Gene

Gene, also known as Viper, was a member of the CIA special forces unit FOX during the San Hieronymo Takeover.

Early life and career
Sometime after 1964, Gene joined the FOX unit where he received the "Viper" codename. He subverted Major Zero's authority and established his own authority. In his career, he had studied political science outside of the military, as well as being a rather prominent medical doctor. In one FOX mission, Viper rescued Dr. Sokolov from Russia and reunited him with his family. In another mission during 1966, Viper rescued a psychic East German girl from a research laboratory, who had developed a split personality as a result of having her powers artificially augmented. Gene later served as the girl's mentor, teaching &quot;Elisa&quot; her skills in medicine and chemistry, while training &quot;Ursula&quot; as a soldier. Some time later, Gene underwent experimentation during the Successor Project, the goal being to create the "ultimate battlefield commander" modelled after The Boss and was given superhuman abilities as a result. During this time, Gene developed CQC Enhancer, an enhanced and destructive form of CQC. While he served as a FOX operative, Gene discovered the identity of the man who was behind The Boss's death.

In 1970, Gene usurped command of the FOX unit and led the San Hieronymo Takeover, where he took over the Soviet missile base at the San Hieronymo Peninsula, Colombia. He also framed former FOX operative Naked Snake (Big Boss) for instigating the rebellion, due to his skills heavily resembling Snake's. Gene, along with Ursula, accompanied Lt. Cunningham while they searched the peninsula for Snake and Roy Campbell, aboard a Hind A gunship. Afterwards, they arrived at the research lab, where Ursula and Gene both successfully predicted that sections of a scaffolding were about to collapse, and warning Cunningham to remain still. Afterwards, when a soldier apologized for the accident, he forgave the soldier, and then demonstrated his hypnotic speech ability to the rest of the gathered soldiers. He himself apologized for making the work seem more important than the soldiers' well-being, and promised that the days when soldiers were used as political tools would be ended.

After Snake was again captured, Gene remarked that intel extracted by physical torture is unreliable, and questioned Cunningham's abilities as an interrogation specialist. When Cunningham suggested that he use truth serum, he mentioned that it wasn't reliable since Snake was a former FOX agent. He ultimately let Cunningham prepare the truth serum, but under the condition that he would speak to Snake first. He explained to Snake, who was awake throughout the whole conversation, that the entire "rebellion" was actually staged by the CIA in order to prolong the Cold War.

Shortly thereafter, Gene had a telephone conversation with his &quot;new world&quot; with his conspirator Ocelot, as well as reporting the success of his negotiations with the Kremlin in order to ensure they don't interfere with their plan. After the call, Gene stopped a rampaging Null using his inhumanly fast reflexes and ESP abilities.

Big Boss was eventually rescued by his allies and Elisa was taken with them. Gene anticipated that Big Boss and his allies would learn from Elisa where the Intercontinental Ballistic Metal Gear was located and would try to destroy it. He then secretly replaced the ICBMG with Metal Gear RAXA as a decoy at the assembly plant. As Snake infiltrated the facility, Gene arrived with a large platoon of his soldiers, accompanied by Hind A helicopters, in order to apprehend him. However, an event that not even Gene anticipated occurred, in which Colonel Skowronski hijacked RAXA. Gene then unleashed his true trump card, awakening Ursula, the twin personality of Elisa. Gene had Ursula commandeer RAXA using her powerful psychokinesis, and giving it abilities far beyond its potential. After Snake destroyed RAXA, Gene commented Snake for his effort and saw why Ocelot respected Snake. But the battle still bought more than enough time for Gene's men to finish loading the real Metal Gear with nuclear weapons and transport it out of the plant to the missile silo. He also discovered that the person leaking information to Snake's resistance about Metal Gear was actually Sokolov, something that surprised even him. Then, Gene gave another one of his suggestive speeches, inspiring fear in both his and Big Boss's soldiers, causing a mass riot that resulted in many casualties, including the death of Jonathan. Gene then left for the missile silo.

Snake eventually confronted Gene, where the latter revealed that not only was he aware of Cunningham's betrayal, but that he had actually planned to launch the ICBMG into Virginia, USA (the "twin lairs" of the American Philosophers), instead of Russia as had previously been believed. Since he had deduced that the Red Army would be negotiating with the DoD, and that no war would commence should he launch at Russia, an attack on America would convince the international community that the Soviets had fired on America, causing the Warsaw Pact to crumble and possibly enter into armed conflict with NATO. Gene then revealed his concept of Army's Heaven for soldiers to Big Boss, who countered by saying that Gene was a dictator and that soldiers were looking for somewhere outside Gene's heaven. He then taunted Snake with information regarding a "deviously cunning strategist," who had orchestrated events in Tselinoyarsk six years earlier.

Elisa and Ursula, revealing her survival of RAXA's destruction, destroyed the launch control panel and attempted to stop his plans. However, Gene, with his much quicker physical abilities, murdered her, exemplifying his hypocritical, two-faced nature and proceeded to launch the nuclear missile via a backup launch control room. This resulted in a fight to the death with Snake to determine who the true successor of The Boss was. Snake managed to triumph, allowing Gene the revelation that Big Boss was indeed the true successor after all (as well as hinting about "soldier genes"), and relinquishing the funds and resources for Army's Heaven. His last words were reminiscent of the last words of The Boss, and he pleaded with Naked Snake/Big Boss to go find his calling.

It was later revealed that Ocelot and his unknown conspirator (whom Gene earlier referred to as "the man with the same codename as Null") had actually intended for Gene to only point the missile containing the ICBMG towards Langley to lure the DCI with "documents" about the Philosophers over to Ocelot. However, they were unaware that Gene was serious in launching Metal Gear.

Personality and abilities
Gene's intense charisma gave him the power to win people's hearts and minds. His voice was given a special manipulative mind-altering power where he feigned loyalty and strength to those who followed him but secretly despised the human race in general, exhibiting qualities of deeply pathological, tyrannical behavior. During Gene's speech-making, he could swell up loyalty and powerful, trusting emotions in his soldiers, but also used it to instill fear in mobs and cause riots to break out, laughing cruelly while his men killed each other as he did so. Gene also used his gifted voice to release Elisa's dark and powerful second personality, Ursula.

Genes reflexes were said to be even faster than the Perfect Soldier Null, due to being a product of the Successor Project, along with his abilities of ESP. He also seemed to possess some limited telekinesis that gave him the power to defeat Null with a single direct mental blast. Furthermore, Gene was also a master of "Zero Shift", an ability much like teleportation, which allowed him to kill Elisa and Ursula before she had a chance to react. He also used this ability during his battle with Naked Snake (Big Boss), though employing the technique too often left him physically exhausted, giving Snake an opening in which to defeat him. He is also capable of generating mental shielding powerful enough to render even Ursula incapable of reading his mind/predicting his next move, removing it only when he believed that Ursula died in her battle against Snake. He presumably did this to ensure that Ursula didn't rebel against him.

In combination with his supernatural speed and reflexes, Gene was also extremely skilled with knife throwing and knife fighting in general. Beneath his military coat, the would-be-dicatator hid a large amount of finely sharpened knives which he could throw with deadly accuracy, his aim being so perfect that he could even incapacitate the superhumanly fast Perfect Soldier by impaling his hands and limbs. Gene's reflexes were so finely tuned that he was able to throw his knives with the rapidness of a machine gun, enabling him to tear even a well armored foe apart in seconds.

Trivia

 * Gene's reference to himself and Naked Snake/Big Boss as "like brothers" mirrors the relationship between Solid Snake and Liquid Snake in 2005.
 * The trench coat that Gene wore is almost identical to the one worn by Big Boss in his later years, and also those worn by most of the renegade FOXHOUND members in 2005.
 * One of Gene's telepathic command quotes during his final battle with Big Boss mirrored The Boss's statement to Naked Snake in their encounter at Dremuchij in 1964.
 * There were hints that Gene had a deep amount of respect for Naked Snake, as he was impressed by the fact that Snake managed to remain conscious after enduring Cunningham's torture, as well as instilling Null with strong emotions. Some statements during the final battle seemed to imply that he also wanted to have a challenging fight against Snake.
 * The details of Gene's Army's Heaven existing in the shadows, bears several similarities to how the Patriots would emerge, giving an early clue as to what his true loyalties were. Also, Army's Heaven could (in a way) be considered a precursor to the idea of Big Boss's Outer Heaven.
 * Ghost, when contacted via radio, will mention his confusion about Gene wanting to take over the San Hieronymo Peninsula and wanting to launch the ICBMG at the Soviet Union when he could have easily taken over an American missile base with more up-to-date nukes to launch the ICBMG at the Soviet Union, foreshadowing that the Soviet Union was not the true target.
 * Gene's psychic power to persuade people to use a gun is similar to Psycho Mantis' who made Meryl Silverburgh point a gun at her head to shoot, but not before Solid Snake knocked her unconscious.

Behind the scenes
Gene serves as the primary antagonist of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.

It is possible that through the "Successor Project", Gene was a predecessor to the Genome Soldiers and Les Enfants Terribles. On a slightly related note, Gene's English voice actor (Steven Blum) also voiced some of the Genome Soldiers in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.

Gene's "Zero Shift" ability is a reference to that of the same name used by the Orbital Frame Jehuty from Zone of the Enders, another game produced by Hideo Kojima. Like the one used by Gene, the process of charging the attack before teleporting in front of an enemy is the same as the one used by Jehuty.

Portable Ops Recruitment
Gene can be unlocked as a playable character by not only defeating him non-lethally, but by also recruiting over 200 soldiers within the same save file. However, the 200 recruits can be accumulated through multiple playthroughs. A soldier is officially recruited in this context after they make it past the prisoner stage, and then can be discharged at any point. In the EU version of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Gene can also be unlocked by completing the Boss Rush mode.

Gene comes equipped with a Bowie Knife; it is more powerful than a regular knife, swipes more times in succession, is not CQC compatible and 3 are thrown when the lockon button is held.

"Member of the CIA Special Forces unit FOX, he combines superior combat and tactical capabilities with an intense aura of charismatic leadership. The mastermind behind the San Hieronymo rebellion, he assumed the role of the heart of FOX after Snake quit the unit."

- Official description in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus