Sunny Emmerich

Sunny (Russian: Санни Гурлюкович) is the daughter of Olga Gurlukovich and a child prodigy in computer programming.

Early life
In 2008, Olga gave birth to Sunny at a hospital run by the Patriots, who took the child away from her, and sent her a photograph of the child monthly. They later used this as a way of forcing Olga to assist Raiden during the Big Shell Incident: if Raiden were to have died during the incident, then Sunny would have been killed by the Patriots. Olga eventually gave her life to protect Raiden, and the child whom she never got to raise. The identity of her father is unknown, but was probably one of the Gurlukovich Mercenaries.

Sunny was later rescued by Raiden, who was badly tortured in the process and converted into a Cyborg Ninja. After escaping, Raiden covertly left Sunny in the care of Solid Snake and Otacon, who raised her aboard the Nomad. Having been used by the Patriots as a computer programmer, she became a child prodigy, helping to build both Metal Gear Mk. II and the worm cluster (known as FOXALIVE), which in the end shut down the Patriots' AIs. She enjoyed making eggs for Snake and Otacon; which she used as a kind of fortune telling, calling it her "Sunny Side Up" fortune telling. If the eggs turned out well, the group's current mission would be a success. Unfortunately, she wasn't actually very good at making eggs, and they burned more often than not. It is unknown how often her cooking's predictions came true.

Sunny had been in hiding most of her life, having little to no social skills and no experience of the outside world beyond computers. Somewhat fittingly, Otacon acted as a surrogate father, and she inherited some of his mannerisms. She had a very pronounced stutter that slowly faded away after befriending Naomi Hunter. She was also very protective of Raiden and Snake, often chastizing the latter for his smoking habit. During the Twin Suns mission, after Raiden recovered enough to return to battle, Sunny requested that, if Raiden finds Naomi, he tell her that "I cooked them right."

After the Patriots were destroyed, Sunny found her first "outside" friend, a local boy, at the wedding of Meryl Silverburgh and Johnny Sasaki. The boy didn't speak English, but she had fun playing with him anyway, and gave him the Metal Gear Mk. III as a present. In the end, Sunny decided to accompany Otacon in witnessing the final days of Solid Snake.

Personality
Early on, Sunny was shy and spoke with a stutter. Having previously been held hostage by the Patriots, she hadn't really made friends with anyone outside of Philanthropy and computers, and in fact computers were the closest to what she could call a family, although she did desire to find out about what her mother was like. However, throughout the mission, she started to overcome her shyness after meeting Naomi. She also may have had a very low self esteem, as she would become hurt at some comments towards her, even if they weren't necessarily meant to be insulting or critical. This was especially evident when she tried to serve eggs to Otacon and an unconscious Snake after the events of the failed assassination mission in the Middle East. After Snake regained consciousness and noticed her eggs, he remarked, "I don't remember the sun being so flat." At a result, Sunny was visibly hurt by the comment.

Sunny had a great amount of care and loyalty for Old Snake and Raiden, especially Raiden because he was the one who saved her from the Patriots. This was evident by her scolding Snake for smoking on the Nomad, and during the briefing before the Eastern European mission, even taking away and disposing of the last cigarette before Snake could get the chance to smoke it. She also prevented Snake from taking Raiden with him as he was still recovering from his injuries.

Sunny would usually sing while she cooked her eggs, prior to Old Snake's mission briefings aboard the Nomad. In the Middle East briefing she sang digits from Pi, and in the South America briefing, she sang the numbers of the Fibonacci Sequence. Prior to the briefing on Eastern Europe, she sang elements from the periodic table (mispronouncing the element Erbium as "Ebrium"), and for Shadow Moses, she sang the names of stations along the Nose Japanese private railway. During the mission on board Outer Haven, Sunny cooked eggs around the time of Snake's passage through the microwave hallway, jumping up and down when they became ready.

Behind the scenes
Sunny is referred to as a boy in the English version of Metal Gear Solid 2, even though her gender is not specified in the Japanese version. Metal Gear Solid 4 producer Ryan Payton stated in an interview that the English translator of Metal Gear Solid 2 probably just assumed that Olga's child would be a boy. This was later referenced in the novelization for Metal Gear Solid 2, where, shortly after Snake mentions that he'll save Olga's child, Raiden questions to Snake how he can be certain that Olga's child is male.

During one of the mission briefing cutscenes, Sunny can be found playing a PlayStation Portable for a brief period of time while cooking eggs. She can also be seen with a PlayStation 3 in another mission briefing.

If the player uses their iPod to listen to "Oishii Two-Han SeiKatsu," Sunny can be seen dancing on the Nomad video feed on the pause menu.

The secret weapon Solar Gun has its description as a monologue from Sunny, herself describing a dream where she was enveloped in an ominous darkness looking upon a hopeless world, before being saved with kind and hopeful words from a mysterious boy wielding the power of the sun itself.