Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5085906-20130627191357/@comment-64.33.250.214-20150824111323

People will argue about accelerated aging, or how it might retcon the timeline, but what if we actually played as Solidus? Quite honestly, I'd be more willing to accept him as a replacement for Big Boss than some absurdly random character like the medic who appeared briefly in GZ, or some secret cloning project we haven't heard about until now that will retcon the canon. The other problem with this theory would be the scars. Solidus doesn't have them, and his skin and facial tissue was used to reconstruct Big Boss in MGS4.

The evidence I'm basing this from is the guide leak, which suggested the character we're playing isn't Big Boss. As well as the trailers and gameplay demos which showed Mother Base looking awfully similar to Big Shell's design. Players can customize their Mother Base, right? Yet Kojima chose to make his version resemble Big Shell. There's also the poster images we've seen hanging around the "Big Shell" Mother Base. We know this poster is a reference to the film/novel 1984, but what if it's hinting at Big Boss watching Solidus?

Weedle a few comments ago took issue with Zero visiting Big Boss at the hospital, suggesting it seemed out of character. There are two possibilities there. In MGS4, Big Boss asks "Did Zero really hate me? Or did he fear me?" This line could imply Zero admired Big Boss up to the events of Phantom Pain, and that he may have visited him in his coma. Or... Zero was visiting Solidus, who is in a way his surrogate child.

Speaking of the coma... Hasn't canon up until now supported that Big Boss was indeed in a coma? I clearly remembering Liquid giving a speech about this in the original English version of MGS. The info under the Coma page also states that Kojima confirmed Boss was in one prior to Phantom Pain. If Big Boss were Ishmael like the translation for the strategy guide hints at, then how was he able to watch over his replacement for 9 years? Did he wake up from the coma early, or has the coma been retconned?

Going back to Zero, I rewatched his scene in MGS4. It appears as though he has white eyes like those infected with parasites in Phantom Pain. Either the guide creators recalled the seen and are jumping to conclusions, or what the guide says about Zero being infected is an actual spoiler. That raises another question... Why didn't Zero get superhuman abilities from the parasite, like The Skulls, Quiet, and Code Talker?