Metal Gear REX



Metal Gear REX was the fifth Metal Gear, developed as a joint project between DARPA and ArmsTech.

Background
In 1964, Soviet scientist Aleksandr Leonovitch Granin created designs for a REX-like "walking tank" and revealed the designs to Naked Snake. He later sent them to his friend in America, who (according to Sigint) also wrote a highly-criticized paper on the topic of walking tanks. However, it would be another forty years before REX would progress past the design stage, as the technology of the 1960s was insufficient for its complicated hydraulic system. An earlier attempt at doing a Metal Gear project within the United States was also planned, but was officially scrapped, presumably because of the complexities. However, after Solid Snake's encounters with Metal Gear TX-55 at Outer Heaven and Metal Gear D at Zanzibar Land, weapons company ArmsTech decided that building one for the U.S. Army would be a very profitable venture.

When REX began development in 2002, ArmsTech was in a dire state financially. With talk of a hostile takeover after the failure to obtain the contract for a new line of fighter jet, the DARPA Chief (Donald Anderson) was heavily bribed by the ArmsTech President (Kenneth Baker) to back the Metal Gear REX program and fund its development covertly. But the main reason that Metal Gear REX was being developed was overcome a global trend of military downsizing. A weapon like this would cause an immediate rift in the global power structure. REX was capable of launching a nuclear warhead without the need for a rocket propulsion system, making it undetectable by radar. It could give any country in the world a first-strike capability that other nations would find hard to counter. This also exploited a specific loophole that existed in anti-nuke treaties, since weapons fired from a rail gun were not technically ballistic, so limitations on ballistic weaponry did not apply.

At some point during REX's development, the Metal Gear engineers became concerned of what would happen if REX, after it was completed and doing solo ops overseas, had gotten into close range combat. They then decided that they could make REX's hull a weapon in itself. Although the program was completed, and had gotten fantastic results from supercomputer simulation, the military shelved the project before they could even install it (as the military viewed it as not being part of their regulations). However, REX's chief engineer (Hal Emmerich) secretly uploaded the data into REX anyway.

In 2005, during railgun testing at a nuclear weapons disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island, REX's prototype was captured by the FOXHOUND special forces group which had originally been assigned to oversee the final testing of its secret new weapon. The threat of a nuclear attack was used in an attempt to extort $1 billion and Big Boss's remains from the U.S. government.

REX's chief engineer, Hal Emmerich, was opposed to nuclear weaponry, and it was unlikely he would have assisted in the program if he had known REX's true purpose. He was informed that REX was intended for intercepting nuclear weapons, and REX's armaments were handled by a separate department to keep him in the dark. Their development and integration into the main chassis were out of his control, and as far as he knew, these armaments were intended to defend the REX unit itself, and to provide Theater Missile Defense.

It was only during the Shadow Moses Incident that Otacon discovered REX's true purpose as a nuclear launch platform, and its revolutionary delivery system – a railgun. As the projectile it fired was not actually a missile, it wasn't covered by current disarmament treaties. Even worse, the combination of the size, speed and nature of the projectile could allow the payload to bypass current missile detection systems, which had always been dependent on the characteristics of missiles – size, speed, and propellant exhaust – to track them.

REX was the ultimate Metal Gear, as it was not only capable of delivering a nuclear weapon both to and from any point on the globe, it could do so "undetectably" and "untraceably". All previous Metal Gears were merely mobile ground-based launch systems for nuclear missiles, little more than the land-based equivalent of ballistic missile submarines. REX utilized a rail gun, which fired much smaller projectiles without chemical propellants – factors which made them virtually invisible to radar. It thus fatally undermined the 'no first strike' principle of Mutually Assured Destruction – whoever controlled it could launch a nuclear attack at any target at any time, with no warning before impact.

It became clear that REX was in fact to be used to make the nuclear strike; Otacon took it as his duty as REX's creator to destroy it. Liquid Snake pilots REX and attempted to use it to kill Solid Snake and destroy a part of Shadow Moses. After REX survived numerous stinger missiles to it's radome, it was disabled for about five seconds before it's was fully operational again. Then, Gray Fox intervened, saving Solid Snake from being stepped on by REX. Gray Fox then threw his High Frequency Blade at REX's radome, which disabled REX again, but REX would remain in that state for a longer period of time. Then, Solid Snake and Gray Fox have a conversation regarding Naomi Hunter and Zanzibar Land. Just before they were finished with their conversation, REX became fully operational again and fired it's gatling guns at the two. Gray Fox then launched several blasts from his attached gun at REX, before getting his left arm dismembered from his body when Liquid uses the free-electron laser attached to REX. After Fox's sacrifice and using Otacon's information, REX sustained more damage from stinger missiles. Eventually, Snake managed to launch a stinger at REX's cockpit, which disabled it for the last time. When Liquid tried to step on Snake with REX, it lost balance, before the cockpit goes within a few meters from Snake and exploded, which knocked Solid Snake out. Following REX's firefull explosion, Liquid dragged Solid Snake to the top of REX in a bare handed fight. The fight ended with Liquid falling to his death (ironically, he survived his fall) and Solid Snake rescuing Meryl Silverburgh.

REX was originally going to be mass produced once the test exercises were completed, but the Shadow Moses Incident placed these plans on indefinite hold. Eventually the entire operation was scrapped.

Post-Shadow Moses
Revolver Ocelot escaped Shadow Moses with the blueprints for REX and (possibly along with Solidus Snake) sold them onto the black market. However, the Patriots made sure that the blueprints did not include the designs for the nuclear-launching railgun, since this would present a potential threat to them.

As a result, REX models spread worldwide. Solid Snake and Otacon therefore formed Philanthropy, and sabotaged as many REX development operations as they could; the USMC's response to the REX threat was to develop a new Metal Gear, a hunter-killer to eliminate REX derivatives, named Metal Gear RAY.



In 2014, Liquid Ocelot returned to Shadow Moses and salvaged the railgun from the remains of the original Metal Gear REX to launch a nuclear strike on the Patriots's master AI. Since it was developed before the introduction of SOP and had laid untouched in the nine years that had passed since the Shadow Moses Incident, it was the only WMD that could be used to make such a strike. Solid Snake returned to Shadow Moses in an attempt to stop Liquid Ocelot, but was too late. Instead, he encountered Vamp and fought him, until Raiden took over for Snake. Raiden and Vamp fought on top of REX, resulting in Vamp's death. Using the Metal Gear Mk. III, Otacon managed to re-power Rex; allowing Snake to pilot it out of the base. Upon arriving at the surface, Snake was soon confronted by Metal Gear RAY who was being piloted by none other than Liquid Ocelot. Despite the fact that RAY had been specifically designed to destroy REX, and REX was handicapped (missing both its railgun and its radome remained heavily damaged), REX managed to destroy RAY (which Otacon credits to his assistance), shutting down soon after.

Information
Metal Gear REX is shown to be operable by one individual, as Liquid Snake is able to use it quite effectively in battle against Solid Snake and Gray Fox. It is not clear if it is intended to have additional crew. The pilot has no direct view of the world outside of the cockpit; instead information is gathered by a sensor package in a radome on the left shoulder of REX, and passed on.

Radome
The radome is a satellite-shaped object on the left side of Metal Gear REX that provides information about the environment outside of the cockpit while keeping the pilot safe from harm.

Destroying the radome is crucial to rendering the virtual reality interface useless and forcing the pilot to manually control REX. The pilot is also forced to expose himself to enemy fire, by opening the cockpit in order to see outside.

During the Shadow Moses Incident, Solid Snake attempted to destroy REX’s radome using his Stinger missiles, while in battle with Liquid Snake, who was piloting it. However, it caused less damage than Snake thought, but before he could be crushed by REX, Gray Fox showed up to save Snake. Fox destroyed the radome in an act of sacrifice, giving Snake the chance to finish off REX.

Armament
REX differed from earlier Metal Gear models in that its legs were heavily armored and reinforced, not vulnerable like its predecessors. Along with near-impenetrable compound armor and a TMD missile module on its back, REX also had a pair of 30mm multi-barreled machine cannons,, knee-mounted anti-tank missiles, and a high power free-electron laser, to protect itself from conventional forces.

The anti-tank missiles on both of REX's knees were a laser semi-active homing type that didn't use wires. The launchers used a laser illuminator to bounce a laser beam off a target that the missile would then home in on. The free-electron laser mounted on REX's belly was capable of generating close to 100 megawatts of energy, ten times greater than any other laser at that time.

REX's primary weapon, however, was the magnetic railgun capable of delivering an untraceable nuclear warhead anywhere in the world, without the propellant trail or launch flare that gives away the launch position of a traditional ballistic missile. By perfecting the process of shell acceleration, the railgun is able to fire a projectile with a muzzle velocity of over 100 kilometers per second. It was originally going to be used, as part of SDI, to shoot down enemy ICBMs outside the atmosphere.

During Liquid Ocelot's Insurrection, Solid Snake piloted REX in his return to Shadow Moses, with the help of Otacon through the Mk.III, managing to escape while fighting through hordes of Gekko. Otacon also revealed to Snake that he had installed a 'Street Fighter' program into REX that gave it not only an agility boost, but enabled the Metal Gear to execute kicking and other melee moves, which would be lethal to many military vehicles and other Metal Gears such as Metal Gear RAY. This program was one of REX's most lethal weapons compared to its other conventional warfare weapons, as military vehicles and Metal Gears were designed with countermeasures against convental armaments, but not the raw brute force of these attacks.

Metal Gear REX was a truly impressive weapon. From its defensive capabilities to its nuclear ones, it was a true revolution in military weaponry.

Trivia

 * REX's name was derived from the Japanese Kawanishi N1K floatplane during World War II. "REX" was the Allied codename for the plane during WWII. REX was also possibly named after the T-Rex; the T-Rex being an inspiration for REX's design, it's cockpit (which resembles a gaping "mouth"), and it's ability to "roar".
 * Liquid Snake was intended to be the "superior" clone of Big Boss, with Solid Snake being the "inferior" clone, but despite Liquid's supposed genetic advantage, Snake was able to defeat him. In a similar manner REX was considered the "inferior" Metal Gear model and RAY the "superior" model. Despite this advantage, REX (with Solid Snake as its pilot) managed to overcome RAY (being manned by Liquid Ocelot).
 * One of REX's development team's main rivals was the Arsenal Ship Project, and it was implied in In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth that the leading overseer of the project, Admiral Boorda, was assassinated in a manner that made it seem as though he committed suicide, allowing the REX project to continue undelayed.

Behind the Scenes

 * The first Metal Gear to appear in 3D, its appearance (with numerous flat surfaces and little exposed wiring) was tailored with the graphical limitations of the PlayStation console in mind.
 * The Official Metal Gear Solid Handbook gave a list of specifications regarding Metal Gear REX. However, details regarding the machine guns and air ordinance are incorrect, putting the canonicity of this information in question:


 * Crew: 1 (nose cockpit) [Armament] Machine-guns: 2xg12.7mm in the nose (covering 60° arc to the front) Air ordinance: 3xPhalanga-F (AT-3 "Rain from Heaven") Radio-guided anti-troop missiles Rail Gun: 18.5m Rail Gun (Special Ops Optimum Bombardment 422 "Widowmaker"), launch tube: Standard (conventional, nuclear) Laser: ArmsTech International V17 Vulcan Cannon, Searing LaserStorm High Energy Cutter "Slice n' Dice" (covering 90° arc) Ammunition: 10,000x12.7mm, 72xPhalanga-F Reds, Laser Pro Pack, 1xCruise AGM-129 ACM Length (gun forward): 18.9m Length (hull): 7.455m Width: 5.760m Height (gun forward): 12m Height (gun up): 13m Weight (combat): 505,450kg Power-to-weight Ratio: 450hp/ton Engine: ArmsTech AGM 4000 "Behemoth" Maximum Road Speed: 140.777km/h Maximum Range: 1,505km Fuel Capacity: 5,550lit Armor (type): Laminate/Steel NBS System: Yes Night Vision Equipment: Yes


 * In Metal Gear Solid 4, the anti-tank missiles are described as being radio-guided in REX's "AT missile" weapon description, despite Otacon mentioning that they were laser-guided in Metal Gear Solid.
 * REX is the first and only Metal Gear to be playable in the series (not counting the Metal Gear Mk. II and Mk. III).
 * REX is the only Metal Gear to not be completely destroyed in the series (or remain mainly operable, though the Metal Gear RAY prototype is debatable). All other Metal Gears are destroyed mostly around the end of each game. Metal Gear KODOQUE is the only other Metal Gear to survive one title (along with Metal Gear RAY) but both are destroyed later (RAY in Metal Gear Solid 4 – though it is unclear as to whether or not the model destroyed was the original – and KODOQUE in Metal Gear Acid 2).
 * While piloting REX in Metal Gear Solid 4, pressing the Triangle button will cause REX to "roar".
 * Metal Gear REX appears alongside Metal Gear RAY and Metal Gear Gekko on the Shadow Moses Island stage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
 * It also appears as a sticker and trophy with the following description:

"A war machine of ruinous power. Metal Gear REX was developed at the weapons company ArmsTech under the eye of Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich. It had the ability to launch nuclear warheads from a mounted rail gun. During testing, REX was captured by FOXHOUND, a rogue special-forces unit headed by Liquid Snake, but Solid Snake managed to destroy the machine before calamity ensued."


 * In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, a secret boss can be encountered on Monster Island called "Gear Rex", which has several striking similarities to Metal Gear REX, such as bone ridges that make its face look like the Metal Gear, and a limb over its right sholder representing the railgun, which shoots lasers instead. Its roar also sounds similar to the 'roar' Metal Gear REX makes.