Vulcan Raven

"The raven on my head... It thirsts for his blood."

- Vulcan Raven, speaking of Solid Snake

Vulcan Raven (バルカン・レイブン) was a member of FOXHOUND who participated in the unit's revolt on Shadow Moses Island in 2005. He was a Shaman and was raised in the cold state of Alaska.

Early Life and Career
Vulcan Raven was born to Native Alaskan American and Inuit parents. He had a large tattoo-like raven birthmark across his forehead and petroglyph tattoos covered his body. Raven was raised as a shaman by his people, giving him shamanic intuition and spiritual abilities.

Raven graduated from the University of Alaska and spent a few more years living in his homeland. He took part in the Eskimo-Indian Olympics, and won many Muk-tuk eating and Ear Pull contests; an event where two opponents pull each other's ear while enduring the harsh cold, intended to test both spiritual and physical strength. He was also alleged to have excelled in the Four Man Carry event, having been able to accomplish it with six men. As a hobby, Raven enjoyed trapping deer within Alaska's perilous Brooks Mountains. On one trip across the frozen Bering Strait to Siberia, Raven met then-GRU operative Revolver Ocelot.

After that, he joined the Soviet special forces unit Vympel. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he was demoted along with other Vympel operatives following Boris Yeltsin's coup in 1993. Raven decided to leave Russia and become a mercenary for hire, eventually joining Big Boss's mercenary dispatch company Outer Heaven. The destruction of Outer Heaven was FOXHOUND operative Solid Snake's first mission, but Raven and Snake did not meet on this occasion.

With Outer Heaven in ruins, Raven, on the recommendations of Revolver Ocelot, joined FOXHOUND himself, becoming the unit's heavy weapons/explosive ordnance specialist. During his FOXHOUND years, he excelled at using a portable modification of the M61A1 20mm multi-barreled autocannon (the origin of his codename), which is widely used on American military tactical aircraft, such as the F-16.

Eventually, he and the other members of FOXHOUND (Liquid Snake, Decoy Octopus, Sniper Wolf, Psycho Mantis, Revolver Ocelot, and Genome Soldiers) grew tired of their roles as puppets to the government, and took over the nuclear disposal facility on Shadow Moses.

As Solid Snake travelled across Shadow Moses, he encountered an M1 Abrams tank with Raven as its commander. Snake destroyed the tank by throwing grenades into the open hatches as the gunner and loader tried to deal with him.

Later in the mission, Snake faced him a second time inside a freezing cold warehouse. Here, Raven fought Snake with his M61 Vulcan cannon, though was ultimately defeated. In his final moments, Raven offered Snake a "hint", telling him that the DARPA Chief whom Snake had met and saw die was actually Decoy Octopus. He did not explain why or how he was killed, or why he was disguised in the first place, but declared that Snake would always follow a life of bloodshed wherever he went. He also vaguely alluded to the fact that Snake was an artifically conceived clone, stating that he and Liquid "are from another world", one which he did not wish to know.

"The path you walk on has no end. Each step you take is paved with the corpses of your enemies... Their souls will haunt you forever... you shall have no peace... Hear me, Snake! My spirit will be watching you!"

- Vulcan Raven's final words to Solid Snake

As he made this declaration, he was eaten alive by his own ravens, becoming "one with them."

Trivia
After his M1 tank was defeated by Solid Snake, Revolver Ocelot warned Raven that Snake should not be underestimated. Raven responded by reminding Ocelot of his own defeat and addressing him as "General Ivan" (Ivan is an ethnic slur towards a person of Russian descent).

Behind the Scenes

 * In the 1998 E3 promo, Raven's name is misspelled as "Valcan Raven."
 * Yukitoshi Hori, the Japanese voice actor of Vulcan Raven, later voiced The Sorrow, a character who also possessed supernatural powers.

Gameplay
Killing any of the ravens prior to Snake's second fight with Vulcan Raven, in Metal Gear Solid, will make him chastise Snake for "killing his friends."

A McFarlane action figure of Raven appears in the Tanker chapter of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. It is positioned in front of a flashlight, giving not only the player, but also Snake and Otacon, the impression that Raven himself is standing around the corner, M61 in hand. Shooting it will cause it to "speak" and fire small BB pellets. These pellets are shot out of the toy M61 Vulcan autocannon at a very low velocity, so they don't pose much of a threat. The action figure also appears in one of the flooded rooms in the Big Shell, where it floats amongst other pieces of debris.