Metal Gear/ Metal Gear Solid

Which is still a pretty confusing concept.

Like what's the reasons why these wars are being fought? What if the Patriots aren't the only ones who profit since there are so many other options for a PMC. ETC.

You're overestimating the Patriots.

The whole thing about the war economy was that it made no real fucking sense. As Big Boss puts it, the Patriots were ultimately just a faulty program making the same mistakes over and over again.

Even Armstrong from MG: R knew that the war economy wasn't a real solution. Though his solution was also shit.

Edited by M84 on May 10th 2021 at 11:51:57 PM

Yeah the Patriots are a bunch of malfunctioning AI running on Windows 7, but what does it say about the people who keep getting their orders from them?

What's my bank account look like this week? -checks- Oh I need to start a war in Lebanon this week? Done.

The War Economy is a moronic MGS 4 retcon and has nothing at all to do with anything said in MGS 2.

"We've mastered a way to manipulate anybody in any situation through information control!"

vs.

"...let's make perpetual war with nanomachines!"

It has no relation to the S3 Plan or their stated fear of information overload.

But anyway, they're not wrong. lol I realized this ever since I was a kid. It didn't take all the shit of the last few years for me to understand the truth of this exchange:

Colonel: The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths.

...

Rose: Everyone grows up being told the same thing.

Colonel: Be nice to other people.

Rose: But beat out the competition!

Colonel: ‘You’re special.’ ‘Believe in yourself and you will succeed.’

Rose: But it’s obvious from the start that only a few can succeed...

Colonel: You exercise your right to ‘freedom’ and this is the result. All a rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and valve systems.

Rose: Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever ‘truth’ suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large.

Colonel: The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right.

Rose: Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in ‘truth’.

Colonel: ‘And this is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.’

Edited by Nikkolas on May 10th 2021 at 9:33:36 AM

I've always thought the War Economy was due to Liquid Ocelot manipulating the Patriots into making his "Dream World" of constant warfare and a constant demand for soldiers, because it certainly fits his worldview. He's also probably the most senior member of the organization save for the A.I.s themselves, so of all people he'd definitely have the influence to pull it off.

...Though, the reveal that he's just a mental copy via hypnotherapy kinda ruins that theory somewhat, since we're not 100% sure if Ocelot was in subconscious control for most of the time or if he really did give all that authority to his Liquid persona.

Connecting two topics: The Patriots AI convo is one of the best moments in MGS history.

...so naturally Kojima made sure we had zero interactions with them in MGS 4, even as they are ostensibly the main villains of that game and the series.

And this connects to the previous topic of the magic phobia Kojima developed, trying to explain away all the spooky stuff. The Patriots Ai's are too spooky - sentient AI's talking about forming from the consciousness of the White House. MGS 4 was largely a game that was ashamed of MGS 2 and cowardly tried to hide away its most intriguing elements.

So now the Ai's are just malfunctioning robots and no we cannot ever talk with them again.

Back then the Codec Call with the Patriot A.I.s was considered to be largely unpopular, dragged out, and overly obtuse, even to the point most fans were suggesting that if a director's cut ever be made that Kojima rework the ending to remove them entirely. So it's not surprising that Kojima tried to avoid giving them any further screentime or characterization in MGS 4.

To be fair, unlike every other creator in video games, Kojima actually likes saying things about real life politics and ideas. The War Economy is actually a real life concept about corporations and governments perpetuating small-scale conflicts among proxies as well as weaker countries to justify themselves. Arms manufacturing, arms trafficking, resource relocation, and more.

Its just backfired because Liquid has successfully used it to make himself a military force larger than any on the planet save the United States.

Kojima has also said that part of the problem was that the Patriots were never actually supposed to be defined. It was meant to be deliberately No Ending. He was thinking more Twilight Zone and "The Philosophers have been dead for a century!" The idea that the Patriots actually were the invisible forces behind government and nationalism that could never be defined.

(The Patriots really are meant to be what Campbell Codec described as the forces brewing under the White House of nationalism and idealism)

But fans demand he make a sequel....so he made MGS 3 that has no answers.

And then they DEMANDED he provide answers in MGS 4 when, bluntly, no answer was ever intended.

Like yeah, don't get me wrong, I see the real life parallels, like you got Vietnam for an older example, or a certain president in his farewell speech stating to beware the military industrial complex.

But like the War economy is far more mainstream and much more global encompassing that quiz shows and cook shows are made in reaction to surviving the war economy and that there are commercials for each PMC, like a regular average joe can hire them.

So what's the justification for all THAT? Sure Snake mentions proxy wars, but doesn't really elaborate on it.

And Yeah. MGS 2 was supposed to be the final game, and the gainax ending was Kojima trying to tell the audience, no the action and conspiracies don't matter, what matters is what I'm saying to you and the themes of the game.

@Nikkolas I find it funny on how the Patriots boast about being able to control events thanks to the S3 program but their Arsenal gear JUST CRASHED INTO NEW YORK. Yeah, what a win for them.

Edited by RedHunter543 on May 10th 2021 at 3:49:25 PM

If Metal Gear Solid 2 had ended with a big fat This Loser Is You Aesop about American politics, I'd of been hella pissed. There's no way in hell audiences would've been satisfied with that.

Edited by FOFD on May 10th 2021 at 4:44:26 AM

I don't think Kojima was trying to say the conspiracy stuff doesn't matter, I think he was trying to leave things open-ended. There were so many questions after MGS 2 and we, the fans, could have ben speculating on the answers to this very day. We could have been debating the VR Theory or if Rose even exists.

But the answer was nanomachines and Rose does exist and all the more meta stuff at the end of MGS 2 was just...who knows.

It's like how some people prefer the Reapers being an enigmatic force. Once they were explained, and the explanation sucked, it ruined their mystique. Better no answers than bad answers.

Edited by Nikkolas on May 10th 2021 at 1:48:08 AM

To me the best option would have been to drop the nanomachine part but still go through with Guns of the Patriots. But I've heard it here and elsewhere that Kojima's plan going forward was to not go forward at all. Sons of Liberty was the end.

Leave the Patriots unexplained but don't drop the storyline all together.

Edited by FOFD on May 10th 2021 at 5:02:19 AM

I get the impression the situation of MGS 4, that Liquid's armies have gotten so huge that they are now all fighting each other or local forces. If you don't pay for them then they will work for your enemies.

So there's a World War going on where Liquid is able to influence, if not control, every faction.

He's made the world into his (incredibly erroneous) interpretation of Outer Heaven.

RE: The Patriots A.I.:

We are talking about two talking heads that, when the jig is up, resort to gaslighting Raiden (and by extension, the player) like they're a bunch of holier than thou douchebags, so it's not really surprising (to me at least) that they're not super popular.

I myself haven't played MGS2. My main exposure was via the Let's Play with Chip Cheezum, but I'd be steamed if some stupid condescending robots tried to verbally bully me into quitting the game.

IMO, players nowadays would probably be more accepting of the A.I. in a hypothetical MGS2 remake provided us some way to physically retaliate against them like finding some secret control room where the A.I. are being held and we could just karate kick (or shoot) them into pieces so they don't bother us during the final boss.

Could provide some delicious cathartic New Game+ content if you confront Solidus Snake in the second go after smashing the A.I.. "Wait, why aren't you acting like you're being terrorized by crazy voices in your head? Have you actually…?!"

Get the secret good ending with Solidus?

But seriously, that is something people have complained about since back in the day. He wants to fight the Patriots and so do you so why are you fighting, I never had a problem with it but your NG+ idea just reminded me of it.

Edited by Nikkolas on May 10th 2021 at 2:52:17 AM

To be fair, its a thing in Metal Gear Solid that you are usually fighting someone better than the people they're fighting.

• Liquid Snake is better than the government that poisons you.
• Solidus is better than Patriots.
• Vogel...okay, he may be the exception but not by much compared to the government that ordered you to kill the boss.

And so on.

I am... genuinely confused how Skull Face and "XOF" managed to tail Snake during both the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater without Snake picking up on it.

Did the Boss know?

How many times did Snake get tagged by the end/harassed by bees/attacked by a flamethrower and the XOF team just sat there laughing their heads off.

Edited by FOFD on May 10th 2021 at 9:27:30 AM

What do Liquid and Solidus even want long term? I honestly can't remember

I dunno if Liquid would qualify as better than The Patriots...

He wanted to make Outer Heaven again and fan the flames of war so everybody would come looking to OH for warriors and soldiers and thereby value them again. He wants war forever and ever, basically.

Solidus wanted to kill The Patriots. Why? Good question, I used to argue over this. Was it selfishness - he does say he wants to carve a legacy for himself and to be remembered by history. But he wants to do this by restoring things like rights, freedom and opportunity. (and killing some innocent people along the way)

Edited by Nikkolas on May 10th 2021 at 6:28:44 AM

Liquid basically has a fun house mirror of Big Boss' worldview. Big Boss wants his own country where soldiers can retire to and live comfortably for the rest of their lives due to the feeling that governments use then discard soldiers like trading cards.

Liquid believes a world of endless fighting is the only worthwhile one. But even this is not REALLY his goal. His goal is to exceed Big Boss and become Ultimate Super Anime Big Boss because he was raised with the idea he was a genetic mistake to give him an Inferiority Superiority Complex.

Solidus was made President of the United States by the Patriots and wants to destroy them but this is because he wants to leave a lasting legacy. He's basically the inverse of Liquid who is very immature and sociopathic. Solidus is, by contrast, very mature and sociopathic. Solidus thinks deeps thoughts about patriotism and freedom while Liquid...doesn't.

He's prematurely aging faster than the others and thinks liberating America from the Patriots will be the best way to leave his mark on the world. Ironically, Raiden/Jack invokes the same feelings as Solidus thinks of him as his son and the idea of dying by his hands is also a way to leave his legacy.

An irony of Liquid is that Liquid latches onto Big Boss and Solidus' ideas in lieu of having any original thoughts of his own.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 10th 2021 at 6:57:55 AM

Solid Snake by contrast doesn't really think about these things and just focuses on stopping the Patriots.

Edited by M84 on May 10th 2021 at 10:09:52 PM

Another virtue of MGS 2 is it's by far the healthiest, happiest Snake has ever been in the series apart from post MGS 4.

He's got his shit together, he has his bro/boyfriend, he's doing what he actually wants to do instead of being coerced into it...

Even in MGS 2 his life still revolves around stopping Metal Gears and those who would try to wage war with them. So it's not that great.

It's only post MGS 4 when he's got months left to live that he's finally able to enjoy life without worrying about those damn walking tanks.

He even quits smoking.

Edited by M84 on May 10th 2021 at 10:32:36 PM