._ , , . *|, * _ _ -+--+- _. _|* _ || | (_](_) | | (_] (_]|(/, * ._| , , ._ . . . . . _ . . _ _ -+--+- _. |,. . _.;_/*._ _ |*. , _ _| _ _ _| \_|(_)(_| (_](_) | | (_] | (_|(_.| \|[ )(_] || \/ (/, (_](_)(_)(_] ._| ._| ._| A N O V E L B Y M A R T I E " M U R D S " M O O D ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Chapter 8 .1 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: (4/27/25 11:53 p.m.) "London calling to the zombies of death/Quit holdin' out and draw another breath" -The Clash, London Calling (1979) FADE IN: (12/5/22 5:42 p.m.) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- INT. MANCOS -- DAY (PRESENT) -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Manco wakes up in a cot inside a cozy bedroom. Her arm has been properly bandaged and she finds herself in a nightgown. Sitting at her bedside is Milton, sporting a creepy smile. MILTON: Mhm, welcome back to the land of the living, my dear. How you feeling now? Manco tries to get up but almost falls right out of her bed as she leans thoughtlessly to her right. Milton stops her. MILTON (cont'd): Whoa, easy now. It's been a few days and Lord knows you're not in the best of shapes. Must have been quite the eventful journey you took. Hm. Quite. MANCO: One way to describe it. MILTON: Surprised we ran into each other so soon since St. Anthony, especially under these peculiar circumstances. MANCO: Where am I? MILTON: It's but a small border town called Mancos. It's set up for you intrepid Nimrods on the supply chain team. MANCO: Mancos. MILTON: Usually just a spot to drop supplies off at so natural-born citizens can bring them into Mater. Surprised the Commodore didn't tell you about it. It takes Manco just a moment to fall into character. MANCO: You know how he can be. MILTON: He must have a lot of faith in you seeing as you're a female. And a squaw. Hm. Perhaps it was misplaced given your tragic loss here. Milton motions to her missing limb. MANCO: This? Well, sir, I'll consider it a testament to my work. Things went awry, I was bit, and my bounty could have left me for dead. Instead, the old girl amputated the arm skillfully and carried me to safety. What do you call that aside from a job well done? MILTON: Heh, I suppose. Remind me your name. MANCO: If it's all the same to you, I'd like to keep that private. Scary world. MILTON: As you said before: anyone can hold a grudge during these blessed days. MANCO: I did say that, yes. Yes I did. MILTON: So, what is the old girl's story? MANCO: Alice Alway. Murdered some folks. Milton seems perplexed, even a little disappointed. MILTON: That it, huh? Intriguing. MANCO: Uh, she's also refused to help with re-population. Can you believe it? Woman like that. Flaunts her stuff around town all the time, though. You get a raffle ticket with her name on it, better believe it's getting called. She just don't believe in the future of the species, but she's more than happy to take and enjoy what this grand, wonderful world provides. MILTON: Ah, I see. Quite a shame. MANCO: Quite. Quite. MILTON: I must say: This situation, it's a tad bit queer. You give me pause. MANCO: You've no trust in my word. Fair enough. You're seeking a Gregory Caldwell, right? Another Dixie? MILTON: Perhaps. MANCO: I downed him near Freeman's Pass. Milton ponders that for a moment then gets up to depart. MILTON: Well, I'm glad we were able to speak, even under circumstances such as these. We will be transporting your delivery to Mater, but even though you're new to the supply chain team, you oughta tag along as well. Get some proper treatment for that arm of yours. We will be off in an hour. Someone will be by with your clothes. Milton leaves, loudly closing the door shut behind him. MANCO: Perfect. Perfect, wonderful, perfect. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- INT. CARRIAGE -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Manco sits in a horse-drawn carriage. Her leg bounces up and down. She wears Alice's holster but doesn't have her weapon. Milton enters and pulls in a handcuffed Alice. It's night and day. Her eyes are blackened. Lips cut up. MILTON: Driver! Let us depart! The carriage carries on towards the settlement of Mater. MILTON (cont'd): Listen, the Commodore was supposed to send a spic, so the supplies coming his way may not be as good. He should be understanding, though. He's always been a loyal friend of our community. MANCO: I'll be sure to tell him. I bet he appreciates the friendship greatly. MILTON: You know, you'd be wise to do what you did in St. Anthony and keep the headgear on at all times. Mater's home to Spartans, the strong-willed. They don't take kindly to your type. MANCO: I cannot blame them. I trust in my temperament, sure. But other savages? Milton motions over to Alice. She's clinging to life. MILTON: You know, this one gave us quite a scare. Threw her in a cell and she starts sweating, shaking, heart's racing a mile a minute. Hasn't said a word since we rescued her. Surely smells like a rotting corpse, though. MANCO: Takes some work but she'll warm up. MILTON: Ask her a question for me, will you? Ask her why she decided to save you when she knew this was her fate. Manco stares at Alice who's refusing to make eye contact. MANCO: So? Why'd you do it? ALICE: You were bit. I didn't want to waste the bullet so I took the arm instead. MILTON (laughing): No, come now, that's not it. ALICE: I figured she'd return the favor. MANCO: You'd trust me after everything? MILTON: Hah! Speaking of which. Milton knocks against the wall, causing the carriage to abruptly halt. A group of NIMRODS enter and drag Alice out. Milton motions Manco to follow him out of the transport. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- EXT. COLORADO PLAINS -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The group beats on Alice as she squirms on the ground. A black Ford sits idled next to the carriage and horses. MILTON: You're new, but boys will be boys. Gotta let them get their energy out somehow. You'll go mad otherwise. MANCO: Don't mind me. She had a mouth. MILTON: So, how did you hear about our bounty on the late Mr. Gregory Caldwell? MANCO: You put a target on someone's back, folks with interest will find out. MILTON: Are you aware of his crimes? MANCO: I care about the dollars. Though I must admit, I do enjoy a good story. MILTON: Mater's leader is ill, as it were. Caldwell was a man of influence who knew. And while we hope for a speedy recovery, we also wish not to disturb the populace with crass rumors, see? MANCO: Well, for what it's worth, you seem to be running a tight ship yonder. MILTON: It runs smoothly because I trust my men. Can I trust a nameless squaw? MANCO: Put me to work. MILTON: Very well. Milton pulls out a M1911 pistol and hands it to Manco. MILTON (cont'd): Go put a bullet in Ms. Alway's head. MANCO: My pleasure. Manco makes her way over to the scrap. As she nears, the Nimrods wrest themselves from kicking Alice and back away. Manco grabs Alice by her collar and drags her a few feet away from the men -- just out of earshot. She lets go and looks down at the gun. It's a perplexing piece of machinery. They begin whispering. ALICE: Just do it. MANCO: I can't. ALICE: What do you mean you can't, you were just talking about killing me before. MANCO: No, I mean I don't know how to work this goddamn thing. ALICE: It's a gun. MANCO: It doesn't have the cylinder thing. I'm used to the ones with a cylinder. ALICE: OK, just listen, Christ. Grab the top of the gun, pull it back, and let go. Manco hammers the slide back. ALICE (cont'd): Alright, near your thumb, there's a safety. Pull it down. Manco disengages the safety. ALICE (cont'd): Aim and fire. Something is holding Manco back from pulling the trigger. Milton raises his eyebrow, confused at the delay. ALICE (cont'd): Do it before they get suspicious. Manco is frozen still. ALICE (cont'd): Listen, they ain't gonna have an Indian kill their bounty out in the middle of nowhere. Do it! Now! Now! Click. It's empty. Manco turns to see Milton laughing. He calls her back. ALICE (cont'd): You gotta be more decisive or they'll find you out. If someone has to die-- MANCO: Shut up. ALICE: The Commodore will have sent people-- MANCO: I know, shut up, think I'm stupid? ALICE: Keep your end of the deal. MANCO: I'm delighted to be leaving you now. Manco walks back towards Milton as the Nimrods grab Alice and move her back over to the carriage. They push her in. MILTON: Needed to know you can follow orders. MANCO: You give me an opportunity to shoot down a white woman, I'll take it. Milton chuckles and motions over to the Ford. MILTON: The boys will transport her to Mater, but I've got some business to tend to if you don't mind tagging along. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- EXT. MATER STREETS -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Alice ganders up at Mater's imposing border walls as the carriage carrying her dustily passes into the settlement. It's a sizable town nestled between two mountains and two man-made walls. The settlement is virtually impregnable. The POPULACE is overwhelmingly white, with litters of children carrying about. Despite a haughty air about them, they still wear threadbare clothing like everyone else. MILTON (O.S.): It's a rather exceptional town, it is. A group of WORSHIPERS bow and speak tongues to a red, white, and blue emblazoned cross near the border wall entrance. TEENS harass a NATIVE KID in an apron carrying laundry. MILTON (O.S.) (cont'd): A shining city on a hill. Alice eyes a gaping fenced-in cavern in the mountain. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- INT. DEPUTIES' OFFICE -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Alice stands getting her picture taken in a law enforcement office, her hands cuffed behind her back. DEPUTIES watch her with great interest, licking their dry lips and snickering. Unlike the Nimrods, the deputies do not cover their faces. MILTON (O.S.): God has bestowed upon its citizens a great responsibility. To redeem all the sinners of this tainted land. DEPUTY 1: Hey, sugar, turn around for us! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- INT. COURTROOM -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Alice, looking half dead, sits at a table as a JUDGE berates her. The man could pop a vessel if he doesn't stop soon. MANCO (O.S.): Do you believe that? Finally the Judge stops, allowing Alice to respond. ALICE: Fine. I'm a vessel for Satan. Happy? MILTON (O.S.): They do. And they believe in me. Who am I to deny their truth? When legend becomes fact, I say print the legend. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- INT. CAR -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Milton drives through the Colorado plains, Manco sitting in the passenger seat. Her face glistens with sweat, the pain from the amputation creeping back with a sudden vengeance. MILTON: You ever ride in an automobile? MANCO: Can't say I have. MILTON: A scout saw a runaway criminal head North. Makes Fort Uncompahgre his destination. They might be kinder to him. Might not. But we can't risk it. I figure he made it to a transit station by now. But these wheels here will help us catch up, no problem. MANCO: Sounds like an easy job. Ah shit. MILTON: That arm hurting? MANCO: More the lack of an arm that hurts. MILTON: Of course. Here, take this. Milton reaches into his front shirt pocket and pulls out a small vial of clear liquid. He hands it over to Manco. MILTON (cont'd): Take a taste. I promise you, deary, it'll help you for what's ailing you. Manco takes the vial and samples the tincture of opium. MILTON (cont'd): Mater's sitting on a pile of it. Old supply depot for the U.S. military. Manco leans back and lets out a sigh. Her eyes grow heavy. MILTON (cont'd): Bunch of savages had control of the land from a treaty. So selfish. Good Americans wanted to restructure the deal because of the depot, but the reds refused. So, the bucks died for it. We kept the women and children, though. One ought to keep the books balanced for the settlement's health. Manco's head tilts to the backseat, where she sees a rifle. MANCO: Were you in the war? MILTON: Oh no! I enjoy the sport of the hunt. I attended the University of Chicago and became an economist. I came to advise friends in Denver when, luck would have it, the dead wake up. But where others saw the end of the world, I saw for myself an opportunity -- a system shock -- to craft this blessed country in its purest vision. What the founders, God bless them, said they wanted for us. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- EXT. CAMP -- DAY (FLASHBACK) -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Over a decade earlier, Manco sits alone in a dry field. Muffled crashing and yelling surround her. Suddenly, to her horror, she's grabbed and pulled away. MILTON (O.S.): Hey! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- INT. CAR -- DAY (PRESENT) -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Manco wakes from a trance and looks over at Milton. MILTON: We're here. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- EXT. TRANSIT STATION -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Milton parks the automobile in front of a string of rusted train cars stretched across a steel bridge over a gorge. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- INT. MATER JAIL -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= In pained discomfort, Alice is escorted to a cell by two DEPUTIES. A gaunt woman, WINNIE, sits in a neighboring cell. She struggles to choke down a meat stew from a wooden bowl. The cells are partially subterranean, as a street-level window a foot or so above Alice's head lets in some air. WINNIE: You look rough, hun. Care for some? Alice gags and loses her guts on the floor. Winnie shrugs. WINNIE (cont'd): Well, given where Mater's stew comes from, I can't say I blames ya none. Alice leans back against the wall and catches her breath. WINNIE (cont'd): Name's Winnie. Looks like we're both in a bit of a pickle, eh? Alice gags again. ALICE: Don't say anything about food. WINNIE: Oh, yes, sorry. Are you bit, or-- Alice shakes her head and wipes sweat from her brow. ALICE: I took a vacation from the drink. Was supposed to meet someone here. Didn't want them to see me in some type of state. Must say, the drink drowned out the noise, but Jesus, it doesn't back off from you so easily. Hoo boy. Alice looks over at Winnie, who is trembling and sweating. WINNIE: Took a vacation myself, I suppose. Opium. Only legal solution us hospital workers can offer folks. Alcohol is quite illegal here. ALICE: You work in a hospital? WINNIE: I guess I was a nurse. Since the war. ALICE: You guess? WINNIE: Sure. How can you help when no one cares to listen to the truth? Alice considers it as Winnie sets down her bowl. WINNIE (cont'd): In France, we were hit with the flu. But no one wanted to talk about it. Acknowledge it. Official folk said it would hurt morale. Then they -- we -- lied and blamed a neutral party. May have been Spain. Can't recall now. Winnie shakes her head and begins laughing. WINNIE (cont'd): I thought I could convince the people here that maybe we're dealing with an infection. They didn't want to hear it. They like the idea that God made them special. To redeem the Lazarus. Winnie takes the bowl and tosses it across her cell. WINNIE (cont'd): And then the higher-ups feed on them. Deputies respond to the noise. They crash into the cell, toss Winnie face first to the ground, and bound her hands. WINNIE (cont'd): What's your name, friend? ALICE: Alice Alway. They pull her up and begin leading her out of the jail. WINNIE: See you in another life, Alice Alway. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=- INT. TRANSIT STATION -- DAY -=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Manco and Milton begin moving through the thin train cars. Unmoving corpses rest in the once-luxurious leather seats. Milton pulls out his revolver. As he moves forward, he notices Manco walking about without preparing for the worst. MILTON: Better be ready, woman. Manco obliges by placing her hand on her revolver handle. The two carry on to the next train car, where, at the other end, they find PETER/PACO, a young Ute man resting his eyes. A small dagger hangs precariously from his relaxed hand. MILTON (cont'd): Peter! Peter/Paco is shocked awake. The dagger falls but he quickly retrieves it and jumps to stand. He brandishes the blade. PETER/PACO: S-s-stay back! MILTON: Oh Peter, my boy. The things you'll say when you haven't a gun. Milton points his weapon at the young man and motions for him to drop the dagger. Peter/Paco reluctantly tosses it. MILTON (cont'd): A shame our friendship has to end in such a way, wouldn't you say, Peter? Peter/Paco notices Manco behind Milton. She wobbles sideways from the laudanum and leans on the seats to stabilize. PETER/PACO: You? Y-y-you're working with him? MILTON: Hey, no! It is particularly rude to ignore someone addressing you, Peter! PETER/PACO: Stop calling me that! It's Paco! MILTON: You're my property. I can call you whatever I darn well please, Peter. PETER/PACO: Why? Why, because you found me drinking miles outside of Mater? MILTON: You broke the law on land that belongs to Mater. To America. The 13th Amendment gives me ownership over your life. PETER/PACO: To Hell with it! Milton steps forward, but Peter/Paco stands his ground. MILTON: Don't raise your voice to me, boy! PETER/PACO: How long were you going to wait before you threw me in the mountains with the rest of the chindi? Huh!? MILTON: You savages don't know what's good for you. Everyone in there asked for it. It's absolution. And right now, Peter, I'm offering you some. Tell me how you got past Mater's border. PETER/PACO: I'd rather burn in Hell than see you and your kind in Heaven. MILTON: I'm justified to gun you down right where you stand. Don't be stubborn and go out without repenting, boy. PETER/PACO: You're a God-fearing man. Don't do this for your sake. Please. MILTON: Hmph. Fair enough. Milton pulls out the empty handgun he made Manco use. He tosses it at the man's feet and holsters his own revolver. MILTON (cont'd): Won't have people thinking I gunned you down without a fight. Should set me straight in the eyes of the law and Lord. Go ahead for it, Peter. After a moment of consideration, Peter/Paco drops down to grab the gun, aim, and fire. Nothing. A dirty trick. Milton laughs and goes to draw his gun. Before he can, Manco presses the muzzle of Alice's revolver against his head. MANCO: Stop. MILTON: What are you doing, woman? MANCO: Paco is it? PETER/PACO: Y-yeah. MILTON: Dammit I said-- MANCO: Shush, the goddamn train's spinning. Paco. I need to move a prisoner out of Mater. Came all this way from St. Anthony to do it. I'll make you a deal. Help me and I blow him away. MILTON: Don't you dare, savage. Manco grips Milton's shoulder and presses the barrel hard. MANCO: If I gun you down, will it be the savage in me, or would it be justice? I'd love to find out, wouldn't you? PETER/PACO: How can I trust you? MANCO: I'm sorry, but what other option do you have? Bastard was about to gun you down. He frankly doesn't give a modicum of shit what you have to say. PETER/PACO: Please, I'm so close. Fort Uncompahgre needs to be informed of what they are doing with the chindi. They'll listen to me, I'm sure of it. MANCO: Chindi? PETER/PACO: The vengeful ghosts they've birthed. Manco shrugs, waiting for her request to be fulfilled. He relents. PETER/PACO (cont'd): There's a traveling theater troupe. One of the few things Mater opens its border for. They come in, do a show, get shuttles set up while performing, and off they disappear into the dark. MANCO: And their next performance? PETER/PACO: Tomorrow night, doing something called Machinal, I believe. MANCO: Fun, what's it about? PETER/PACO: What? I don't know. A girl kills her husband and gets executed. That all? MANCO: Paco? This Milton. Pretty important? PETER/PACO: Sure, he's known. MANCO: So, Mater would be in a bit of a panic if he was missing for even a night? Manco can see Paco's heart drop to his feet. MANCO (cont'd): Sorry for the ruse, partner. Manco lowers her gun. Milton, realizing he's safe, laughs. MILTON: Oh, she's good. The red's good, ain't she? Had me worried there for a second! Milton grabs his gun and blasts Peter/Paco in the heart. The kid slumps over. Milton walks up and lays two into his eyes. MILTON (cont'd): You know, it's not wise to put your gun to an ally such as myself. MANCO: Wasn't about to let you gun down the savage before getting information. MILTON: Very well then. Let us depart this horrid place before we are swarmed. Manco attempts to walk but stumbles a bit. MILTON (cont'd): Heh, laudanum doing a number on you, eh? Just enjoy the ride, my dear. (3/7/23 4:07 a.m.) CUT TO BLACK: ******************************************************************************* (5/1/25 1:17 a.m.) EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a transcript of a video edited by Martie "Murds" Mood. Some of the historical explanations piss me off, particularly sections mentioning Korea, or defensive language covering up America's "mistakes" when deliberate violence took place. Do what you will with that info. I'd suggest reading some history books written by historians. Title: METAL GEAR AND THE COLD WAR: Proxies, Parasites and Phantom Pain -- strummerdood Description: Free Palestine -- The Holocaust Industry (2000), a nonfiction book by Norman Finkelstein Visibility: Public Restrictions: - Date: Jan 29, 2016 Views: 29,192 Comments: 179 Like (vs. dislike): 1,372 (97.6%) BOARD: ! Full spoilers for the Metal Gear series Hey, I'm strummerdood or Matt or whatever, I don't know. So, anyone familiar with the Metal Gear series knows its creator Hideo Kojima entrenches the narrative in the history of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, primarily due to the advent of nuclear weapons during World War II. But with his final entry into the series, Kojima takes his most extensive look at the effects of the Cold War on modern history through the origins of Big Boss' military empire. And it has a lot to do with the concept of Phantom Pain. The central conflict at the heart of the Metal Gear series between Major Zero and Snake can very easily serve as a metaphor for the Soviet Union and the United States. After the events of Metal Gear Solid 3 in which a legendary American soldier named The Boss dies at the hands of Snake to prevent a nuclear holocaust, Zero and Snake take steps to fulfill The Boss' will: to see the world united. How they interpret the will and go about fulfilling it divides them. Zero views the world as a stage and creates the Patriots, a secret society who will orchestrate world events from afar. Disgusted by Zero, Snake establishes a private army to fight conflicts throughout the world; his interpretation of the Boss' will -- an army without borders and a refuge for disenfranchised soldiers. The conflict intertwines with actual history, as plainly illustrated by post-game listings of ancillary events. During the Cold War, both the Americans and Soviets framed the conflict as a battle between two ideologies: capitalism and communism. After World War II, the United States provided aid to ravaged European countries and Japan. The Soviets saw this as a means to exert capitalist influence on the global stage, and they weren't really wrong. Meanwhile, Russia annexed countries like Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia and imposed limits to their now-communist governments. These countries came to be known as satellite states, and America feared the Soviet Union under the brutal Joseph Stalin had aspirations to be another empire in the vein of Adolf Hitler's tyrannical Germany -- and again, they weren't really wrong. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain takes place in the midst of the conflict between Big Boss and Major Zero: specifically, after the Ground Zero event at Camp Omega perpetrated by Major Zero's military wing Cipher. As noted by all those zeroes, the event plants the initial seeds of ill-content in Big Boss, referred to thereafter as the Phantom Pain, or the residual effects of war. After waking from a nine-year coma following the destruction of his private army MSF, Snake not only feels the physical loss of an appendage but the spiritual loss of his comrades, impelling him into a revenge campaign against the man responsible for the attack, Skull Face. Skull Face also suffers from his own phantom pain, beset upon him as a child growing up in Hungary during the Nazi-occupation in World War II. When the Allies bombed a weapons factory in his village, Skull Face suffered grave injuries, resulting in severe scarring. With the subsequent Cold War, the Soviet Union took the place of the Germans as an occupying force, imposing their government and culture on the Hungarians. BOARD: Imperialism: A policy or practice by which a country increases its power by gaining control over other areas of the world. Especially under Stalin, Hungarians were repressed, and rebellions like Budapest in 1956 were violently crushed. Due to extensive nerve damage, Skull Face can no longer feel physical pain, but still feels the spiritual pain of these foreign incursions, including the compulsory use of his occupier's language instead of his native tongue. To alleviate his phantom pain, Skull Face plans to use vocal-cord parasites to erase certain languages from existence. Though the Metal Gear lore establishes the parasites as essential to evolution, the character Code Talker reverse-engineers them to effectively devolve lingua franca or adopted language. Language Imperialism actually existed to assert dominance over a culture. A form of such control shows up in George Orwell's 1984, a novel referenced frequently in the Phantom Pain. The authoritarian government creates Newspeak, which eliminates inflammatory words of disapproval so as to remove the very idea of rebellion. BOARD: Fun Fact: The name "Diamond Dogs" came from David Bowie's eponymous album. Bowie intended to write a musical for the book, 1984, resulting in the concept album. Kojima originally wanted to open the game with the title track. In a sense, Skull Face wants to reset the imperialistic influence of foreign superpowers on smaller nations. He fittingly cultivates his parasites in a place greatly affected by such imperialistic ventures: Africa. Hideo Kojima said the parasites represent Western governments and corporations who prey on the host nations of Africa, and indeed, the continent still reels from the phantom pain of colonial occupation. The Scramble for Africa saw European powers divide the entire continent between arbitrary colonial lines, paying no mind to the indigenous tribes and their cultures. The oppressive conditions of the colonies, most infamously by the hand of King Leopold in the Congo, scarred the continent for generations. BOARD: Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost, Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. Hear how the demons chuckle and yell, Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. -The Congo, Vachel Lindsay When decolonization occurred midway through the 20th century, the population was ill-equipped to govern because the colonial powers designed the infrastructure of these countries solely around extracting natural resources as opposed to actually providing education and health care to its citizens. The inbred problems were only exacerbated when nations like Belgium classified tribes differently in society, like placing the Tutsis in government positions over the Hutus in Rwanda. It eventually led to a genocide in which between 500,000 and one million Tutsis were killed. Now, not only does Skull Face want to reverse the effects of imperialism through language, but he also wants to strip away the ability of superpower nations to militarily strong-arm smaller nations. He plans to do so by making nuclear weapons easily accessible across the globe -- in a sense, making the world equal, separate, and peaceful via the universal language of nuclear deterrence: the idea of discouraging nuclear attacks by guaranteeing an equivalent retaliation. Skull Face's schemes very obviously call out the geopolitical maneuverings of the Americans and Soviets during the Cold War. In 1947, American diplomat George F. Kennan, under the pseudonym Mr. X, published an article promoting containment of Soviet expansionism under Joseph Stalin. BOARD: In Metal Gear Solid 2, Olga Gurlukovich uses George F. Kennan's pseudonym, Mr. X. Also, the Wisemen's Committee is likely a reference to a group of six foreign policy "elders" called The Wise Men, a group to which Kennan belonged. Inspired by the article, President Harry S. Truman created the Truman Doctrine, vowing to contain the influential reach of the Soviets by curbing their communist ideology. Both nations maintained a stark "us vs. them" mentality when dealing with other countries; either you were a capitalist or a communist, no in-between. As Big Boss notes at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 3, this ideological division saw the world fractured into two parts, East and West. But unlike most wars, the US and Soviets never really engaged in direct combat with each other in fear of nuclear holocaust. So, instead, they both looked to combat these ideologies via proxy. The Phantom Pain takes place in two Cold War hotspots during the '80s, both of which exemplify foreign policy during this period: Afghanistan during the Soviet's nine-year war in the region, and the Angola-Zaire Border during many of the South and Central African civil wars. How America dealt with Zaire -- better known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- follows a pattern of covert operations by the CIA to deal with Soviet influence. Again, fearing the spread of communism, the CIA reacted decisively to any hint of socialism in the form of regime changes. In 1954, America deposed Guatemala's democratically elected president after he instituted socialist programs ironically influenced by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. In Chile, the CIA spread false propaganda to fan the flames of rebellion against their elected socialist president. Once a tentpole for progressivism and democracy in South America, Chile became a military dictatorship on September 11, 1973, when thousands were slaughtered and tortured following the coup. BOARD: "As every cell in Chile will tell, the cries of the tortured men/Remember Allende and the days before, before the army came/Please remember Victor Jara, in the Santiago stadium/Es verdad (It is true), those Washington bullets again" -The Clash, Washington Bullets Remember the Sandinistas from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker? They overthrew their dictator in Nicaragua, but because of their socialist programs, Ronald Reagan illegally supplied rebels known as Contras, who destabilized the government by attacking schools and hospitals and murdering, torturing, and raping citizens. Now, in the Congo, after struggling for its independence from Belgium in 1960, the citizens democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. But when Belgium and its mining companies sowed the seeds of discontent in the country's southern province and the UN failed to react, Lumumba asked for help from the Soviets. America saw Red and provided money and weapons to remove him from power. BOARD: "I think that the white people should be ashamed of the deplorable situation that has been existing in the Congo, which is not the fault of the Congolese but which is the result of instigation by European powers who are fighting each other over the mineral wealth of the Congo." -Malcom X The assassination of Lumumba led to the rise of Joseph Mobutu, a military colonel turned authoritarian president who filled his own pockets through cronyism, plunging the economy into billions of dollars in debt. America was cool with him, though, since he was anti-communist. Oh, and they received the mineral cobalt for fighter jets, so... So, even though America didn't colonize these countries, they did violate their sovereignty and manufacture their culture for their own political and economic gain. And like colonization, the nations remain scarred by the frequent regime changes over to dictators. How Skull Face and Venom Snake go about their operations in Africa illustrate their willingness to harvest the continent of its own fruits to further their conflict against one another. Skull Face houses his parasite operation at the Devil's House, where rows upon rows of African children are subjected to immoral tests -- mirroring Nazi experiments during the Holocaust. And Venom Snake and his Diamond Dogs, while certainly benefiting by playing both sides of the Cold War through military contracts, also extract an exorbitant amount of valuable natural resources. And I mean, you aren't exactly funneling that back into Africa. You're stealing it and using it to buy more weapons. The Phantom Pain's other examination of Cold War foreign policy focuses on proxy wars, an oft forgotten example being the Korean War in 1953. While the Allies battled Japan during World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States took control of North Korea and South Korea, respectively. After the Pacific War, Stalin installed Kim Il-sung, supplied him with weapons, and pushed for him to invade South Korea in order to extend his communist empire. Fearing communism would spread to Japan, America responded with ground troops, and though the South made early grounds, the introduction of China into the fray led to a stalemate. While America's intervention into the war eventually led to South Korea's rise as a major economic power while being one of our closest allies, the Soviets left a disciple of Stalin in charge of North Korea, and what we have now is a multi-generational nightmare with no good solution available. Now, on the Southern border of Zaire is Angola, which went through a messy, multi-sided, 26-year civil war after decolonizing from Portugal. The war was mainly fought between two liberation groups: the National Union for Total Independence of Angola, or UNITA, and the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or the MPLA. Both naturally show up in Metal Gear Solid 5. Savvy to the goings on of the Cold War, both sides arbitrarily adopted an ideology to garner support from foreign countries, the MPLA affiliating with the Marxist ideals of pro-Soviet Cuba and UNITA associating with the anti-communist ideals of America. BOARD: "The reign of the super powers must be over/So many armies can't free the earth/Soon the rock will roll over/Africa is choking on their Coca Cola" -The Clash, Charlie Don't Surf Now again, it's a duel between ideologies, but more specifically, it's about securing Angola's vast amounts of petroleum and keeping it out of the hands of the Soviets. The protracted war internally displaced thousands and the political climate remains extremely divided. MILLER: An endless seesaw of blood and violence played out in the hands of the superpowers. So, let's move on to something simpler: the Middle East. Phantom Pain also takes place in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War. Generations of foreign incursions led Afghanistan towards isolationist tendencies and drove devotion towards traditional ways of life. Each ensuing invasion -- whether during the 19th century Great Game when the Russian and British empires jockeyed for regional superiority in Central Asia or during the Cold War -- simply slowed progress being made. BOARD: "If the foreign interventions tend to follow the same course, it's partly because they keep interrupting the same story, a story that never quite gets resolved before the next intervention disrupts the progress made." -Tamim Ansary, Games Without Rules After the Saur Revolution in 1978, America lost a strategic foothold in the region to the communists. But in 1979, when Afghanistan's pro-Soviet government lost a significant amount of control over their largely Islamic population, the Soviet Union invaded to quell rebellion. Tensions only grew, and shortly after the Soviets invaded, the United States began supplying weapons to rebel fighters called the mujahideen, including Stinger missiles for use against gunships, which Venom Snake consequently seeks out in the mountains of Afghanistan. BOARD: "And if you can find an Afghan rebel that the Moscow bullets missed/Ask him what he thinks of voting communist/Ask the Dalai Lama in the hills of Tibet/How many monks did the Chinese get?/In a war-torn swamp stop any mercenary/And check the British bullets in his armory" -The Clash, Washington Bullets Pakistan served as an intermediary for the CIA. They both tended to fund militant Islamists like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who held close ties to Osama bin Laden and his group al-Qaeda, as opposed to more moderate fighters like Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, a group which later served as a key American ally during the War in Afghanistan. The Soviet's found themselves in a quagmire, and four years after withdrawing troops in 1987, the Soviet Union dissolved. The cost of America's victory was staggering: over 800,000 civilians were killed, the country's crucial agriculture was ravaged by bombings, a third of the population was displaced to Pakistan and Iran, and though they spent billions on military assistance, America refused to invest in infrastructure like schools. Also, the land was now ripe with millions of Soviet butterfly mines, which still kill and disable children every day and have led to over 100,000 amputees in the country. BOARD: "...All those [Eastern European] people who are enjoying those freedoms have no idea of the part played by a million Afghan ghosts...These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world...And then we fucked up the endgame." -Charlie Wilson Now, to relay the residual effects of being a proxy for a higher power, Kojima goes a step further than simply referencing the past. With the story's final twist, Kojima personalizes the experience of phantom pain. After taking down Skull Face, we learn Venom Snake is not actually Big Boss, but instead the MSF medic on the helicopter shot down by Skull Face in Ground Zeroes. Hoping to take out the rogue Skull Face, Major Zero had the medic's appearance surgically altered, allowing the real Big Boss to operate outside the public eye as the newly christened Venom Snake took on Skull Face. BOARD: "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." -Henry Kissinger, US National Security Advisor ('69-'75) and US Secretary of State ('73-'77) Big Boss simply uses Venom Snake as a proxy tool in the same way the United States and Soviet Union used proxy wars to advance their own political goals. Venom becomes an inanimate marionette, driven home by his prosthetic limb and the fact that the cure for the vocal-cord parasite leaves the victim infertile. The medic loses his identity, forced to carry on the legacy of Big Boss instead of his own. Big Boss frames it as a happy ending, but in Metal Gear Solid 4, as an older, more enlightened man, he laments his and Zero's distortion of The Boss' will, concluding she simply wanted the world to "be." Similarly, George Kennan felt others misinterpreted his containment article as a unilateral military concept as opposed to a measured political or economic policy. Kennan never regarded the Soviet's as a military threat akin to Hitler, but felt his article led Washington to assert as much to the American public, allowing the country to pursue armed conflict during the Cold War. BOARD: "My thoughts on containment were of course distorted by the people who understood it and pursued it exclusively as a military concept; and I think that that...led to [the] 40 years of unnecessary, fearfully expensive, and disoriented process of the Cold War." -George F. Kennan With their warped ideologies, Major Zero and Big Boss joined the men who sold the world and robbed people like Solid Snake of their free-will. As he says, BIG BOSS: The world would be better off without snakes. The term "snake" here means political tool for people like Big Boss and Zero. And indeed, Venom Snake joins a long lineage of Snakes being double crossed by political and third-party organizations. In the original, Big Boss sends Solid Snake into Outer Heaven, intending for him to be killed during the operation. In Metal Gear Solid, not only does Liquid Snake trick his brother Solid Snake into activating Metal Gear REX, but the Pentagon infects Solid Snake with the FOXDIE virus in order to kill off the terrorists at Shadow Moses and allow the US to retrieve REX undamaged. In Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden -- codenamed Snake -- finds himself in a simulation of the Shadow Moses incident in order to test how human behavior can be manipulated. And in Metal Gear Solid 3, The Boss strings along Snake and allows herself to be killed as a traitor in order to prove the US' innocence of a nuclear explosion in Russia. Additionally, in Metal Gear Solid 4, Liquid Ocelot uses nano-machines to control genome soldiers like puppets, and a precursor of the technology exists in the Phantom Pain through the parasitic Skulls. In a sense, Venom has a lot in common with Psycho Mantis in the Phantom Pain: a conduit for the player's rage. In fact, Kojima always regarded Snake as a conduit for the player, and in The Phantom Pain, he makes his most concerted effort with a near silent protagonist and the expanded freedom afforded during missions. In Metal Gear Solid 4, Big Boss looks back at his past actions and figures if Solid Snake was in his shoes in the past, he may not have made the same mistakes. Except here's the thing: we, the player, were in Big Boss' and Venom's shoes, and we still made the same mistakes of buying into a false perception. In a way, the player is Big Boss because like him, we control Venom Snake like a puppet. He is our proxy, someone who acts on our behalf and, therefore, represents us. Throughout the Cold War, America funded authoritarian regimes in fear of the Soviet Union, and to the people who suffered at the hands of these dictators, these governments represented America. BOARD: "We must have died alone a long, long time ago/Who knows? Not me/We never lost control/You're face to face/With the man who sold the world" -David Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World In 1953, when Iran's prime minister nationalized their massive oil industry because the precursor to British Petroleum were retaining 85% of the profits, America ousted the democratically elected leader in a coup d'etat and replaced him with a pro-Western monarch, who let us control shares of their oil wealth instead of the Soviets. But like the concept of phantom pain explored in Metal Gear Solid 5, such brazen foreign incursions incensed Iranians against the West, leading to extensive residual effects on the entirety of the Middle East, which Kojima explored further in Metal Gear Solid 4. In retaliation to the Westernization of the country, Iranians ousted the pro-American Shah in 1979 and instituted an authoritarian theocracy. President Jimmy Carter granted the overthrown Shah asylum in America despite Iranians demanding he be brought to a trial and executed. So, in retaliation to that, supporters of the revolution stormed the American embassy in Iran and took 52 Americans hostage. So, in retaliation to that, America spent billions of dollars to arm and fund Iraq's brand new president and our proxy, Saddam Hussein, in his devastating war against Iran. Saddam infamously used chemical weapons -- procured from Western powers -- to devastating effect against Iran. Over 100,000 civilians died on each side, and Saddam later led a genocidal campaign against Iraqi Kurds. Retaliation clouded our judgment, and led us to being represented by a ruthless dictator with a genocidal bent. And like much of America's foreign policy during the Cold War, allying with Saddam led to lingering consequences after the Cold War. With Iraq heavily in debt to Kuwait and America sending mixed signals on the disagreement, Saddam annexed the country in 1991, resulting in the Gulf War between Iraq and America. The US successfully completed their mission in removing Saddam from Kuwait, but stopped short of invading Baghdad to remove Saddam from power because of a potential power vacuum. BOARD: Not So Fun Fact: President Bush encouraged Iraqis to oust Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War, leading to the 1991 Iraq Uprisings. Anticipating American aid, Kurd and Shia rebels made significant gains, but when US aid never arrived, thousands were killed and displaced. The administration later said they feared the uprisings would empower Iran. Still, throughout the '90s, there was a push to remove the problematic dictator, like the Project for the New American Century, a political think-tank endorsed by future Bush Jr. Cabinet members Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. With the Phantom Pain, Kojima seems to be asking the question, what lengths are we willing to go for revenge? Along with hypnotherapy, Big Boss, Miller, and Ocelot prey on Venom's phantom pain to coerce him to do their bidding, creating a reality for him to exist in and compelling him to exact vengeance against Skull Face, who at one point was a proxy himself. In typical Metal Gear fashion, they're basically putting you in a video game where they wrap you up in a scenario and give you explicit instructions on how to walk... BIG BOSS: Time to walk. Press the Stance button to stand up. ...and preface every mission with a credit sequence. After the Cold War, foreign policy suddenly became very murky. We no longer had a big bad bear to take down and international operations could no longer stand on the merit of stopping Russia from building a communist empire. The then-President George Bush Sr. declared a New World Order -- not the conspiracy theory -- defining the post-Cold War era as unstable and uncertain, requiring America to translate their practices of containing the Soviet Union to oppression across the globe. Massive failures like Somalia shook the philosophy to its core, as well as our passivity to the Rwanda genocide. But with the September 11th attacks on New York City came a revitalization of the New World Order through the War on Terror. Because the Afghanistan government sheltered the guilty party, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, America invaded and swiftly took control of the country. But as we were building a Marshall Plan for the restructuring of Afghanistan, the Bush administration looked to defeat other regimes. During his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush grouped countries like Iran and Iraq into the overly simplistic Axis of Evil -- which is strange given Iran was actively helping us in Afghanistan but suddenly dropped support when labeled "terrorists." Now, the Iranian government is guilty of human rights abuses against their people, and they funded militias during the War on Terror. On the flipside, America forgoed diplomatic dialogue with Iran throughout the early 2000s. In 2002, Karl Rove, an advisor to Bush Jr., told a New York Times reporter we no longer live in a reality-based world. Instead, America, as an empire, creates a reality and those who rely on empirical data will be left to study this new reality...which is something you probably don't want to tell a New York Times reporter. A year later, America invaded Iraq on the claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, that he purchased yellow cake in Niger, and that he harbored members of al-Qaeda, effectively putting him under the umbrella of "terrorist." BOARD: "From the totalitarian point-of-view, history is something to be created rather than learned...Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth." -George Orwell, author of 1984 In regards to the uranium purchase, career foreign ambassador Joseph C. Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam bought yellow cake, but his analysis proved them to be unfounded. Now, with the very damning accusation linking Saddam and al-Qaeda, the CIA and independent panels never actually found evidence of said relationship. Finally, Hans Blix, the lead weapons inspector for the UN, reported no findings of WMDs in Iraq and stated the full process would be resolved in mere months as the country was cooperating. Bush's administration countered saying diplomacy had failed and launched their invasion a few days later. As we now know, no weapons of mass destruction were actually found, only caches of chemical weapons like sarin and mustard gas obtained from before 1991. According to the New York Times, the US government falsely reported the discoveries as brand new chemical rounds used by Saddam, not only to detract from their mistaken intelligence but so as not to reveal the munitions were created by Western governments and companies. BOARD: "Only thing I can think of is politics. Doesn't jive with the story they wanted." -Specialist Andrew T. Goldman, who was injured and denied proper care when disposing of Iraq's dormant chemical weapons A leaked memo belonging to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser details a meeting between Blair and Bush two months before the invasion. Not only did they agree to invade regardless of whether or not the UN inspectors found weapons of mass destruction -- their first go-around proving fruitless -- but Bush also suggested painting a U-2 spy-plane in UN colors and flying it in Iraq airspace in order to provoke Saddam into shooting it down, giving precedence for invasion. BOARD: Fun Fact: Two months after 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld drafted up a document listing potential reasons for invasion into Iraq. Below "How start?", the former Secretary of Defense listed: "Dispute over WMD inspections," "Saddam moves against Kurds in North," and "US discovers Saddam connection to Sept. 11 attack." Sort of like the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a falsely reported sea battle between America and the Vietnamese which allowed President Lyndon B. Johnson to escalate the war in Vietnam. Playing on people's fears, driving a means to retaliate, creating a big bad boss to take down with the Axis of Evil, it spawned a false reality. It skewed our perception like the fear of communism during the Cold War. In the Phantom Pain, almost immediately, Kojima draws parallels with the novel, Moby Dick. DOCTOR: As of today, your name is Ahab. BIG BOSS: You can call me Ishmael. In the story, Captain Ahab seeks revenge against the eponymous white whale. Perception and how we discern empirical evidence lies at the center of the novel. Ahab sees Moby Dick as evil incarnate, but the character Ishmael derives no meaning from the whale as its nature remains a mystery. Like Ahab, Venom Snake's perception may be clouded by revenge. BOARD: "How can the prisoner reach outside, except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall" -Ahab, Moby Dick One of the more unsettling -- or infuriating -- aspects of the ending is this idea that what we perceive may be misleading. Before these revelations, we're presented with this Nietzsche quote about perception. (ON SCREEN: "Facts do not exist, there are only interpretations." -Friedrich Nietzsche) We then replay the first mission of the game, in which we're told a piece of shrapnel is embedded within our cerebral cortex, the center for memory, perception, language, and consciousness. Only, there's a few key differences which help illuminate the truth of the event. As Venom looks into a mirror, his true face staring back at him, Big Boss tells him to be proud of our actions. We then see a bloodied Venom Snake staring back at us, the shrapnel in his head risen to a full horn. On the door behind him, instead of the Diamond Dogs symbol, we see the ominous logo for Big Boss' ruthless Outer Heaven. The marketing for Metal Gear Solid 5 purported we would see the transformation of Big Boss into the cruel warlord Solid Snake confronts in the original Metal Gear. The trailers insinuate Big Boss slaughters children and soldiers as he becomes indistinguishable from Skull Face. But most of these crimes come off instead as misunderstandings. Venom Snake doesn't shoot child soldiers, but instead shoots a bucket and tries to rehabilitate the children back into society. He doesn't store the Metal Gear, Sahelanthropus, for the purposes of owning a nuke, but instead as a trophy for his men. Speaking of men, the soldiers he massacres at Mother Base willingly accepted death as they were infected with the vocal-cord parasite. This begs a few questions. Are we too biased to see our true actions and the effects therein? Or does public perception betray the true story of Venom Snake? On one hand, Ocelot takes time to discuss the false stories attributed to his meme, Shalashaska. On the other, we have the compulsive liar Huey Emmerich proclaiming the soldiers are blind to their actions, criticizing their inability to recognize D-Dog as a wolf. BOARD: "The diamond dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees/Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal" -David Bowie, Diamond Dogs Well, maybe it's a combination of both. Skull Face was surely a threat, but did it necessitate torturing your own men, playing both sides of a proxy war, indiscriminately sending your men to die for resources? To the player, we can see the unforeseen mistakes made during the conflict and forgive Venom Snake. But to the public, the ones who don't even know the truth of the Ground Zero event, Venom's crimes play out like Kojima's trailer BOARD: "[General Curtis] LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?" -Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense ('61-'68) on the incendiary and nuclear attacks on Japanese cities during World War II As in war, there is no good and bad in the Phantom Pain, only various shades of grey. Different perspectives and points of view depending on who you ask. There is no objective truth here. Near the end of Chapter 1, Skull Face compares himself to Venom Snake. SKULL FACE: We both are demons. And when you first hear this, you may think it's absurd. But after seeing the ending, you gotta wonder if there's some truth to it. We can find some more clues in Skull Face's original name, Scarface, which is likely a reference to the eponymous 1983 film. Scarface tells the story of Tony Montana, a Cuban immigrant whose American Dream necessitates selling copious amounts of coke. During his fall from the top, he gives a speech to Miami's richest citizens, accusing them of being just as despicable as him, only they hide behind a mask. BOARD: "You all a bunch of fucking assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be...You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers and say, 'That's the bad guy.' What that make you, good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie." -Tony Montana, Scarface After the Gulf War, America imposed economic sanctions against Iraq. The banning of all trade and financial resources, as well as imposing a no-fly zone, were meant to keep Saddam in a box, according to the Clinton administration. Suddenly, a secular and comparatively modern country in the Middle East couldn't even acquire chlorine to clean its water. The sanctions were linked to a sharp rise in infant mortality rates, and by 1999, UNICEF estimated around 500,000 children had died. LESLEY STAHL: I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it. One of the purported purposes of the sanctions was to incense the Iraqi population to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but the dictator actually used the sanctions to his benefit, appearing as benevolent compared to the Americans. Mind you he did this while systematically killing Kurds in Northern Iraq. But still, economic warfare effectively slaughtered the Iraq population, leading Denis Halliday, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, to resign in 1999, stating he didn't want to, quote, "administer a program that satisfies the definition of genocide." America tried to punish Saddam, but instead, punished the civilians. BOARD: "Most people thought, 'Saddam is feeding us while the Americans are trying to starve us to death.'" -Raed Mohammed, a former Iraqi Army officer "Local repression and international sanctions became brothers-in-arms in their quest to punish the Iraqi people for something they had not done." -Han von Sponeck, UN Coordinator in Iraq In addition, President Bill Clinton launched missile strikes on Iraq throughout the '90s. Specifically, the 1998 Operation Desert Fox bombings were meant to target supposed weapon development facilities, but Iraq was cooperating with UN inspectors and many of the bombs posed no strategic purpose other than to destabilize the area, resulting in dozens of civilians killed due to the air strikes. BOARD: "One man's collateral damage is another man's son." -Jeff Danziger, political cartoonist The subsequent rushed invasion and occupation in 2003 led to more disasters. For example, the Abu Ghraib prison was once a house of horrors when controlled by Saddam's government, but not much changed when the Americans rolled in. Some soldiers and private military members used the facility to torture Iraqis. Shades of it appear in Ground Zeroes' version of Guantanamo Bay, which in itself is a whole other mess since we hold and torture prisoners without charge on Cuban soil. Later, in 2005, 24 Haditha civilians -- some of which were children -- were allegedly executed by marines in retaliation for a soldier being killed by an IED. None of them received jail time, which outraged the Iraqis, a lawyer representing the victims stating, quote, "This is an assault on humanity." Similarly, the Blackwater private military firm killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad. The vast majority of Marines were making the best of a messy, terrible situation with no long-term plan from their leaders. I mean, suddenly, out of the blue, they have to rebuild a society's infrastructure, and things like this don't help them gain the favor of the Iraqis. These failures also undermined our mission in Afghanistan, funneling out money and troops as the Marshall Plan deflated and our American-style government clashed with Afghan values, fueling a resurgence of terror activities in the country. BOARD: "You have taken this country apart and you are not putting it together. Letting vigilantes and thieves out at night will not correct the problems of Saddam's rule. This is a bomb. If it explodes, it will be bigger than the war." -Sadi Ali Hossein, local Iraqi via Generation Kill The crimes of our proxy may have been more apparent to the rest of the world, but for the Iraqi civilians, America and Saddam were two sides of the same coin. In seeking to alleviate our phantom pain, we only spread more seeds of discontent. Consequently, many of Metal Gear Solid 5's characters carry on burdens of living in the conditions of warfare. Born into the dire circumstances of Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, Psycho Mantis experienced abuse from his father. In Ground Zeroes, both Chico and Paz are tortured and raped by Skull Face. Kaz is the son of an American soldier and a Japanese prostitute during World War II, his father being absent for most of his life. Child soldiers become a factor in Africa, and of course, Skull Face resents his childhood under different foreign occupational regimes. Then you have Eli, the illegitimate clone of Big Boss. In particular, he seems like an allusion to children conceived during the Vietnam War. Quick primer on that one: America backed France in trying to continue their colonial rule of Vietnam because North Vietnamese Prime Minister Ho Chi Minh intended to unite the country under communist rule. Not content on losing South East Asia to communism, America found itself in a costly quagmire against Soviet-backed Vietnamese and Chinese forces. Now during this 19-year war, many children were conceived between South Vietnamese women and U.S. soldiers. These Amerasians considered themselves cursed by their genes as neither country wanted them and instead shunned them from society -- a sentiment echoed by Liquid, Solid, and Raiden throughout the series, and a shared experience with Kaz and his childhood. BOARD: "You wanna join in a chorus of the Amerasian blues?/When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City, kiddie say papa-san take me home/See me got, photograph of you and Mamma-san/Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid: It ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice/Go straight to Hell, boy" -The Clash, Straight to Hell Like the other children in Metal Gear Solid 5, Eli carries the resentment of growing up in warfare for the rest of his life, eventually becoming Liquid Snake, one of the series' main antagonists. During the Phantom Pain, he steals Sahelanthropus from Venom Snake with his band of child soldiers. In a now infamous deleted mission, Venom pursues Eli to a remote island as he's infected with the English strain of the vocal-cord parasite, and the whole nuclear mech thing, too. Venom prevails and orders an aerial strike on the island, but Psycho Mantis saves Eli. The mission ends on a photo of two iconic New York City landmarks: the Statue of Liberty beckoning immigrants into the country and the Twin Towers. Eli says: ELI: Not yet. It's not over yet. So, that's subtle. Now, he may be referring to the end of Metal Gear Solid 2, where Liquid crashes Arsenal Gear into Manhattan -- which was actually heavily edited due to 9/11 happening two months before the release of the game. This ending seems to explicitly allude to Eli perpetrating a terror attack on New York City. For Eli, the events of Phantom Pain are his ground zero event. BOARD: "Then I saw it. I saw a mom who would die for her son. A man who would kill for his wife. A boy, angry and alone. Laid out in front of him, the bad path. I saw it. And the path was a circle. Round and round." -Joe, Looper Eli's origins and rise to power parallel militias and dictators that followed in the Cold War's wake, including a certain group in Afghanistan. When the Soviets abandoned the region, they left behind a vulnerable power vacuum. The different mujahideen leaders like Ahmad Shah Massoud signed a power-sharing peace accord, with the exception being the main beneficiary of Pakistan and American aid, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who instead enacted a Civil War on Pakistan's behalf by shelling the capital city of Kabul. Now, thousands of the refugee Afghani children in Pakistan were educated in politically religious schools, and by the time the civil war broke out in the '90s, a group of those children had grown up and formed Pakistan's latest proxy, the Taliban, who were characteristically ruthless, frequently massacring people to consolidate power. They also sheltered Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda as they planned their September 11th attacks. BOARD: Fun Fact: From 1984 to 1994, America attempted to drive rebellion against the Soviets by supplying Afghan schools with textbooks featuring violent pictures of jihad and militant Islamic teachings. The Taliban continued to use them into the 2000s. History repeated itself in Iraq when a power vacuum created with the removal of the secular Saddam allowed the Islamic State to seize a significant amount of control. Their leader, al-Baghdadi, actually spent time at an American prison in Iraq called Camp Bucca, where Red Cross estimates around 90% of the Iraqis were detained by mistake. With innocent civilians mixed in with militant leaders, Camp Bucca became a breeding ground for extremism, and many later went to serve leadership roles in ISIS. Additionally, the US funded a Sunni militia called the Sons of Iraq. America tasked the new Iraqi government and their US-picked Shiite leader to integrate them into the military and pay them. They didn't, and the thousands of fighters either became unemployed or joined the Islamic State. Many other ISIS soldiers were children during the Iraq War and have grown to resent the West. Or they're simply living in a state of poverty and terror under ISIS. We created new enemies due to our reckless foreign policy, and then repeated history by using our Cold War answers to new world problems. BOARD: "You are creating a Frankenstein." -Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan, to George H.W. Bush in the late '80s It all gives a bit more clarity to why Kojima chose to end the series the way he did. Kojima's infamous for claiming each new Metal Gear will be the final installment in the series, so each entry ends with certainty -- especially with Metal Gear Solid 4 where war subsides and it appears Solid Snake will finally rest. The Guns of the Patriots links the Cold War and the War on Terror, but also ends on a poignant, if not pitiful note: old men engaged in one last conflict as their ways finally die with them. But ending with uncertainty, the Phantom Pain recognizes Snake will never rest so long as the player wants more. The death of Skull Face feels unfulfilling, and according to Kojima, this was done to instill a sense of phantom pain into the player. A second chapter follows, and without a clear enemy or goal in mind, the game feels aimless and meandering. We just keep picking up contracts, because that's what we do. We get money from conflicts. We're a part of the military industrial complex. MILLER: We need to expand our organization, and get strong enough that no one can threaten us. So, our only option is to fight and grow and fight and grow. At the very end of The Phantom Pain, we do receive a new mission: Operation Intrude N313, which entails the events of the original Metal Gear game on the MSX console. Big Boss sends Solid Snake -- a product of the Zero and Boss conflict -- on a suicide mission into Venom Snake's camp. We activate what appears to be an MSX console to access our next mission, as if we'll sit down and play the original Metal Gear right there. As players, we want another enemy, and as evidenced by the fact that we're playing a game in which the protagonist purportedly murdered children, we'll eat up anything so long as we play as Snake. The series will continue on without Kojima, existing as a phantom. BOARD: "Countries, man, it's always good when your people have an enemy. Boy, that helps keep you in power, when the people have an enemy and you can rail 'em. So, what I believe is most necessary for peace is not [necessarily] solutions, 'cause the solutions are probably not as complicated as we might imagine: It's courage." -Jon Stewart When we meet Eli, a severed pig's head sits on a table in front of him, a reference to the novel Lord of the Flies, as is the title of the cut Mission 51, Kingdom of the Flies. Through the allegorical story of well-to-do British children being stranded on a deserted island, the novel explores the schism between ordered society and humanity's innate savagery. The Lord of the Flies, a literal translation of Beelzebub, is the name given to a severed pig's head stuck on a pike which represents evil in the world. The character Jack begins dissenting from the group's leader, Ralph, by claiming to have seen a beast in the forest, stirring the children into a bloodlust, resulting in the accidental death of a child representing Jesus and the intentional death of a child who believes in social conventions. BOARD: Fun Fact: Big Boss happens to be named "Jack" in The Phantom Pain. Raiden's name is also Jack, as in Jack the Ripper. Similarly, Jack from Lord of the Flies becomes a murderer, even lying about the "Beast" to stir up others into a fearful bloodlust. Towards the end of the novel, Ralph strikes the Lord of the Flies in a fit of anger. The pig's smile only grows wider, showing not only the impossibility of snuffing out evil, but the manifestation of evil as a consequence to our violent retaliations. Violent action begets violent action, and as players, we don't know any different. We had one goal in mind and a clear enemy, but the game makes us question seemingly simple solutions to problems. It's no wonder Eli's jacket reads "Never Be Game Over." We'll never want the end of Metal Gear, and in reality, continuing to strike the pig's head with our stale Cold War policies won't stop the spread of evil. LIQUID SNAKE: So, why are you here then? Why do you continue to follow your orders while your superiors betray you? Why did you come here? Well, I'll tell you then. You enjoy all the killing, that's why. Hideo Kojima hasn't offered us an easy answer to foreign policy in the 21st century, but he does recognize the vicious feedback loop of the past century and that something new needs to be instituted. In that sense, Quiet and Code Talker are just about the only heroes in this story. Code Talker resents American imperialism as a Navajo Native American, so much so as to create the vocal-cord parasite. But he reverses his hatred in order to help Diamond Dogs stop the spread of the virus -- and to enjoy American hamburgers. Quiet reverts her course for vengeance against Venom Snake. In her goodbye tape, she resents not being able to communicate with Venom, but we do see one form of effective communication: music through her humming. This is actually something Paz identified, music being a language without borders. And with The Phantom Pain's references to Lord of the Flies, 1984, David Bowie, Moby Dick, Godzilla, we see different cultures illustrating concerns shared between all peoples. Even without language, losing an ally like Quiet instills the greatest sense of phantom pain in the player. BOARD: "My sense of Iran has always been that we have created a two-dimensional vision of it that in no way matches the reality on the ground in the way that some there have created a two-dimensional image of us and that we are talking past each other." -Jon Stewart Robert McNamara, a former Secretary of State, said we must empathize with our attackers, know why they're fighting. He pointed to the Vietnam War. America thought it was about communism, but for the Vietnamese, it was about independence from colonial rule. Similarly, Skull Face resents imperialism -- and for good reason -- but his means to end it certainly go too far. BOARD: "If we are to deal effectively with terrorists across the globe, we must develop a sense of empathy -- I don't mean 'sympathy,' but rather 'understanding' -- to counter their attacks on us and the Western World." -Robert McNamara, former US Secretary of Defense Big Boss starts his private army and proxy war to stop the spread of evil, but unfortunately, every action in geopolitics will lead to unforeseen consequences. Private armies become an epidemic in the Phantom Pain, and seemingly positive actions like ending the pollution of oil in drinking water often turn negative, opening villagers up to parasites. In the Cold War, the US went off the information available -- and again, they did well in stopping Stalin during the Korean War. But then you have coup d'etats in Latin America, which were obvious mistakes in retrospect. Looking at the Syria situation, negative, unforeseen consequences will undoubtedly prop up, but hopefully the leaders in charge heed the past to avoid the same mistakes. At the very least, progress is being made in one area of concern. Means of communication seem to be opening somewhat between the U.S. and Iran with the nuclear deal this year. And now with their cooperation with the deal, we've eased sanctions. This has culminated in the thankfully uneventful capture of American sailors who drifted into Iranian waters. Whereas before, there'd be no direct communications and Iran would likely use the detainees as bargaining chips, Secretary of State John Kerry just made a few phone calls and the Americans were released. I think that'd make Kojima happy. BOARD: Fun Fact: In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first president to visit the People's Republic of China, who viewed the US as their foe. Nixon's visit led to normalized relations and strong economic ties. There's still the disconcerting fact that billions of dollars in arms are being sold to Middle East countries to fuel the proxy wars, America leading the pack in export sales worldwide, and the whole Russia annexing Crimea thing...but small steps. Metal Gear Solid 5 actually continues on with an experiment for its audience. If the global stockpile of nukes falls to zero, a hidden ending will unlock. But funnily enough, many are hoping it will unlock a whole new section of the game to play. You know, "Never Be Game Over."