Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-79.52.61.188-20130415085048/@comment-1672596-20130709154616

Misterbunnsy wrote: Just to back up Weedle here, it even states it on our very own wiki page. With citing for the quote from the game, albeit a shortened quote...

What needs to be understood is the limitless resources that Cipher had from the Philosopher's Legacy. The full microfilm detailed the transactions that concealed the Legacy in various hidden bank accounts around the world. The entire collection of funds was around 100 billion dollars around 1945. Inflation over the years makes it closer to 1.3 trillion dollars in 2012. 100 billion dollars is a lot of money, even for today's standards. Zero even set up the San Hieronymo incident to recover half of the Legacy. That tells you how much influence he had even back then.

With the Legacy in hand, there was nothing Zero couldn't influence. Inciting incidents like San Hieronymo and Peace Walker are examples. Well, actually, I'm not so sure if Zero actually used the Legacy for San Hieronymo. It's strongly implied that he didn't even use the legacy until AFTER gaining full control of it in the aftermath of it. At best, the CIA Director used it to incite the San Hieronymo Takeover. Now, for Peace Walker, yeah, he did most likely use it there (heck, EVA even mentioned that the legacy was put to good use according to them).

As far as the codename, he might have done it to keep his reputation as Big Boss unsullied, but then again, its implied they are already aware of his exploits (the MSX2 manual mentioned that Outer Heaven was formed and led by a legendary mercenary, although the name wasn't known.).