Hal Emmerich

Dr. Hal Emmerich, nicknamed Otacon, is the eccentric chief engineer of Metal Gear REX.

Otacon became a close friend of Solid Snake after he rescued him from Shadow Moses Island where he was developing REX in 2005. Once learning of REX's nuclear strike capabilities, he joined forces with Solid Snake. Later, he became a founding member of the anti-Metal Gear NGO Philanthropy, along with Nastasha Romanenko. A devoted fan of anime, Hal's chosen nickname is derived from the Japanese animation and culture convention Otakon, which he regularly attended.

Early years
Hal's father was a big fan of science fiction movies, and named his son after the character HAL 9000 featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey. His father eventually divorced Hal's mother and remarried a British woman named Julie Danziger. Danziger had a child of her own named Emma, and Emma adopted her new stepfather's surname of Emmerich. Hal and Emma became very close, and Emma developed an infatuation. When Hal was a teenager, he was seduced by his stepmother, and they had a brief affair. In 1997, after Hal's father learned of this, he decided to commit suicide by drowning himself in the family pool, dragging Emma in with him. Emma expected her brother to save her, but he didn't know it was happening as he was with his stepmother at the time. Surviving the incident, Emma always claimed to hate her brother.

Afterwards, Hal ran away from home and didn't see any of his family members until several years later, although he did maintain contact with Julie Danziger via letters, where he ended up learning about Emma's intense aquaphobia as a result of the "accident." He dropped out of school but through Internet-based self study, he secured acceptance to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned his PhD at a young age. He also earned additional Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from Princeton University. Scouted by the FBI as a student, he joined their ERF (Engineering Research Facility). After being caught monitoring and hacking their central database, he was forced out of the FBI.

Eventually, Otacon was hired by the defense contractor ArmsTech. At ArmsTech, Emmerich developed a series of new technologies, including stealth camouflage, that were officially adopted by the US Army. Following this, he became the lead engineer for the Metal Gear REX project. He jumped at the chance to make an actual mecha-type robot, which appear frequently in the anime he enjoyed. He was led to believe that it was a mobile defense system, but in reality it was a nuclear doomsday weapon.

In 2005, Otacon was held hostage by Liquid Snake and was placed under heavy guard. Otacon encountered Solid Snake, who informed him of the true nature of his creation. Devastated, Otacon realized that he had written yet another chapter in his family's dark history: his grandfather had worked on the Manhattan Project and his father was born on August 6, 1945 (the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima).

During this time, Otacon had developed a strong attraction to FOXHOUND member Sniper Wolf, possibly under the effects of Stockholm Syndrome. Distraught that Snake would have to kill her, Otacon eventually came to terms with her, himself, and his position in life. With Otacon's assistance, Snake was able to destroy Metal Gear REX and defeat the terrorist uprising. Late into the mission, after it was discovered that the Pentagon had sent an air strike to try and nuke Shadow Moses, destroying all evidence of what happened, Otacon decided to remain in the base so he can unlock the security locks in the loading tunnel leading to the outside of the base, nearly sacrificing himself in the process. However, the bombing orders were cancelled shortly before the bombers arrived.

Post-Shadow Moses
Afterwards, he ended up moving to England, ostensibly because relatives were living there. After Revolver Ocelot placed the schematics of REX on the black market, Otacon and Nastasha set up Philanthropy. Following this, Snake and Otacon began a partnership and close friendship that would continue through the next decade, as they would continue to destroy Metal Gear REX derivatives that were currently being developed by almost every country in the world. During their operations, they also broke into a facility and stole Liquid Snake's corpse, deducing that his corpse might end up coming in handy sometime soon. During one of their investigations, this time in regards to a U.S. Navy derivative of Metal Gear, he also stumbled upon evidence of the Patriots' involvement in the project, namely the name "the Patriots", although he couldn't find out any more about them due to security being too tight. He then decided that they may as well use another mission as a way to find out more about them.

In 2007, Otacon acted as Snake's radio support during his infiltration of the dummy oil tanker USS Discovery. Philanthropy intended to expose the existence of the U.S. Marines' Metal Gear RAY, which was being transported along the Hudson River, based on intel leaked to Otacon by a trusted source. Snake was to transfer photographs of RAY directly to Otacon, via the Codec, but after discovering that their transmissions were being monitored, he requested that Snake use a terminal on board the tanker instead. To do this, he hacked into an Army IC router in Ohio, disguising the data transfer within the Marine Commandant's speech feed, using BATON and TADIL-J format.

Otacon had intended to extract Snake at the Verazanno Bridge, but the mission ended in disaster when the tanker was sunk by Revolver Ocelot. Otacon managed to sail over to the still sinking vessel in a small boat and rescue Snake. Faking Snake's death by using the body of Liquid Snake, the two went underground after Snake was framed for causing the incident, and they continued their anti-Metal Gear work outside of the public's watchful eye.

In April 2009, Otacon and Snake came out of hiding after learning that a new Metal Gear was being developed at the Big Shell; an offshore cleanup facility set up in the wake of the tanker's supposed oil spill, and recently taken over by terrorists; without his knowledge, it was Liquid who sent information in order to lure Snake to the Big Shell to "free" him. Hal also discovered that his step-sister Emma Emmerich was involved in developing the new Metal Gear. They infiltrated the facility in order to rescue Emma and stop the Patriots' Arsenal Gear project from continuing, which the terrorists intended to hijack. Snake disguised himself as Navy SEAL Iroquois Pliskin, while Otacon pretended to be Big Shell's security systems architect, entering the facility with Peter Stillman and SEAL Team 10, in order to bypass the plant's security measures for them. Otacon later assisted Snake, when he was knocked unconscious from an explosion in one of the plants struts.

After meeting Raiden, Otacon and Snake were able to rescue Emma from the bowels of the Big Shell and reunite the two step siblings. They learned that Emma was actually a Patriot engineer, who had been hired to build the Arsenal's AI system, GW. Otacon eventually reconciled with his estranged sister, and she helped them to upload a worm cluster into GW, which they assumed would destroy it. However, Emma died shortly afterwards after succumbing to a knife wound inflicted by terrorist member Vamp. Despite falling into deep despair over the loss of his sister, Snake encouraged Otacon to move on and rescue all the hostages held in the Big Shell. He then stayed in contact to support Raiden until he defeated terrorist leader Solidus Snake. When Raiden discovered that his C.O., the Colonel, was acting strangely, Otacon decided to analyze his previous transmissions between the two. He found that the Colonel's signal originated from within GW itself.

When Snake met back with Otacon, he was given the disk to go over that contained the data of the Wisemen's Committee's names and whereabouts. Otacon found from the disc that not only was one of the names was one of Philanthropy's biggest contributors, but apparently all twelve of them had been dead for more than 100 years. This turned out to be a false lead and, as Snake bluntly put it, "a load of crap."

Post Big Shell
After the Big Shell Incident, Solid Snake and Otacon disappeared and lived a quiet life. In 2011, Raiden was able to rescue Sunny from the Patriots' clutches and Otacon adopted her.

In 2014, Roy Campbell (thanks to the booming War Economy) contracted Old Snake to help eliminate Liquid Ocelot, the CEO of the mother company Outer Heaven. Snake and Otacon reluctantly accepted, and Otacon assisted Snake from their ship using Metal Gear Mk. II. Their first mission in the Middle East was a failure after Liquid Ocelot activated his first test attempt at disabling the SOP system in his PMC troops.

When Snake then infiltrated South America and managed to rescue Naomi Hunter, Otacon piloted the helicopter which was able to get her, Snake and Raiden out. Afterwards, aboard the Nomad, Otacon and Naomi became romantically involved, and he started to not wear his glasses because Naomi commented that he looked "handsome" without them. He also cited his experience of making Metal Gear REX to explain to Naomi why they weren't stopping the Cyborg Ninja project.

However, Otacon was crushed when Naomi left the Nomad and rejoined Liquid Ocelot and Vamp again. At Shadow Moses, after Raiden defeated Vamp, Naomi confronted Snake, Raiden, and Otacon (via the Metal Gear Mk. III). It was then she revealed that she had terminal cancer, suppressed only by the life-supporting nanomachines in her. She then injected herself with the nanomachine-suppressing syringe to disable them, effectively committing suicide. Devastated, Otacon could not help but recall how many women in his life whom he had loved had died.

Otacon later assisted Snake when they boarded Outer Haven and helped him to dismantle GW which had been restored by Liquid Ocelot. After Liquid Ocelot himself was defeated for good, Otacon was seen a guest at the relatively small wedding of Meryl Silverburgh and Johnny Sasaki. Here, after Sunny made her first outside friend, he finally gave consent for her to live on the outside. It appeared as though Otacon was aware of Snake's plan to kill himself, as he started to cry and explain that Snake wouldn't be back for a long time when Sunny asked where Snake was.

When Snake did not commit suicide, Otacon and him had a short conversation about what they would do now. Otacon said he would gladly stay with Snake and chronicle the remainder of Snake's life as Snake waited to see what the era would bring, although he also hints that his reason was partially because he didn't want to have to eat Sunny's eggs alone.

Equipment developed

 * Metal Gear REX
 * Stealth Camouflage
 * OctoCamo
 * Solid Eye
 * Metal Gear Mk. II and Metal Gear Mk. III
 * Virtual Range
 * Scanner Plug

Trivia

 * At some point before the Big Shell Incident, Otacon illegally manipulated his and Emma's account on the internet, which Emma eventually found out about and told him off for it in an argument.
 * Three women that Otacon loved died in each of the major incidents he was involved in: Sniper Wolf, Emma (his stepsister), and Naomi.
 * Although Otacon told Snake that he was afraid of heights in 2005, he later became a proficient helicopter pilot, having flown helicopters in 2009 (in the Harrier fight and in rescuing hostages) and 2014 (Naomi's escape from South America as well as Snake's insertion into/recovery from Shadow Moses, and during the attack on Outer Haven). He also had VR training on the Kamov KA-62 civilian model, explaining his ability to pilot the KA-60.
 * Both Hal and Emma had difficulty controlling fear, having wet themselves when confronted. Snake poked fun at this during a Codec conversion inside a locker during the Tanker Incident, in which Otacon mentioned "I was the one inside the locker that time. We're equal now, huh?" to which Snake responded "Not unless I wet my pants," to which Otacon replies "That's a low blow."
 * Otacon's poor attempts to interpret literature and Chinese proverbs for Solid Snake in 2007 prompted Mei Ling to interrupt one of their Codec conversations.
 * Otacon still touched the top of his nose during his Codec conversations with Snake, even after he stopped wearing his glasses for a brief period in 2014.
 * Otacon told Snake in a Codec conversation that he believed aliens had been visiting Earth for thousands of years.

Unconfirmed history
Hal Emmerich's father had been watching the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey shortly before his son's birth. During his college years, Hal Emmerich managed to formulate a fool-proof program to solve the year 2000 digit changing problem in computers, and despite gaining major attention and being considered by his contemporaries as the savior of the computer world, he didn't make money off the idea due to his never patenting it.

When he was forced to continue working on Metal Gear REX during the Shadow Moses Incident, the head of the six-man Next-Generation Special Forces unit guarding him (who were ultimately killed by Gray Fox) was particularly pleased to guard him, viewing it as his chance at revenge towards the scientists for "having tricks up their sleeves and having the answers for everything" as well as their "[making] the big money", as well as personally feeling that the only good otaku is a dead otaku when questioned why they need more than one soldier to guard him.

Character development


Hideo Kojima states that he created Otacon (オタコン) as his way of glorifying the otaku stereotype by having a character who fights the terrorists with his intellect rather than his brawn. According to Kojima, the original idea of Otacon was to make him "heavier, wearing a cap, and programming while eating a chocolate bar." However, the design Yoji Shinkawa did for the character was a slender one instead. Otacon's real name of Hal Emmerich (ハル・エメリッヒ博士) is a reference to both the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (highlighted by Snake's real name, David) and Roland Emmerich, one of Kojima's favorite film directors.

Otacon's hair has a different color in each game he appears in: in Metal Gear Solid and The Twin Snakes, he has gray hair; in Metal Gear Solid 2, he has brown hair; and in Metal Gear Solid 4, he has black hair. According to the Director's Commentary of Metal Gear Solid 2, certain portions of his physical appearance and mannerisms were derived from Kojima.

In the original plot of Metal Gear Solid 4, Otacon and Snake were to have turned themselves in for their crimes and executed, but the majority of the development staff vetoed this decision. During the game's mission briefings, Otacon's computer aboard the Nomad has a wallpaper that features Dingo Egret; the main protagonist of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, another game produced by Hideo Kojima. If the player kills a wolfdog and calls Otacon shortly thereafter, Otacon will only make a disgusted grunt and turn away.

Although originally described as being in his thirties in 2005, according to his official biography in Metal Gear Solid, Otacon's year of birth was retconned to be 1980 during the end credits of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker; a game in which Huey Emmerich (his father) stars as one of the main characters.

Other appearances

 * In the Snake Tales story, External Gazer, Otacon created a VR headset that inadvertently allowed Solid Snake to travel to alternate realities.
 * In the Snake vs. Monkey minigame, Colonel Campbell tells Solid Snake that the Professor, the inventor of the Peak Point Helmet, is a friend of Otacon, and that it was because of the Professor that Otacon was inspired to create several of his inventions.
 * Otacon can be contacted by Snake via Codec in Super Smash Bros. Brawl if Snake is fighting against Pit, Samus, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Sonic, Link, Ganondorf, Kirby, Captain Falcon, R.O.B., and Mr. Game &amp; Watch.