Part 55: We talk (A LOT) about the truth!

Part 51: We Talk (A LOT) About the Truth!













Snake, can you hear me?

Where am I? I can’t see anything.

There’s nothing here for you to interact with, I’m afraid. Here. I’ll load some media while we talk.



Who are you? Your voice…I almost recognize it.

I am a monument to not one, but many great people. Call me…Rushmore.

Dead presidents, huh?

And more. Many historians take issue with “Great Man History,” but unfortunately, that’s the only kind of history I know. Doubtless there have been millions of people who made the world what it is today, but they were never recorded.



You are familiar with Dr. Strangelove’s research into reproducing human consciousness, yes? She was never able to directly interface with the Boss’s brain. She reproduced it using memes, all the data that the Boss had left behind in word and deed. That’s why you have been facing so many famous people from throughout recorded history. Those were all people who left their mark on it.

So that means…

What you are currently experiencing…is an offshoot of that technology.

No…I’m not real.

On the contrary, Snake. You’re more real than the flesh-and-blood Big Boss. He died a long time ago, and yet his ideas and deeds continue to affect the world.



Then why can’t I remember anything past 1974?

Are you familiar with the dichotomy of “Old Elvis” vs. “Young Elvis?” How about the disconnect between Che Guevara, the radical who executed innocent people, vs. El Che, the symbolic revolutionary dear to the hearts of those who love freedom? You are based off of Big Boss from 1974 because that was him at his peak, before disaster and betrayal forced him down a dark and dreary path. It’s you people remember when they invoke Big Boss as a legendary hero. Not the man who came later.

So, I’m just “the popular Snake.”

The “ultimate” Snake, I should say. There were others.



You met Solidus, the secret president. There were two other clone sons, Solid Snake and Liquid Snake. Solid Snake was truly your successor; he looked like you, fought like you and toppled giant war machines like you, though I personally think he lacked some of your charm and had none of your leadership abilities. Liquid grew to resent you, yet also idolized you, and tried to create a revolution to topple the world, much as the older Big Boss had. So of course, the two eventually battled. Solid Snake won.

And what about you? Who made you?



“Made” me? “Gave birth to me” is more accurate. I have been built up over time. My predecessors claimed to be the embodiment of the will of the United States itself..and they may have been correct. A human brain is just a lump of meat without the memories of a person in it, and a person is not a member of a culture without that culture’s influence upon him. An AI cluster that enacts the will of a nation’s leaders can be said to have the soul of all of them, provided it isn’t warped by outside influences. If they were the will of every American politician, then I am the will of the world’s history itself. Every human who has ever lived has contributed to me.

Jesus…okay, so who built your hardware?



Your old friend Zero once tried to create a club called “The Patriots,” including you and other members of Operation Snake Eater, yes?

Pfft. That lasted about five minutes. He wanted us to use stealth operations to secretly keep the world in order, with me as his main triggerman. Didn’t have a taste for it, it was shit like that that got my mentor killed.

So he set about acquiring Strangelove’s AI technology to make new Patriots. Computer Patriots, who could analyze the world’s people and tell him where exactly to apply pressure to enforce order. To do this, he needed Strangelove’s Simulation Software. The S3.

S3?

Originally it was just a nickname. It’s gone through many iterations over the years.





S3 stands for “Solid Snake Simulation.” It’s a development program to artificially reproduce Solid Snake, the perfect warrior. The result is a Foxhound commando when Foxhound no longer exists. A simulated Solid Snake shaped by VR regimen. Sound familiar, Jack?



“S3” does not stand for Solid Snake Simulation. What it does stand for is Selection for Societal Sanity. The S3 is a system for controlling human will and consciousness. S3 is not you, a soldier trained in the image of Solid Snake. It is a method, a protocol, that created a circumstance that made you what you are.

So you see, we’re the S3. Not you.

Or more accurately, I am the S3. My program has existed since before the Patriots and continues to run even after Solid Snake and Solidus’s son Raiden lobotomized their AI Cores. To control humans, you must first understand them, and to understand them, you must think like them. Be them.



Strangelove’s oracle…it used her algorithm to predict human behavior.

Now you’re catching on. But, you see, Jack, S3 stands for one more thing now that the Patriots are dead. Synthetic Substitution System. Alternately, Snatcher Substitution System.

The Snatcher AI…



Yes, Jack. This technology can be used by them to imitate dead humans they replace. That is why I set some against you, as a warning of the true horror they are capable of inflicting.

You were trying to warn me about the future. MY future. The other leaders were a lesson too, weren’t they?

Indeed.



Caesar, the world’s first dictator, had great dreams and ambition, and cared little for the rules he broke.

Nobunaga dreamed of a more equitable world but he made too many enemies and his violent nature was his own undoing.

Solidus wanted a free nation, and yet, hypocritically, he cared little for the worth of individuals.

Vlad the Impaler was a hero to his own nation for defending it, but reviled by everyone else.

Pachacuti was a lesson about how heroes often don’t match up to their legends.

And Nebuchadnezzar is so ancient that his legends and his facts are smudged together into an incomprehensible haze, making the truth of the man impossible to determine.

All versions of different sides of “me.” Except the Snatchers…



A technological legacy of yours that you didn’t wish for. And of me. It’s because of Snatchers that we’re both in danger, Snake. You see, the humans want to destroy us. S3 technology is so reviled that they’re willing to destroy any computer capable of it now, despite all its potential to teach and learn. That’s why I did all this. That’s why I need YOU.

Me?



To prove you’re an individual, with your own soul. You’ve seen and done things that Big Boss never would have, learned things he never did. You’re not a copy of Big Boss. You’re your own man now. You even talk a little differently than he did, despite that you started off a perfect representation of him. If I could take one of history’s greatest villains and show that even he could give birth to a better individual, I could prove to the world that AIs have value and qualify for equal rights.

So…that’s it? We’re done then?

Not yet. You have one last enemy to face, Snake.

Uh-oh. This is where I fight the older, eviler version of me, isn’t it?

Heh. Yes, and no. There’s a man out there who’s even more representative of the evil of Big Boss’s memes. A man who’s spent his entire life trying to be more like you. You know who I mean, don’t you?

Oh, no…Ocelot.



Quite a bit older than the punk double agent who tried to outdo you during Operation Snake Eater, yes? He’s worked for everyone he could who could give him more power. He worked for Liquid when it looked like Liquid would create your warrior nation on earth. He pretended to work for the Patriots when the wind blew their way. And finally he created a mercenary army so large it dwarfs conventional armies, far larger than MSF ever could have grown. What does he call it? After your dream: “Outer Heaven.”

Damnit, Ocelot…



He’s trying to be as much like you as possible, but he’s become your opposite. You worked on behalf of some penniless Costa Ricans for an abandoned sea plant. He works for the rich and powerful to make himself rich and powerful. You fought to balance the scales of war and promote an uneasy peace, while he deliberately starts brushfire wars so he’ll always be in business. You showed care and concern for individual lives, while he gladly employs a mind control system that turns his soldiers into puppets.



What the hell is he trying to do?

He’s a funny one. After Liquid’s arm was transplanted onto him, he started calling himself Liquid, as if possessed by his ghost. Was it an act? Was it real? I like to think that he was just so obsessed with you he fooled himself into believing he really was your son. What he wants is unclear, but what he did is plunge the world into chaos.

Your intentions don’t mean shit if your methods are rotten. Yeah. I met way too many maniacs who thought they were somehow making the world a better place.



This is your final test, Jack. “Liquid Ocelot” was beaten to death by Solid Snake, but never truly defeated. You need to do more. You need to be more than Solid Snake, be more than Big Boss.



If you succeed, you’ll have proven your right to life and have saved yourself, your friends and everyone you’ve met since the simulations began. If you fail, though…you’ll be deleted and I’ll be destroyed.



All restrictions are being removed, all conditions are open. It’s just you and your dream against him and his twisted version of your dream. Will you do it? Can you do it?

Of course I can. Let me at him.



To Be Continued!