Hot Coldman

Hot Coldman was a former CIA Director, later Station Chief of Central America, who became heavily involved in the 1974 Peace Walker Incident.

Early career
During the height of the Cold War, Hot Coldman was the DCI and was regarded as a hero in the American intelligence community.

As DCI, Coldman sanctioned the Virtuous Mission in August 1964, allowing for the FOX unit to rescue defecting Soviet rocket scientist Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov, despite his distaste for the newly formed group. In addition, he secretly made plans for The Boss to "defect" to the Soviets, allying herself with GRU colonel Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin, and providing two Davy Crocketts to her new host as a gift. After Sokolov's rescue failed, and his newly designed Shagohod seized, Volgin launched one of the miniature nuclear shells at the scientist's research facility, sparking an international incident. Coldman then planned Operation Snake Eater: the follow-up mission where Naked Snake (with assistance from ADAM and EVA) assassinated The Boss in order to clear the United States of any wrongdoing, as well as "save" the FOX unit. Having come to fear The Boss's overwhelming charisma, the CIA were more than willing to have the "Mother of Special Forces" eliminated. Following the successful operation, however, Coldman lost his position as CIA Director, and was thereby replaced by a new DCI.

Post-Snake Eater
Coldman remained in the CIA to serve as Station Chief of Central America, having been exiled there to prevent him from revealing information on the true reason for Operation Snake Eater. During his time as Station Chief, he initiated the Peace Walker Project, and planned for "a new world order" in which machines would be the rulers of humanity, starting with nuclear deterrence. However, he also wanted his old director's job back as part of the motivation. Coldman also needed funding to carry out his plan, so he wanted to run a test in regards to Peace Walker to convince the CIA to give him the funding needed to start mass production.

In 1970, Gene mentioned "a single, deviously cunning strategist" to Big Boss (Naked Snake) during the FOX rebellion on the San Hieronymo Peninsula. Gene claimed that this individual, who had planned The Boss's death and Snake's mission to Tselinoyarsk (Coldman), had deliberately intended that Volgin nuke Sokolov's facility during the Virtuous Mission, in order to bring about the entire ordeal.

Post-San Hieronymo
At some point, Coldman used one of his Agency contacts to procure blueprints for Aleksandr Leonovitch Granin's Metal Gear concept from Langley. He delivered these to Huey Emmerich to convince him to participate in his "project", and to later blackmail him for the theft should he turn against him. In 1973, Coldman led his own CIA mercenary unit known as the Peace Sentinels and recruited doctors Emmerich and Strangelove to commence the development of the Peace Walker Project in Costa Rica.

A year later, in 1974, the Peace Sentinels kidnapped a Costa Rican girl, Paz Ortega Andrade, after she accidentally stumbled upon a shipping facility, after which she was inflicted with several cuts on her arms. Peace Walker was an AI-controlled nuclear-armed bipedal tank, which Coldman would use to maintain the policy of nuclear deterrence. However, Coldman believed that, in order to prove that it was a perfect deterrent, they should actually launch a nuclear weapon, to demonstrate its power to the world.

Upon learning the true nature of Peace Walker's development, the wheelchair-bound Huey Emmerich was disgusted to the point that he was unwilling to work on the project anymore, even if it meant sacrificing any chance of "walking tall" among his colleagues. Coldman then decided to dispatch his former accomplice by shoving him down the stairs.

Shortly thereafter, Coldman had Peace Walker transported to a remote underground base for the final stages of testing. He was then alerted to Big Boss's presence by Peace Walker's AI, and captured him, after the latter had been distracted by the AI, which had been modeled after his deceased mentor The Boss. Coldman told Big Boss of his involvement in The Boss's death, the mission to Tselinoyarsk in 1964, and his belief in how the world's heroes shall only be machines, believing that The Boss's beliefs were bankrupt. Coldman then ordered for him to be detained and executed, and hinted at wanting Big Boss's Militaires Sans Frontieres wiped out as well. He relented to Strangelove's suggestion that he hand Big Boss over to her, only so that she could acquire information on The Boss from him, to complete the AI. However, he told her that she should not take too long, as he had received word that the SALT-II talks were on schedule, hinting that he intended to demonstrate Peace Walker's capabilities while the U.S. President and his cabinet were in Vladivostok.

Coldman later managed to recapture Paz Andrade, holding her hostage and threatening her life should the Militaires Sans Frontieres interfere with his plans. Encountering Big Boss again, after his escape from imprisonment, Coldman revealed that the MSF's Mother Base was to be the initial target for Peace Walker; not only would the MSF be wiped out, but the radioactive fallout would poison the crops and fishing supplies in Central America, creating "free hands" for the mass production of Peace Walker. Before that, however, he would show the White House that Peace Walker could travel in a versatile manner. He again proclaimed his belief that Peace Walker was the key to true peace, through the control of nukes.

Big Boss then fought with Peace Walker and eventually defeated its bipedal form. Coldman then directed Peace Walker to the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border, towards a U.S. missile base in the neighboring country. Afterwards, Coldman input the final data into Peace Walker in the base's control room. Reaching Coldman's location, Big Boss learned that the falsified trajectory data would fool military intelligence, causing Peace Walker to analyze the threat level, and launch a retaliatory strike.

However, Coldman was betrayed by his supposed KGB ally, Vladimir Zadornov, who planned to have Peace Walker launch at Cuba instead, which would cause anti-American sentiment amongst the international community, thus allowing the Soviets to win the Cold War. Zadornov then tried to get Paz to kill Coldman, reminding her of what he did to her, causing Coldman to apologize to her. However, despite what he did to her, Paz simply could not kill him, not having the heart to do so. Coldman was then shot in the chest by Vladimir, who deliberately missed fatally shooting him in order to get Peace Walker's access code from him. However, Zadornov's plot was undone by his own former allies, the Sandinista group led by Amanda Valenciano Libre.

Coldman, slowly succumbing to his injuries, managed to activate Peace Walker, despite its new launch target of Cuba. The false trajectory data was also transmitted towards NORAD, forcing the U.S. military to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike, since most of the White House cabinet were absent due to the SALT-II negotiations. Although he maintained his belief that they would never retaliate due to their human nature (which he viewed as a weakness), he also implies that he wouldn't care if they did launch, as by the time the decision is made, he'll have already died from his injuries. He also did this with the intention of dying before he could reveal the abort code, of which he was the only one who knew about the abort code. However, Coldman never lived long enough to see his plans end in ultimate failure by the efforts of Big Boss, Strangelove, Huey, and even Peace Walker's AI itself.

Posthumous
Although Coldman himself died, his beliefs about machines ruling over humanity hadn't, as they were later implemented by the Patriots with their AIs. Like Coldman, the AIs managed to eliminate every trace of The Boss's final will by the time of Liquid Ocelot's insurrection in 2014.

Personality
Coldman generally showed a calm, manipulating demeanor. However, beneath that, he was a complete psychopath. He showed his intelligent side when he planned Operation Snake Eater, as well as using several factors, including his own death, to ensure that his own plan for Peace Walker would not fail. His psychotic side unveiled itself when he revealed that he planned to launch a nuclear weapon at Mother Base to, other than destroy the Militaires Sans Frontieres, also have the nuclear fallout be scattered by the trade winds, which would poison crops and fish supplies. This would ensure that he would have "free hands" to work on the mass production of Peace Walker after the test was complete, despite the fact that many of those same people would most likely die from external radiation. Additionally, he was entirely confident in his belief that the U.S. would be unwilling to retaliate to an imaginary Soviet attack, caused by his transmission of false data to NORAD, despite the possibility of causing an all-out nuclear war.

Coldman was also incredibly sadistic, as evidenced by his glee and satisfaction in planning The Boss's death, his ecstasy towards realizing that the initial target for Peace Walker to launch its nuke just so happened to be the same place that Mother Base was located, as well as his smiling when he shoved a wheelchair-bound Huey Emmerich down a stairway.

Coldman also seemed to be a misanthrope, harboring a hatred for Humanity, or at the very least not having faith in it, as he mentioned that he felt that fully-automated machines were more capable and effective and thus "perfect" for nuclear deterrence, due to "humans making mistakes" in regards to retaliation [or lack thereof].

He also was shown to have a significant amount of hatred of The Boss as well as her ideals, as evidenced by the aforementioned glee and satisfaction in his planning The Boss's death, as well as his declaring that her ideals were also "bankrupt" and buried alongside her, even declaring that the age of heroes was over.

He was also paranoid, or at least more than willing to kill innocents/members of his own group to keep his project a secret if they find out, as evidenced by Strangelove's claims that had she not helped Cecile by blindfolding her and having her stay in the cell blindfolded, Coldman would have had her executed as soon as possible had he found out, his statement about how he should have "taken care" of Paz back at Puerto del Alba's shipment facility, as well as Strangelove's deduction that Hot Coldman was most likely going to kill her, and presumably the other Peace Sentinel members, off after the tests were complete.

Trivia

 * Coldman had a tattoo on the back of his head with the image of a wolfman holding a Peace symbol, and the words "Homo Homini Lupus", which translates to "Man is a wolf to [his fellow] man."
 * The tattoo in question was mistaken as a coyote by Snake when they encountered each other. Coldman corrected him saying, "Lobo is the name." Lobo means "Wolf" in Spanish and Portuguese.
 * Amanda, and several Nicaraguans, compared Coldman to William Walker, a United States filibuster who managed to gain control of Nicaragua in 1856. He was overthrown a year later and was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860.
 * Coldman was the one who named the various AIs of the Peace Walker Project (sans BS-Imago), after the U.S. presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore. These names were later used for four of the Patriots' proxy AIs in the 2000s.

Behind the scenes
Hot Coldman is one of the main antagonists featured in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. He is voiced in Japanese by Mugihito, who also portrayed Sigma in the Mega Man X series; another former hero who fell from grace, and caused a catastrophe involving missiles. Unused character designs of Coldman, included in a promotional art booklet, feature him wearing a black coat and a black fedora, while holding a briefcase, with a rubber glove on his left hand.

In an issue of Famitsu that revealed some parts of Peace Walker, Coldman claimed that he had found the perfect deterrent. The Boss's AI then says that it is Jack, to which Jack, blushing, most likely out of anger, says "From now on, call me Big Boss!" This was not included in the final version.

In Peace Walker, Coldman personally reveals to Big Boss that he had planned the operation to eliminate The Boss, implying that he may have been the "deviously cunning strategist" that Gene mentions in Portable Ops (an individual whom fans had previously believed to have been either Ocelot, Zero, or the DCI from Snake Eater). Coldman's possible role in the nuclear destruction of OKB-754, has not been confirmed in any official source.

Coldman's statements about how "the age of heroes was over, buried along with The Boss's bankrupt beliefs," and that "machines will rule the world," foreshadows the rise of the Patriots' AIs and their elimination of The Boss's final will, through the implementation of the war economy in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Due to his demise during Chapter 4, Coldman is the only major character in Peace Walker other than Naked Snake/Big Boss who cannot be recruited or placed onto Mother Base's staff. Conversely, Zadornov, though never actually recruited, is featured in Mother Base's staff, due to being a prisoner during Chapter 5.

According to conceptual storyboard images included in the Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Official Arts book, Coldman was originally intended to have been directly murdered by Zadornov by a shot to the head, with Paz being absent entirely.