Miscellaneous groups

DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. DARPA has been responsible for funding the development of many technologies which have had a major impact on the world, including computer networking (ARPANET), as well as NLS, which was both the first hypertext system, and an important precursor to the contemporary ubiquitous graphical user interface.

It was originally established in 1958 under the name of Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), but it was renamed DARPA (for Defense) on March 23, 1972, then back to ARPA on February 22, 1993, and then back to DARPA again on March 11, 1996.

Members
 * Donald Anderson

Delta Force
The United States Army's "1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D)" — commonly known as Delta Force by civilians — is an integral element of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Delta Force's primary tasks are counter-terrorism and national intervention operations, although it is an extremely versatile group that is capable of assuming many mission types, including (but not limited to) hostage rescue, enemy raids, and covert enemy force neutralizations. Delta Force conducts missions similar to those attributed to the British Special Air Service (SAS), from which it was originally modeled.

Members
 * Roy Campbell

DIA
The Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, is a major producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 military and civilian employees worldwide. The Defense Intelligence Community is headed by the DIA, through its Director (who chairs the Military Intelligence Board), and coordinates the activities of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force intelligence components. The DIA and DIC provide military intelligence to warfighters, defense policymakers and force planners within the Department of Defense and the United States Intelligence Community, in support of U.S. military planning and operations and weapon systems acquisition. DIA, designated in 1986 as a Defense Department combat support agency, was established in 1961 as a result of a decision by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, under President John F. Kennedy. The Department of Defense created DIA with the publication of Directive 5105.21, "Defense Intelligence Agency" on August 1, effective October 1, 1961. DIA was preceded by the Counter Intelligence Corps.

Members
 * Nastasha Romanenko
 * Richard Ames

Egg Plant
Egg Plant is the name of an extremist terrorism group, originally commanded by the Outer Heaven mercenary, Dirty Duck.

Members:
 * Dirty Duck

FARC
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly referred to as FARC, was a rebel group that operated in Colombia. It was active in 1964 up to the present. It was the organization that was responsible for giving the Red Army the San Hieronymo Peninsula to use as their Missile Base in exchange for weapons and additional forces to fight the Colombian regime at the time, after the Red Army had failed in establishing a missile base in Cuba.

FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the primary unit in the United States Department of Justice, serving as both a federal criminal investigative body and a domestic intelligence agency. The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime. Its motto is "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity," corresponding to the "FBI" initialism.

Psycho Mantis had a brief stint with the organization working as a Psychic Investigator. He would enter the minds of suspected killers and uncover the truth about their crimes. This eventually drove him psychotic and he later quit the Bureau and eventually joined FOXHOUND.

Naomi Hunter made up a false story about how her Japanese grandfather became assistant secretary to J. Edgar Hoover in the FBI and went undercover to help bring down the Mafia in New York, during the 1950s. Master Miller later revealed this was false as J. Edgar Hoover was a well known racist which meant there were only white FBI agents in his time as Director (1924-1972), and the Mafia undercover operations first started in Chicago in 1960, not New York.

The FBI agent who exposed President Nixon's involvement in the Watergate Scandal used the alias "Deepthroat".

Members
 * Psycho Mantis
 * Hal Emmerich
 * McDonell Miller

Force XXI
The United States Army's Task Force XXI program (TF-XXI for short), aka the Next-Generation Integrated Infantry Fighting System, was actually a series of trial exercises and initiatives that utilized virtual reality training for selected soldiers during the late 1990s by the United States Army in the interest of modernization, but it is said to have been under research and development by the U.S. Army since the 1980s. The goal was to test unique concepts, tactics, and technologies on the modern-day battlefield.

Some of the technology that was tested includes software-defined radios (which inspired the Codec designed by Mei Ling), digital transmitters installed on all their weapons, appliqué computers carried by each soldier (to minimize casualties and maximize combat effectiveness by sharing data), ground surveillance radar (which inspired the Soliton Radar System), satellite radio e-mail systems, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles like the Cypher. TF-XXI participated in various advanced combat exercises during these trials. Jack (Raiden) took part in these trials exclusively during his soldier training.

In the early 2000s, selected subjects of the Force XXI trials were jointly assigned with former Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land mercenaries (with the U.S. government paying their contracts) to create the Next-Generation Special Forces, which later became known as the Genome Army during the Shadow Moses Incident.

Whether or not Jack took part in any gene therapy is unknown, though he was not a member of the Genome Army during the Shadow Moses Incident. It is possible that his participation in the Force XXI trials ended before the merger with the former mercenary forces.

Members
 * Raiden
 * Various members of the Genome Army

FSLN
The Sandinista National Liberation Front (also known as FSLN) is a socialist political party originating in Nicaragua. It was founded in 1961. Costa Rica had a boathouse that was originally owned by the FSLN before the Peace Sentinels invaded Costa Rica and held the Commandante hostage.

Green Berets
The United States Army Special Forces, aka the Green Berets, is a renowned Special Forces group that was originally formed in 1952 by Colonel Aaron Bank, being modeled after the British Royal Marines. It is operated under the command of the United States Army. The Green Berets are tasked with five primary missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action, and counter-terrorism.

One of its most famous members was a young soldier by the name of John, who served as a Green Beret until he joined the CIA, as the first field operative of FOX. He also met another member, Roy Campbell, while imprisoned during the San Hieronymo Takeover.

Members
 * Big Boss
 * Roy Campbell
 * McDonell Miller
 * Solid Snake

GSG 9
The GSG 9 der Bundespolizei, formerly the German abbreviation of Grenzschutzgruppe 9 (translated as "Border Guards, Group 9") is the counter-terrorism unit of the German federal police. Founded after the Black September Olympic Hostage Crisis, it is considered to be among the best of such units in the world. In fact, many later counter-terrorism units of other nations were modeled after the GSG 9.

Members
 * Fire Trooper
 * At least one member of the Four Horsemen

Trivia
According to the MSX2 manual for Metal Gear, Big Boss had previously served under the GSG-9. However, as this was neither mentioned in other games, nor the MGS4 Database, it is presumably no longer canon.

Les Enfants Terribles
Not to be confused with the government project of the same name, Les Enfants Terribles was a French terrorist group, once sub-commanded by Zanzibar Land mercenary, Running Man. The name of the group was presumably inspired by the the novel and 1950s film of the same name.

Members
 * Running Man

NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a Military Alliance group formed by the Treaty of Brussels as a direct response to the formation of the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact and the beginnings of the Cold War. It was formed in the event that the USSR and the US end up declaring war. Currently, it is now a peacekeeping organization.

NATO was directly responsible for an air raid commenced shortly after the conclusion of Operation Intrude N313 to bomb war orphans and refugees in the ruined Outer Heaven, regardless of their ties to Big Boss or not.

NSA
The National Security Agency is the organization watching over security in the United States. It fulfills a role roughly equivalent to the KGB in the Soviet Union.

In 1960, two code-breakers, ADAM and EVA, defected to the Soviets. ADAM was the triple-spy better known as Ocelot. During Operation Snake Eater, a woman posed as EVA to aid Naked Snake in his mission while secretly plotting to steal The Philosophers' Legacy for the Chinese Government.

Members
 * ADAM (Ocelot)
 * EVA (NSA Codebreaker)
 * Emma Emmerich

Outer Heaven Resistance
The Outer Heaven Resistance was a resistance movement based in South Africa, in the region occupied by the emerging mercenary state of Outer Heaven. The Resistance was led by Kyle Schneider, after his family were killed during undisclosed circumstances.

Presumably made up of former locals and refugees opposed to the new military regime, they assisted Solid Snake in his mission to eliminate the threat of Outer Heaven to the rest of the world. However, after Snake's success, many members were killed during the subsequent NATO bombing of the area. The surviving members presumably joined Big Boss willingly in order to repay him for saving them, given Kyle Schneider's comments.

Members
 * Kyle Schneider (leader)
 * Diane
 * Jennifer

SIS
The Secret Intelligence Service, often referred to by its former name MI6, is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence, operating under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). Its existence was not officially acknowledged in public until 1994.

Prior to the formation of the FOX Unit in 1964, Zero was a member of MI6, under the codename "O" (derived from his real name of David Oh). In the early 1990s, Liquid Snake worked as an undercover SIS agent, during the Persian Gulf War.

Members
 * O (Zero)
 * Liquid Snake

Small Boy Unit
The Small Boy Unit was a military unit which, as the name implies, enlisted many child soldiers (possibly war orphans), and was commanded by a teenage Solidus Snake. The unit took part in the Liberian Civil War, and was where a young boy named Jack (Raiden) had his first taste of battle. In order to keep child soldiers controlled, they would be fed food mixed with gunpowder and toluene, and be forced to watch Hollywood action movies to help keep them focused on killing. The children in the unit were apparently also forced to join, given Raiden's comments that "it was either kill or be killed." Little else is known about the unit.

Members
 * Solidus Snake (unit commander)
 * Jack (Raiden)

StB
The StB, known as State Security in English, was a secret police unit that was formed in communist Czechoslovakia. It operated from the country's formation as a communist nation in 1945 to the Warsaw Pact's dissolution in 1990. The primary task of StB agents was to arrest or kill anyone who was anti-communist. A notable member was Gustava Heffner.

Members
 * Gustava Heffner

UDT
Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) were an elite special-purpose force established by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Their primary function was to reconnoiter and destroy enemy defensive obstacles on beaches where U.S. and Allied forces were going to make amphibious landings. They also served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

The UDTs pioneered combat swimming, closed-circuit diving, underwater demolitions, and midget submarine (dry and wet submersible) operations. They were the precursor to the present-day United States Navy SEALs.

In 1983, the UDTs were re-designated "Swimmer Delivery Vehicle Teams" (SDVTs). SDVTs have since been re-designated SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams.

Members
 * At least one member of the Four Horsemen

U.S. Airforce
During the Shadow Moses Incident a pair of F-16 fighters are sent to the island as a diversion, to aid Solid Snake's infiltration. However, they were shot down by the terrorist leader, Liquid Snake, piloting a Hind D. Towards the end of the incident, the island was to be bombed by B-2 bombers, but were called off at the last minute.

U.S. Government
The United States Government has often played a major role within the machinations of both the Philosophers and the Patriots, throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Naked Snake with the Distinguished Service Cross, awarding him the title of "Big Boss".

President George Sears (Solidus Snake) was responsible for instigating the Shadow Moses Incident, as well as being heavily involved in the Big Shell Incident, along with his successor, President James Johnson.

Members
 * Lyndon B. Johnson
 * Richard M. Nixon
 * George Sears (Solidus Snake)
 * Jim Houseman
 * James Johnson
 * Richard Ames

U.S. Navy
The U.S. Navy, with the backing of the Patriots, conceived the Arsenal Gear program. This makes the backing of the RAY program by the Marine Corps confusing as the Navy is the parent organisation of the Marines. A Navy captain was killed, during the Big Shell Incident, by Dead Cell in order to retrieve "The Football" that was handcuffed to him. Also, SEAL Team 10 would have used Navy helicopters to board the Big Shell.

Richard Nixon served in the Navy against the Japanese in World War II until 1947, when he left to after a discharge in 1946.

Members
 * Richard M. Nixon

Wild Geese
The Wild Geese were a mercenary group involved in an unknown number of African conflicts sometime during the 1970s and possibly the 80s. Big Boss fought with this unit at some point during his mercenary career.

Members
 * Big Boss