Another Theory: Perpetual War vs. Total Nuclear Disarmament -> Peace -> Outer Heaven Uprising

METRIC SHIT-TON OF SPOILERS ABOUND; YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

[Obligatory apologetics for posting this in the event that the idea has already been put out there, but this is a kind of synthesis of different theories which maybe offers a slightly different take on things, all things considered. Here goes...]

I love this sub. I check it constantly, lurking like I've never lurked before, but it seems that the drive to find Chapter 3 is balkanizing the focus as folks chase down any and every possible clue (Farsi/Pashtu graffiti! Interrogate all the things! Et al.). This is the nature of solid detective work, and while I am by no means saying that these efforts are fruitless (far from it, in fact), I'd argue that it's exhaustive, and therefore distracting our energies from what's already been laid out.

What we know so far is that there is a hidden cutscene that ostensibly plays after all FOBs have been rid of nuclear weapons. Kojima stated in an interview last year that hammering a message of nuclear deterrence was a goal he intended for MGSV, in narrative and gameplay terms, with the caveat of not holding the player's hand by leading them down a constricted, linear path, instead purposefully giving them the choice to either construct or (ideally) deconstruct WMDs -- and with it, promoting or ending the destructive "deterrent" appeal that nukes seemingly provide their owners. This interview, conducted with The Guardian in 2014, is one in which Kojima himself states that this very aspect of gameplay is the "something" that can only be done in video games; that is, to give players collective control over story progression. Now it would appear that this means players must unite behind the banner of nuclear disarmament -- the theme of every Metal Gear game going back to 1984. Movies, books, radio -- none of them require nor have the capacity to require collaboration with fellow consumers in order to successfully consume the product. It's a great move by Kojima, if this is true, in that it depends upon people actually applying what they've learned from his series, collectively, in order to meet his stated narrative goals.

“The message is anti-nuclear weapons,” [Kojima] says. “But it’s not just about shouting that message at the player.” Instead, he makes the point through non-written means. “Through the game, the player is motivated to make a base and build up their military centre. But at some point, when it reaches a certain size, the world begins to take notice and, in that sense, you become the threat. Countries begin to attack you.

"At this point I give the player the option to think about acquiring a nuclear weapon, in order to deter these attacks, a kind of threat. It illustrates the cycle of nuclear weapons, what inspires people and nations to enter into that system. It’s something that you can only really do in video games.”

While we hunt for whispers in the darkness and chalk on rocks, it would seem, based on the thematic thrust of the entire series, and especially the above quote, that a hunt for Chapter 3 is just as easily hidden in plain sight (the bulk of Chapter 2's FOB nuke madness) as it is in the obscure nooks and crannies which dominate this awesome, awesome subreddit. It is also the only thing we know unlocks a new-to-gameplay cutscene (and possibly more), but cannot be tested unless everyone collaborates. Speaking of which, I'd argue that groups like The Patriots subreddit are the real ones holding the story back for all of us -- not unlike The Patriots in the lore, wanting to keep control of everything to prevent their idea of "order" from crumbling and make the world shiny.

Follow me further. Diamond Dogs successfully eradicates/dismantles all of the nukes in the world, which seems to fit into MGS canon as far as I can tell, and in so doing creates a world free from the threat of nuclear war and the hegemony that comes with them. However, the flip side allows for the scenario that all it would take is the re-emergence of one nuclear weapon to enjoy a brief but uniquely unilateral advantage before setting the world back on a course of nuclear deterrence, which is also implied in the lore.

Any "Peace" wrought by the Diamond Dogs, in this sense, inevitably creates the template for more war, fitting in with the heavy-handed 1984 doublethink themes throughout TPP. This irony is (I think) pointed out by Ocelot as you're growing Mother Base near the end of Chapter 1/beginning of Chapter 2.

Venom Snake and Kaz are basically leading Diamond Dogs to create a power vacuum in which the real Outer Heaven can rise up more powerful than it would have otherwise been in a world where renegade PFs/PMCs with nuclear capabilities are a dime a dozen (which seems to be Skullface's grand idea, FWIW). The theories surrounding Portopia/Kaz is Traitor Scum fit in nicely here, whether Kaz is working for the real Big Boss or for Cipher: If the former, Kaz is simply aiding BB to create a false "Peace" that would give Outer Heaven more power than Diamond Dogs, Cipher, anyone, becoming a true "demon" in the process; if the latter, Kaz is ensuring that the number of nukes will never reach zero, knowing that the moment BB's Outer Heaven stronghold is the sole nuclear superpower on earth, the nations of the world will be after it harder than they were after the MSF and Diamond Dogs combined. Also very demon-y. The end result is the same: Kaz has ensured Big Boss/Venom Snake is in possession of the world's only nuclear weapon.

Toward the end of the aforementioned disarmament cutscene, Kaz implores Diamond Dogs to remain vigilant against any new nuclear threats. With that in mind, take a look at this: This image (culled from data files by U/NoolanD), which appears to be the same style of global map featured in the nuclear disarmament cutscene, as well as FOB failures. Notice anything interesting about the location of that very ominous red marker?

200 kilometers north of the region of Galzburg, South Africa, laid the fortress of Outer Heaven, a heavily fortified state that had been founded by a legendary mercenary in the late 1980s

I know, I know: This Giant Red Dot is apparently the constant location of a wormhole whenever you fail an FOB mission, which means that the base located there is going to punish you for your foiled shenanigans. I personally don't think it's a coincidence that this is the same location that is featured every time you fail an FOB mission -- it's too specific a place to be chosen at random, given its proximity to the "real" Outer Heaven. Why is this one location "enforcing" the rules for all of the players who muck their Ops up?

My theory is that this is evidence that Outer Heaven is "running the show," as it were, pitting these phantom PFs with their silly emblems against one another, as if symbols mattered by that point, creating a world of perpetual conflict no matter the outcome, or cause -- another fitting theme with the novel 1984. It's only until after the nuke count reaches zero that the "true" Outer Heaven emerges, more powerful than any other entity on the planet by virtue of their lone nuke. But as of right now, the real Outer Heaven is content keeping a balance of sorts among its children/phantom PFs, punishing those who don't "perform."

Keep in mind that, at one point in the novel 1984, Winston Smith (protagonist) wonders if there is any real difference between the warring superstates of Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia. The novel also suggests that perpetual war is the only thing keeping their otherwise stagnant economies afloat. That is, in essence, the very nature of the online play component of TPP at this point: Diamond Dogs is fighting with itself, both as a smoke screen for the real Outer Heaven, but also to create an economy which benefits the member states, with the real Queen Bitch, Big Boss, sitting comfortably in the shadows at the top of the heap. All we're doing is shuffling resources around, fighting without any true ideology or purpose. This is what Big Boss' dream looks like, and it's shitty. But to us, members of the Diamond Dogs' Outer Party, who are complicit but not exactly calling the real shots, we're fed propaganda and lies that we are conditioned to believe are the real motivating factors behind our daily lives and the wars we wage upon other players (who are essentially phantoms of us, the player; other Diamond Dogs).

I even think the message on Eli's jacket, this subreddit's namesake, is kind of a taunt to players about the nature of the perpetual war that will overtake the gameplay if they fail to resist that Eli-like urge to go about fighting just because it's what they know; Liquid's interpretation of The Boss' will, which is to make people free by holding them all hostage. There will never be a Game Over if we keep fighting just because that's what's there, by the "end" of Chapter 2's story line.

Another thing: A lot of Big Boss' speechifying on the nature of MSF/Diamond Dogs/The Boss' will sounds a lot like The Party from 1984. As Orwell writes:

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”

Mother Base doesn't discriminate; it's an equal-opportunity conscription machine. They fight for no nation or belief other than living to fight, to win. Bleak stuff.

Now, onto the Operation Intrude N313 cassette. It seems a lot of people think that that scene depicts Big Boss ordering the mission of the original Metal Gear while at the same time explaining to Venom Snake why things are the way they are, which would put that scene somewhere around 1995. Maybe it does. But if we refer to 1984 again as an inspiration, we can assume that Venom Snake, like Winston Smith, has come to finally "love" Big Boss/Big Brother by this point, and is able to successfully doublethink his way to a knowing death, whether it's today or 9 years from now when Solid Snake is all up in his fortified compound. Think about how intentionally disjointed a lot of the narrative is chronologically, which is only reinforced by the nature of writable storage mediums and the Information Age they represent. Reliving/replaying old missions. Those themes of total information control, and of the disorganization of reality by a controlling force, are heavy in 1984, and are themes that would come to dominate MGS2 and MGS4. Also, since it's unclear which Snake (Venom or BB) might actually be on some of the tapes, and the imagined events of Paz' storyline, the fragmentary nature of PTSD is reinforced here, as well -- not to mention the fact that the tapes can be viewed as brainwashing aids that you voluntarily partake in, which is exactly the type of total control over individuals that 1984's Inner Party desires. In sum: We don't know when it happens, but a successfully brainwashed Venom Snake would "love" to know he could sacrifice himself for Big Boss, any time of day, rain or shine.

But all of this, it's not exactly what Big Boss originally envisioned, is it? His nation free from politics or ideology has reached it logical conclusion: A monopolistic, global private army that eventually becomes the thing it fought to eradicate; a phantom of itself. Once the revenge is gone (or perhaps because of it), the only raison d'etre for Outer Heaven is but power for power's sake. His dialogue to Solid Snake in Metal Gear 2 only affirms that Big Boss grows to believe his own lie, and is doublethinking with the best of them:

The nightmares? They never go away, Snake. Once you've been on the battlefield, tasted the exhilaration, the tension... it all becomes part of you. Once you've awakened the warrior within... it never sleeps again. You crave ever bigger tensions, ever bigger thrills. As a mercenary, I'd think you would have realized that by now. You care nothing for power, or money, or even sex. The only thing that satisfies your cravings is war! All I've done is give you a place for it. I've given you a reason to live.

Sad, really. A subtextual reading suggests he knows he's trapped, but he is free inside his prison, ruling hell rather than to serve heaven. This also evokes some PTSD morbidity, and makes me feel bad for the guy, knowing what we know by MGS4.

Up until he was put in that nanomusheen coma, Big Boss was believing in his own bullshit, a victim of his own brainwashing in a way, but not the kind of overt head shrinking they used on Venom. This is what the Greeks called hubris. Outer Heaven, the place that brought about "Peace," would only succeed in destabilizing the world once again, reigniting not only a nuclear arms race, but spawning a proliferation of Metal Gears as well, and yet the guy in charge of it all still thinks that his methods (which are becoming increasingly despotic and Cipher-like) are sound, his aim true. And since Big Boss couldn't truly "erase" Zero, and was corrupted by the power he had built for himself, Zero remained to become one, and one became two ... and so on, perpetuating the same mistakes for the next generation (i.e. Philanthropy) to fix.

There's probably more to do with OKB Zero and the Diamond Dogs containers, plus Skull Face's ultimate role in all of this, but it's out there and I gotta take a shower (and not the Phantom kind). And thanks for reading!

TL;DR If you want to find Chapter 3 and get the "real" Outer Heaven to show itself, make love not nukes.

Edit: wordz