Meryl Silverburgh

Meryl Silverburgh (メリル・シルバーバーグ), was the commanding officer of Rat Patrol Team 01 of the CID. Prior to her inauguration as commander, Meryl was a well-known career soldier due to her involvement in the Shadow Moses Incident of 2005, her first mission where she met, worked with, and later fell in love with famed mercenary Solid Snake. She was thought to be the niece of former FOXHOUND commander Roy Campbell but was later discovered to actually be his daughter.

Early life and career
According to official records, Meryl Silverburgh was the daughter of Roy Campbell's younger brother, Matt Campbell. However, more recent evidence showed that Meryl was born as the result of an affair between Roy Campbell and his brother's wife. When Meryl was young, Matt Campbell was killed in action during the Gulf War. After that, she took on her mother's maiden name, Silverburgh.

Raised in a house of military traditions, Meryl trained herself throughout her childhood in the arts of soldiery. She admired the FOXHOUND unit, viewing the days when her uncle and Solid Snake were members in the unit’s heyday, and wears a paint tattoo of the unit's 1990s logo on her left shoulder. She joined the armed forces after graduating high school and received extensive psychotherapy to prevent any attraction to the opposite sex. Despite this psychotherapy, she falls in love with Snake during the Shadow Moses Incident.

She was assigned to the nuclear disposal facility on Shadow Moses in 2005 as an emergency replacement, after several soldiers were reported missing. Following her arrival on the island, the unit involved with the exercise revolted along with members of FOXHOUND and took over the facility along with Metal Gear REX, which was secretly being developed there by ArmsTech. Though initially believed to be an unfortunate coincidence, it was later revealed that the Pentagon had deliberately assigned her to Shadow Moses that same day in order to force Roy Campbell to withhold vital information from Snake during the events of the Shadow Moses Incident. Meryl refused to join in with the rebellion and was taken prisoner, placed in the adjacent holding cell to the DARPA Chief Donald Anderson. Before this however, ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker gave Meryl a PAL card before undergoing a torture session by Revolver Ocelot. This PAL card could be used to activate or deactivate REX, and could only be used once.

Afterwards, her cell guard, Johnny Sasaki, opened her door after she started banging on it. She then subdued him, stealing his uniform afterwards. She met up with Solid Snake, who had been forced out of retirement by the U.S. government in order to neutralize the terrorists, and the two eventually began working together. She managed to stay hidden by disguising herself as one of the Genome Soldiers using the clothes she stole from Johnny.

Later, the pair met up on the first floor basement of the Nuclear Warhead Storage Building. She gave the PAL card to Snake and then the two headed to the Commander's Room where Psycho Mantis took control of Meryl's mind. Meryl held her gun against Snake, but Snake, realizing she was not herself, managed to knock her out. Snake then dispatched Mantis and he and Meryl headed north in order to destroy Metal Gear. However, Meryl was shot and subsequently captured by FOXHOUND member Sniper Wolf. Snake pleaded with Meryl to hold on to life, and assured Campbell he would rescue her, and not for anyone else, but for himself. Snake engaged in a sniping duel with Wolf and was eventually lured into an ambush by her where he was also captured. Snake was then put through a series of torture sessions by Ocelot. Meryl was also forced to watch Snake being tortured via a monitor. Snake held on throughout the torture, and eventually escaped confinement.

Later, Snake met up with Otacon, who was curious to ask whether Snake believed love could bloom even on a battlefield. Snake, distraught over Meryl's capture insisted that he did believe, admitting his feelings for her. Their conversation was cut short when Liquid Snake arrived in a Hind, ready to finish Snake off.

Meryl was later brought on top of REX by Liquid while Snake was unconscious, although Liquid was unsure if she was still alive. Liquid then wired her to a bomb and fought Snake on top of REX. She was rescued by Snake after his fight with Liquid. During the reunion, they lean in to kiss, but a Codec call from Campbell forced them to make a quick escape before bombs were dropped on the base. They found a jeep, however, during their escape, they were pursued by a relentless Liquid. Eventually, both jeeps collided on a cliff edge. Liquid would later die because of FOXDIE. Snake wondered how long it will be before he would die from the virus, but Meryl asked him not to think about it. The two discovered an abandoned snowmobile, and escaped Shadow Moses. After Campbell faked Snake and Meryl's deaths by saying that their jeep crashing into the ocean, Snake and Meryl retreated together hoping for a normal life. However, Ocelot and President George Sears implied in their phone call that they intended to monitor Meryl's status.

Post-Shadow Moses
After Shadow Moses, Snake accepted that he will never be a normal person, and will only ever spend his life fighting. As a result, he left Meryl and joined Otacon to form Philanthropy. Meryl continued to believe in Snake. She re-entered the military thanks to Campbell's connections, where she was posted to the Army's PMC watchdog, the USACIDC (U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command), as the head of her own team, Rat Patrol 01.



In 2014, she became involved in a secret operation to capture Liquid Ocelot. However, after the events of the Big Shell Incident, she began to hate her father after he apparently wedded a young brunette, even going as far as to call him a "womanizing piece of shit."

When she met Snake again for the first time during Liquid Ocelot's Insurrection, in the Middle East, she expressed shock upon looking at Snake's more aged appearance, and was clearly upset. She then became infuriated when she learned that it was Campbell who had sent him there. She was later upset when she discovered Snake's true mission in the Middle East was to assassinate Liquid Ocelot (he had earlier told her that he came to the Middle East as part of threat assessment), but she begrudgingly allowed him to continue on in the mission, because she was in no position to stop him. However, before Snake could get the chance to kill Liquid, Liquid managed to activate the SOP system with ["Liquid's"] own DNA, causing a large amount of convulsions from most of the Rat Patrol 01 team (barring Akiba), various members of the middle eastern militia, and even Solid Snake [although to a far lesser degree]. After recovering from the effects, she attempted to track down Liquid Ocelot after he left the Middle East. This, along with the fact that ARSOC was beginning to catch on in regards to Campbell's involvement in the events, resulted in her involvement with Snake's mission ending for the time being. Eventually, Snake and Meryl, along with her Rat Patrol 01 team, crossed paths again in Eastern Europe, redirecting Solid Snake from an ID checkin (essentially saving Snake, as he nearly blew his cover by attempting to do so), although they later got into an arguement about their respective goals. In an attempt to take Liquid by force, in Eastern Europe, she became involved in the massacre that wounded her and her unit, as well as killing most of the nearby military soldiers and damaging some of the vessels.

Meryl helped Snake on his infiltration of Outer Haven, however, she was possesed by Screaming Mantis, echoing her similar predicament nine years before. Snake saved her from the mind control, and apologized, feeling he was at fault for dragging her into everything. She tearfully assured him they would "meet again on the other side", Snake then left to destroy Haven's AI.

After the mission, Meryl finally made peace with her father, and agreed to marry Johnny, who had loved her ever since he met her in Shadow Moses.

Behind the scenes

 * Meryl Silverburgh is voiced by Debi Mae West (credited as Mae Zadler in the original Metal Gear Solid) in English and by Kyoko Terase (credited as Megumi Terease in Policenauts) in Japanese.
 * Meryl and Olga Gurlukovich have the same Japanese voice actress (Kyoko Terase).
 * The original Metal Gear Solid (and the remake, The Twin Snakes) featured an alternate ending in which Meryl dies if the player submits to Ocelot's torture. This ending is non-canonical due to her appearence in Metal Gear Solid 4.
 * Meryl (Policenauts).gif's character is based on a character of the same name from Hideo Kojima's earlier game Policenauts. In addition to having similar character designs and backstories (being involved in FOXHOUND), they were both portrayed by the same Japanese voice actress (Kyoko Terase). Further likening the two characters is the fact Meryl's partner in Policenauts is named Dave Forrest (who secretly loves her), which is also Solid Snake's real first name. In Metal Gear Solid 4, the likeness is taken even further with the inclusion of Meryl's earrings, which are handgun bullets (probably .45 ACP), just like the original Meryl wore. Her partners in both Policenauts and Metal Gear Solid 4 are also named Ed and Jonathan. Despite all these similarities, they are not intended to be the same character.
 * In The Twin Snakes, Meryl's eyes are a hazel brown, but in Metal Gear Solid 4 they are blue.
 * Meryl makes an appearance in Snake Tales C included with Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, reusing Olga's voice clips. If the player defeats Meryl in a non-lethal manner, the story's ending features Roy Campbell revealing to Snake that Meryl is his biological daughter; another non-canon event in which he does so, the other being the Otacon ending to Metal Gear Solid.
 * Also in Substance, in Snake's VR Mission, Variety Level 04, Meryl is seen lying on the floor. Snake must take out 26 enemy "soldiers" that are converging on her location within a 3 minute time limit.
 * In Metal Gear Solid: Integral and The Twin Snakes, if the player unlocks the Tuxedo for Snake, Meryl will be wearing a female version of the Sneaking Suit, similar to her appearance in artwork for the Metal Gear Solid Radio Drama.
 * A costume available to download for LittleBigPlanet allows the Sackboys to dress up as Meryl.
 * Along with other characters of the series such as her father Roy Campbell, Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, Mei Ling, Liquid Snake, Big Boss and EVA, Meryl makes a cameo appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as an obtainable sticker, whose use is exclusive only to Solid Snake during the Subspace Emissary Adventure Mode.
 * In Metal Gear Solid 4, Meryl is revealed to be stronger than Jonathan, as she was able to beat him in arm wrestling.
 * Meryl likes the Desert Eagle handgun. In Metal Gear Solid, she is seen wielding one (although never using it in combat, except in the Psycho Mantis boss fight). In Metal Gear Solid 4, she sports two Desert Eagles, a "standard" model and a modified version with a scope and an extended barrel (this one is only used in the cutscene aboard Outer Haven, when Meryl and Johnny hold on waves of FROGS).