Part 1: Episode I: Recruiting Rattlesnake
Welcome to Metal Gear
Plus, if you're going to name a game Metal Gear Solid anything, you're in for a world of exposition.
We begin jetting along the skies in a C-130 presumably en route to this game's newest nuclear equipped walking battle tank fiasco. Well, it's not being shot out of a torpedo or bungee jumping off the George Washington bridge or even HALO jumping into enemy territo--err... Wait...
...
No. Snake Eater totally did this too... Or rather this game did it first. Sheesh. Even Solid Snake's non-canon adventures crib off awesome stuff his old man did back in the day.
We find Solid Snake chilling in the back of the rather poorly lit plane. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT SMALL SMOKE TRAIL! There are NO cigarettes in this game. Someone was just welding. Extremely close to where Snake's hand would be WERE he holding a cigarette, cigar, or other tobacco related product of which the ESRB has assured me is not present in this title.
But enough of that. Let's have a flashback!
An undetermined point earlier in the week, Colonel Roy Campbell's early onset Alzheimer's had him mistakenly attempting to recruit Sam Fisher to sneak into enemy territory. Which would be disastrous since Sam is about durable as tissue paper outside of sneaking around. Plus he's got a knife some times and he doesn't others and he has hair some times and bald others and sometimes his daughter is dead and others she's not. That guy is all over the place.
Or perhaps they were just laser sights trained on a hobo named Snake. His solidity has yet to be determined. The two have a very, very lengthy dialogue. So let's begin the chatter...
"Got Scotch?"
"Didn't you say this was going to be an E rated house call?" "They're replacing me with a computer program in the next sequel they make. Caring what the suits upstairs say nowadays doesn't carry well with me nowadays..." "...Fair enough." "Single malt, straight up and neat - if I remember right." "That you do....This house - ?" "Built it myself." "Didn't know you were a carpenter. You know, it's already been three years since you left....How's Alaska been treating you?" "I just said I had time to build my own house... Not a lot going on out here..." "Colonel, did you come all the way out here with the cavalry to make small talk with me?" "....." "Trouble, huh." "The world is on the brink of nuclear holocaust. We came to request your help." "Request? As if I have the choice to refuse." "You do. I know too well that you can't be ordered or coerced. But you'll say yes because you need to. Let me tell you about it first." "....." "You know if the alternative to refusing is that nuclear holocaust you mentioned, it's still more or less the same as being unable to refuse..."
"A week ago, a C-5 Galaxy transport plane on a classified mission to South America vanished." "It wasn't near Costa Rica was it...? Things were...kinda weird there last time I was around. All this talk about balloon rides and everyone kept calling me 'Vicbos' Not sure what that was all about..." "South America. Not Central." "Just need to be sure." "Terrorists?" "Of course. But the problem is what it was carrying." "Nuke." "Yes. And some." ? "It was Metal Gear." "....." "....." "....." *clears throat* "I said it was Metal... Gear..." ".....?" "Oh! Right." "Metal Gear?!?!"
Intro
"What!" "Nuclear-capable bipedal armored vehicle designed to realize the possibility of nuclear strikes from anywhere on the planetary surface.... The devil's candy of mass destruction to change the meaning of nuclear warfare, and it was on that plane." "But I...." "Yes, you destroyed Metal Gear in Outer Heaven seven years ago. But the U.S. Government recognized the strategic advantages of Metal Gear and secretly extracted the data from Outer Heaven. The development continued, just under a different flag." "Plus, it's been retconned that the one you destroyed was like the...third or fourth one." "What?!" "Yeah... It turns out they've been churning them out since the early '70s. And the idea has been around since the mid-60s." "...But." "War...has changed, Snake. Try not to think about it too hard. Anyway..." "The South American hop was probably for a field exercise." "Christ...." "Metal Gear's researchers were also on board. The idea of Metal Gear in terrorist hands goosed Washington into finding out its new location in just a week: came in today." "Where?" "Gindra." "Gindra?"
Okay... Maybe it's just me but I'm totally seeing a dog head here in the map of Gindra.
Tell me I'm crazy.
"I heard there was a civil war going on; an armed uprising by a separatist ethnic minority. And that peacekeeping troops were deployed." "So the hermit keeps up with the news." "Again. Alaska... Chief hobbies are watching television and drinking heavily. Hey, have you watched that Gilmore Girls show...? Why do they all talk so fast? I don't get it." "Focus, Snake." "Metal Gear is in the hands of the armed separatist group Gindra Liberation Front, commonly known as GLF; their leader is..."
"...charismatic and armed to the teeth. They operate out of a virtually impregnable fortress, Galuade, in the mountains. Neither the Gindran government nor the U.N. can get to them. We also have intel that they recently hired several top-class mercenaries as consultants. We suspect that the mercenaries executed the Metal Gear hijacking." "Mercenaries... You don't mean Fox-Hound?!" "...Fox-Hound is an American special forces unit. Why would you think they're involved?" "Ergh... It just... I don't know. Weird feeling." "I think you've been out here too long. Fox-Hound was being run by some English commander these days. I forget his name. Long haired guy. Always shirtless. Likes to gesticulate wildly. You wouldn't like him much." "So they plan to win their independence by threatening nuclear strikes with Metal Gear...."
We need you. We need the 'Legend.'" "Don't call me that. I know all the names for a killer, and that's one of them." "A military dictatorship of possession of Metal Gear - damn it, you know they won't hesitate to push that button. And millions will die." "So I was right about this being one of those non-negotiable choices..." "Colonel, I'm not in Fox-Hound anymore." "You're saying you won't go?" "Why can't you leave me alone? Alaska is quiet - and my life is good." "Snake, it's the middle of the day, you stink of whiskey, and you're pantsless in front of a TV set with stolen cable watching a re-run of Big Brother... Come on." "You won't change your mind?" "No." "Even if I tell you that the fortress Galuade, GLF's home base, was once called Outer Heaven?" "What?" "Well, it's technically a holding of a subsidiary of one defunct Militaires Sans Frontière corporation." "Never heard of 'em.""They just got retco--were recently declassified. But without splitting too many hairs... It's Outer Heaven." "The very same place; where you went to war seven years ago, destroyed Metal Gear, and became the 'Legend.'" "Is there a connection?" "I don't know. But the fact is, there is Metal Gear in Outer Heaven. You believe in coincidence? I believe in conspiracy." "I believe in unnecessary callbacks. But I don't necessarily think they're always a bad thing. In moderation." "You'll regret that belief when you're older." "And you want me to find out." "I'm asking you to join me. If the past is at your heels, you turn around and face it. Am I wrong? "....." "End it, once and for all. It's all back there, in Outer Heaven."
Tune in next time to meet the team and find out a bit more about the situation in Outer Heaven and how it relates to country shaped like a giant dog head.
Oh and just to keep track we had liquor preparation. And a threat of nuclear holocaust via a giant robot staged as a power play in a 3rd World Nation's ethnic clash oriented civil war as the backdrop of our E-rated adventure. Just throwing that out there. And people exclaiming "damn" and "Christ". Nothing too bad yet. But hey, we're just getting started...