FOXHOUND

High-Tech Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND (sometimes "FOX-HOUND" or "FOX HOUND") is an elite black ops unit of the US Army that was established by the Legendary Soldier Big Boss in 1971. Although its function changed over the years, FOXHOUND specialized in covert, solo infiltrations into enemy territory. All its members were hardened veterans, with many coming from a mercenary background. It was officially disbanded by the US Government after the Shadow Moses Incident in 2005.

History
The unit was formed unoffically in 1970 by Big Boss and Roy Campbell who were both prisoners of the incident at La Peninsula de los Muertos. The two formed the outfit in order to rise up and fight against the rebelling members of FOX, and clear the names of Big Boss, Major Zero, Para-Medic and Sigint, who were all members of FOX.

Big Boss originally commanded the unit with Campbell acting as a tactician, the two lead them in a series of intense and difficult covert operations. In 1995, Solid Snake joined the unit and aided in the rescuing of fellow FOXHOUND soldier Gray Fox from the terrorist facility Outer Heaven, and fought and presumably killed the man behind it all, who turned out to be FOXHOUND commander himself, Big Boss, who had presumably set up Outer Heaven in secret.

With Big Boss, presumed dead, Colonel Campbell was placed in command, and helped Solid Snake during the Zanzibar Land Uprising. Under Campbell's command, the code name regime for FOXHOUND members was removed. Some time between 1999 and 2005 Campbell retired and Liquid Snake was placed in charge, and under his command, members of FOXHOUND re-instated the code name regime and chose specific specialties, and the unit flourished, until it went "rogue." Campbell was then requested to come back out of retirement and forcefully asked Solid Snake to infiltrate Shadow Moses, and kill Liquid Snake and the remaining members of FOXHOUND.

After the incident, FOXHOUND was officially disbanded with no successor unit named or known.

Members of FOXHOUND have included:
 * Big Boss (Founder)
 * Roy Campbell (Co-Founder)
 * Jonathan (First recruit)
 * Python (If defeated non-lethally, it is unknown whether he joined in-canon)
 * Gray Fox
 * McDonell Miller
 * Meryl Silverburgh
 * Solid Snake
 * George Kasler
 * Dr. Clark
 * Naomi Hunter
 * Raiden (See GW for more information.)

During the San Hieronymo Incident, an unknown amount of soldiers originally joined FOXHOUND who were all members of the Red Army and FOX originally controlled by Gene. All of these soldiers were given animal code-names (e.g. "Raven," "Bison") and helped Big Boss and Campbell in their mission to obliterate Metal Gear and clear their names.

The following are the Renegade members of FOXHOUND who took over Shadow Moses:
 * Liquid Snake (Led FOXHOUND to command the Genome Army and take over Shadow Moses)
 * Revolver Ocelot
 * Decoy Octopus
 * Psycho Mantis
 * Sniper Wolf
 * Vulcan Raven

Pseudo-FOXHOUND
Examples of FOXHOUND affiliations have been seen in the MGS series post-Shadow Moses, when the unit was no longer known to exist:


 * In 2009, a member of FOXHOUND codenamed Raiden infiltrated the offshore decontamination facility Big Shell;
 * In 2014, an Army CID team codenamed Rat Patrol 01, lead by Meryl Silverburgh, wore FOXHOUND insignia to disguise their true identity.

Codename system
A FOXHOUND codename originally comprised an animal codename and a personal prefix to distinguish between those with the same animal codename. Often this prefix represents either the individual's weapon of choice or particular skill that they specialize specialize in, but sometimes these codenames are a bit more ambiguous in nature. The original codename system appears to have awarded animal codenames based on ability (the top codename being 'Fox'). However, this may have only been the case with that codename and not the others.

When David joined FOXHOUND, he was assigned the codename Solid Snake. Since Big Boss was in charge of the unit at the time and knew David's true lineage, he may have awarded him the codename in reference to his old FOX unit codename, Naked Snake. Another possibility is that the codename was part of the ranking system, wherein 'Snake' may have represented soldiers with a skill level similar to Big Boss during his time with the FOX unit. David's clone designation of 'Solid' was used as his personal prefix but it is unclear why this was used or which individuals knew the meaning behind the designation.

After Roy Campbell took command of FOXHOUND the codename system was abandoned, though some agents (at least Solid Snake) kept their codenames. Sometime before the Shadow Moses Incident, a new codename system was implemented wherein the animal codename was also a personal identifier (Ocelot, for example, used his long-time codename and added 'Revolver' as his additional prefix).

It is unknown at what point Liquid gained the codename Liquid Snake. It is unclear if Liquid chose the codename himself as the other members of FOXHOUND did around that time. Since he may have already been aware of his relationship to Solid Snake when he joined the unit, it is possible that Liquid chose his codename as a reference to his clone brother.