Venom Snake

"I won't scatter your sorrow to the heartless sea. I will always be with you. Plant your roots in me. I won't see you end as ashes. You're all diamonds."

- Venom Snake, to his fallen comrades

Punished "Venom" Snake, also known as V, Ahab, Big Boss or Big Boss's phantom, was a medic and one of Big Boss's lieutenants who worked for the military unit Militaires Sans Frontières in 1975 and a military commander in 1984 and 1995. In 1984, facial surgeries permitted him to act as a look-alike for Big Boss, after the former medic passed 9 years in a coma, and further lead the military unit Diamond Dogs, founded by his former boss's comrade, Kazuhira Miller, as a successor to MSF. While commanding the unit, Venom Snake defeated Skull Face and his XOF unit.

Venom Snake's new identity was purposely conceived as means of protecting the real Big Boss while exponentially spreading his legend on a wider scale. He became known as the "phantom" of Big Boss and commanded the military fortress of Outer Heaven when Big Boss returned to FOXHOUND. He was finally killed by one of Big Boss's clones, Solid Snake, in an operation commanded by the real Big Boss himself.

Militaires Sans Frontières
The medic served with Big Boss in the MSF at least as late as March 1975. At one point, he was hailed by Big Boss himself as being the MSF's best operative.

XOF Trojan Horse operation
In March 1975, the medic was stationed on board the helicopter sent to extract MSF commander Big Boss and rescued POWs Chico and Paz Ortega Andrade.

During the flight back to Mother Base, Big Boss ordered the medic to look over the unconscious Paz, after Chico noticed surgical scars on her abdomen. Suspecting that a bomb had been concealed inside her, the medic was forced to operate on her immediately, without time to administer anesthesia. During several dire moments, the medic successfully removed the bomb from her gut, as Big Boss and Chico held her down.

Although the bomb was quickly disposed of, their efforts were for naught, as a second bomb had been planted inside her. After coming to, Paz, aware of the impending detonation, jumped from the helicopter to avoid the MSF personnel being killed along with her. As the medic shielded Big Boss, the bomb detonated and his body bore the brunt of the explosion, somewhat shielding Big Boss, before the helicopter was sent into a collision with an enemy chopper.

He ultimately survived, although with extensive injuries, including 108 foreign agents embedded into his body that included human bones and teeth, as well as various metallic shrapnel, one of which was embedded into the right side of his forehead, penetrating the cerebral cortex. It was embedded deeply enough that it could not be removed due to it potentially causing a hemorrhage. He also lost his right eye and fell into a coma, alongside Big Boss. Ocelot also inferred that the injuries were such that he was effectively dead. During the coma, at the behest of Zero, Venom Snake was given a plastic surgery to resemble Big Boss to act as a decoy, which had been completed by the time of Zero's final visit to Big Boss before Zero himself succumbed to his parasite infection by the 1980s. In order to ensure the ruse worked, he was also given hypnotherapy to have him possess Big Boss's memories and thus have him believe he was the real deal, with Ocelot telling Big Boss after the latter regained consciousness that the medic would have wanted this.

The Phantom Pain
On February 26, 1984, Venom Snake awoke from his coma. Another patient named Ishmael, who in actuality was the real Big Boss in disguise, managed to successfully get Venom Snake out of the hospital he was in. As the two escaped in an ambulance, the real Big Boss was knocked unconscious after taking a shot from a helicopter. Venom Snake attempted to drive the ambulance, but he crashed into a river bank. When Venom Snake regained consciousness, Ishmael was gone, and he was greeted by Ocelot, who would accompany Venom Snake on a trip to Afghanistan in order to rescue Miller.

After rescuing Miller, the three returned to the newly constructed Mother Base, where Venom Snake took command of Diamond Dogs. Venom Snake performed several missions in order to expand their new Mother Base so that they could fight Cipher. Unbeknownst to Venom Snake until later, Ocelot was aware of Venom Snake's true identity the whole time, and he was monitoring Venom Snake as part of a series of tests to see if the hypnotherapy to turn Venom Snake into Big Boss's body double had truly worked, which it did.

Venom Snake and Diamond Dogs rose to huge heights as they collected resources, expanded their facilities, and swelled their ranks with volunteers and "recruits" forcibly extracted from the field. "Big Boss" and Miller were eventually able to exact revenge on Skull Face and his XOF unit.

After shooting off Skull Face's right arm and leg, mirroring injuries sustained by Miller when he was originally captured by XOF, Snake and Miller left him to die as Huey finished him off. The aftermath led Venom Snake to exile Huey for his recklessness (more specifically, his collaboration with Eli as well as causing a devastating parasite outbreak and wolbachia mutation on Mother Base that forced Venom Snake to kill many of his own men that were infected). Some time later, Venom Snake would learn from Ishmael that he was a body double and that Ishmael himself was Big Boss. Venom Snake took up the name and kept up the ruse. Diamond Dogs itself was a smoke screen to place all focus on Venom while the real Big Boss could lay the ground work for Outer Heaven.

After Outer Heaven's construction had been completed, Big Boss's reputation as a mercenary had traveled far and wide thanks to the activities of Venom. While he knew that mercenaries around the world would eventually rally to his cause, he knew that it would also bring the attention of government agencies that would grow suspicious of his activities. Needing to draw attention away from Outer Heavan, Big Boss himself decided to return to the U.S. to rejoin FOXHOUND as its commander and left Venom Snake in charge. In 1995, Venom Snake began an uprising within Outer Heaven by the order of Big Boss to bring chaos to the Patriots, who had been growing without control in spite of their leader Zero falling into a vegetative state. Venom Snake managed to capture the first operative sent by Big Boss, codenamed Gray Fox. Big Boss then sent his least experienced agent, a rookie codenamed Solid Snake, who happened to be Big Boss's cloned son, with the objective of rescuing Fox and destroying Metal Gear. He also sent a tape labeled, "Operation Intrude N313," the name of Solid Snake's operation, to Venom Snake to make sure he was prepared. Despite all this, Solid Snake rescued Fox and destroyed the Metal Gear weapon known as TX-55 Metal Gear. Afterwards, Venom Snake intervened and revealed himself. The two fought with Solid Snake being the victor, killing Venom Snake. This led to the real Big Boss setting up the eventual Zanzibar Land Disturbance with the remnants of Outer Heaven.

Personality and traits
During his days in MSF, the medic was one of Big Boss's best and most trusted men around. Venom Snake, while impersonating Big Boss, adopted much of his personality. Physically, Venom Snake was similar to Big Boss. Following his escape from the Cypriot hospital and his recovery from muscle atrophy, Venom Snake gained muscle mass similar to that of Big Boss. Before his operation, Venom Snake had slicked-back brown hair. After the operation, he greatly resembled a heavily-scarred Big Boss, so as to serve as his body double.

As a result of wounds suffered during the destruction of MSF, Venom Snake had a piece of shrapnel embedded in his forehead in the shape of a horn, and had also lost his left arm, having it replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic.

Having gone under subtle hypnotherapy, Venom adopted the traits and personality of his former superior, Big Boss, being unaware of his true identity.

Like his mental and physical template, Venom Snake did show compassion for his enemies as he chose not to kill Quiet or Huey and instead had the former imprisoned and the latter exiled with food and water.

Snake appeared to suffer a form of amnesia (or more accurately, the memory transfer was not completed), as both Miller and Ocelot had to remind him of certain events, such as how he led Militaires Sans Frontières and how Miller helped him lead "his" old unit. He also did not possess Big Boss's fluency in Russian, relying instead on a translator. Despite this, however, he did seem to remember other things, such as the intent of Metal Gear ZEKE during the Peace Walker Incident, as Snake compared it to what Huey wanted to use his prototype Battle Gear for by privately remarking to Miller that the entire thing seemed like he was having "déjà vu."

Behind the scenes
Punished "Venom" Snake is the main protagonist of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. In The Phantom Pain, Venom Snake's name and facial appearance prior to surgery is determined by the player, despite the medic having predetermined facial features in Ground Zeroes.

It is heavily implied that Venom Snake himself (and his nondescript identity as a medic) serves as a deliberate player avatar, due to his original appearance being reliant on the player's decisions and how Big Boss addresses him in a manner that breaks the fourth wall.

The unidentified field medic appears during the closing cutscenes of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Because of the cinematic angles during the ending scenes in Ground Zeroes, there is never a clear view of the medic's face. However, the medic's full appearance has been seen in the PC version through the use of mods. A PC user extracted the facial model and textures for the medic and found that he shared identical scars to Big Boss. In The Phantom Pain, in the cutscene with a flashback to the events of Ground Zeroes, the field medic is shown wearing a balaclava.

On the Command Center menu, if the player looks closely at Venom Snake's reflection, it shows the avatar the player created, hinting at the plot-twist of Venom Snake not being Big Boss. In addition, a leaked Italian version of the Piggyback game guide for The Phantom Pain strongly implied Venom Snake's true identity is separate from Big Boss, although they never explicitly confirmed it due to Konami and at that time Kojima Productions specifically forbade them from giving any statements about Ishmael's identity. The GDC 2013 reveal trailer for The Phantom Pain had first hinted at his existence when Kazuhira Miller, after learning about Big Boss falling into a coma, asks "What about him?" before the scene cut away.

The plot twist of Snake not truly being Big Boss is hinted when he meets The Boss AI and Huey, as the AI states, "You're not Snake, are you?", and Huey notices a difference between the two. It was also hinted at when Ocelot explained that Eli was not Venom Snake's clone, and that the genetic examination of the two had resulted negative.

Fulfilling his role as a "phantom" of Big Boss, he returns as the final boss of the original Metal Gear via a retcon established in the ending timeline though the shrapnel in his head was removed and his prosthetic left arm was replaced by the game's events.

Venom Snake's alias as Ahab is a reference to the central character from the novel Moby-Dick; the same way that Big Boss's adopted identity as Ishmael is also derived from the main character of the novel.

Venom Snake being made to believe he is Big Boss via hypnotherapy is similar to Ocelot being led to believe he was Liquid.

According to Hideo Kojima's notes in the Piggyback Collector's Edition Guide's art gallery, Venom Snake (or rather, Big Boss as he is identified in the notes) losing his arm was decided early on in the project, and also implied that he was supposed to lose two fingers from his right hand as well. He also mentioned that the powerful prosthetic arm was implemented to allow players to appreciate the full intended experience, as while Snake could technically still wield weapons, it would have made it difficult to appreciate such.

Although the Truth ending reveals that Venom Snake is not Big Boss, his exact reaction to learning of this revelation is left ambiguous, as he briefly demonstrates a smirk as if accepting and embracing the role. After he flips the tape "From Man Who Sold the World", he sees Operation Intrude N313, which is the name of the mission in the original Metal Gear. In the next scene, Venom sees himself in the mirror with a bloody face and larger horn, before punching the mirror.

A hidden fourth ending of The Phantom Pain, which is unlocked if all worldwide FOB nukes are destroyed, suggests that Venom Snake has his own interpretation of The Boss will, which is different from Zero and Big Boss.

Appearances

 * Metal Gear
 * Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
 * Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain