Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-131.107.147.171-20130716155830/@comment-175.159.163.39-20130717093918

175.159.163.39 wrote: I know it may not be directly relevant to this discussion, but my feeling is that Big Boss is NOT famous enough to be known by the in-game general public. An example is that he is still a nobody in 1974 when he was calling the DCI at NORAD to stop the launch. This is because Operation Snake Eater and the award of the title Big Boss "was classified top secret, only a handful of people know about it". In addition, FOXHOUND is an under-cover unit, so Big Boss wont become famous because of that either. The only occasions I can remember any Snakes because publicly known is 1) Solid Snake in [In the Darkness of Shadow Mossess] and that Cypher photo of him on the tanker and 2) Solidus after his death at the Federal Hall. Prior to these occasions, I think the Snakes are mostly just like any common soldiers.

As to why Raiden can't recognize Solidus, I forgot the details but the game explained it somehow when he woke up naked during his captivity. A correction - I should add that all Snakes except Solidus during his presidency were not a publicly known person (although Ocelot said during TPP's trailer that Big Boss was fairly well known in the world of black-ops, but I personally think that is not comparable to what George Sears have). So it should not be too surprising that no one recognize Pliskin as a look-alike to George Sears.