The Patriots

The Patriots (or the "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo"), briefly referred to as Cipher during 1974, were an organization whose sole purpose was once to carry out The Boss's final wish, and later sought to control the world.

Zero founded the group and recruited Big Boss, Sigint, Para-Medic, Ocelot, and EVA.

Among other duties, the Patriots decided who the President of the United States will be, and staged the Presidential elections in order to please the American public, tricking them into believing they have a small level of control. The Patriots's tactics can be viewed as totalitarian in their efforts to deceive the public.

The Beginning of The Patriots
The Patriots were the reorganized version of The American Philosophers put together in 1970 using the Philosophers' Legacy which Zero had Ocelot steal from the DCI after luring him out of hiding when the DCI thought a nuclear missile fired during Gene's rebellion. As the DCI and his two bodyguards were moving to a safer location, Ocelot emerged, killing the two bodyguards, claimed he was going to end the Philosophers and carry on the spirit of the true patriot saying "it's all part of our plan to make the world [The Boss] envisioned a reality". After Ocelot's intense speech on The Boss (his mother), he executed the DCI in a way that looked like a suicide.

After Gene's rebellion, Zero recruited Big Boss, Sigint, Para-Medic, Ocelot, and EVA and started their plans to reunite the world by governing it from behind the scenes. Zero used his influence to turn Big Boss into a legend, a messiah-like figure for the world to follow.

In 1972, Big Boss was gravely wounded from a battle and shortly thereafter fell into a coma. Afraid of losing Big Boss, Zero planned to finish up a secret project known as "Les Enfants Terribles". Zero brought Big Boss's unconscious body to a lab, where Para-Medic extracted his "soldier genes" (with President Richard Nixon and US Army General Jim Houseman as witnesses) to make genetically enhanced soldiers. Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, and Solidus Snake were produced in this program, and were known as the "Sons of Big Boss". However, this was the final straw between the two, and Big Boss left The Patriots with a determination to oppose them. Big Boss went on to form Militaires Sans Frontieres in an attempt to make his own version of The Boss's dying wish.

After Big Boss left, EVA and Ocelot began to drift away (although Ocelot remained a spy for them to keep an eye on the organization for EVA). Zero, Para-Medic, and Sigint stayed with the organization and became power hungry. Para-Medic became a morally corrupt medic as the head of FOXHOUND's medical staff and chief geneticist, organizing and developing the Patriots's genetic research programs. Sigint would abuse his position as DARPA chief, accepting bribes and would participate in the development of the Patriots's AIs.

Operation Peace Walker
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The Patriots, referring to themselves as Cipher, also orchestrated the Peace Walker project, recruiting Pacifica Ocean (an orphaned woman under the alias of Paz Ortega Andrade) and Vladimir Alexandrovich Zadornov (a KGB agent under the alias of Professor Ramón Gálvez Mena), as well as contacting Kazuhira Miller in a business proposal (he agreed to help under the condition that the Militaires Sans Frontieres expanded) to get Big Boss to participate in their project without his knowledge. Sigint was also behind the AIs and felt that they should be used to control and manipulate information and have limited control over humanity due to "machines will always be machines".

They also ordered Pacifica to modify Metal Gear Zeke when the time came, and then hijack it and offer Big Boss the chance to rejoin them (the true purpose of the project), and should he refuse, frame the Militaires Sans Frontieres for being an extremist cult by launching a nuclear warhead from Metal Gear Zeke at the East Coast of the United States. Kaz later alerted them that she made edits to it, although he was left unaware of her framing MSF if Big Boss refused. Ultimately, this plot failed when Big Boss damaged Metal Gear Zeke and stopped Paz from launching a nuke, and Kaz presumably quit Cipher after what they did. However, they did plan on using his twin sons as an insurance policy in case they failed to both bring Big Boss back to their group and frame the Militaires Sans Frontieres.

Aftermath
In the 1990s, Dr. Clark (Para-Medic) ran the gene research program which would eventually bore the Next-Generation Special Forces. They were genetically-enhanced soldiers, implanting with Big Boss's "soldier genes" to create the world's most superior special forces military unit.

In 1999, after Solid Snake foiled Big Boss's coup d'etat attempts (Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land), Zero put Big Boss in a nanomachine-induced coma. This infuriated EVA and Ocelot and they secretly defected and schemed on how to destroy the Patriots. In 2003, EVA and Ocelot started to achieve their plans and enlisted to assistance of Naomi Hunter, who helped Gray Fox killing off FOXHOUND medic Dr. Clark (Para-Medic) for all the torment Clark caused to him.

Meanwhile, Zero got older and didn't want to pass the organization down to the next generation, believing they wouldn't be able to truly realize his vision and was still bitter about what he saw as Big Boss's betrayal. With his immense amount of money (and possibly Sigint's assistance), he commissioned the creation of four AIs (TJ, TR, AL, and GW) with a fifth head AI (JD) that would control the world even after his eventual death. These AIs became Zero's successors of the Patriots. The AIs were formless, and alloted funds to specific R&D Centers and other such companies under the Patriots control. The AIs were "a set of norms", a neural network in its simplest form, designed to decide and eventually manipulate the fate of the world. After the AIs were created, Zero went into hiding.

In 2002, the DARPA Chief Donald Anderson (himself an operative and founding member of The Patriots) was heavily bribed by ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker to back the Metal Gear REX program and fund its development covertly. But the main reason that Metal Gear REX was being developed was to overcome a global trend of military downsizing. A weapon like this would cause an immediate rift in the global power structure. REX was capable of launching a nuclear warhead without the need for a rocket propulsion system, making it undetectable by radar. It could give any country in the world a first-strike capability that other nations would find hard to counter. This also exploited a specific loophole that existed in anti-nuke treaties, since weapons fired from a rail gun were not technically ballistic, so limitations on ballistic weaponry did not apply.

In 2005, DARPA Chief Donald Anderson and ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker were both present at the nuclear disposal facility in Shadow Moses housing Metal Gear REX. The aim was to conduct test experiments of Metal Gear REX's nuclear launch capabilities (firing it's railgun) in a VR (Virtual Reality) environment and retrieve the nuclear test data to the Pentagon on an optical disc.

The US President George Sears, acting against the Patriots, directly instigated the Shadow Moses Incident, by having his agent Revolver Ocelot incite Liquid Snake to use his FOXHOUND unit (Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf, Vulcan Raven, and Decoy Octopus) to steal Metal Gear REX. During a torture session, Ocelot "accidentally" killed off Donald Anderson (who was really Sigint and was intentionally killed off as a part of EVA and Ocelot's plan) during a torture session.

The Patriots themselves were also directly involved in the Shadow Moses Incident, with the creation of the FOXDIE virus, and the development and recovery of the Metal Gear REX project. The Patriots countered Sears's plan by using Solid Snake to try to rescue Donald Anderson, and use him as a vector for FOXDIE and leave REX (along with the bodies of the Genome Soldiers) undamaged for retrieval. In order to have full command and control over the operation, the Patriots utilized two of their agents: the Secretary of Defense Jim Houseman (in charge of the entire Shadow Moses operation through AWACS, and who gave the order for Naomi Hunter to inject FOXDIE into Solid Snake) and DIA operative Richard Ames (who essentially forced his ex-spouse Nastasha Romanenko into providing mission support for Snake, and was in charge of the FOXDIE program).

While Solid Snake defeated Metal Gear REX and Liquid, Ocelot retrieved REX's battle data for President Sears and leaked the data via the black market.

Post-Shadow Moses
Later on, in June 2007, the Patriots captured Gary McGolden, a journalist who had travelled to Shadow Moses in order to investigate the truth behind a book. He was interrogated within a weather station, but the agents involved were then put out of commission by Solid Snake, who had returned to the island in order to rescue McGolden.

In 2007, the US Marines had started up a project to build a new type of Metal Gear, in order to counteract the large amount of Metal Gear REX models being built after the specifications were leaked onto the black market and this new Metal Gear was codenamed Metal Gear RAY. This did not fall in line with the Patriots's plans however, and they decided to reclaim RAY for their own (although, given the fact that Ocelot mentioned that he was "taking RAY back", the Patriots may have actually been behind its creation).

In August 2007, whilst simultaneously leaking information to Philanthropy to lure them out, they planned to frame Solid Snake and Otacon for the incident. Patriot agent Revolver Ocelot took over the tanker where RAY was being held with the help from Sergei Gurlukovich and his mercenary army, but Ocelot later betrayed Sergei, sinking the dummy tanker, taking RAY for himself, and framing Snake and Otacon. For the Patriots, the incident was a success.

They immediately sent a fully loaded tanker to the same location and sank it, spilling oil everywhere in the process. This allowed them to set up the Big Shell, which they could use as camouflage to build Arsenal Gear.

Arsenal Gear was the Patriots' tool for securing power over the United States and in the world. The Patriots hoped to use Arsenal as a way of shaping the "truth" to fit their agenda. Arsenal Gear served the sole purpose of housing GW, one of their proxy-AIs designed to censor and delete unwanted information that could loosen their grip on the United States. For instance, GW controlled information through the media, television and mainly the free flow of data from the Internet. This was a means to completely censor any data detrimental to the Patriots's rule. This is a method of memetic eugenics, in which memes were artificially selected for or against by GW. Emma Emmerich was one of the main contributors to the production of the programming for GW.

After the Tanker Incident, it was implied that the Patriots also staged terrorist attacks, that would later be attributed to SEALs anti-terrorist squad Dead Cell, killing many of their own allies and civilians alike. This was namely done to have Dead Cell go renegade. In October 2008, the Patriots led an extermination campaign against Dead Cell that eliminated two members (Chinaman and Old Boy) and left only three of them (Fortune, Fatman, and Vamp). This was all done as part of the Patriot's master plan.

In 2009, the Big Shell Incident was staged by the Patriots for their plan. By manipulating the information that surrounded the incident, the Patriots had proved that they could manipulate world events. Their agent Raiden was sent in to test the exercise and forced Olga Gurlukovich (by holding her child hostage) to assist Raiden. The AI posing as Colonel Campbell revealed to Raiden that the Patriots were formed as a sort of non-corporeal "consciousness" over the course of many years in the White House, comparing it to the formation and evolution of humanity itself. The Patriots also revealed to Raiden that their agent Rosemary was posing as Raiden's girlfriend. Using the data they collected from this exercise their AIs (such as GW) would be improved even more.

After GW was infected with Emma's worm cluster, Liquid Snake (via a dormant personality within Ocelot) had Arsenal Gear crash into Manhattan in order to recover GW, killing thousands of civilians in the process and destroying national landmarks in the process. Another AI (possibly JD) told Raiden told to defeat Patriot agent defecter Solidus Snake, threatening to kill Olga's child and Rosemary and their unborn child if he failed. While goading Raiden to deliver the finishing blow, JD also hinted that The Patriots only view soldiers and humanity as being tools and machines to be discarded after their usefulness has been expended.

After the Big Shell Incident, Philanthropy "traced" the Patriots using information retrieved from the Arsenal Gear, but discovered that all twelve members of The Patriots had been dead for at least a hundred years (as early as the 1900s), and that "one of them was [Philanthropy's] biggest contributor". Snake deduced that the information retrieved from the Arsenal Gear was false; it was only a fake lead orchestrated by the Patriots. The names they discovered was most likely the names of the original Wisemen's Committee that founded the Philosophers.

The War Economy
Originally, Zero intended the AIs to create a unified state by using the military-industrial complex to make economics and politics uniform and devoid of free will, all in the name of Zero's megalomaniac attempt to erase individuality. According to Big Boss, the proxy-AIs began to deviate from that plan by undergoing a mutation that gave them a will of their own and enabled them to decide on a better way to accomplish their goals: war. They created the War Economy and started a battlefield revolution similar to the industrial and digital revolutions that Big Boss describes as "a new world without ideology, principles, or ideals, not even the thing [The Boss] treasured the most: loyalty. It was a colossal error in judgment – one Zero couldn't possibly have foreseen". To control the flow of information, they would control the economy, by influencing the outcome of these wars through the SOP system which would also allow them to control individual people. According to Naomi, the Patriots planned to extend their control down to the civilian level, actively controlling and censoring people through nanomachines, such as the nickname "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo". In this case, members of "the system" were under the Patriots's direct influence could not even mention the name "the Patriots" and were forced by their nanomachines to say the codename.

In 2014, the Patriots (fully controlled by JD) managed to trick and manipulate Meryl Silverburgh and her group (similar to how they tricked Raiden) and enlisted Drebin 893 (who, unlike the others, knew of his stance as a Patriot agent) to assist Solid Snake and Otacon in their mission to terminate Liquid Ocelot, though the Patriots did not foresee that Snake and Otacon would destroy the Patriots themselves in the process thanks to the true nature of Liquid Ocelot's plan.

The Patriots were ultimately destroyed by the FOXALIVE virus (an opposite to the FOXDIE virus) created by Naomi Hunter (and unknowingly by Sunny Gurlukovich, who borrowed some code from the original virus created by Emma Emmerich to destroy GW), which would infect and terminate the AIs which now ran the Patriots, ending them forever. However, Sunny managed to pick and choose parts of society vital to the survival of modern civilization.

With the Patriots AIs had been destroyed and Liquid Ocelot defeated by Snake, there was one more threat that needed to be eliminated and that threat was the man who started the entire fiasco and the main founder of the Patriots: Zero. Big Boss, shortly after JD had been effectively destroyed, had found the location of Zero's stronghold. After arriving there, he discovered Zero was a mere shadow of his former self: a man, whose advanced years had put him in a vegetative-like state, and who was kept alive solely by machines. Big Boss then wheeled him over to Arlington Cemetery, and after explaining to Solid Snake (his eldest son) about the full story of what happened in regards to the Patriots, Big Boss euthanized Zero by cutting off his oxygen supply. Shortly thereafter Big Boss died from the effects of the new FOXDIE virus within Snake, thus ending the Patriots for good.

Founding Members

 * Zero (founder)
 * Ocelot
 * Big Boss
 * Sigint
 * Para-Medic
 * EVA

Known AIs

 * JD (The master AI, John Doe)
 * GW (George Washington)
 * TJ (Thomas Jefferson)
 * TR (Theodore Roosevelt)
 * AL (Abraham Lincoln)
 * AI Weapons
 * GW-PUPA 5000 (controlling Pupa)
 * TR-COCOON 7000 (controlling Cocoon)
 * TJ-CHRYSALIS 6000 (controlling Chrysalis)
 * The Boss AI (controlling Basilisk)

Agents

 * Revolver Ocelot
 * Raiden (unknowingly)
 * Solidus Snake
 * Jim Houseman
 * Scott Dolph
 * Richard Ames
 * James Johnson
 * Fatman
 * Olga Gurlukovich
 * Drebin
 * Liquid Ocelot
 * Meryl Silverburgh and Rat Patrol 01 (unknowing)

Cipher agents

 * Vladimir Alexandrovich Zadornov
 * Pacifica Ocean
 * Kazuhira Miller (albeit as a business partner)

Trivia

 * The Patriots were named after the colonial American Patriots, a group of colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies, who rebelled against British Empire's control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation.
 * The word Cipher in medieval times meant zero; the word comes from the Arabic word ṣifr, which meant zero.
 * The names of the AIs (aside from the master AI "John Doe") were the initials of the four American Presidents whose likenesses appear on Mt. Rushmore.
 * Since the Shadow Moses Incident, many soldiers have been fitted with nanomachines. During the Manhattan Incident and Liquid Ocelot's Insurrection, it was discovered that the Patriots themselves had modified these nanomachines, in that they would force a person to say (or hear) the phrase "La li lu le lo" instead of the word "Patriots". This was done in order to make discussion of the organization difficult and maintain some secrecy.
 * In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure; mirror the nature of The Patriots(an encrypted and hidden organization) ad, later, of the proxy-AI(a saries of norm and procedures).
 * The word “Cipher” in former times meant “Zero” and had the same origin: Middle French as cifre and Medieval Latin as cifra, from the Arabic صفر ṣifr = zero. There are these theories about how the word “cipher” may have come to mean “encoding”:

Behind the Scenes

 * In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Snake tries to contact Colonel Campbell while fighting Luigi, but gets a hold of The Colonel AI instead. The Colonel shuts Snake out by repeating "La li lu le lo", a reference to the Patriots's "codename".
 * The name La-li-lu-le-lo is a reference to the basic vowel pronunciation in the Japanese language. In Japanese, the "L" and "R" sounds are indistinguishable, although the Hepburn romanization of Japanese Gojūon uses "Ra-ri-ru-re-ro" instead of "La-li-lu-le-lo". The use of "La-li-lu-le-lo" in the English version of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 instead of the proper "Ra-ri-ru-re-ro" is a translation liberty, albeit one that fits with the game's motif of information control.
 * In the Snake Tales story External Gazer, Snake is briefly stuck in a parallel universe and believes that he is Raiden. He and Rose keep getting interrupted while trying to enjoy each other's company. At one point, the "La-li-lu-le-lo" shows up (appearing like The Colonel) on their television set, randomly talking about how to keep toilets clean. They are then joined by two alternate versions, called the "Ta-ti-to-te-to" and "I-ro-ha-ni-ho-he-to", which also give advice. The last version's name refers to Iroha, an old-fashioned Katakana ordering system (the more prevalent ordering is called gojūon). "I ro ha ni ho he to" is the first of seven lines in an Iroha poem that contains each character of the Katakana exactly once, much like the English ABCs song.