the intro. The Big Shell is the bulk of the game, while the Tanker will take, tops, an hour the first time through.
31	** Not really. The Big Shell is physically not that much larger than the Tanker, there's just ''loads'' of backtracking.
32	** I was talking about how much gameplay is spent in each one, not physical size.
33	** Was this only in the first release of the game? The ''Substance'' re-release let's you choose to play either or both right from the menu.
34	** It's only in the UK release of Sons of Liberty. In the US release, it does not ask you this question (trust me, I have the US release).
35	%% Todo: check if other releases (e.g. EU copies, and just PAL releases in general, and subsequent ports/remasters) also ask the question
36	** It's actually rather clever if you think about it: the plot of the Plant section is exactly the same as the plot for MGS, with characters changed (Raiden is Snake, Snake and Olga are Grey Fox and so on). Someone who has completed MGS 1 before playing will have noticed these things, thus spoiling {{The Reveal}}.
37	** Not ''exactly'' the same. The fact that it shows events repeating themselves is lampshaded, for one, which in itself causes the sequel's plot to become its own unique thing.
38	* Why do certain characters, such as Raiden and Emma, communicate to each other on Codec while they're in the same room?
39	** The in-universe excuse is that Codec conversations can't be overheard due to working via nanomachines. In reality, it's just so they wouldn't have to animate scenes during some of the ''very long'' discussions heard during those cutscenes.
40	** Which in itself makes further sense; if they're just talking, then there's not much need to see them standing around and doing so, while not using their bodies to move around and do other physical actions like characters in any given medium. It would look dull to see them pretty much standing in place, and make the game more expensive to give them dynamic actions (for the cutscenes where they do do this, there's a purpose behind it).
41	* Why does the door to the mess hall in Strut C have a level one security clearance, when the door for the kitchen is unlocked? Obviously it's for the benefit of the blocking in the cutscene- having Pliskin enter the kitchen from the mess hall side when Raiden meets Peter Stillman. However, would it have killed the developers to have two versions of the scene- one where Raiden enters from the kitchen door and one where Raiden enters from the mess hall side? Otherwise, it would seem that low-level employees at the Big Shell are required to bring their own lunches.
42	** The low-level employees probably ''were'' the people with Level 1 clearance.
43	** Okay, that's valid. But it still does not answer the question of why just anyone can go into the kitchen, but a security card is needed for the mess hall. Also: if every employee ''is'' issued a security card of one level or another, why are all the doors in the Big Shell not security doors?
44	** Cost.
45	** FanWank solution: builders screwed up. Doors were originally meant to go the other way around, but someone screwed up. By the time they found out they got the doors wrong way, they decide to leave them since 90% percent of people would have level 1 clearance, thus no problem. Patriots didn't either know or didn't care.
46	* Why are there mines in the flooded Shell 2 Core? Did the soldiers just leave them in the halls on the off chance the area would be flooded and someone would be swimming around in it, or did Vamp leave them there?
47	** Probably Vamp.
48	** More likely supposed to be a large clue that something isn't right. "Wait a minute, why would a facility that does nothing but clean up an oil spill have ''underwater mines'' in their storage?"
49	* What about Vamp's super regenerative nanomachines allows him to swim in buoyancy restricting water?
50	** The out-of-story reason is that was a boss arena for another character who was cut, and they decided to use it anyway.
51	** In story, the water probably flushed him out under the struts to where we see him next time. He probably was technically dead while in the water, but after he got flushed into real ocean water the nanos fixed up his lungs to allow him to... well, make a huge annoying chunk of the game completely meaningless.
52	** Also keep in mind that he didn't get those nanomachines until after this game. He always had a hell of a regenerative factor and could do impossible feats like running on water or all perfectly vertical walls. He could swim through that water because he was inhumanly strong and dexterous.
53	** According to VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots, his regen ability is ONLY because of his nanonmachines, and that he's had them since Dead Cell's inception. The VDW force is how he was able to run up buildings and across water (thanks to extreme physical fitness). His shadow pin attack is him using a radio emitter in the knife handle to cause Raidens nanomachines or suit to lock his leg movement. What ISN'T explained is how he can sit on top of the water or swim. The swimming could POSSIBLY be handwaved the same way the water running was, if poorly, but the standing on water is impossible without some sort of weird power.
54	** Could we get a citation on that? Because the game never says any of that, and supports my theory more. For example, all the wounds he got in 2 are still on his body in 4, but all of the new wounds he gets in 4 are healed up completely by the nanomachines. And Naomi herself says that he already had an impressive regen ability:
55	->Naomi: He was never immortal. His natural healing abilities were enhanced by the nanomachines inside his body. But after so many battles... he's finally reached his limit.
56	** Also his shadow attack was not explicitly technological, Otacon suggested it was more hypnotic in nature. And he can sit on the water because he does have some degree of supernatural power. The nanomachines in 4 were just to keep his body from falling apart.
57	** That quote from Naomi is highly ambiguous. It could either refer to Vamp having some innate healing factor, like Wolverine, ''or'' it could just refer to the natural healing abilities the human body possesses, which were amplified in Vamp's case by nanotechnology. Given the Guns of the Patriots' tendency to de-mystify the series, the latter explanation is more likely.
58	** What about his nanomachines allowed him to run vertically up walls, then? Or spin so fast he deflects bullets? I think it's pretty clear that as of GOP he's a vampire who also has nanomachines.
59	* When you bring Emma up to the first floor of the Shell 2 Core, a guard comes out of the elevator after you've moved a significant distance away from it. Where did he come from? That elevator only goes to the flooded floor and there wasn't anyone down there.
60	** There is a sealed blast door to the left of the elevator Raiden can't enter.
61	* How does Otacon get the hostages out of the Shell 1 core and to the helicopter pad on Strut E? The bridges out of the core were out on both sides.
62	** Err, what? You walk across a bridge to get to the core!
63	** The BC bridge, yes. The FE bridge side has false panels, so it's somewhat questionable how the refugees managed to get over that.
64	** He probably just landed directly on the roof of the Shell 1 core.
65	** When you cross back over the bridge from the Shell 2 core with Emma, someone's helpfully added replacement panels which allow her to cross. Maybe someone did the same to the Shell 1 core.
66	* Why does Fortune capture Snake even though she's only wanted to kill him the entire time and no one else has expressed any interest in taking him alive? And where did she get those handcuffs?
67	** Nobody expressed an interest on screen, but Ocelot, who was sorta her boss, probably told her to grab him.
68	** While we're at it, how did she get him up that ladder with his hands cuffed behind his back? She doesn't seem quite large enough to have carried him.
69	** She uses a gun that, if you set it down vertically, is almost as tall as she is. Assume that she has good upper-body strength.
70	** The game likes to portray the illusion Snake is having his own story off-screen, keeping with him being the main character. ''Something'' happened, but we the players aren't privy to it, just like we aren't privy to Snake's bomb-defusing, his uncovering of the nature of the Big Shell, or his boss battle with Olga. Also, nothing in the game says the ladder is the only way up to Arsenal Gear's topside.
71	** It's also not particularly surprising that a special operations group would be carrying handcuffs on them for instances where they manage to non-lethally subdue the enemy they are engaging.
72	* When does Fortune's magic box get turned off? It was active during her fight with Snake, but they go upstairs, Ocelot says it's the source of her bullet deflecting powers, and then it's suddenly off.
73	** Ocelot probably had a remote control for it.
74	* If the magic box deflects bullets fired at the person wearing it based on an electromagnetic field projected around them, why doesn't it divert the path of bullets fired by them? Fortune's railgun might be long enough to bypass this, but Ocelot's revolver isn't.
75	** The field is probably tuned to push bullets away from the wearer. If the gun is shooting the bullets away, they're not going to be affected by it so much. Alternatively, Ocelot might have been packing non-magnetic bullets just for the occasion.
76	** Or, considering if the Patriots are manipulating everything; they probably manipulated the reports that the gun isn't ready for combat, yet had one that was perfectly operational and she had the first and only working model.
77	* Why are Snake and Solidus surprised by Ocelot's change into Liquid while he has control of RAY? Solidus has been in the room with Ocelot while he was having a "change into Liquid" spasm and referenced Liquid by name. Granted, he fought it off, so it's possible that Solidus only recognises them as spasms and not a full takeover. Snake, however, is not only surprised by the change, but that it was Liquid on the tanker even though Liquid called out to and chatted with him before Ocelot took back over.
78	** Been a while since I've seen it, but it might be they were surprised at how it was happening, or that it was happening just then. As you said, he'd fought it off previously, so maybe it asserting control like that was something Solidus wasn't used to, and Snake had only seen it once, two years ago.
79	** There's no indication that Ocelot actually speaks in Liquid Snake's voice when his persona takes over; it could be just for the viewer's benefit. As such, during the Tanker chapter, Snake may have assumed that Ocelot was just having some sort of seizure, although he did notice Liquid's arm. Perhaps he was surprised on Arsenal Gear because he realised Liquid really ''was'' possessing Ocelot. It wouldn't surprise me if the incident on the Tanker bothered him for a year, and then during the Plant chapter he got the explanation that his brother was alive again.
80	** Even if it's in Ocelot's voice, who else could Snake have possibly thought it was? Do other characters refer to Snake as "Brrrrrrrother!!!"?
81	*** But who's to say Ocelot couldn't be devious/trolling hard enough that he would go so far as to imitate Liquid just to fuck with Snake/Solidus/whoever? As opposed to actually being possessed by him.
82	** This. Solidus in particular only seems aware that there are issues with the arm, not that they involve Liquid. If he was, then he wouldn't be complaining about how much the surgery cost to Ocelot during the sections where we can listen in. Given it's ''Ocelot'', chances are Solidus doesn't even know whose arm that ''really'' is.
83	** He knows whose arm it is. Firstly, the fact that they spent so much money on it in the first place (it's unlikely that any other arm would have cost that much; odds are, the reason they chose Liquid is precisely because he was a super soldier and that's the only type of arm that could come back to life), and Ocelot complains that it's like the arm is "having it's revenge" while in the presence of Solidus, so it is highly unlikely that Solidus has no clue. He just doesn't know that Liquid can actually ''possess'' him.
84	* How did Liquid choose Ocelot as a host for his disembodied arm? Why did Ocelot decide to graft Liquid's arm onto his body? A conversation with Solidus implies that he was the one that decided to put Liquid's arm onto Ocelot, but why Liquid's arm?
85	** Ocelot may be a bit of a psychic, considering his pedigree. He might have 'talked' to Liquid between the games.
86	** He didn't, it's revealed in [=MGS4=] that the entire Liquid arm possession thing was an elaborate lie. Ocelot used hypnotherapy to turn himself into Liquid to fool the Patriots, why that was necessary is anyone's guess.
87	** No, he did. The hypnotherapy only happened after this game. Before, it really ''was'' Liquid's spirit taking over, and Ocelot ditched him for a prosthetic arm and hypnotherapy afterwards.
88	** Depends on the source material, unfortunately when it is explained we didn't get a timeline. The [=MGS4=] database and the MGS wiki go with the hypnotherapy thing, the [=MGS2=] comic goes with the Ocelot is part psychic thing, I feel the hypnotherapy deal goes better with Ocelot's series spanning XanatosGambit. Ocelot is the son of The Boss and The Sorrow. So he's the son of a spirit medium, making his body ripe for possessing. After the events of [=MGS2=] he did the hypnotherapy, but during the events of [=MGS2=] he was possessed. This isn't spoilered out because YouShouldKnowThisByNow.
89	** Removing spoilers here for everything because yes, YouShouldKnowThisByNow, and not be on a headscratchers page if you haven't played the whole series.
90	*** That's only ever mentioned in the comic, if the [=MGS4=] database on PSN is WordOfGod then it's hypnotherapy.
91	** Technically the database also says he removed the arm after 2009 to "balance his psyche", but it's wrong on a million other things so it's hardly Word of God.
92	** It's a bit of both actually, the actual Liquid is dead and gone, his ghost is still floating in REX's cockpit in [=MGS4=], Ocelot used hypnotherapy to create a new Liquid persona entirely in his own mind which "possessed" him every time Snake was around. So yeah, A Liquid is possessing Ocelot, just not THE Liquid. Ocelot has no direct control over his actions, but it's part of his huge master plan. The point was to fool the Patriots into thinking they were fighting Liquid and not Ocelot so they couldn't predict his actions. So his Ocelot persona is completely at whim of his Liquid persona, but it's got nothing to do with him being the Sorrow's son.
93	** Okay, first off, the [=MGS4=] Database was marketed by Kojima Productions as being canon, so unless proven otherwise it's the word of god. Following that, he was possessed during the Sons of Liberty incident, cut the arm off as soon as he got control again and got a new arm, then use hypnotherapy to continue with the ruse.
94	** You can accept the first answer if you just discount [=MGS4=]. I always just figured Ocelot needed a new hand, saw Liquid's fresh corpse and said, "Why the fuck not?".
95	** He just saw a chance to have Big Boss's genes inside him and had to take it.
96	* What was Solidus doing while Raiden was having that long codec call with AI Colonel and AI Rose before they started fighting? For that matter, what was Solidus doing while Raiden was having that long codec call with AI Colonel and AI Rose in the middle of the fight?
97	** We can probably assume that the longer ones during fights are meant to take place ''as'' the character's fighting, sort of like talking on your cell phone while you're driving. GameplayAndStorySegregation.
98	** Are you kidding? This is the Metal Gear series we're talking about here. The one that repeatedly breaks the fourth wall for shits and giggles (and to [[WhatTheHellHero yell at the player once in a while]]). When you're using the codec, either everyone around you waits for you to be done or time ''literally'' stops.
99	** Same thing Liquid was doing when Snake was talking to the Secretary of Defence; waiting for him to realise just how screwed over he is.
100	** In the novelization, Solidus is monologuing the entire time and doesn't even notice that Raiden isn't listening. Raiden just happens to finish talking to GW at the same time Solidus finishes.
101	** Solidus is a very polite killer. While they're fighting Raiden just says "Hold on man, I gotta take this call. Gimme like 5 minutes."
102	** First time I saw it I assumed the Patriots had been talking to him too at the same time and giving him reasons to fight Raiden. Can't remember if there's anything in-game to imply this.
103	** Solidus was explaining to Raiden what he was fighting for, and against, particularly the Patriot's information control. It would make sense that if Solidus wanted Raiden to understand his motives, having the Patriots themselves explain how they would "create context" would be perfect to illustrate his points.
104	** Codec shatters reality so hard that time just freezes. After all, while not hearing other people makes sense, how the hell does nobody hear you?
105	** Well, maybe it simply has you do a whisper so quiet that ordinarily nobody but you can hear it, but then amplifies it so that the person on the other end can hear you talking in a normal volume.
106	* How did Snake get from the middle of the Hudson River to Federal Hall National Memorial swimming and on foot that fast? He jumped off well before Arsenal crossed under the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge. That's a big distance to cover at all let alone in that short time frame.
107	** Maybe Otacon picked him up after dropping off the hostages. I mean, sure, he was all HotBlooded there, but eventually Snake's gonna realise he's not going to chase down a swimming mecha, and would call to be picked up.
108	* Where is Raiden keeping that ration, cold medicine, and box when he's naked?
109	** You don't want to know.
110	** If he did shove them up his ass, then how was he able to put that box up his ass? Unless he's like Cartman from ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', how he's able to shove ANYTHING up his ass (even Disneyland), as revealed in the episode where he went to juvenile hall.
111	** Women may have more hiding places than men, but men still have one good old reliable spot...
112	** He did the same thing Snake did at the beginning of MGS and swallowed them. Foxhound agents are taught to regurgitate items on command.
113	** So how was he able to swallow the box???
114	** Assuming it's any better than hiding a Stinger in the skull suit.
115	** The same place he keeps all those boxes (and assault rifles and missile launchers) when he's not naked: [[StoryAndGameplaySegregation his inventory]].
116	* Where are the missiles Solidus fires out of his tentacles coming from?
117	** Probably from inside the tentacles.
118	** Maybe the tentacles have panels which break out to allow him to reload said missiles.
119	* Did Snake collect all the dog tags necessary for his headband while defusing bombs in Shell 2? He didn't have it during the tanker mission, so he couldn't have gotten it from Shadow Moses. Unless he just left it at home for the tanker infiltration, he could have only gotten it from dog tag collection.
120	** My money's on him just leaving it home for that mission, since he intended to be stealthy, not go in guns ablazin'. Besides, VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots shows that Meryl survived, so her ending is canon. Keep in mind that Ocelot's invasion was something they didn't expect. If the mission ran as they intended then Snake would have at most fired a handful of tranq darts and nothing else since all he needed was to take some photographs of RAY. Since he even broke the Optical Camo device, it's easy to assume that he saw no point in bringing the headband to a mission he wouldn't use it on and could possibly drop it in the ocean somehow.
121	* I am not sure what goes into testing on dead bodies, but, when Rose has the body of Snake tested to make sure he is really him, it comes up as Snake's DNA. This is later revealed to be Liquid's but my question is this; how did the examiners not notice that the body they were testing has been decomposing for 4 years, not 2? Also it is stated that the body was missing an arm, we know that was removed for Ocelot. However because Ocelot could not know Snake would use it to fake his death, when he had the arm removed it would be done carefully and the results would be much too clean for the examiners to assume it was ripped off in the sinking of the tanker. So that should have tipped off those who were testing on the body. Sorry for the wall of text, and I realise that my questions somewhat contradict each other, but this always irked me.
122	** Maybe they (Ocelot?) have been keeping the body on ice? He is the clone of the greatest soldier of all time, and the US government saw fit to preserve Big Boss in a similar fashion.
123	** The answer is simple; Rose is working for the Patriots, so therefore the body was never exhumed. They just gave her a script to read off of, like how they told her to make Raiden fall in love with her. While Liquid's body was used as a stand in by Snake to fake his death at the tanker, the Patriots saw through it pretty much instantly but didn't care enough to correct anyone. So his body is probably somewhere that the Patriots control.
124	* Fortune's magic box and angst powers are stated to disarm explosives and deflect bullets (and seemingly all other projectiles), but nobody ever says why it's impossible to close the distance and punch her in the face. Unless the invisible wall you run into happens to be another manifestation of her powers, but that just makes it worse (seriously how does that magic box even work?).
125	** There is an invisible wall. When you 'fight' Fortune, i.e. run out the clock without being killed by her, if you try to run at her you come up against just such an invisible barrier. I was specifically trying to see if I could do any damage in CQC like you were suggesting but I couldn't get close enough to do anything.
126	** Some sort of electromagnetism which both deflects bullets, and does... something to the detonators on explosives. As for closing the distance? That big honkin' railgun is probably the main reason.
127	** She couldn't hit Raiden at ten feet, and the rate of fire was pretty bad. I reckon he could make it if he ''really'' tried. And how did she capture Snake if she never engaged in hand-to-hand combat? I don't expect they make railguns with a "stun" setting.
128	** I imagine there was some amount of physical combat involved. My best guess is she clocked him in the head with the butt of her railgun when she got an opportunity.
129	** The Colonel actually rules out melee combat as an option if you call him after trying and failing to shoot her. Presumably, it's just too dangerous to try running at her when she's firing a railgun at you.
130	* ''Why'' were Snake and Otacon against the Marine Corps' Metal Gear RAY project? RAY is an ''anti'' Metal Gear, designed to combat and destroy other models. In fact, it even lacks a Metal Gear's defining trait; RAY is not equipped or designed to fire nuclear warheads! By all accounts they should be on the same side.
131	** Because at the end of the day Ray is still a Metal Gear. America is officially against the use of Metal Gears, so Snake and Otacon were going to release images of RAY to show just what the US government were up to. Plus, they didn't know the full details of RAY; for all they knew it had the ability to launch nukes too.
132	** This. REX is arguably a handy weapon for world peace in the right hands. Taken and sold by Ocelot to hundreds of other countries, it becomes a weapon of terror; given the chance, what's to say that RAY couldn't be taken and abused in the same way? It's all about escalation. If opposing countries - not just the US - had the 'Metal Gear killer' in their arsenal, where does it go from there?
133	* [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why didn't Raiden try and shoot Fortune after he "killed" Vamp, when he had a clear shot?]] Would her magic box have deflected a bullet from him if he pressed the gun against her head and pulled the trigger?
134	** Fortune could have turned around at any moment, also Raiden did not know the nature of her powers, he just wanted to get the hell out of there.
135	** Raiden didn't know the extent of her powers; all he knew was that from one gunfight he'd witnessed basically all small-arms fire deflected away from her and grenades near here failed to detonate. For all he knew, trying to do that would just cause his gun to explode in his hand.
136	** On top of that, he was just alerted that Fatman placed another huge bomb somewhere on the Big Shell and he had to get out of there ASAP. If there was the slightest chance the bullet wouldn't work and he had to spend his time safely leaving to deal with the bomb if Fortune got pissed, he really could've wasted time.
137	** That and, in the (admittedly questionable) novelisation, Raiden thought it would be a dick move to kill her while she was angsting.
138	* I thought Snake was smart enough to tell the differences between special forces, be it their purposes, their tactics or their mottoes. So why is it he goofed up by saying "Semper Fi" to Raiden when he was clearly not impersonating a Marine? Even Stillman caught on to it fairly quickly.
139	** He did it on purpose. That was the point. He dropped several hints that he wasn't a SEAL like he was claiming to be. Pretty sure it was because he wanted Raiden to actually think about it, put the pieces together, and question what was going on rather than just blindly accepting everything he was told.
140	** A better question is why Stillman interpreted a Navy SEAL dropping mottoes from the Marines and the SAS as evidence that he isn't a SEAL. It's not a case of "even Stillman caught on to it" so much as "Stillman is making a BatDeduction". Heck, many SEALS are actually ''recruited'' from the ranks of the Marines, and both SEALS and Marines train and work with the SAS and each other on occasion. It would be more unusual if a Navy SEAL ''didn't'' know the mottoes of both organisations (especially if Stillman, a civilian, is fully informed), and it isn't all ''that'' weird that a SEAL would be quoting them.
141	* Okay, so one of the game's themes is about how blindly doing everything you're told and not to take things at face value, right? This unfortunately results in a massive bit of GameplayAndStorySegregation because the game itself doesn't give you any other options on how to resolve a situation. The story's linearity detracts from the impact of TheReveal that the Patriots played you like a fiddle. It also seems disingenuous for the Patriots to mock the player on a meta-level for their conformity when the game doesn't offer alternative courses of action to you, however discreetly they'd have to be with the Patriots' planning.
142	** You forget the one, obvious thing you could have done: [[AC: TURN THE GAME OFF]]. In a more serious tone: would that not have undermined their point? The Patriots specifically represent the game designers, as Raiden represents the player. Designing an alternate route would make little sense - 'Hah, instead of submitting to what the game designers told me to do, I will submit to another completely different thing that the game designers told me to do!'. The only winning move in Metal Gear Solid 2 is not to play.
143	** So the Patriots are trolls now? "Turn THE GAME console off right now."
144	** Yes. See: the Patriots specifically represent the [[Creator/HideoKojima game designers.]]
145	** Raiden does what he's told because he's a helpless, weak-willed pawn (just like the player, or so the argument goes). However, during the final cutscene, Snake urges Raiden not to take things at face value and think for himself, at which point he throws away the dog tags with the player's name on the: he's done being controlled and ordered around. The game is implicitly suggesting the player follow Raiden's example. The game is using the [[ButThouMust inherent linearity of the gaming medium]] to show how, despite the illusion of freedom, Raiden and the player have no real choice in their actions. But what happens after the game is ''over'' is up to Raiden (and the player) to decide.
146	** The above troper is correct; furthermore, it's not even a tactic unique to ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'''s storytelling; see also ''VideoGame/BioShock'', ''Spec Ops: The Line'', ''Shadow of the Colossus'', ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite''...
147	* To be fair they couldn't possibly have known that the War in Iraq and Afghanistan were going to happen at the time Metal Gear Solid 2 was made, but since then why haven't Kojima Productions retconned things so that Raiden saw combat in the Middle East? Raiden would have had to have been part of the regular US Army to be eligible for their Force XXI Trials, and it seems improbable that he wouldn't at least be stationed in the Middle East during that time period. It can't be because Raiden was viewed as too valuable to be put in danger as Solid Snake was a prized clone of Big Boss and yet they still put him in harm's way during the 1991 Gulf War and numerous CIA black ops missions before he was utilised against Big Boss and Liquid.
148	** Because the history is most likely different from ours. There aren't any references to those events in VideoGame/MetalGearSolid, which is set in 2005. Therefore we can safely assume that they never happened in the world of the series.
149	** I could have sworn that they made reference to the Iraq War in Metal Gear Solid 4 and how Private Contractors were used heavily during that war leading to the current trend we see in the rise of PMCs.
150	** It's easy to interpret as a sort of TakeThat to the Middle East situation, but in the game itself, no, they never mentioned the Iraq War. A situation in that approximate region is part of the plot, but we can safely assume that the Iraq War never happened in the Metal Gear universe.
151	** Well, the series' official wiki does mention the Iraq War and depending on how reliably it handles sourcing, it might be a reference to something directly in the game (also this is directed to the person who wrote the previous paragraph: are you ''absolutely sure'', did you check every single Codec conversation in [=MGS4=]?). The retcon reason as to why they hardly mentioned it in that game, and not at all in the games released before the events actually happened, is probably that nuclear terrorism (and the groups behind it: FOXHOUND, Dead Cell, etc) easily trump the threat compared to that from your garden variety conventional-weaponry terrorism (and Osama bin Laden, ISIS, etc).
152	** Because, as the game points out, Raiden became a special forces soldier entirely through VR, bypassing the need for actual combat experience. He was also handpicked by the Patriots, who, given that they control the US military, can decide not to deploy him.
153	* How does anyone in reality confuse Raiden for a woman? He's whiny, has no stubble, and thick platinum-blonde hair, but otherwise, his voice, body build, and facial features are pretty clearly masculine. Basically, sure he's not a gritty badass but if there are people who actually did ever look at him and think "yep, that's definitely a chick" it seems to me they need to take a closer look at real women more often.
154	** The President mistakenly confuses Raiden as a female because he thought it was Olga, who he thought the Patriots were sending after him. To be fair to both of them, they ''do'' look a bit similar and on the ambiguous side, with Raiden having very feminine features and Olga having very neutral, not too feminine features. Plus the President had been held hostage, so it's possible he was delusional.
155	** If the president thought Raiden was Olga, why did he try to grab his Raiden's groin? I could understand him attempting a punch but last time I checked from a self-defence point of view there really isn't anything down there to grab on a clothed female. He would have been better off either going for her stomach or improvising a weapon from the furniture or machinery in his cell.
156	** He really didn't think Raiden was Olga, he simply wasn't sure if was Olga or some effeminate guy that looked like her so he did the crotch grabbing test to find out for sure.
157	** Yet another way to mock Raiden, perhaps?
158	** Uh, you're all pretty way off. "I'm ready for my punishment!" he says, before going for crotch. Guy probably thought the hot, dominant Russian babe was going to give him an... "interrogation".
159	** And bear in mind it's been established that within the games' universe, realistic masks almost indistinguishable from a real face have been around since at least the 1960s, and since Olga is seen wearing a cyborg-ninja suit that gives her masculine features, it's not far fetched for someone in-universe to suspect that what looks like a male is really a disguised female.
160	* I'm mostly just pissed about the antagonist's name. Three common states of matter: Solid, liquid and gas. Three sons of the Big Boss: Solid, Liquid, and... Solidus? Okay, so Gas Snake sounds goofy, but why not Vapor Snake?
161	** That;s actually an awesome name for him.
162	** Think about it for a while. Solidus's genetic structure is a balance between Liquids and Solids. If he was Vapor, it would imply that Liquid is in between Solid and George Sears. Solidus refers to the temperature where a solid object begins to melt, but is not always completely melted.
163	** Yes, I get what solidus means, I just don't get how it's supposed to describe George Sears. He's older looking than Snake, a much bigger jerk-ass than both Snake and Liquid, and he ends up being compared most often to the original Big Boss. So what part of that makes him "between" Solid and Liquid? If anything, he's like Liquid Snake, only more so.
164	** Solidus is a direct clone of Big Boss; no genetic manipulation and possibly created before the rest of the Enfants. His brothers were modified to tip their genetic balance, giving Liquid only recessive 'soldier' genes and Solid only dominant 'normal' genes. As Solidus has a normal compliment of both dominant and recessive genes, he is balanced between the other two.
165	** Solidus, in science, is the temperature "mark" where below the Solidus, a substance is solid, and any temperature above means the substance is liquid. Also, it can be related to the Solidus, which was the payment of soldiers in Roman times, hence both referring to Solidus' link to Snake and Liquid, and also to his military roots.
166	* How was Solidus the President at age 33, when the U.S. Constitution requires the President to be at least 35?
167	** The Patriots wanted him to be President, and they run the country. It's not impossible that A. as a clone, he could have been aged a bit to look over 35 and B. he could have ''lied about his age''.
168	** Solidus sure didn't ''look'' to be in his 30s/40s by 2009, so even though his presidency was a few years in the past by then, he would have definitely looked to be the right age.
169	** Given his appearance, it would be easy for him to forge papers which legally certify him as well over 35. Either that, or The Patriots passed a constitutional amendment to lower the required age; they DO run the country, after all.
170	** Since he was one of The Patriots' agents, they could get him in office in a heartbeat. As for his appearance, his accelerated aging was faster than Solid & Liquid's, and had (supposedly) kicked in between [=MGS1=] and this game.
171	* More on Solidus. Back before the game came out, I didn't mind that there was a super duper Big Boss clone named Solidus. What I did mind, and what I think counts as a massive case of FridgeLogic is that Solidus was the President of the United States. Granted in the chaos of the Shadow Moses incident, Solid and co. wouldn't stop and take a moment to ponder, "Gee, the Commander in Chief sure looks a lot like Big Boss, doesn't he?" and I think it's a shame that they couldn't have had a stinger with the POTUS decorating Snake for his actions and saying something like "Excellent work... ''brother.'' " And furthermore, why wouldn't the Patriots or someone else tell the media that it was the ex-President who was to blame for the Tanker incident, and not Solid Snake? It sounds a lot more plausible that a disgraced American President would be behind a terrorist action than a "terrorist" who "died" two years ago.
172	** Because the Patriots had a vested interest in giving Snake a rap sheet to prevent him from becoming an icon outside of the people who take ''In the Darkness of Shadow Moses'' seriously. Snake wasn't just going away, and blaming the Big Shell on him (made easier by Solidus himself deciding to use Snake's name) maintains the blame-game. Besides which, it's likely that the general public found out it was George Sears anyway, what with him being dead on the steps of Federal Hall at the end. As discussed elsewhere, this could, as you said, actually help the Patriots in the long run.
173	* If at the ending the Patriots - except for Ocelot - have all been dead for several years (100 if I recall correctly) then how can they have been the manipulative force behind most of the events of the series, AND how could one of them have been among Snake and Otacon's biggest contributors? Were they all AI's like the Colonel was?
174	** Yes, they were all AIs. This seeming discrepancy is one of the key plot points [[TheReveal revealed]] in [=MGS4=].
175	** The "dead for 100 years" thing was bunk. Most of the series takes place after the AIs have come online to take everything over. [=MGS4=] explains everything pretty handily.
176	** No no no, they weren't AIs and the "dead for almost 100 years" line was true; but not for the Patriots. The list of names obtained from GW contained the names of the Wiseman's Committee: the leadership of the Philosophers, of whom the last of the original members ''did'' die almost a hundred years ago. With this, the last memory of the Philosophers would vanish; they were "ended", as Ocelot said he'd do to them in Portable Ops when the Patriots were just him and Zero.
177	** The 12 men who were dead for 100 years were the Wisemen's Committee, the founders of the previous organization, the Philosophers. Their names were used by the modern day Patriots as their aliases, to distract from their true identities as AIs.
178	* If the Colonel was an AI here, was he the same in [=MGS1=]?
179	** No, as Snake met the Colonel face-to-face in briefing prior to the mission, based on the novelisation.
180	** You don't need the novel for that, the pre-mission briefing shows a long-haired Snake being briefed by the Colonel, and IIRC he's also seen as a flesh-and-blood man on the submarine ''Discovery'' during the intro.
181	** 'They' say that Campbell in that one is always an AI constructed from Raiden's idea of what his CO would look like, based on the Shadow Moses simulations, but he's always just referred to as "Colonel", never Campbell, and if he IS an artificial construct, why does his nametag say "Campbell"? Is it possible that the real deal Campbell was CO at the outset of the mission, but then after they realised Snake was in play, they pulled the ol' switcheroo? I mean, Campbell is obviously a real person, seeing as how Solid AND Big Boss have worked with him, but, really, how hard is it to snatch someone and replace them on CODEC? Liquid did it with Miller, and Snake should have known Miller better than anyone.
182	** It was the AI all along, it has Campbell on the nametag because Raiden thought he was the same Colonel as the one from Shadow Moses. The Patriots always intended it to be a replica of Shadow Moses, Snake's appearance didn't really change anything.
183	** It's worth noting that the Colonel isn't necessarily ''just'' an AI. Raiden has had his very ''brain'' messed with. Otacon says, "the Colonel is in part your own creation, cobbled together from your hopes and expectations."
184	* Okay, so ''Metal Gear Solid 2''. Ocelot exposits his master plan as being to put someone through a recreation of Shadow Moses in order to prove that putting someone through that will make anyone as badass as Solid Snake. But Shadow Moses isn't what made Solid Snake badass --he was already a true badass, otherwise he wouldn't have been sent to deal with it.
185	** Considering the ''very next scene'' dismisses that it is actually the case...
186	** So, the question Ocelot ''thinks'' the Patriots want answered is: could ''anyone'' have survived Shadow Moses? Did we need to send a legendary soldier, or did the nature of the situation itself memetically create a perfect soldier? The real question the Patriots are asking is much more complicated and postmodern, though.
187	** The plan wasn't to make someone as ''badass'' as Solid Snake, it was to make someone ''as big a hero in the public eye'' as Snake was after Shadow Moses.
188	** No, the entire Big Shell operation was to test whether or not the new GW AI could appropriately carry out the S3 plans - that being the Selection for Societal Sanity. Raiden is their final test subject, but in general, the entire Big Shell operation is ironing out the final flaws in GW and making sure that it can appropriately select the correct information for the Patriots' agenda - namely filtering what people receive so they get what the Patriots want them to get. They finalised things by the manner in which they were able to manipulate events surrounding the incident. But generally, Raiden's role is nothing more than helping the Patriots wrap up GW's development, because of who he is.
189	** First off, it's a mistake to trust ''anything'' Ocelot says, but that said, there may be an explanation in ''Metal Gear Solid 4.'' When Big Boss appears at the end of 4, he explains that, for all their advanced tech, the Patriots AIs can only repeat the same pattern over and over again. A Snake brother starts a terrorist action, Solid Snake goes in to stop it. It's possible that Ocelot's REAL goal in ''2'' is to TEST that theory, by constructing a facsimile of the Shadow Moses incident to see if the Patriots will perform as he hopes. Then all he has to do is find ways to manipulate the pattern to get him to his ultimate goal in a way that the Patriots either can't circumvent or actively facilitate, which he pulls off in 4.
190	* If Fortune's magnetic luck device is the same size as Ocelot's how come she didn't notice it earlier? It's not that hard to miss. Also if she truly wanted to commit suicide why didn't she just take a knife and slit her throat? I'm sure that the device wouldn't have that much control that it could actually stop her from doing that, as it seems to focus solely on blocking artillery assaults.
191	** She was a drama queen who wanted to die in combat. If she wanted to die, she probably could have jumped off a building too.
192	*** Calling her a drama queen is ''way'' too much of a stretch considering what she suffered, especially since none of it was her fault. She just has a desire to die as much as she wants revenge against Snake, who she believes started her sorrows. For those two reasons, she joins the US military as she thinks she has nothing to lose from dying and to try and kill Snake, who at this point is designated as a terrorist by the US. And since it's implied that she's the sole survivor of every mission she was sent in, the survivor's guilt further exaggerates the two.
193	** I was under the impression that Ocelot's device was the one that shielded Fortune-- remotely. Far-fetched, maybe, but it already was. Alternatively, her device may have been inside her railgun or something. Either way, she couldn't have noticed it and Ocelot had the means to turn it off remotely. Also, I suspect she was convinced that committing suicide wouldn't work, leaving her in terrible pain. The drama queen explanation is just as likely, though.
194	** Wasn't the device missing from Fortune in her final fight? I'd always assumed that Ocelot simply lifted it off her at some point without her noticing.
195	* What was the ''point'' of the tanker mission? Philanthropy's purpose before knowledge of the Patriots came to light was tracking down and destroying Metal Gear REX knockoffs built by anyone with the money to buy the information off the black market, thus preventing the stealth-nuclear weapon REX is designed to fire from being mass-produced and starting a new nuclear arms race unchecked by Mutually Assured Destruction. Metal Gear RAY does not mount the rail gun necessary to fire the stealth-nuke, is not large enough to fire a traditional ICBM like the Shagohod and previous Metal Gears, and is specifically designed for the ''US Marines'' to use ''in taking down REX knockoffs.'' How is this anything but ''in line'' with Philanthropy's goals?
196	** The point was to expose that the US Military was making its own Metal Gear. Philanthropy isn't anti-REX, it's anti ''Metal Gear''.
197	** That just makes it even sillier; without nuclear launch capability, RAY isn't a true Metal Gear (Otacon may have actually said this in ''Guns of the Patriots'' when discussing how the Gekko aren't Metal Gears either, I can't remember exactly,) it's just a walking tank that can also swim. Granted, this ''does'' make it a rather fearsome weapon, a tank that can follow soldiers or move to an engagement over any terrain, but it's still a ''conventional'' weapon. If Philanthropy's philosophy is simply "if someone sticks the name Metal Gear on it, it's got to go", it's more than a little short-sighted and not entirely in character. Otacon, at least, should be perfectly capable of sitting down and looking over the pros and cons of any given situation, and for that matter, they ''have'' something called Metal Gear much later. If they didn't care about RAY itself and just wanted to expose the government for having a huge cover-up, wouldn't that have happened anyway the first time the Marines used RAY out in the open to pwn someone's crappy REX knockoff? Not that they ever got the chance, but Snake and Otacon wouldn't have known that.
198	** Let me think of a way to make this workable... okay, what about if what they are scared of is that someone will reverse-engineer the RAY's advances (for example, it lacks a radome as its only input device, which means a weakness is gone) and fit them into a new REX design, or some other new walking robot which IS capable of launching nukes? That would make true Metal Gears harder to take down from that point on.
199	** Or, if someone ends up stealing the Marine Corps' RAY (as indeed happens), then they can nefariously abuse it's anti-MG capabilities. It's bad enough if many nations and terrorist groups have their own REX-knockoffs, but if these parties all generally still adhere to Mutually Assured Destruction (even if we have a stealth nuke and were to use it, we can still be quite sure that the main nuclear powers i.e. USA, Russia, China etc will all be launching retaliatory strikes at each other and also in random directions to try and flush us out for using it, and that will be ''bad news for everyone'' ) then there's still at least some comfort and hope in that rational means of survival by doctrine. But whichever group gets their hands on either one, or potentially many RAYs, could then have a scary and ultimate advantage. They'd be able to take out enemy REXs pretty much at their leisure, and when they were left with a monopoly of their own REX models, with the enemy having nothing to counter them, then the situation would be that much more volatile and liable to result in some kind of disastrously apocalyptic event. Philantrophy hoped to expose RAY before that could happen, but were unfortunately too late.
200	** I believe the real question here is; why did they build a giant robot to hunt other giant robots? If they can deploy a giant robot, can't they just deploy conventional munitions against REX knockoffs? In any case it wouldn't have been revealed ''to the public'' if RAY was used against a REX knockoff; your average elimination mission wouldn't really have the assets used advertised. The point of the mission was to raise public awareness by showing off the measures the US government were taking against Metal Gear proliferation, and thus gain support for anti-Metal Gear efforts.
201	** Well for one, remember that the mission in the Tanker level was not to destroy Metal Gear - it was to take photographs so that the public was aware of the kind of weapons the military were using. Secondly, from a formal perspective, the Tanker mission was necessary to frustrate players even more. They thought they were getting a new game starring Solid Snake (the cover art points to this, as does the title screen). Then, throughout the Tanker, Snake fails to impress. His new 'stealth moves' like throwing bodies off the boat eventually frame him (so not so 'stealth moves' at all!), the only cardboard box he gets is a sopping wet mess, the only boss is a pregnant woman with a pistol rather a cool FOXHOUND-like boss with special powers, there's a long shoot-out section where stealth goes out the window, Snake can sneeze and give himself away and eventually the mission is a failure. Then, we're introduced to Raiden who wants to be Solid Snake and that fails too - the whole thing is just to frustrate the player until Raiden 'awakens' and gains the sword.
202	* In a similar vein, what made Arsenal a Metal Gear? A nuclear-launching bipedal battle tank and a world communications hub don't have that much in common. For that matter, if it's primary role was censorship why was it even called Arsenal?
203	** Because it's an [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_ship Arsenal Ship]]. But it's certainly not a Metal Gear in any sense the term has been used previously in the series.
204	** To be fair, I don't think they ever call it a Metal Gear, just an Arsenal Gear. I guess if they'd made flying Gears, they'd have a different 'first' name too, to differentiate them.
205	*** Listen to the explanation of the exact payload that Arsenal Gear carries. It's definitely worthy of the name when you consider exactly how many missiles the thing is carrying - which includes the newly developed bomb Solidus plans to detonate above Manhattan - and then there's the army of twenty-five RAYs that it carries to protect itself. It's a fortress, not just an information hub, because it's more than capable of protecting itself. Furthermore, they call it the 'next stage' of Metal Gear, suggesting that they know they've produced something beyond the previous designs.
206	* Why didn't Raiden go ahead of Emma, or ''test'' to see if it could hold them both, then go across the bridge next to her? If he went ahead of her, he could've taken out everything in her way so she could walk across all dandy and he could possibly be in a better position to save her from Vamp before she could get shanked. If it could hold them both and they both went across, Raiden could even ''better'' protect Emma from the things trying to kill her on the bridge AND from getting Vamp'd, since he'd be right next to her and able to shoot Vamp in the face on reflex. And before you tell me that going across together was impossible from the get go, let me remind you that it was able to hold Snake ''carrying'' Emma, and I'm pretty sure Snake weighs a little ''more'' than Raiden. Did Kojima just feel like putting some sniping in the game or what?
207	** Emma was afraid of the water, so Raiden didn't want to risk her falling into the ocean and having a panic attack (yes they could have both gone, but Raiden didn't know that for sure and the price for being wrong was pretty high). Plus did you miss the part where there were sentries around? He needed to stick around so he could have the best view to protect her. Plus he had no guarantee that more soldiers wouldn't come down the way they did, so he had to stay there to protect their flank.
208	* Given how depraved some of the stuff on the Internet would get would the Patriots really feel like touching '''every''' piece of "junk" data? I mean would they really wanna touch stuff like Rule 34 or [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife TV Tropes]] just to remove "trivial" information? Aren't there more politically radical websites that would deserve their attention or would the Internet culture's sense of humour be attacked as well?
209	** When you consider how the human brain works, and how people are not only resistant to information that contradicts what they already know; but also REINFORCES what they already know in an act to avoid Cognitive Dissonance with the offending information, AND ALSO the fact that people seek information (bad or good) ONLY because it reinforces their beliefs, I think the Patriots are WELL justified on erasing EVERYTHING that can potentially make us stupider. Here are some links to prove this: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=full
210	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
211	http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2333165/The-best-way-win-argument-Shout-louder-people-simply-assume-youre-right.html
212	In this kind of environment, there cannot be a free exchange of ideas because the first one that gets to you will stick with you for a looooong time if not dealt with it properly. There cannot be enlightenment if the world works under the principle of Fox News, can there? Catch them young and fill their minds ASAP with our "Truth".
213	* Why did the powers that be make the placeholder name for The Patriots, namely "la-li-lu-le-lo", nearly impossible to pronounce in Japanese, this game's home language?
214	** Because it was supposed to be and sound like gibberish.
215	** Actually, this is another aspect of information control. The Patriots wanted to make it so that people couldn't even talk or think about "the Patriots" because there are no words to do so; in that sense, the Patriots were totally secret from the public. This is similar to Newspeak from 1984: people can't have dissenting thoughts or conversations if they have no words to do so.
216	** There's actually as story behind those syllables. La, Li, Lu, Le and Lo are all in the Chinese "alphabet." The Japanese "alphabet" is largely taken from the Chinese, however these five syllables are missing from the Japanese "alphabet." According to one story this was done by a sort of secret organisation so that no one but them would know what these syllables mean. There would literally a part of the language that only a select group of individuals could ever understand. This is also the reason JapaneseRanguage exists.
217	* What would have happened if Kojima actually died for all the death threats he received because he refused to continue the series AFTER this one? Would the game be remembered as the piece of postmodern art that it is? Would the people who did the threats be STUPID enough to believe that with him dead they could obtain a worthy sequel? Were people really THAT dense in not getting that Kojima wanted to test their ability to choose on their own?
218	** I guess it had something to do with the entitlement complexes that the some fans have for the series. Fans wanted another Solid Snake adventure but they were trolled hard with Raiden, The Patriots, the deconstruction of gaming tropes, etc. that they wanted the answers to the game's mysteries. It seems that some fans weren't satisfied with the game that they got Kojima to come with whatever answer no matter how completely asinine the answers are.
219	** I'm just curious, what do you mean by "he wanted to test their ability to chose on their own"?
220	* Otacon screws up a lot of Chinese proverbs in this game. The real meaning of most of them are fairly obvious, but what does it mean when you say "Better to be first among roosters than last among bulls"?
221	** Be the best of whatever you can be, in spite of the circumstances.
222	** And don't waste your time on things you're not good at even if they're more glamorous, as it's a recipe for failure.
223	** The equivalent English idiom would probably be "It's better to be the big fish in the little pond than the little fish in the big pond."
224	* Did Kojima actually admit the game's theme was inspired by the Japanese textbook controversy? I want to see the source.
225	* Okay, so Snake and Otacon notice that the Marines aboard The Discovery are disguised as civilian crewmen so as not to draw unwanted attention from people on land... but Colonel Gurlukovich's men are not only dressed in bright brown/orange uniforms, but carrying military gear on (the mostly blue-coloured) deck where civilians could potentially see them. This is even more baffling during the plant chapter, where we ''do'' see mercenaries in blue uniforms... on the very orange exterior locations on The Big Shell, yet the mostly blue-coloured interior has the guards with brown camo. What's the purpose of camo again, exactly?
226	** Gurlukovich's crew didn't care about being seen by civilians. They were prepared to sink the Tanker if needs be and Sergei himself talks about Ocelot piloting Ray, implying they were going to ride Ray out fairly publicly if needed. As for the mismatched colours on the Big Shell, it's probably to help the player see them.
227	* When you rescue Emma you go from Vamp's boss room, through a flooded corridor and back again. When you get back to Vamp's boss room there's claymores on the left side of the room, the indirect way across. Who put them there? Olga texts you about them if you get hit, so did she put them there? If so why? I just can't imagine why anyone would swim to that really hard to reach room, place a few claymores in a section you probably wouldn't go to, and get out before Raiden returns without engaging him. Even from a game design stand point it makes little sense.
228	** It may have been foreshadowing Vamp's survival, suggesting he left them there while recovering. He may also have reported his defeat so Olga would have known, hence her contacting you if you get hit.
229	** It's still really strange behaviour for him to swim back to that room, place some mines and then not actually engage Raiden in battle. Especially when the next time we see him he's leaping out of the ocean implying he was washed out there from the boss room.
230	* At the end, when Solidus is falling off the federal hall, he says something but it's muted. It's hard to even notice he's talking because half his lips are obscured by his armour but he's definitely talking. It's much easier to see if you replace him with someone else in theatre mode. So does anyone know what he says? Is looks detailed enough to lip read though it's probably syncs to Japanese.
231	** The Digital Graphic Novel has Solidus saying something along the lines of lamenting his failed legacy as he falls down; whether this was something that was always intended for Solidus to say for that scene back in 2001, or just a line added retroactively for the sake of the novel, well...[[ShrugTake I'unno.]]
232	* If President Johnson was just a figurehead, why did he have the real activation code for Arsenal Gear?
233	** To keep up appearances, maybe?
234	* If Solid has the dominant genes and Liquid had the recessive genes, don't they cease to be identical twins?
235	** Actually, Liquid is the dominant one, or at least, the intended superior Snake, and Solid is the “inferior” clone, because for some reason or another, Liquid was misinformed. This doesn’t answer the question of how the DNA test would fool people, but as another part of either this page or the Fridge page said, the Patriots might have let it slide, or something. Plus, I personally doubt either is 100% recessive or dominant, just one has a supposedly superior genetic makeup compared to the other. Or genetics and terminology related to it just works differently in the Metal Gear universe, I mean, is the super baby method accurate to real life?
236	** I too felt this was a glaring plothole but my best guess is that Ocelot was bullshitting in the previous game and they actually are identical twins.
237	** You're right but my guess is they started out as identical but they were experimented on.
238	* Where in upstate New York did they load Metal Gear RAY onto that ship?
239	** Maybe they took it in piece by piece and assembled it inside?
240	* Why would the S3 plan call for GW, The Patriots' own AI mind you, to be infected by Emma's worm cluster?
241	** GW was only a part of the overall Patriots' AI. If it got infected, there's bound to be antiviruses already made up before Emma could even get hold of it. Remember, she's doing all that digitally and all that information goes back to the Patriots. They knew ahead of time and took precautions against it.
242	* No one can communicate with President Johnson because the room he's being held in is basically a Faraday cage. But this raises some questions. First, how would the nuclear football be able to verify Johnson's vitals if no signals can get in or out? Second, how did the Colonel know the details of Raiden's discussion with Johnson immediately afterwards? Even knowing the Colonel is actually Arsenal Gear's AI, that wouldn't make it any more possible to eavesdrop through EM insulation.
243	** The second question I answered myself. It's stated later on that the Arsenal Gear AI personas are partially influenced by Raiden's thoughts and expectation. Exactly how this works isn't made clear (this is [=MGS2=], after all), but it's at least conceivable that their responses to him were informed by his own knowledge. The first question is still open.

Context Headscratchers / MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty