Ex. Truth: Daniel Robert Hebert

June 16th, 1991:

"But if you hadn't intervened right then, Annette would've been shot ..."

"She wouldn't have been there to begin with if I hadn't forced the FBI to let her try and negotiate. I knowingly endangered her - all to buy time."

"In the end, you saved her ..."

"The biological agent you were exposed to was leaked to Lustrum's group by a certain scientist under my supervision. It was my carelessness that caused this incident. I came here today to make amends."

"... Why are you admitting this to me? I'm just a civilian."

"I wanted to thank the two of you, and to apologize."

June 19th, 2011:

At the noise of the bells hanging from the entrance of the restaurant, Danny paused the cassette tape playing on his aging Walkman and turned his gaze. An elderly man slowly approached across the checkered dining floor, supporting himself with a cane.

"You're lookin' healthy," Danny greeted.

The man chuckled.

"At my age," he replied, in a slow rasping monotone, "anything that isn't 'dead' is 'healthy.'"

Danny smiled.

"Good to see you, George," he said.

"You too, Daniel," said the man, gingerly seating himself opposite. "On appearances alone, this place isn't as much of a dive as I was led to believe."

Danny glanced about. The curtain-dimmed interior of Fugly Bob's was done up in the style of a vintage 60's diner - clean and fairly well-maintained. Truthfully, though, the place had only been built in '97; and the appearance was more for aesthetic appeal than any effort at authenticity.

"Yeah," said Danny. "Food's pretty decent too. It's become something of a local landmark."

"You've ordered already?" asked George, looking to the glass of Coke before him.

"For the both of us. They're only serving the Chemi-Burger Classic today, unfortunately. Most of the kitchen staff is off on holiday."

"The Chemi-Burger, hm?" said the old man, smiling with nostalgia. "Been awhile since I've had one. It's a damn shame Kazuhira wasn't able to extend his Maxi Buns chain to Arizona."

Danny nodded. Miller's Maxi Buns, the largest of the fast-food franchises operated by the McDonell's Corporation, was in the large part geographically restricted to the East Coast of the United States and Canada. The late McDonell Benedict "Kazuhira" Miller had hoped originally to expand the chain across North America - but with the rise of food industry criticism and the organics / health-conscious movement in the early 2000's, efforts began to flag.

Fugly Bob's was one of the two remaining McDonnell's restaurants in Brockton Bay. Like a handful of others across the seaboard, it was in truth a front and way station for the HUMINT Exploitation Company, or HEC - a clandestine intelligence service that Miller had established in his mercenary days during the 1970's and 80's.

Bob's was, incidentally, the single point of contact maintained between Miller's people and the Hebert family in the years following Taylor's birth.

"Father's Day, yet again," said George. "Hard to believe it's been twenty years since we first met." With milky irises, he met Danny's gaze. "You'll be doing something with your daughter later this evening, I suppose?"

"It's her birthday today, so I'll be taking her out for dinner."

For as long as Taylor had been alive, Father's Day had never been celebrated in the Hebert household. It was a non-tradition that Danny had no intention of changing.

"Not to rush you or anything," he said, shifting gears, "but, uh - were you able to look into what I asked about?"

Taking a sip from his straw, the elderly man set his cola back upon its coaster.

"I was," he replied. "However, the information you seek is convoluted, assembled of truths that men have literally given their lives to obtain. If you truly wish, I can speak of it - but once I do, you'll be irrevocably involved. Are you certain you wish for me to proceed?"

Danny had halfway expected the warning.

"I haven't come all this way just to pull out now," he replied. "So, yes. Absolutely."

"In that case, let's start from the beginning," said George. "How familiar are you with Project MKUltra?"

"The CIA mind control program?"

"Correct."

"I've heard of it before."

From a pocket in his vest, George removed a small stack of black-and-white photographs - setting them upon the plaid tablecloth.

Pushing the group photo on top in front of Danny, he said, "This photograph was taken in 1962. The man on the left is Sidney Gottlieb, supervisor of the project - better known in the intelligence community as Black Sorceror. At center is Doctor Donald Ewen Cameron, the psychologist that spearheaded the research into long-term behavioral modification. Our concern, however, is with the young man on the right - a doctoral student who then went the name of M.W. Mond."

"Who is he?"

"Cameron's successor," George replied. "When the CIA officially discontinued MKUltra in 1973, a certain organization inherited the assets of the project, and relocated the core research outside of North America. M.W. Mond vanished, and the HEC didn't come to be aware of his existence until 1984, when he was identified in Cyprus - having posed for several years as a surgeon and neurologist at a military hospital in the British Sovereign Base Area at Dhekelia."

"Isn't that where-"

"Yes. It was the birthplace of the bidee' holoni - the man you knew of as 'John South,' or 'Ahab,' as he referred to himself."

Danny stared into his cola.

"This M.W. Mond, then," he said. "He's the one that implanted John with Big Boss' memories and personality?"

"He wasn't working alone," said George. "And I wouldn't use the word 'implant,' precisely. Elements of the personality can persist as a general behavioral heuristic even in cases of complete retrograde amnesia. With a combination of drugs, hypnosis, and other procedures, John's mind was embedded with the memories and associations that comprised the individual known as 'Big Boss' - but the specific manner in which he acted upon these 'memes' ultimately differed from his original. 'Ahab' was a name that well befit him."

"It isn't just a reference to Moby-Dick?"

"In Hebrew, the name 'Ahab' means 'brother of the father,'" George replied. "John was associated with Big Boss as a divergence from a shared point of origin; not merely as a shadow or a reflection. He was always his own person."

Danny pressed a knuckle against his chin.

"What you're saying is," he said, "the changes I've seen in Taylor's behavior and personality since her awakening might have come about because she was subjected to the same procedure? Or am I misunderstanding something?"

"Without a thorough physiological and psychiatric examination, I wouldn't be able to speak with certainty. Since she hasn't openly exhibited the acquisition of foreign memories, we can hypothesize for now that a non-identical procedure targeted at the control of the unconscious was used. There is, however, a more direct connection."

From the stack, George removed two photographs, placing them beside the image of the MKUltra staff.

"This," he said, pointing to man in the first, "is M.W. Mond as of 1984." He moved his finger to the second, a photograph of an older man in a doctor's coat. "And this is 'Doctor Matthew William O'Brien,' neurologist and senior psychiatric consultant for the PRT. Between July 2010 and April 2011, he served as adjunct staff at the Lord's Bay Regional Hospital, where your daughter was an inpatient. Then, at the beginning of May, he was reassigned to the PRT branch in Houston, Texas."

Danny narrowed his eyes. The man pictured was clearly an aged M.W. Mond.

"He had access to Taylor?" he asked.

"We have no evidence that he was ever directly in contact with her," George replied. "However, he provided psychiatric care to the Brockton Bay Wards, the Protectorate Hero Armsmaster, and to your daughter's attending physician, Doctor Christos Constantinou."

To Danny, it made a degree of sense that Armsmaster would be targeted for manipulation; he was an authority figure that Taylor would undoubtingly obey. She'd been a fan of his ever since she was a small child - and in addition to negotiating the punishment of her bullies, the man had in the past two months expended a worrying amount of personal resources to sponsor her in her debut as the Cape known as Virtue.

Why manipulate the physician, though?

"Do we know what Mond was trying to do with Constantinou?" asked Danny.

George thinned his lips, placing before Danny a photograph of Taylor unconscious upon a hospital bed, baring the skin of her upper body. Damage and inflammation from cutaneous infections was clearly visible - but what struck cold Danny was the state of her left arm.

"... it's whole?" he asked.

"This came from a deleted batch of forensic photographs that the HEC recovered from the Brockton Bay Police Department. According to the metadata, the photograph was taken on the evening of January 3rd, about an hour after your daughter's incident came to light. The members of police responsible for the initial investigation were removed from the case without explanation, and promptly relocated to other precincts. By the time you were informed, Constantinou had begun to operate on Taylor - unnecessarily amputating her arm. It's very likely that her brain was tampered with as well."

"They ... removed her arm," said Danny, glaring at the photograph with clenched teeth. "Why? Why would they do this?"

"When Kazuhira enlisted you and Annette as surrogate parents for Project Athalia, it was with the intent to provide John with a legacy of his own, independent of Big Boss. Combining his genetic material with that of a young woman he favored, we hoped to preserve unto the future the possibilities that had gone unquenched." George paused. "It seems, however, that somebody caught wind of our plans. Presumably through Mond, they've very methodically imparted Taylor with the exact skills and capabilities exhibited by her biological parents - including extrasensory perception of the variety that the CIA's Stargate Project attempted to grant unto non-parahumans. The removal of her arm was to allow for the use of John's combat prosthetic."

"What did they hope to achieve, going through all of this effort?" asked Danny. "What the fuck was so important that they had to mutilate my daughter?"

"The HEC was able to obtain a number of heavily encrypted documents from a desktop computer used by Mond during his time in Brockton Bay," said George. "We haven't been able to decode them yet, but the file titles unexceptionally begin with the letters 'vss.' As you'll recall, John's code name as leader of the Diamond Dogs was 'Venom Snake.' My men have postulated consequently that 'vss' may be an acronym for 'Venom Snake Simulation.' Assuming this is valid, we believe that the party responsible intends to 'cultivate' your daughter as the literal replica of a legendary soldier."

"Who?" said Danny, unable to contain his heat. "Was it Cipher? Are they the ones behind this?"

George shook his head.

"The successors of Cipher care only for the nilch'i, and have no interest in the legends of the past," he said. "The author of these events is likely another." From his stack, he slid forward the photo on bottom.

"Interim Director Iriomote of the PRT?" asked Danny, recognizing the man pictured.

"The nashdoitsoh," George replied. "The Russians know him as Shalashaska, one of the co-founders of the Krasnaya Perchatka mercenary group. However, in my time with the Diamond Dogs, he was called 'Ocelot' - the former overseer of the HEC, and one of John's closest friends. We can't confirm with absolute confidence that he's the one who issued orders to Mond, but it's too much of a coincidence that he would abruptly appear in Brockton Bay."

Danny smiled - but about his glass of cola, his knuckles had whitened.

"Tell me, George," he said, artificially calm. "Is there any way I can arrange a meeting with this 'Ocelot?'"

1880
- Code Talker is born.

1909
- David Oh (Zero) is born.

1922
- The Boss is born.

1935
- John (Big Boss) is born.
- Venom Snake is born.

1942
- Code Talker helps create the U.S. military code talkers' cipher book.

1943
- On a covert mission to assassinate John von Neumann, alleged by German misinformation to be an infiltrator to the Manhattan Project, The Boss receives a bullet wound to the brain, and enters a coma. She recovers three months later, and is again fit for duty within six months.

1944
- Adamska (Ocelot) is born in the midst of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France. Shortly thereafter, he is taken from his parents by agents of the Philosophers.

1945
- "Huey" Emmerich is born.

1950
- Robert Edison Fulton Jr. begins development of the Fulton Surface-to-Air Recovery System (STARS) in collaboration with the CIA and the U.S. Air Force.

1953
- The CIA officially instates Project MKUltra to explore the intelligence applications of mind control.

1959
- M.W. Mond, a doctoral student at McGill University in Montreal, is enlisted as a researcher in Project MKUltra.

1961
- The Boss unofficially becomes the first American to enter space; she is the second human to visit space.

1962
- The creation of the FOX Unit as a special forces division of the CIA is proposed by The Boss and Major Zero.

1964 - [Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]
- The creation of the FOX Unit is officially sanctioned. Outside of The Boss' awareness, Major Zero instates the XOF as the FOX Unit's unconventional support unit.
- The agent code named Albatross (Skull Face) is given command of the XOF.
- Virtuous Mission.
- Operation Snake Eater.
- Death of The Boss.
- The comatose Volgin is transported to a research facility on the outskirts of Moscow.
- Code Talker begins his research of The End's remains.

1965
- The Congo Crisis is brought to a close.

1967
- China conducts its first hydrogen bomb test.
- EVA disappears, last seen in Hanoi.

1968
- Daniel Robert Hebert is born.

1969
- The U.S. Department of Defense successfully sends its first message using ARPANET.

1970 - [Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops]
- The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) enters into force.
- San Hieronymo Incident.
- Major Zero disbands FOX. Using assets acquired from the Philosophers, he forms the beginnings of the organization that would come to be known as Cipher.
- XOF is reorganized as a special forces organization subordinated to Cipher.

1971
- The Democratic Republic of the Congo changes its name to Zaire.
- FOXHOUND is created as a covert operations unit under the U.S. Army, commanded by Big Boss. Roy Campbell serves as the unit's tactician.

1972
- The "Les Enfants Terribles" project begins.
- Clones of Big Boss are born: Eli (Liquid Snake), David (Solid Snake), and George (Solidus Snake).
- Big Boss parts ways with Zero, and leaves the command of FOXHOUND.
- Roy Campbell is instated as acting commander of FOXHOUND.
- Big Boss founds the Militaires Sans Frontieres.

1973
- Code Talker discovers a strain of archaea that metabolizes uranium.
- Project MKUltra is officially discontinued by the CIA. However, Cipher acquires a port of the project's assets, and continues research outside of North America.

1974 - [Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker]
- India conducts an atomic bomb test.
- Peace Walker incident.
- The U.S. and the Soviet Union agree on a general framework for the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II).

1975
- Mother Base is destroyed.
- Zero hides Big Boss in a hospital on Cyprus and leaves him in Ocelot's care. He assigns M.W. Mond to assist Ocelot in the preparation of Venom Snake as a body double for Big Boss.
- Skull Face is reassigned to Africa.
- The vocal cord parasites are resurrected through reverse evolution.
- The Ho Chi Minh Campaign leads to the Fall of Saigon and Vietnam's reunification.
- The Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft dock in orbit.
- Kazuhira Miller founds the Diamond Dogs private military company. He creates the HUMINT Exploitation Company (HEC) as a support organization.

1976
- The "Les Enfants Terribles" project is abandoned.
- Eli is taken to Great Britain.
- Zero suffers brain damage due to Skull Face's parasite attack.
- Hana (Miss Militia) is born.

1977
- An underground nuclear test site is discovered beneath the Kalahari Desert.
- Bowing to international pressure, the South African government abandons the site.
- Zero visits Big Boss, then disappears completely, never to be seen in public again.

1978
- The Marxist organization known as the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistane is (PKK, also known as the Kurdish Workers' Party) officially founded, initiating a new stage in the conflict between the Republic of Turkey and its Kurdish insurgency.

1979
- The Iranian Revolution leads to the Iran Hostage Crisis.
- Eli escapes his handlers in Africa and disappears.
- President Somoza defects following the FSLN uprising, and the Nicaraguan Revolution comes to fruition.
- Vela satellite observes double flash in South African waters (Indian Ocean).
- The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, bringing an end to detente.

1980
- The Iran-Iraq War breaks out.
- Fearing the ripple effects of the Iranian Revolution, Western nations and the Soviet Union support Iraq.
- Emmerich's first child is born with Strangelove. He is named Hal.

1981
- Operation Opera: Israeli bombers strike nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq.

1982
- Scion is first sighted above the Atlantic Ocean.

1983
- A suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
- The U.S. military invades Grenada.
- A boy later known as "Jack" is born to a Caucasian couple in Liberia.

1984 - [Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain]
- Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov dies.
- Big Boss and Venom Snake awaken from their comas in Cyprus.
- Civilian airliner carrying "The Third Boy" crashes in the mountains of Ukraine.
- Quiet suffers full-body burns at the hospital on Cyprus, and undergoes parasite therapy to survive.
- Big Boss is reinstated as the commander of FOXHOUND.
- Metal Gear Sahelanthropus is deployed for the first time.
- Skull Face dies.
- Quiet dies.
- The Olympic Games are held in Los Angeles.
- The games are boycotted by Easter Bloc countries as retaliation for the Western boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
- The first superheroes emerge.

1985
- Gorbachev takes office in the Soviet Union.
- East-West relations enter a second detente.
- Eli escapes from the Diamond Dogs with the Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, attempting to establish a "Kingdom of the Flies" in Lake Natron, Tanzania. However, his efforts are suppressed by Venom Snake.
- The decommissioned Sahelanthropus is sunk in the waters of Seychelles.
- Kazuhira Miller establishes the McDonell's Corporation, and creates Miller's Maxi Buns and Paunch Burger as subsidiary fast-food franchises.
- Hana (Miss Militia) triggers.
- Big Boss extracts Hana from an airbase in Syria.
- Hana is adopted by Roy Campbell, and changes her name to Hannah.

1986
- Rebecca (Alexandria) acquires parahuman powers.
- Doctor Mother and Contessa recruit David (Eidolon) to Cauldron.

1987
- Coming out of secrecy, superheroes begin to establish themselves as public figures.
- DARPA acquires documents pertaining to Venom Snake's combat prosthetic from the CIA.
- King, the leader of the parahuman serial killer alliance known as Slaughterhouse Nine, is killed by Jack Slash and Harbinger. Jack Slash succeeds him as leader of the group, and Harbinger vanishes.
- Meryl Silverburgh is born.

1988
- Alexandria, Hero, Eidolon, and Legend form the original Protectorate.

1989
- The Soviet Union makes a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, plunging the country into a civil war.
- Fall of the Berlin Wall.
- The Soviet Union dissolves.
- The First Liberian Civil War begins. Solidus (George), working as a CIA paramilitary, is covertly deployed to participate. - Embedded within the military outfit known as the Army of the Devil, Solidus becomes the commander of the Small Boys Unit, and temporarily adopts the pseudonym "King" - modelling his group after the Slaughterhouse Nine serial killers alliance.
- As an officer of the Army of the Devil, Solidus recruits a Caucasian boy as a child soldier, naming him "Jack," after Jack Slash. The boy proves his capabilities, and soon comes to be known as "Jack the Ripper."

1990
- The Gulf War begins.

1991
- Liquid (Eli) and Solid (David) are sent to the battlefield. Solid Snake participates in the final months of the Gulf War.
- A radical women's movement headed by Lustrum takes hostages at the University of New Hampshire, threatening to release a biological weapon if demands aren't met. Using the nature of the weapon as a pretense, Venom Snake (posing as Big Boss) orders FOXHOUND to perform an intervention.

1992
- Behemoth, the first of the Endbringers, appears in Marun Field, Iran.

1993
- South Africa acknowledges possession of nuclear weapons and simultaneously pledges to abolish its arsenal.
- The Protectorate is officially formed as a government-sanctioned superhero organization subordinate to the United States Government.
- The Parahuman Response Team is created as the Protectorate's oversight.

1994
- Solid Snake is inducted as an operative of FOXHOUND.

1995 - [Metal Gear]
- The Diamond Dogs private military company is disbanded. Under orders from Big Boss, Venom Snake parts ways with Kazuhira Miller.
- Big Boss officially establishes the fortified military nation "Outer Heaven" in South Africa.
- The Outer Heaven Uprising occurs, but is quashed by Solid Snake.
- Venom Snake dies.
- Big Boss uses Venom Snake's death to falsify his own, disappearing from the United States.
- Solid Snake resigns from FOXHOUND.
- Kazuhira Miller and Code Talker enlist Annette and Daniel Hebert as surrogate parents in "Project Athalia," a plan modelled after the "Les Enfants Terribles" - intended to provide a genetic successor to Venom Snake and Quiet.
- Taylor Anne Hebert is born.

1996
- The First Congo War breaks out. As a result, President Mobufu is ousted from power in Zaire.
- Leviathan appears in Oslo, Norway.
- Petroleum production is unilaterally discontinued across the northern Atlantic.
- Colin (Armsmaster) triggers.

1997
- Zaire officially becomes the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- An oil rig originally situated off the shore of Newfoundland, Canada is sold to the United States PRT. It is relocated to Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, and is repurposed as a defensive stronghold.
- Dr. "Huey" Emmerich commits suicide.

1998
- The Second Congo War breaks out due to causes such as ethnic hostility and resource conflicts.

1999 - [Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake]
- Zanzibar Land Disturbance.
- Scion dons white body suit.
- Leviathan destroys Kyushu, Japan.

2000
- Hero is killed in an engagement between the Protectorate and the Slaughterhouse Nine.
- Alexandria recovers from injuries inflicted by the Siberian.
- The surviving members of the original Protectorate are redesignated as the Triumvirate.
- Cauldron asserts control over Zero's faction of Cipher.
- Cipher's AI, the Patriots System, is redesignated as Trismegistos, and its primary servers are relocated to alternate Earths.

2001
- The PRT investigates Nilbog in Ellisburg, Vermont. Emily Piggot and Thomas Calvert are among the only survivors.
- Naomi Hunter begins an effort to develop non-Tinkertech nanotechnology as a researcher at the biotechnology firm ATGC.

2002
- Camp X-Ray, a black site for housing "enemy combatants," is established at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
- The Angolan Civil War draws to a close.
- Simurgh appears in Lausanne, Switzerland.
- Defense contractor ArmTech begins development of the Metal Gear REX on Shadow Moses Island, Alaska.

2003
- The Second Congo War draws to a close.

2005 - [Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes]
- Shadow Moses Incident.
- The deaths of Kazuhira Miller, Donald Anderson (Sigint), and Dr. Clark (Para-Medic).
- In the wake of Miller's death, Code Talker assumes oversight of the HEC.
- Ocelot leaks the plans for the Metal Gear REX to the public.
- Solid Snake and Hal Emmerich establish Philanthropy, an anti-Metal Gear NGO.
- Leviathan attacks Newfoundland, Canada.

2006
- Nastasha Romanenko, one of Solid Snake's contacts during the Shadow Moses Incident, is assassinated by Contessa.
- George Sears (Solidus Snake) resigns from the presidency of the United States, citing health concerns. He is assassinated by Contessa shortly thereafter, but the death is made to appear as if a result of natural causes.
- ArmsTech purchases ATGC.

2007 - [Metal Gear Solid 2: The Sons of Liberty] (averted)
- The oil tanker USS Discovery sinks in Manhattan Harbor, and work begins on the construction of the Big Shell decontamination facility. However, the incident is a cover for the construction of the first of the Arsenal Gears, a mobile fortress that redundantly links the Trismegistos to terrestrial communications in Earth Bet.
- The U.S. Marines adopt the mass-production model Metal Gear RAY as a standard armament.
- Deputy Director Steven Armstrong of PRT-Boston approaches ArmsTech to develop combat-purpose nanites for use by PRT Officers. However, the project is discontinued due to budgeting issues.

2008
- Annette Hebert dies in a car accident.
- Steven Armstrong becomes Director at PRT-Boston.

2009
- Leviathan attacks New York. Metal Gear RAYs are deployed to defend the Arsenal Gear situated beneath Big Shell.
- Following a traumatic incident, Emma Barnes encounters Sophia Hess.
- Weld appears in Boston; he is immediately recruited to the Wards by Director Armstrong.

2010
- Hungary revises its citizenship laws. The new terms allow even those who have never resided in the country to become naturalized, provided they are a decedent of a Hungarian citizen and have knowledge of the Hungarian language.
- Ocelot initiates "Operation VSS." M.W. Mond is deployed to Brockton Bay.

2011 - [Venom: On Missing Limbs]
- Taylor Hebert is hospitalized after suffering severe injuries. She awakens from a coma several months later.
- U.S. Marines adopt the mass-production model Metal Gear RAY Mk. II as a standard armament.
- Metal Gear Sahelanthropus is incorporated with Tinkertech and reactivated by the Simurgh, placed under the control of an AI pod.
- Ocelot becomes Director at the PRT-ENE.

- The cape known as "Venom" becomes active.

omake / the sins of the father:

July 10th, 1991:

"Strain A is indeed a descendant of the Wolbachia that I used to treat the vocal cord parasites seven years ago - bred primarily to promote survivability in a cell-free medium. Capacity to withstand body temperatures via the febrile response seems to have been significantly improved as well."

"Given that Lustrum's group wanted to use it as a biological weapon, that's hardly surprising."

"I would say that it's remarkably benign for a so-called 'biological weapon.' Transmission isn't airborne, and infection in a mammal produces only male infertility. Comparatively, the changes in a host produced by a Strain B infection are far more noticeable."

"You mentioned something about parthenogenesis in your last report?"

"Yes. As I've said before, naturally occurring Wolbachia appears in four distinct phenotypes: feminizing, parthenogenic, cytoplasmic-incompatible, and male-killing. The strain intended by Lustrum's group for delivery via an entomological vector was of the parthenogenic variant. Harboring a particular bacteriophage that engages in horizontal gene transfer to simulate within an ovum the genomic imprinting that comes of fertilization, the Wolbachia induces spontaneous parthenogenesis in infected females. In lab rats, it also appears to eliminate the female courtship response."

"I've read that induced parthenogenesis in mammals normally leads to the abortion of the fetus, though. I take it that isn't the case here?"

"It would be the case if the ovum were merely being activated in the absence of an imprinting process. The infected parthenotes we've created, however, have grown to adulthood without developmental complications, and are reproductively viable. Being effectively bi-maternal, and thus lacking in the detriments to ontogenetic lifespan theoretically associated with the paternal genome, they furthermore exhibit an enhanced longevity relative to normal individuals. Given a sufficiently large epidemic, virgin birth would eventually come to be the norm."

"Talk about making men reproductively obsolete."

"I believe that was the point."

There was the sound of something slamming against a table.

"Potentially the largest scale bio-terror incident ever to occur on American soil - and all because we let Emmerich carry a biohazard off-base. Rat bastard played us like a damned fiddle!"

"You should be glad that not a single person died of infection. Things would've been much worse if Lustrum's group had gotten their hands on the vocal cord parasites. Attuning their responsiveness to pitch of voice is far less difficult than teaching them a language."

Miller exhaled in disgust.

"What ifs don't matter. What matters is what was, and how we're gonna deal with it. Ahab convinced me to show mercy six years ago - and my mercy's spent. I can't be as kind and forgiving as he is."

"What are you planning, Kazuhira?"

"I'll be dispatching a team to Emmerich's home in Florida, even if Ahab disagrees. This time, we'll be making sure that the good doctor's entirely clean."

"You're not intending to-"

"Don't worry. He won't be harmed, physically. Death by the hand of another isn't the fate for somebody like him ..."

Notes:

Thus, this fic is concluded and up for adoption. Or, if you don't want to actually adopt, writing snippets is fine too!

a) Fugly Bob's was named after Danny.

b) Yes, Danny literally has spies peeping on his daughter. Big Daddy is Watching You.

c) M.W. Mond was based in concept on Yuki Michio, from Tezuka Osamu's 1976 manga series, MW; and on Rock Holmes / Makube Rokuro, another character by Tezuka. His name was inspired by Mustapha Mond, of the Brave New World, but the pseudonym 'O'Brien' was taken from 1984.

Unused background settings: Mond never married, and never had any children, feeling that the desire to sexually reproduce was an acknowledgement one's own obsolescence. Around 1990, he located a young orphan girl by the name of Matreya, who exhibited a particularly high IQ. Using a refinement of the technique he applied to Venom Snake, he overwrote her personality with his own - indefinitely continuing his own existence as a disembodied meme. The M.W. Mond who goes on to manipulate Taylor is essentially a 'cast-off,' who desires simply to work until he dies. He was also responsible for overwriting Screaming Mantis (Kalika in this setting) with the personality of Psycho Mantis.

d) As far as I can tell, there are two 'science fictions' within MGSV's depiction of Wolbachia. The first is that it's capable of surviving mammalian body temperature. The second is that it would be able to adapt the same method of reproduction it utilizes in insects for survival within a mammalian host. The four phenotypes mentioned by Code Talker are real-world strains named for their varying impact on sexual reproduction. This fic presumes that a mammal-oriented parthenogenic phenotype was developed either by Huey Emmerich or Lustrum's group. Virgin birth (self-cloning parthenogenesis) and the reproductive obselesence of males are real-world phenomena that occur in some species of wasps. Lustrum, being less of an extremist than some of her followers, was probably never informed of the bio-terror plan.

e) The lieutenant of Lustrum that perpetrated the Father's Day 1991 bio-terror threat was a former lover to Annette. Resentful that Annette would abandon her for Danny, she chose the University of New Hampshire for the stage of her hostage-taking, as it was the school that Danny was attending at the time; in Earth Bet, the University of New Hampshire would be situated just outside the city limits of Brockton Bay. By certain means, Danny was lured to the school and administered with the male-sterilizing Strain A Wolbachia.

The actual motive behind the hostage incident has nothing to do with Danny, however. The intent was simply to draw attention while compatriots situated elsewhere prepared to introduce the Strain B Wolbachia to local mosquito populations. If the authorities didn't comply with their stated terms, they would release the biological agent.

f) Sidney Gottlieb and Donald Ewen Cameron are historically extant figures, and MKUltra and Stargate were actual CIA projects. Also, for his expertise in poisons, Gottlieb really was nicknamed 'Black Sorceror.'

g) In the Old Testament Book of Kings, one segment details the conflict between the prophet Elijah and Ahab, the King of Israel, husband to the Baalite princess Jezebel - depicted as a vain, evil woman. For his worship of Baal and other sins, Ahab's court was punished by Elijah - initially by the slaughter of Baalite priests, and subsequently by a prophecy that he and his wife would be killed. Elijah was eventually succeeded by the prophet Elisha / Eliseus, which I considered for use as part of the pseudonym Ocelot selects. The idea was discarded, in part because Liquid always hated the name 'Eli.'

h) Ishmael, incidentally, was the son of Abraham that was cast out of the promised land.

i) The Krasnaya Perchatka mercenary group is led by Olga Sergeyevna Gurlukovich, who goes by the name of Rukavitsa. The girl that might've been known as 'Sunny Gurlukovich' in another world was fathered by Ocelot; she's Ocelot's second child. The first is Joseph Iriomote, of the Brockton Bay Police Department.

j) 'Commander South' was named as Solid Snake's superior officer in the North American packaging for the NES release of Metal Gear. However, the name didn't appear in the game itself, and Big Boss served in this role. This fic presumes that Big Boss' pseudonym during his tenure as the Commander of FOXHOUND was 'John South.'

k) Christos Constantinou is the son of Evangelos Constantinou, the reconstructive surgeon who treated Venom Snake in 1984. He is named after Christos Vasilopoulos, Evangelos' voice actor.

l) As of 2011, Code Talker is over 130 years old. He appears healthier and more physically mobile than he did in 1984, but over 75% of his body mass now comprises of parasites. At some point after 1995, he triggered with the Administrator Shard, which vastly improved the degree of control he exerts over his own flesh.

m) Again, Taylor is not a parahuman. Somebody mentioned in a comment that they would've preferred to see a crossover in which Taylor simply triggered as a parahuman with Venom Snake's ability set. In my opinion, though, the specific skillset of Venom Snake is generic enough that the story wouldn't have felt like a crossover with the Metal Gear Solid continuity - and what's MGS when you cut out all of the extremely convoluted writing? Metal Wolf Chaos?

n) Ocelot took up the name 'Charles Adam Iriomote' as an in-world reference to Charlie's Angels; the HAVEN girls follow him around when he transfers to different branches.

Status of MGS2 and MGS4 in Venom: On Missing Limbs

A variant of the MGS2 plot occurred, with the following differences:

1) The USS Discovery was not transporting the Metal Gear RAY. It was an actual oil tanker, and its crew did not include any U.S. Marines.
2) Solid Snake did not infiltrate the USS Discovery. Neither did Ocelot or the Gurlukovich Mercenaries / Krasnaya Perchatka.
3) The development of the Metal Gear RAY was not a secret project. Furthermore, its capabilities as an anti-Metal-Gear weapon were not stressed in any documentation relating to its features.
4) Raiden was never deployed to infiltrate Big Shell.
5) For his hand in the Shadow Moses Incident, Cauldron forced the resignation of Solidus Snake from presidency, and assassinated him before he could mobilize Dead Cell.
6) Dead Cell was not alienated from the US Government by the manipulations of Trismegistos.
7) There was no S3 Plan, and Big Shell was never intended for use as a simulation of the events at Shadow Moses Island. Raiden was never selected as a test subject.
8) Emma Emmerich was never involved in the completion of the Trismegistos AI. A certain Canadian was involved instead, and E.E.'s aid was unnecessary.
9) Rather than the Big Shell Incident, Leviathan attacked Manhattan in 2009.

Consequently, Dead Cell may still be extant, in a different form. Raiden is off somewhere, doing whatever it is former child soldiers do when they end up as adult military personnel. (Except that in this world, Solidus raised him as an imitation of Jack Slash.)

By 2014, the events of the MGS timeline are sufficiently derailed that it's doubtful the plot of MGS4 can occur in any recognizable form. Relevant facts are as follows:

1) Beyond the first generation nanomachines given by Naomi Hunter to Solid Snake, non-Tinkertech nanotechnology has not advanced as rapidly as in MGS canon. Consequently, ArmsTech has not successfully implemented the Sons of the Patriots System as of 2010 / 2011. In the absence of 3rd Generation nanomachines and the SOP, much of the context for MGS4 is missing.
2) As of 2011, Solid Snake is still regarded as a fugitive from the law due to the events that occurred on Shadow Moses Island.
3) The three primary servers of Trismegistos are no longer situated on Earth Bet. Whether Ocelot is realistically capable of gaining access to them, I have no idea.
4) In 2011, 3 years prior to the canonical events of MGS4, Solid Snake has already learned the whereabouts of Ocelot, and decides to confront him.
5) Owing to circumstances described in the fic, Ocelot actually allows himself to be seen on American soil.
6) Unlike the Patriots, Trismegistos is not actively positioning Solid Snake as a countermeasure to Ocelot
7) Ocelot appears to be preparing Taylor for some grand unspecified purpose, adapting techniques that might have normally been applied to the processing of Raiden during the events of MGS2. (Though, if his ultimate purpose is to have her oppose Cauldron, it's hard to say if anything he's done so far can grant her the ability to defeat Path to Victory.)

That said, it's not entirely impossible that the events of MGS4 might be paralleled, but whatever happens would likely diverge drastically from canon.

Taylor's Abilities

At this point in time, Taylor has been given "skills" and "capabilities" possessed by her biological parents. The latter refers specifically to capacities innate to an individual - not acquired via learning or training, and not by the use of an external implement or aid. Ergo, Taylor has not obtained abilities granted by use of the iDroid, the Parasite Suit, or parasites in general. Fair game for inheritance are Quiet's skills as an assassin, and her capabilities as a sniper - unassisted by The One That Covers. Because Quiet's baseline skills are not extreme "obvious" in expression, it appears as if the majority of Taylor's skills come from Venom. Furthermore, the capabilities granted by The One That Covers are not inheritable via Quiet's genetics.

In the original concept for this fic, Ocelot planned for Taylor to encounter some major loss after acquainting herself with the "skills" and "capabilities" mentioned above - possibly the death of Danny, or betrayal by Armsmaster. Ideally, she would suffer severe injuries as a result of her defeat, and survive only by way of parasite therapy granted by an agent of Ocelot. Her body would thus be enhanced with a revised / updated strain of The One That Covers - providing her with a facsimile of Quiet's capabilities.

Identity of the XOF Recruit

She's a major Worm character who was relatively canonical up until some point within the timeframe of this fic - January to June 2011. Following an event that butterflied from Taylor's actions (but wasn't directly caused by Taylor, necessarily; or even traceable to her hand), the character's status quo was massively shaken up, and she was set upon a path of revenge against a certain party. Further on, Cauldron took note of her power, and in the wake of Sahelanthropus' appearance in Boston, chose to intervene and acquire her as an asset - as she might've destroyed herself in seeking vengeance, otherwise.